St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church and Cleveland's Lower Buckeye Road Area

Despite the dramtic change that has occurred in the Lower Buckeye Road area of Cleveland over the past 117 years, St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church remains standing on the corner of East 90th and Buckeye Road as a reminder to all of the Hungarian immigrant community that once flourished in the Lower Buckeye Road area.

Over these 117 years, the Church and its parishioners have faced many challenges to the Church's continued existence in the neighborhood as job-creating iron works factories and foundries shut down, as Hungarian-Americans moved to the suburbs, as a new non-Catholic population moved into the area--and then out, and as retail businesses closed their doors.

Recently, the Church faced a new challenge to its continued existence when the Cleveland Catholic Diocese embarked upon a plan to close under-utilized churches in northeast Ohio.  While some predicted that the Bishop would order St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church to be closed, Bishop Lennon, cognizant of the importance of St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church to Cleveland's Hungarian-American community, and that the Church is located in a central area of Cleveland close to where a proposed new "Opportunity Corridor" is expected to be built in the near future, selected St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church to be the only Hungarian Catholic Church in Cleveland to remain open after 2010.

This historic Roman Catholic Church located in the heart of Cleveland, and its suburban Hungarian-American parishioners, may one day have the opportunity to greet a new neighboring population if the City of Cleveland's long-standing plans to re-develop the Lower Buckeye Road area into a tax-generating industry-office district accessible from an "Opportunity Corridor" are ever realized.