Southside Community Center, 305 South Plain St.

From the 1920s through the Depression, members of the Frances Harper Women's Club ran the South Side House, which was destroyed in the flood of 1935. Community members, local business leaders, and the Federal Work Progress Administration (WPA) collaborated to build the new Southside Community Center in 1938, which was dedicated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The Center offered after-school programs, sports, and employment services, making Southside "the place to be." Today, the Center continues to serve Southside residents.

**This tour is from the 2003 printed "The Southside's African-American Heritage Walking Tour" brochure prepared by the Cornell-Ithaca Partnership with research by Leslyn McBean & Ingrid Bauer; modified for PocketSights by The History Center in Tompkins County in 2022. Text is unchanged from the original printing.**