History

ThirdSpace Action Lab is located in Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood at 1464 East 105th Street. Our building, which residents call the Madison, is tremendously significant to the firm’s mission to create liberated “third places” for people of color, and our commitment to building on legacies of Black excellence. 

In 1960, Robert P. Madison designed the Medical Associates Building for Black doctors whom University Hospitals and Mt. Sinai Medical Center excluded from practicing. Nine Black medical professionals physically and financially came together to form Medics, Inc. These doctors commissioned the building to invest in and care for their community.

Madison was the first licensed Black architect in the state of Ohio, and this project was a critical project upon which he built a successful firm over six decades. His niece, Sandra Madison, operates the firm today.

The historical Medical Associates Building was also home to Deuteronomy 8:3 Café, Books & Music for nearly 14 years. Owned and operated by Mittie Imani Jordan, D8:3 brought color and inspiration to the Glenville community, serving up sweet treats and coffee alongside books, CDs, and postcards. 

D8:3 was a pillar in the community not only offering a space for fellowship, cultural celebration, and collective education, but it was also a site for community organizing and advocacy. The National Institute for Restorative Justice was born from meetings and restorative justice summits cultivated and hosted at D8:3. Its offsping Kumbaya Shore continues to “feed the mind body and soul of the village.” 

Today, ThirdSpace Action Lab hosts community lunches, political dialogues, strategy sessions, celebrations, and more in the building’s first-floor storefront space. Imbued with Madison’s legacy, we activate the space to demonstrate the value of radical imagination + investing in place in service of racial equity.