Jeffery

^ It might make things more competetive, but I dont see this unless there is a good connection between the airport and the high-speed rail line. The win-win is that air travel could become quite cheap from the metro area due to competing airports.

There are three general aviaiton airports between Ciny and Dayton: Hamilton, Middleton, and the one at Austin Road. I think the Middletown one was actually used during WWII in conjunction with aircraft manufuacturing as they build a spotter or trainer plain in Middletown for the military.

Did they really do depot maintenance there? I know it had a wartime origin but didnt know it was an air depot.

Dayton, the Tacoma of SW Ohio. BTW, that was a good excerpt from "Cheap". I didnt know about the quality issue, but I did notice that the prices at other outlet malls didnt seem that "cheap"...they were still pretty high.

[qoute]Who do you see at Fountain Square, Findlay Market and around DT and OTR? Not CFP, but COAST. Every weekend, and nearly every other day. Distributing flyers, gathering signatures, voicing their opinions (loudly) so that they can be heard and accepted. If it is one thing I give COAST credit for, is for their enthusiasm that isn't doing any favors to the streetcar proponents. In other places it would be the streetcar proponents who would be doing this.

Heh. Yet another Cincinnati-area Republican on UO.

^ yeah, for reorienting future growth around rail. But I'm also interested on how to accomodate the development that is already there at the interchanges or around the Hamilton/Warren/Butler county lines, which (from the air) is quite extensive. It is hard to imagine, but maybe there can be some kind of synthesis. It's an interesting development/planning problem.

^ That must be Woolpert's Cincinnati office since they are based in Dayton (well, Kettering as of last year).

Heres some speculation on what mass transit could look like between Cincy and Dayton in the I-75 corridor, Butler & Warren County, accepting the reality of existing development and trends until peak oil hits (and the game changes). Speculating on Transit in the Cincinnati-Dayton Metroplex

This post got started by my wondering about how the 3-C+D route would go between Cinci & Dayton. I pulled this railroad map from the OKI website and saw there are multiple lines running through here, CSX (purple) and Norfolk Southern (green). I known there is already an Amtrak line running between Hamilton and Cincy, so presumably the Midwest network would be following this route from Chicago and Indy. So I figure the 3-C would too, using the CSX line between Cincy and Dayton, via Hamilton. I also noticed that left the NS lines to Hamilton and north to Dayton. Thinking about KJPs running Peak Oil series and that Cincinnti-Dayton Metroplex thread…. and knowing development patterns are favoring the I-75 intersections (as well as that upper Mill Creek Valley area between Tri-County Mall and Hamilton, including Union Center, which has extensive commercial development),…I wondered what the alternative to 100% car dependence could be. I decided to speculate on what a commuter rail line would look like in Warren and Butler counties, as the start of an alternative transportation system to supplement the car as gas becomes more scarce and expensive. I show two lines; one to Hamilton, serving the industrial area between Union Center and Hamilton, and another running north to Middletown and Carlisle (and eventually to Dayton). I put stations near areas were there is some development, like near Union Center, Tylersville Road, two stations in Middletown, and a station in Carlisle. The idea would be a frequent service possibly using a modern railcar as equipment. But the northern stations are somewhat remote from the development at the I-75 interchanges north of Tylersville Road. So the concept is to used a bus system to connect the interchanges with the stations There would be some sort of circulator/feeder system between Hamilton and the industrial /commercial development north of Route 4 to Union Center and Westchester, and lines extending out to nearby places like Trenton and Springboro and Otterbein and Mason, which could act as shuttle routes between shopping and office complexes at the interchanges. But also development could be intensified/densified at the stations, particulary the southern ones And alternative would be the “transit down the median” concept, running a German-style S-Bahn between Cincy and Dayton down the middle of I-75 (when theres enough median strip for it), with feeders and circulators connecting with the stations at the interchanges. If you really wanted to go for broke youd put in a PRT people-mover between interchange stations and things like the offices and hospital at the Tylersville Road exit. Just playing around with the idea of a regional transit concept here. I sort of like the logic behind the S-Bahn concept as its more relevant to the linear development, where you’d be traveling between development nodes/stations on I-75 rather than the more remote Norfolk Southern line to the west. The cost would be astronomical, though. Of course in a fuel crisis there might not be an alternative to doing something that’s almost science-fiction.

The House minority leader is from Ohio. Geez, George.

THE SOUTHERN THING (Hood / DBT) Ain't about my pistol Ain't about my boots Ain't about no northern drives Ain't about my southern roots Ain't about my guitars, ain't about my big old amps "It ain't rained in weeks, but the weather sure feels damp" Ain't about excuses or alibis Ain't about no cotton fields or cotton picking lies Ain't about the races, the crying shame To the fucking rich man all poor people look the same Don't get me wrong It just ain't right May not look strong, but I ain't afraid to fight If you want to live another day Stay out the way of the southern thing Ain't about no hatred better raise a glass It's a little about some rebels but it ain't about the past Ain't about no foolish pride, Ain't about no flag Hate's the only thing that my truck would want to drag You think I'm dumb, maybe not too bright You wonder how I sleep at night Proud of the glory, stare down the shame Duality of the southern thing My Great Great Granddad had a hole in his side He used to tell the story to the family Christmas night Got shot at Shiloh, thought he'd die alone From a Yankee bullet, less than thirty miles from home Ain't no plantations in my family tree Did NOT believe in slavery, thought that all men should be free "But, who are these soldiers marching through my land?" His bride could hear the cannons and she worried about her man I heard the story as it was passed down About guts and glory and Rebel stands Four generations, a whole lot has changed Robert E. Lee Martin Luther King We've come a long way rising from the flame Stay out the way of the southern thing

^ That was pretty perceptive...that they forecast growth (hence the need for more lanes) so far out of Dayton and Cincy as far back as the 1950s.

This could get interesting. I can see some NIMBY factors surfacing as part of this.

Has the alignment between Cinicnnati and Dayton been selected? There are two active railroads between the places..CSX and Norfolk Southern. I was wondering what route is preferred.

I doubt you'd ever see an airport between the two cities. Land costs would be astronomical and the NIMBY movement opposing it would be ferocious.

Re-reading this and the other one I can see my dyslexia..confusing east and west, left and right...is getting worse.

The downtown is cool...narrow streets, hills, and that arcade, which isnt climate controlled...its like the Dayton one used to be...And they still have that row of old commercial buidlings along the Cumberland River, too.

The Chicago Deli was in business when I moved here, but in the shopping center, in the "L" facing Main Street. I remember getting a corned beef sandwhich there. That was years ago. @@@ Brietenstrater Square....an old women who was the heiress or daughter...or maybe even one of those sisters...used to hang out at the Officers Club at Wright-Patterson (been told this by a freind who worked at the base) for happy hour. Guess she married a military man. My freind told me she was quite the life of the party after a few cocktails. The farm itself had some greenhouses on it, so was maybe a truck farming operation or they sold to florists. There was a dairy nearby, too. The shopping center came after the Beerman towns, later 1950s I think. I did a bunch of research on that area (Patterson/Wilmington intersectipm) as I have this odd fascination with the Depression-era outskirts of town, the liminal space where the "old city" ends and "suburbia" begins. Never pulled it together to post online, though. @@@ You asked about Belmont. Belmont was Belmont Junction, where the D-X interurban split into a line to Xenia and a line to Bellbrook and Spring Valley. The Bellbrook branch ran down Smithville to Wimington and out. This why there are older plats and more older housing along Smithville than along Wilmington, which developed later. All this was part of Van Buren township and was annexed by Dayton in the ealry 1930s. If Dayton had failed in annexing it would have been part of Kettering and the schools still part of Fairmont (they were built by the Fairmont district). The first Belmont plats were those long streets running west of Smithville...Nordale and Bellaire (not the original names), near the Belmont Party Supply and DeClarks. Subdivided in 1900, over a century ago. The business district of Belmont I'm not sure about. I think it started in the 1920s but really developed later, maybe more in the later 1930s and 1940s, just by looking at the storefronts. There was a Beermans in Belmont, too. But it relocated out to Smithville near the Van Buren Shopping Center. BTW, there is also a Belmont in Chicago, and like the Dayton one it is bungalow land and with a 1920s-1940s era business district, Belmont & Central.

^ yeah a bit suprising as this would really benefit the Columbus area.

I am starting to post some things that are heavier on the maps, diagrams, graphs and aeriel photos than actual pix and snapshots. I am curious as to a proper subforum to pos these. I am leaning toward "city discussions" since these would not really be pix threads but maybe more extended, illustrated essays... ...does the board administration have a preference for the appropriate subforum?

Eastown and Westown came in the middle 1950s, with Eastown a bit earlier (1954-55). Eastown was like Northtown, located on the edge of the built up and platted areas of the city, on a major highway leading east of town, so it could intercept in-bound traffic from the early subdivisions east of the city, like Knollwood (the precursor to Beavercreek). And it was close to the proposed US 35 Expressway. Both towns had a Beerman Department Store as anchor. A lot of the white space in the above map would go under development during the 1950s, leading to the country lane of Woodman Drive to become a feeder into the Eastown vicinity, but Eastown was already ensured of a customer base due to its proximity to built-up areas to the east, along Smithville Road. One of these was Hearthstone (directly to the west), which was initially built-out as a mix of Hansel and Gretel cottages and bungalows, before the Depression. Hearthstone received subsequent burst of development during the “Pearl Harbor Suburbia” era of 1939-1941 and the 1940s WWII and postwar era. Eastown was poised to take advantage of this automobilized market. The form was similar to Northtown; parking in the rear, as a jazzed-up L shape (more a “j”?), modified into a U via a row of shops to the east. And, borrowing from Northtown the “trademark” auto access through the middle of the strip to the rear parking. (the bus hub came much , much later) And here we see the last surviving “big sign” of the “towns”, unfortunately missing the back-illuminated “Eastown” in the populuxe quasi-oval frame. This is more the typical postwar strip center compared to Northtown, with the deep parking lot. True suburban space. As with the other Beerman towns” this one had a façade makeover. Like Northtown but unlike later strip centers there was the two story office/arcade block. In this case the arcade is gone, but the upper offices are still there. In the 1950s the office housed medical offices, credit agencies, and, apparently, a defense contractor. Even though there was a façade makeover, the storefronts weren’t changed much. In some case, like Big Bob’s Carpets, the original hardware, doors, and windows from the 1950s remain. Sort of freaky walking by this place since suburban storefronts usually get moderinzed. Perhaps the oddest thing about this shopping center was the modifications to bring in the trolley buses (sometime in the 1990s?). The center lane through the strip center was transformed into a busway, and one can easily imagine this as a light-rail line, with tracks and cantenary instead of bus wire Looking back from the rear parking. The details here are interesting since they show that there was something more than cinder block…they use decorative brick veneer and scupper boxes for the roof drains Looking east across the parking lot to the eastern range of shops…. ….which retain a lot of original detail, like the aqua blue tile block parapet and aluminum canopy… …as well as the original storefront treatments (the “modern” angled windows to the entrances) The bus hub is in the background. One can sort of imagine a “densification” of this strip center via maybe housing being inserted, making this more mixed use. Westown Unlike Northtown and Eastown Westown was located in the middle of a previously platted and somewhat built out area. The area directly to the north, Residence Park, was subdivided around WWI and parts closer to the shopping center were partially built out during the 1920s, which continued when the economy improved in the late 1930s (similar to Hearthstone on the east side). The built-in market for shoppers traveling “out” was the Westwood/Decker Park area to the east of Gettysburg Avenue (mostly built-out in the 1920s). There was population growth and development in the 1930s-40s to the west along West Third in the Drexel and Ridgewood Heights area, with no reason to expect this not to continue But as we known, this didn’t happen. Townview was the only development to go into the "white space" on the map, and then nothing. Also, early proposals for the US 35 Expressway (blue line on the map) had it ending in the vicinity of 3rd & Gettysburg, directly across from the Westown site. Yet, one suspects Westown was built for a market that was in prewar developments as much as postwar suburbia. A close-up showing how the center was situated amid prewar suburban "bungalow era" plats, the proximity to the important Gettysburg/Third intersection, and the VA military cemetery across the street The layout of the center was in the characteristic Beerman Town L-form with a center drive leading…to no parking. Apparently parking was never built to the rear of the site, nor was there additional development to create a U-shape like in Eastown. Instead there is another bus hub holding down the eastern side. Here one also see outlot development for banks and fast food. In Eastown these were at the edges of the center. And one can see how the center is set amid older bungalow-era suburbia (note that the headstones in the military cemetery are just visible in this pic) Westown on the ground. Again, a façade update, but no two-story arcade-office building. The trademark of Westown; the big illuminated sign over the driveway to rear parking that never was built. The thing that sets Westown apart is this odd little grass/shrub “mall” between the sidewalk and the parking. Was the idea to put a mall in here? Or maybe just a token acknowledgment of the concept? Two more views of the optimistic modern world of postwar suburban shopping Try to imagine this as a new experience for Daytonians used to a congested downtown and neighborhood shopping. New! Improved! The Futah! There was to be one final Beeerman Town, but that happened during the “Mall Era”, where the strip center was just one star in a larger retail constellation around the Dayton Mall. That is another story.

A correction is that Westtown was developed in the mid 1950s, just a bit later than Easstown. It was open by 1957.

Arthur Beerman was a macher, the Dayton version of Chicago’s Arthur Rubloff.. Unlike Rubloff Beerman built business empires in retail as well as in real estate, becoming one of the most successful businessmen in postwar Dayton. Beerman was not a native, having moved to Dayton from Pennsylvania in 1929, while in his early 20s. He started in retail, but also ventured into real estate, forming the predecessor to Beerman Realty in the depths of the Depression. By the postwar era Beerman was already a player, being part of the consortium that purchased the Arcade and eventually owning that complex outright. The Arcade was perhaps an influence on an early Beerman suburban shopping center. More on that later. Beerman’s retail interests started in the late 1930s and 40s with the Cotton Shops, a housewares chain that was eventually parlayed into the Beerman variety stores, later department stores. So Beerman was in tune with the retail scene as well as the real estate environment. He merged these interests in the postwar era via a series of shopping centers. Beerman Towns. Beerman was an early developer of shopping centers in Dayton. His first may have been the McCook Center, from the 1940s. This might have been the earliest, preceding Miracle Lane, the first true strip center in Dayton. It’s certain that Beermans’ Main-Nottingham Center was one of the very first strip centers, joining Miracle Lane and Town and Country as the first three outlying strip centers as of 1950. Main-Nottingham as later renamed Northtown. After Northtown came Easttown, out Linden Avenue just outside the city limits. Easttown was open around 1954-1955, as the surrounding area was undergoing mass suburbanization. Four years later Beerman moved again, developing Westtown, off West Third near Gettysburg around 1959-1960. There was a Southtown, but that is another story as it’s related to the development of the Dayton Mall and comes around 17 years after these centers.. These three “Beerman Towns” are good examples of the evolution of the shopping center during the early postwar era. Location Decisions Taking a closer look at locations one can see how savvy the site decisions were. Drawing a circle around each center and then looking at development patterns, one can see how nearly all of these were located at the edge of the platted area of the city. This platted area, shaded in yellow, was mostly subdivided before the Great Depression, but was filling up with houses during the 1940s in response to the wartime and immediate postwar housing boom. So already a market; people from these older areas would be able to drive out to the new shopping centers rather than fight parking hassles downtown or in their small neighborhood shopping areas. And the areas in white, undeveloped in 1950, would quickly be platted and go under development. The new shopping centers could intercept these new customers before they could head downtown for shopping (as well as providing neighborhood retail for the new plats). The shopping centers were located on arterial roads leading out of the city (Main, Linden, West Third), which isn’t so unusual. What is sharp is that they were located near intersections with the major crosstown roads on the periphery of the city (Gettysburg, Siebenthaler, Smithville, and eventually Woodman Drive), so the trading areas of the centers could extend in all directions, tapping into the newly developing suburbia. Shopping Center Form Comparing the three Towns by using aerials and black plans one can see the evolution, perhaps, of shopping center form. For buildings one can see how Northtown is somewhat smaller and tentative compared to Easttown and Westtown. And there seems to be two early “”big boxes” (perhaps a grocery store) next to the two center buildings. But Northtown does have a first draft of the “L” plan that one also sees in Westtown and Easttown. Pavement diagrams shows how parking gets moved to the front of the site over time, as the strip center form is worked out. Northtown has substantial rear parking, Easttown not so much, and Westtown none at all. Yet in all cases there is a drive to the rear of the site (for parking in Easttown and Northtown, perhaps service access for Westtown), separating the buildings. Putting it all together, one can see how Northtown really is a transitional form from something that looking back to the taxpayer strips of the 1930s and proto-strip centers like McCook, as the front parking and buildings are closer to the street. With Easttown and Westtown the fully developed strip center form is evident. Most of the parking is in the front and the L form of the center is stronger. Buildings are more integrated vs. the two big boxes somewhat separate from the center that one sees in Northtown. One also sees outlying buildings either in front or to the side of the main buildings; early versions of out lot development common in later strip centers. Northtown Arthur Beerman owned the Arcade. In fact, his real estate interests had offices on the upper floors of Commercial Building at the intersection of Ludlow and 4th. And on one of those floors was the offices of the Main-Nottingham Shopping Center, apparently the leasing and development offices of the first "Beerman Town", because Main-Nottingham would later be re-named Northtown. And the Arcade might have been the inspiration for certain features of this shopping center. Suburban Growth in Northwest Dayton This enlargement of a dot map from the Harlan Bartholomew planning studies of the late 1940s and early 1950s shows population growth from 1930 to 1952. In reality most of this growth was probably from 1939-1950, the pre-WWII "Pearl Harbor Suburbia" boom coming out of the Depression and the wartime and early postwar expansion. And what's notable, too, is that this was mostly infill on dead or lightly developed plats from the Roaring Twenties or before. The two early outlying suburbs here, Fort McKinley and Shiloh, are quite early, products of the interurban boom from before WWI. Stripping away the plats, and showing the main streets + population growth, one can see how Northtown was positioned to attract shoppers out from closer-in areas developed before the Depression and undergoing final build-out (reversing the usual shopping trip into the city) but also to intercept shoppers heading into town (and from future plats that might occur in the 1950s). The earlier Miracle Lane (first true strip center in Dayton from around 1946-47) is also shown, performing a similar function on Salem Avenue that Northtown did on North Main. Northtown was developed in the 1949-1951 time frame. Let's Go Shopping (for suburban form) Beerman's first shopping center was probably McCook Center off Keowee Street, where some of the features here make their appearance. But McCook seems much more ad-hoc compared to Northtown. Northtown in its context on North Main Street, set in areas that were already developed east of Main. What’s notable is the center was somewhat integrated into its site, with streets from adjacent development leading into the centers parking lots. The land behind the center was developed as apartments. A closer-up, illustrating how the center was somewhat tentative, working out some basic strip-center concepts. There are two larger stores, ancestors of the big box anchor store of today, but they are separated from the center by an access drive to rear of the center. There is plenty of parking, but the center buildings are still held fairly close to the street. About half the parking is hidden to the rear of the center. The characteristic L form of Beerman's later centers appears, but the L comes very close to Main, leaving only two rows of parking. And there's that access drive to the back parking. Northtown today. The center apparently had facade updates over the years. The Beerman's downtown Arcade might have been an inspiration here as, unlike other strip centers, there is a second floor of offices and a little shopping arcade connecting to the back parking. Fairly unusual for a strip center, but there are contemporary examples in Dayton from the same era of two story mixed-use buildings going up at new suburban shopping nodes (like at Patterson and Wilmington or Far Hills in Oakwood, and in Fort McKinley). In this case this transitional building type is incorporated into a strip center. Inside the shopping arcade, which is really just a wide hallway with storefronts arranged in a sort of zig-zag pattern to make the hall seem less of a tunnel. (the offices are via the door to the left, which is probably original, with the original hardware. One suspects the light fixtures and terrazzo is original as well). The rear entrance to the shopping arcade.... ...and the extensive rear parking area. Note the apartments in the background as an illustration of how the center was somewhat integrated into surrounding housing. Though this is pretty desolate, a better landscaped and pedestrian -friendly parking area like this could be model for modern attempts to integrated strip centers into housing as a walkable ensemble. The access drive to & from the front parking.... …and the two "big boxes" on the northern part of the site. One of these is a supermarket, perhaps it always was. One wonders if the other was one of Beerman’s early department stores. The L, closing off the south side of the shopping center, here made up of one-story buildings. You are present at the creation of postwar suburbia: this was the start of 59 years of shopping center development. Yet memories of the old ways of city building linger here. Note how the L is so close to Main Street, with only two rows of angled parking. It's almost as if the designers were still thinking stores should still be held close to the busy street, creating a street wall, not be set back away from it. The details here are another illustration of how tentative this design is. Note the corner entrance of the store to the left. This would be typical of corner stores throughout Dayton, and is a detail carried over from the pre-war era of retail construction. Yes there is a corner here, but the "street" heading off the pix to the right isn't a street at all, it's another access drive (without sidewalks) to the rear parking. Northtown Neighbors A quick look at adjacent development; this neat little two-story modernist take on the “taxpayer block” directly north of the center carries the mixed used concept of Northtown to a spec office building with ground floor retail. With minimal pull-in parking in front. Have to love the name of that hair/nail salon: Arrogance. Across the street, how what was once a residential street (with fairly old housing since this was an “interurban suburb”) was retrofitted for retail in the postwar era by tack-on storefronts (as the first draft). Later recycling would remove the houses for smaller commercial buildings on house-sized lots Northtown: Past as Prologue? What's interesting is how some of the later Beerman developments have returned to the mixed-use concept of Northtown, with stores on the ground floor and offices above. An excellent example is the Mad River Station across OH 725 from the Dayton Mall (which is no longer a Beerman property). And especially the Shoppes at 725, which harkens back to the era before shopping centers.

I think this bike-to-work thing is unrealistic unless "work" & "home" are fairly close. And it would work only part of the year since its too hot or too cold to bike to work for half the year.