steeber

Nice love expressed here, in Gem City fashion. I particularly enjoyed the entrance to 255 North Main Street where I once resided at the venerable Newcomb Manor. Some now call it the Insco Apartments - named for Charles Insco, architect. Love-ly...

It certainly shows the touch of an experienced professional photographer, showing the magic that is there.

True, NorthAndre, and remarkable things can still be built from scratch, as here in New York, but will they just opt for the easy way out? "Aww... it's already have destroyed, just let 'er go; What's the diff?". That's what I fear. People really need to get angry and vocal. I have seen many comments of outrage on this posted to Facebook and the Daily News site. It's a start. Otherwise, preserving this as a partial ruin (with the remainder being glass and steel) might make a fine comment on preservation and the stupidity surrounding its undoing.

What an idiocy. How much more of this can we take?

Absolutely... a wonderful concept realized.

Just grab a martini and visit St. Anne's Hill. You'll feel better.

I agree with you. Just the same, I wish there had been some public movement to at least protest this and look at alternatives to simply razing as the easiest thing.

Here's the entrance to the building in 2011. There had been hopes of renovating and saving. Hope some of the terra cotta elements were saved.

Most frustrating

'Fraid she's terminal. But she appreciated the visit. Many thanks!

Myself included!

Recently, I made an obliging trip to Dayton in order to visit an aunt, who is sadly ailing there - in her home town. The changes in Ohio have been generally alarming, over the last 15 years. Dayton had held out against the worst of it for some time, but even Dayton seemed to be giving up some of its former luster. It was heartening, just the same, to drive through Dayton View Triangle (where I once lived and walked to school) to find that some of the neighborhood elegance was still preserved. I had very little time and shot most from the car. Can't say that the occasion was all that fun, so my attention was diverted. Just the same, my visit was capped off with a trek to Marion's Pizza - surely one of the best such places in the States. Upon catching my plane back to NYC, I paused to capture a scene at the airport which I found particularly up-lifting. Carillon Park is doing wonderfully! The new(ish) Kettering Family Education Center, along with many new additions, simply deserves to be known widely and well. I lived only a block from this corner, for about a year. The dark, tree-lined neighborhood looks much the same. Sadly, the 1948 Cornell Heights has just been razed. It seems to happen, and I can only hope the turf is well-used. I'm told it was a victory garden, prior to the school rising up there. I included this picture because of the immaculate primping this house and its property are enjoying. I loved the built-in sprinklers in the neighborhood as a kid. What power to be able to send showers everywhere, with a twist of a spigot. One of the nations' best-guarded secrets. Dayton should become a magnet for home owners looking to renovate and live in style. Years of living there, and never once... This was an experience, and the pizza was first-rate. One of the most welcoming airport entrances I know. It always was - even when the giant NCR globe was right about there.

http://fav.me/d50tc76 <== Of course, I always want to stress the beauty of the place, and few cities I know have such natural beauty as Dayton.

Paul Melia, it turns out, did the bicentennial issue. That one was signed. But I'm hunting others. I'll surely scan when found.

Wonderful. I got the issues (some of them) when they were new. The ones from the 60's may have come through my aunt, who worked at the ad agency Oppenheim Herminghausen Clarke. She knew I loved this stuff and had a lot of sources. The Dragon's Lair used to be good for this, too. I'm glad he's still working. As soon as I can, I'll uncover my two missing Dayton USA's. I do have a nice bicentennial celebration issue, which was unusually colorful. Did he do that one?

Wow. I have a few vintage issues, and I even have the one which, amazingly, uses that very artwork ("Restless Horizons"). He did nice work!

Of course. I saw some pictures of the slabs. Very interesting.

Thanks. I'm trying to find the "Dayton USA" magazine from 1964 which shows this. How did you find that out? The guest room ceilings and floors were Flexicore, if I'm not mistaken - probably resting on the slabs.

Quite. And thanks. Martini?

The Mall Motor Inn, as described in Jeffrey's brilliant dissertation http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,16660.0.html on The Mall, fit the urban renewal craze which was sweeping the nation. In the midst of this wave of change was the New York World's Fair of 1964 -- more of a corporate marketing push than most world fairs (and even contested as to its World's Fair fitness, owing to the lack of certain international contributions), the watchword was "new", whereas "futuristic" had been the push behind much of the '39 World's Fair. New meant replacing the aging city with its sometimes baffling lack of homogeneity and making sweeping motions of urban renewal - sometimes wiping out entire neighborhoods for highways and apartment projects. The Mall Motor Inn, however, was a marvelous small-scale urban motor hotel, the likes of which was starting to become popular in large cities. The Christopher Inn in Columbus and the Essex Inn in Chicago are two examples of these smaller "motor hotels" -- basically hotels with attached garage space which was particularly easy to drive to and from. This meant one could allow either valet or self-parking, allowing for a certain independence, even when using an automobile. Older city hotels were best-utilized by train and taxi, where one needed only alight from a vehicle at the curb. So, from this atmosphere of "now" came the Mall Motor Inn. I've scanned a 1966 brochure into place. I do recall the hotel's interior as being decidedly modern. The lobby (not pictured) had a particularly high ceiling in the seating area and an array of indirect lighting - illuminating champagne-colored aluminum tines, which gave the illusion that the lobby was larger than it was. It was a pleasant place. If one walked the full length of the first floor (entering from Jefferson), one came to the coffee shop, which was surprisingly large. I'm enclosing the northern view from the rooftop restaurant. That was during its "Ted Parker's Top of the Mall" days. Henrici's, which emanated from Chicago, is no longer even remembered by many, at its place of origin (which was actually Vienna). The view is from about 1976. Here is the view from the dining room at rooftop: The Gem City Savings Building is still in use. The roofline of the Lafee Building is visible near the bottom of the picture. Elder-Beerman's new store is just nearing completion. It's accordion-style mirrored windows are awaiting installation. The Mead Tower has topped out and has started seeing tenants, but its famous (and now lamented) "MEAD" sign is not yet in place. The Third National Building still sports its original windows (replaced with tinted, energy-efficient single panes sometime the following year or so).

Rusty S: What a kind summary about what I did and how so many used to feel. To let you off the hook, which is deserved, you're talking to someone who moved many times as a kid. My father was an immigrant himself. I was born in the Tropics, as a result of my father's job track, which did, via Toledo, eventually land us back in Dayton. My mother's side of the family goes back to about 1900 in Dayton. So I not only saw Dayton as an outsider, I got to see it at different times and from different points of view. I loved the place as a child, as a kid. It represented all that was good about the States. It represented quality! So your dairy cow sign becomes many other lost landmarks, for me. The good news is, someone probably did photograph that sign -- if nothing else, for business reasons. We do get some things back, just as I found the Miami Hotel this week. I will say that Daytonians, more than they should have, seemed to deride their town. Clevelanders didn't deride their town, I noticed while there. That was as important as the town itself. Adoring one's own city is a prime ingredient for the city's survival. The best local attitude I've ever seen: Minneapolis/St. Paul. But I can tell you that per potential: Dayton is still a gem. Thanks again. Means a lot.

Thanks bumsquare and ink. Here's to the importance of memory.

Glad you see "the light", Robert. I had never fully examined the set, but now I see they have a value in holding some unrepeatable scenes. My uncle gave me the Tower (which was quality-made, just in need of service). I actually have a hand full of genuine (vintage) Leica images (the camera the Tower was trying to emulate), and you can see how much sharper they are. The Tower had been used at a factory where my uncle was a sales and technical manager. Never patronized Sears for anything photographic. That is interesting. Once I moved to Brooklyn, the Tower, a Pentax, and a Minox were all relieved of me - right out of my bedroom. Was a long time ago, but I'm still missing the cameras. Thankfully, I still have the Rolleiflex and other good cameras. Thanks!

Thanks, CDM. Though I'd say the decline really started as early as about 1957, when the highway started to make itself felt citywide. By 1978, in many corners, you knew something wasn't right. I added a missing Canal building photo. It's as if the city knew how to target valuable material and wreck it -- almost on purpose, as was done with some of the other survivors.

In the Winter of 1977-78, I was looking for photographic material for a high school paper. I decided to focus on progressive urban renewal -- re-use and adaption. So I chose one particularly grey and empty Saturday morning to get Downtown with my "new" Japanese Tower camera (similar to this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59255923@N02/5907087112/#). The camera was nice but not in the best of shape. The 50mm lens was cloudy, and even with the wide angel lens it was curiously hard to focus. The shutter seemed to lag a bit, giving one a tendency to over-expose (even using a good meter). So I captured something a bit more akin to Lomography rather than anything first-rate. The scanner seems to have made the images a bit more ghostly in its attempt to remove dust and grain. No time to re-do these; The images work as they are. I made a tour of views and vistas which I suspected needed capturing. The sometimes frustrating and sad results follow: Always great views from Rike's 2nd Street Parking Garage Can't remember if this was on Jefferson or St. Clair. Glad I got a shot of it before it vanished. That's such a great sign. I'm imagining it was a popular shop. Here's one of the success stories. The current St. Clair Lofts is a wonderful outcome for a deserving block Downtown. This building and its neighbor were snuck out of existence. They added a density and beauty to the Downtown landscape. Their facades were virtually in tact. Just imagine how a grouping of buildings like these could have played into the current trend toward Downtown co-op, condo, and rental living. No foresight -- just raze. Replace, when possible, with a long-lived parking lot. These buildings simply should not have been torn down. The very fact that they were allowed to go, shows a distinct lack of local leadership and a complete disregard for canal relics which should have been designated as national treasures. It's simply a tragedy that they are now well gone. Rike's main garage (the older and more compact one being on Main Street) was a great place to see the city. You kind of floated among various views. Naturally, the powers that be decided to replace it with a lower and far less-exciting piece of real estate. The current garage doesn't have a square foot of retail space to offer -- a mistake. The sense of this tour was to see potential. It must still be seen, and some of the wrongs of the past must still be righted. The Canal buildings should be rebuilt. Holes should be plugged everywhere, and the density of the center city should be enthusiastically and intelligently restored.