Jeff

As for the Dayton area: T # 1. Maybe. How does this place compare with other metro areas? Probably average. T # 2. Well, we all like to think we and our communities are tolerant, don't we? Probably average for that, too (though anecdotal personal experience says maybe not so tolerant). I do not see how a community can become more or less tolernat. This takes years, not something that happens fast. T # 3 Don't know about the infrastructure, but maybe having an entrepeneurial culture is probably just as important as the infrastructure (what would that be?) to support it. How does one foster or encourage the formation of an entrepeneurial culture if there isn't one already?

Not quite true. From the conclusion to the referenced study. Moving beyond the attraction of creative workers, our strong definition of creative milieu is more germane to the policy debate animated by discussion of the creative class. For metro areas, our findings are unsatisfying as they identify a potentially large effect, but one that fails to meet conventional standards of reliability. Given the point estimate, metro counties in the top decile of creative milieu would generate close to twice the number of new establishments per worker compared to metro counties in the bottom decile. This is confirmed in the sample, where the top decile generated three establishments per hundred workers, on average, compared to 1.6 establishments generated in the bottom decile. Unfortunately, the standard error associated with the point estimate is large. The prudent conclusion is to suspend judgment on the existence of a strong creative milieu in metro areas. Emoting With Their Feet: Bohemian attraction to the creative mileau The authors work in ag/rural economics and this study was looking at the creative class in rural areas, though it did also look at urban areas. Though they do provide the above cautions they do go on to say this.... Our indeterminate results on the existence of a strong creative milieu in metro areas will not be welcomed by opposing sides in the creative cities debate. However, arts communities may benefit the most from the caution inherent in the findings. Public spending on the arts, justified on the basis of increased regional competitiveness may very well be wasteful if directed to high visibility projects that do nothing to increase human-scale interaction. At the same time, evidence of a weak creative milieu ensures a city's attractiveness to artists is an important indicator of its ability to retain and attract creative workers. Any metropolitan region pursuing a creative economy strategy in earnest should engage local artists in devising the best ways to encourage the social and cultural interaction that engender creative milieus. ....and call for more research. The research community can contribute to this effort by empirically examining the evolution of creative milieus across all cities. Actually this is an interesting topic for research, as to why there is this correlation.

That fastest growing list is a real hoot to an old timer like myself. Plainfield used to be way out in the cornfields sort of sidways from Joliet. It was "suburban" even in the 1960s, but it still pretty much looked like an old midwestern town (and the place atually was pretty old, being one of the early prairie settlments, on a road out of Chicago). But to hear it as this fast growing sprawlburb is pretty shocking. Same for Lincoln. I lived in "El Sacra Centro" for a few years, and recall Lincoln as this little "Big Valley" farm town upvalley from Sacto, at the edge of those golden rolling Sierra Nevada foothills, fairly far north of the urban sprawl that had reached Roseville. There was a lot of open ranch country you drove through to get to Lincoln. I think the only develoment up there, north of Roseville, was Stanford Ranch, which had a Hewlitt Packard plant, and not much else. North of that, range land and rolling foothills country and valley farmlands, then you hit Lincoln.

^ Jeff sez: doing this kind of in-depth analyses of a city and neighborhoods that I don't live in and have no connection to and am not doing for any kind of useful purpose is, frankly, kind of kooky, so it's time to take a mental health break. Also, I am burned out on it, and am moving on to other things.

I did a sort of Katchor/Dayton thing over a year ago...i went ahead and reposted it... link

(Kingfish’s comments on Ben Katchor over in Urbanbar got me fluff this old thread from over a year ago, which started out as a before-and-after/urban renewal thread, but then changed a bit as I saw the affinities between Dayton of the 1940s & 50s and some of what Katchor observes in his comic …..) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Nostalgia for a city I never knew.... Is anyone here familiar with the "underground" cartoonist Ben Katchor...I first read his stuff in California back in the '80s, in the old Raw comix magazine...then got that "Cheap Novelties" book....I think he sort of is glomming onto what I’m into about old parts of cities...though there is that NYC Jewish/Yiddish world he is riffing on that I don't know about...tho Chicago had that too a bit.....yet still his city is like the Chicago I remember as a kid....or maybe what Dayton was like a bit in the olden days...the little city, but more like a big city than it is now... His focus is on environmental relationships rather than interpersonal ones. Katchor is adamant, however, that this is not a story of a lonely guy, just a solitary one. Knipl's solitude is necessary for the retrospection required to develop the subjects that Katchor has chosen. Retrospective moments, Katchor asserts, aren't group oriented. He also points out that Knipl is seldom alone and that even the deserted streets he sometimes wanders are filled with the emanations of others. Every street is filled with a comforting historical residue. "In the beginning," said Katchor, "Knipl was based on actual things: things I would notice on the street or in my memory of the city. There were many things I had never tried to systematically make sense of before — like cellar doors or why cash registers in restaurants are left open at night. I discovered that there was a whole mythology about these things in my mind — either the actual logic or some poetic logic. It inadvertently became this encyclopedia of city life. It's about all these things that are there, but just below the attention of sociologists or anthropologists." By now Katchor has fashioned a whole world, one that is invariably described by listing its delightful details. There is a Public Directory of the Alimentary Canal, featuring two-line summations of the gastrointestinal condition of every citizen. There are men who take work as licensed expectorators, or moving heavy objects short distances without the benefit of a hand-truck. There is the Siren Query Brigade, which will explain, by phone, the ambulance alarm that just passed your window. There are buildings, like the Verile-Hinge, that will provide your business with a fake prestigious address for a monthly fee. There is Hoyvel's Coconut, an all-night tropical drink stand in the cheap merchandise district. There are public mustard fountains. Finally, there is Knipl, a rumbled observer who remembers, watches, and speculates as he goes about his work-and who will go way uptown to find a place that still sells Grepz, a defunct soda brand. Leaf through Beauty Supply District--distraction is the proper mood in which to approach Katchor--and you learn the significance of rubber garnish greens in little butcher shops or the golden age of street cleaning (ending a bit before the fiscal crisis), about the strange collective sense of loneliness experienced when apparently useless neighborhood storefront shops close and lots about the mental wanderings of those compelled to try to make sense of the patterns of small-scale commercial activity around them. The district, we learn later in the book, doesn't even exist anymore: Electronics wholesalers have taken over, relegating predecessors to those signs on vacant lots. Only a dreamer could become fixated on it all. Yet, for as much as Knipl's world is funny, it is also strikingly sad and somber. The comic strip, often spare, is strangely lonely, haunting and endearing--the key strengths of Katchor's work. Katchor draws a world filled with schemers and dreamers who gather around café booths to plot their next ingenious, though inherently flawed, plan for the city. In this new collection, a visionary architect named Selladore plans on taking the rubble of unused sidewalks to build a pedestrian bridge to Hawaii. The Normalcy Parfum Company holds evening sales seminars for their prized product: the residue of everyday life, captured in small vials ("the smell of a library book"; "the tang of a brown paper bag"; "the aroma of door-hinge oil"). And a board member at the Museum of Immanent Art (featuring a touring museum of shower caps, an exhibit of an influential 19th century picture hanger, and an entrance with a turpentine fountain emitting the smell of latent creativity) defends his proposal to rent out certain galleries for use as motel rooms each night after museum hours. Reading of Knipl's seemingly uneventful exploits in the city, one longs to climb inside the simple six-panel strips and follow close on his heels. If only we could hold his camera or take his notes! On a cold Wednesday evening in late January, Ben Katchor stood at a podium before a few dozen people in the Proshansky Auditorium of the City University of New York, and read aloud a few entries from a 1960 edition of the Chicago Yellow Pages. “Artificial Flowers and Plants,” he began, in a somewhat gravelly deadpan. “Ionian, Illinois Trading Corporation, Importers of Polyethylene: Completely Washable Flowers and Foliage; They Look Real, They Smell Real. Lee Schubert Floral Arrangements: Trees, Hedges, Any size, Any shape; Nature's Plant and Floral Beauty Reproduced; Free Estimates. “Coin Changing Devices," he continued. "Meyer and Wenthe Incorporated: Official Money Changers; Multiple Tubes; Any Throw Arrangements; Slug Rejecters.” This only lasted a minute or two, and then it was back to what Katchor had already been doing for the last half hour or so: A slide presentation of episodes from his long-running comic strip, “Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer,” In a way this world of Ben Katchors, of marginal retail and wholesale, short order counters, walk-up rooming houses, obscure clubs and associations, the obscure fringes of downtown, was found in Dayton, too at one time. This thread is a story of one such neighborhood....The Furniture District. The Furniture District...but also the cheap jewelry district, burlesque and small movie theatres, wholesale produce, pawnshop row, bookie parlors, upstairs apartments and rooms, short order counters......the four square blocks around the intersection of 5th & Jefferson (photo courtesy of WSU Dunbar Library special collections and archives) (photo courtesy of WSU Dunbar Library special collections and archives) Mostly built up still in 1950-55.... Using the criss-cross directory and a mosaic of Sanborn Maps...a reconstruction of the storefronts in the neighborhood....wholesalers (extension of the produce district) on St Clair, NE corner. Furniture stores and jewelry on 5th, shoe stores on Main, and a mix of stuff on Jefferson, including a rescue mission. On the upper floors, listings in from the criss-cross directory that seems right out of Ben Katchor, obscure businesses, services, and social groups......things like the: a) The Brotherhood of Envelope Makers b) Robert Dawson baton twirling teacher c) Theatrical agents d) The Sunbeam Chapter, Daughters of the Nile e) The Hop & Glide Dance Club d) Order of Ormus Caldren # 51 e) Greek Club f) True Kindred Club g) The Acme Dental Laboratory ...and apartments and rooms to let. Block by block.... Main/5th/Jefferson/6th-railroad. This was the street that had the Mayfair Burlesque (with apartments above...must have been interesting living on top of a burlesque theatre...)..orginally the Gebhart Opera, and an early "Stage Door" bar (later became the "Howdy Club".... The Pruden Block (on the corner) and Gebahard Opera (further down the street).... William F. Gebhart’s Opera House opened to public acclaim on March 12, 1877. The elaborately domed and galvanized iron front opera house was heralded as the finest to have been built in Dayton at the time. 1889 the theater was leased to George A. Dickson and Larry Reist and renamed Park Theater. Well known for its live entertainment, Park Theater also introduced Dayton citizens to the magic of motion pictures. In 1906 the building was leased to Hurtig-Seaman Shows, Inc., who wanted to open a high-class vaudeville house in the Dayton area. They were granted permission to raze the old hall section, without disturbing the front, and construct the auditorium at ground level. After doing so, the theater was renamed the Lyric. In 1934 the theater again changed hands and became the Mayfair. The Mayfair went through several changes during the late 1940’s and into the 1950’s. In 1949 a lack of interest in burlesque led the management into changing the theater into a double-feature movie house. The first billing was Down to Earth with Rita Hayworth, and a B western starring Gene Autry. The movies didn’t pan out, however, and burlesque again filled the bill a year later. The theater almost closed for good in the late 1950’s, but the old lady got a reprieve at the last minute. The Mayfair closed its doors for the final time in 1968. The last stripper to perform at the Mayfair was Morganna, (also known as Chesty Morganna) who made headlines for years as the "Kissing Bandit" who would run out onto the baseball fields and kiss the ballplayers. The opera house interior, strewn with debris and dirt, still held onto its tiered balconies to the very last. On January 19, 1969, the day before the theater was scheduled to be torn down, the building caught fire. cinema treasures ..and from "When Dayton Went to the Movies"... "I remember, on a dare, I went to the Mayfair with some friends in 1961." Leon Bey recalled. "We all went down and had a good time. This was the old-time vaudeville, the old East Coast comics. If you look at some of the old comedians, a lot of them had their start in vaudeville. They were funny without being dirty. Dayton was a hot bed for comedians. But they’re all gone now." Today, same corner Heading north..block bounded by Main/5th/Jefferson/4th the open space facing main used to be a church, which relocated to 1st or 2nd I think. That was built on with shops in the 1920s or 30s...(the pix is from the 20s or 30s) Sanborn with pix of what used to be...two theatres, some old commercial buildings, and the Pony House restaurant (owned by the inventor of the cash register and one of the first places where it was used) Commercial building at 4th & Main Today The old (1887) State, formerly the Auditorium, formerly the YMCA...this one had a "hotel" (rooms to rent) in the upper floors....and a ghost.... "An unusual tale about the theater comes from the early days when it played both movies and vaudeville acts. "There’s the story of the woman who was killed...in the sewing room." Marianna Hunt told a reporter in 1970. "And then there are the things that are supposed to go on at night when nobody’s here - like the lights going on and off by themselves." Those in the know blamed it on the ghost of "Headless Hattie", who took her final curtain call in the sewing room at the Auditorium... One of the first managers of the theater was Ben Wheeler, who offered ‘talking’ pictures many years they were actually available. Wheeler would have ‘talkers’ stationed behind the movie screen who would speak the lines of the actors in the movie. After he left in 1912 Wheeler continued to offer this unusual attraction at his next theater, the Jewel. By 1915 the Auditorium was being managed by the flamboyant Gilbert Burrows. Previews of coming attractions were acted out on stage by Burrow’s son, Dickson, and a ticket taker, who would perform a synopsis of the next film. Burrows sometimes took his promotions too far. In 1915 theaters were not allowed to be open on Sunday. This didn’t sit well with Burrows, who decided to open the Auditorium anyway. He was immediately arrested. He again opened the following Sunday and was again arrested. The same thing happened the third time. By now the law enforcers had had enough and ordered Burrows to appear in court. Afraid of fines and a facing a possible jail sentence, Burrows hired a gospel-singing family to perform the following Sunday, followed by a movie with a religious theme. The judge was impressed and allowed Burrows to remain open on Sundays." When Dayton Went to the Movies ...in later years, Beatles' "A Hard Days Night" opened here, and it briefly became a live theatre for a community theatre group before demolition... Today Around the corner onto Jefferson...this street was lined with pawnshops, cheapers men’s clothing stores, a state store, little restaurants, and, yes cheap novelties store...and yet another theatre: The song, "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" inspired the owner, Charles Gross, to name the new theater the "Columbia", the gem of the moving picture world in Dayton, the Gem City. And it was a "gem" of a theater. Erected at a cost of $30,000, the five hundred seat theater was thought to be the most beautifully decorated motion picture house in Dayton at the time. The panels on the beam ceiling were finished in a cream color with gold lines. The beams and all the ornamental plaster work were white and gold. The upper walls were of a golden tone with Renaissance decorations in the style of 15th century art. The lower walls were decorated with a beautiful Spanish leather effect which was brought out through overglazes of different colors. The outside was constructed of ornamental imitation stone with a marble base. A large horseshoe shaped entrance, lit by a number of electric bulbs, helped protect patrons from the weather. The grand opening picture was The Princess of Baghdad, an eight-reel film, starring Helen Gardner. Admission was five and ten cents, children five cents at all times. A Wurlitzer Automatic Orchestra provided music during the silent movies..... .....Marcus Enterprises of Indianapolis purchased the theater in 1948. Several thousand dollars were spent on modernizing the theater, but it was too late. Children were warned by their parents to stay away from the ‘rat hole’ theaters on Jefferson Street. By the mid-1950’s it wasn’t unusual to see patrons buying tickets in order to have a place to sleep and keep warm in the winter. What was once one of the most beautiful theaters in the city was by then considered by many to be gaudy and outdated. The Columbia shut its doors in 1959.... (and was torn down shortly thereafter for a parking lot) today (there was even another theatre on Jefferson nearly across the street). Very close by, across the alley, was Rittys "Pony House", which also included a shoeshine stand and a "cigar store" (which was possibly a front for a bookie parlor, according to Jim Nichols' discussion of "smokerys" in his memoir of downtown Dayton)..one of the first, if not the first, places where a cash register was used, as the owner was the inventor... (bay window over the alley was a nice touch....) today Corner of 5th and Jefferson...the Central Block. This building had a drugstore on the corner, furniture stores, apartments, dance clubs, fraternal clubs, all sorts of things, often at the same time... Really sort of funky "mixed use" place (based on the criss cross directory)..., across the street on Jefferson from a movie theatre that became one of Daytons first "art movie" houses, and on 5th, across from the Mayfair Burlesque.... today.... Fifth was really the furniture district...big furniture stores on this street. Especially on this block...Fifth/Stone/6th-Railroad/Jefferson. But also a rescue mission, yet another theatre, and a apartment building on the corner kitty-corner from the central block..The Jefferson.... The theatre on this block was The Majestic, later renamed the Rialto....purpose-built for movies.... ” One of the more elaborate picture houses was the Majestic on south Jefferson Street, just below Fifth. The grand opening took place on March 4, 1912. And what a grand opening it was. The first movie shown was Children Who Labor, an Edison picture based on incidents connected with the labor strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Patrons were entertained between the changing of reels by the "American Gypsy Girls’ Quartet", with music provided by Buell B. Reisinger’s Solo Orchestra , which was comprised of six of Dayton’s best musicians. Attention given to patrons included ushers and other employees dressed in tuxedos for the afternoon shows and appropriate evening dress for the evening performances..... .”In 1919 the theater was bought by John Seifert who rechristened it the Rialto. The policy of the movie house slowly changed to second run movies after this. By the late 1920’s the theater was depending on sensationalism to bring in patrons. An advertising in 1927 tells that the Rialto was going to show the movie False Shame. Touted as "The Most Thrilling Sex Picture Ever Produced" it promised that it would tell and show "everything". The movie, about social diseases, was not what many of the patrons (mostly men, I’m sure) had gone to view, but it did draw a crowd during the week it was shown. “H. L McClelland remembers the Rialto was "structured like an Egyptian temple, but radiating an aura of pure Hollywood. Colorful posters and colorless stills lined the lobby walls around the box-office. Unfortunately, the Rialto, as I remember it, was extremely trashy in the late 1940’s, and one reason that my mother and I usually avoided it"..... ....Records are sketchy, but I believe the Rialto was closed for good by the end of 1967. The old building was razed in January 1969. Chins Oriental Cafe now sits on the site of the old movie house” Some of the furniture store buildings on Fifth Today The final block is the block with the only remaining building from the pre-urban renewal era: the DP&L power station. This block had extensions of the produce/wholesale/light industry district on St Clair, and 4th, furniture stores and a nightclub on Fifth, and a very active little business area on Jefferson. including the early Price Brothers store, and Dayton’s first "art movie" theatre...the Ohio "In 1962 the Ohio was sold to Harry Einhorn. On April 6 that year the theater opened under a new name and new billing policy. Renamed the Ohio Follies, the theater began featuring adult films of an ‘art’ nature. The opening attraction was titled Unashamed, and was billed as a panorama of life in a nature colony. By the 1960’s real entertainment was also added to the bill On November 26, 1966 the theater showed the movie The Secrets of an Undercover Model. Afterwards, Lynne O’Neill, the star of the movie, went up on stage. Stories of what happened next vary, as they do sometimes. Police claimed that at one point O’Neill overdid her number and took her G-string off. She was arrested on charges of nudity and released on $100 bond. O’Neill, on the other hand, claimed that the charge was a made up, "a political job pulled by the other place there" she stated, meaning the Mayfair. "This kind of thing happens all the time in the business and I’ll bet that’s just what happened Saturday night. They can’t stand the competition." Jefferson Street looking north from Fifth (the Jefferson Apts on the southeast corner..to the right) Today 4th Street looking north..you can see a apartment bldg or rooming house at the corner of 4th & Jefferson.....as an aside a good book on downtown living that you might have encountered in this area is this one.... Today So, by 1965, the neighborhood had declined..... Buildings were starting to be demolished for parking lots (like the Columbia Theatre) and storefronts where becoming vacant...yet still a lot of business activity, and the apartments and residential hotels where still being occupied.... From an urban renewal study: ”The loss of economic vitality in the mid 50's has brought physical obsolescence and decay in the mid 60's. The empty storerooms, the gradual deterioration of structural conditions, lack of maintenance and economic obsolescence of buildings has been apparent and is becoming more evident each year. A survey of structure conditions by the City Plan Board indicate that most buildings in the subject area (south of Fourth Street between Main Street and St Clair Street) are seriously substandard both from an economic standpoint as well as a structural and physical decay standpoint. The most dramatic evidence of this decline is found in the adjustment of the tax value in this area. In 1963 tax value was reduced from it's original value of $3,300,000 to $2,500,00, a drop of more than 25% Early in 1963 City Commissioner Dave Hall, recognizing the seriousness of the problem.....proposed a series of actions to resolve the problem. One of these was the recommendation that the City Commission give serious consideration to a redevelopment project involving the fourth blocks south of Fourth Street...” This became the Mid Town Mart urban renewal area The urban renewal plan called for a mixed used development, primarily retail... a. 370,000 SF of retail (including a 225,000 SF department store) b. 2,6000 parking spaces. c. 70,000 to 100,000 of office space d 100,000 to 140,000 of office space (including 200-500 parking spaces), developed as an office tower e. 100 to 200 apartment units (as part of the office tower) Based on this rendering the office tower would have been south of 5th, while the main shopping area between 4th and 5th, east of Main "The Mid Town Mart plan contemplates a number of shops grouped around a series of arcades and malls all enclosed which would be heated in the winter and air-cooled in the summer. The arcades and malls would be developed with landscaped plazas and pedestrian ways with fountains, exhibits, landscaping, artwork, flower, and other objects which would create an attractive environment....such an environment will be an entirely new experience for the downtown shopper..." Demolition began in the very late 1960s-69-70-71? ..but instead of "Mid Town Mart" Dayton got a parking garage, convention center, hotel, bus station, and a big park....

So, only two people on this site are hip to Ben Katchor?

I think I first saw Katchors stuff in RAW magazine..this was way back in the 1980s, when I was still living in Sacramento. I ended up buying his first compliation "Cheap Novelties". He's become more famous since then. Another cartoonist from that era I like is Eric Drooker...his work is in woodcuts. I think Drooker used to appear in that World War Three comix mag. @@@@@ Leaf through the criss-cross section of a city directory from the 1940s into the 50s , for the blocks on the edges of a downtown, and you will see Julius Knipls' world. "real estate photographer"...the content providers at the pix subforum here.

no, i didnt take any pix of it or those neat double houses on Dutoit Street, or that huge old red brick church around the corner from the Blossler Mansion. I am probably going to spend a bit more time w. St Annes Hill and takes some pix of these later. St Anne's Hill is pretty well documented...check out the neighborhood associations' impressive Online Walking Tour I have a lot of respect and even a bit of awe at people who buy into the city and restore these old houses.

Thanks, Coldayman. I am getting more curious about this area so might be posting more on it again.....I've driven by here a lot, and did go to that MCC for a bit, but never really got out of the car and walked this area before....a bit different on foot! Thanks...I knew it was not named after a saint but couldn't remember a name.....I went there for mass one Easter, years ago. The interesitng thing that suprised me was that the nave wasnt vaulted, but had this somewhat flat ceiling...it had paintings and coffers and all and was as high as one would expect, but it was sort of suprising as I was expecting something a bit more gothic. They still do have that Spanish mass, too.....im not sure if other parishes are doing that too, now.

This should be interesting. ...But the Greene wants to look like you (sort of).

Darn...i forgot all about that! I recall hearing about the tour and was going to take it but it totally slipped my mind! I recall taking a South Park house tour back round 1990 or so. At that time an aquiantance of mine was invovled with South Park Preservation Works, via his job at MVH (he didnt live in the neighborhood). And a former co-worker and his wife had bought into the area...they moved back into the city from Englewood around when he retired, I think.

This isn’t a St Anne’s Hill thread as it goes beyond that neighborhood a bit, (though this is the main street of St Anne’s Hill….Richard Street might have been too).. This pix thread will walk east to the old city limits (where Huffman intersects and the Dayton, Xenia, & Belpre railroad crosses 5th &), and then return west. The gateway to East Dayton….the Liederkranz-Turner hall one one side. The Liederkranz is one of three(seems like a lot) German clubs in Dayton, and was a merger of two. The Turners Hall was wiped out by urban renewal (around where Keowee goes through now), as was the Liederkranz hall on Wayne Avenue (hit by the Haymarket renewal project I think) Dayton Liederkranz-Turner. The clubs here must be pretty active as Dayton hosted the Sangerfest this year, at the Convention Center, of all the German singing societies (not sure if it was national or just regional). Enough of Deutschtum, across the street the other big landmark on the way into East Dayton is Stivers, the basis for the fictional “St Ives” high school in the old Steve Canyon comic strip (im just old enough to remember both Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates). ..unlike its peer, Steele (cross town rival) and Roosevelt this one looks like its going to stay. Heading east, the costume shop, and a contrast between sunny and cloudy days, how the mood changes…. The violin shop again And this big mural thing with a memory of a more lively 5th Street. The streetcar (horse car) did come down here, but there was also a branch that went down Labelle and east on Richard to near Linden….that’s another thread. (you can see the American Saloon in the distance, little blue corner bldg). The American Saloon. Nothing special, no, never been (are you kidding?),… I just like the name. Getting beyond the American Saloon, shotgun house with storefront, and a residence set further back on the lot next door. Maybe that’s what this street was like when it started to get build on…. Another corner store (but not on a corner)… look at the later permastone modernization… Next door, the old I-house, with a commercial building next to it. According to the 1869 atlas there was a lot building on this street by then. …and the scary apartment building (believe me, in the summer, this area is a bit too edgy for me around here.…) Continuing east, this has been more or less looking at the south side of 5th, this looks down the north… …a remnant of Dayton’s “Sin City” era….we are starting to get into the questionable Newcom Plain neighborhood. Back looking at the South side of 5th…Sam’s Chili-Bowl (is it even in buisiness?) This is a great old building, a very elaborate double, but note the large vacant lot next door (well, I cropped that out, but you can see a bit of it) Continuing to look east on 5th….Tripletts…a good old Kentucky surname. I went to high school with a Triplett., In the distance you can see the circle-K minmart sign, which was the location of a pseudo-gay bashing (the guy who was bashed was a local indy/punk musician, not gay), back in the early 90s. The local music scene at that time did benefits for his hospital bills. This is not really a safe area, in fact I was questioned while I was taking these pix by a somewhat scary character with a backpack…semi-homeless perhaps? Don’t know what it was or anything about it, but it looks interesting. Dayton Desolation Row, lost its cornice, boarded up, and waiting for demolition. The green building behind it was the old ice cream cone factory. I’ve heard the ice cream cone was invented here, but I think they just made them here. The end of the line for us…the railroad crossing, where Huffman meets 5th. This was the city limits from incorporation until after the Civil War, as this is where the Cooper out-lots ended. The horse cars were extended out past here between 1885 and 1890, running from Wayne & Fifth, down Fifth to Findlay Street. I didn’t go in here. This used to be Grandma Virgies Pies, but she relocated to Belmont. I think it really is a little diner, not just a bar masquerading as a diner. Heading back west on Fifth from the railroad….semi-abandoned commercial building across the street. Tripletts again Believe it or not that corner storefront used to be the Dayton MCC parish….a storefront congregation! The MCC is the Metropolitan Community Church, which has a largely lesbian and gay following. Their service is structured somewhat like the Catholic Mass, but they also have a strong Pentacostalist/evangelical strand (the founder was a Pentacostalist). MCC relocated to larger sancturary in Belmont, I think, and this belongs to another congregation…. North Side of Fifth, including a cottage…..unfortunately I neglected the north side of the street a bit here.… Continuing to head west…that low brick wall around this brace of houses seems to say that they where all under one owner for awhile? More storefronts. These look like old taverns…right next door to each other? This must’ve been a pretty boozy place at one time. Real close to the street here…. …and finally, looking down the hill into the city…Stivers, .then the urban renewal emptiness.…& the spire of that Catholic church on Bainbridge Street (never can remember the name) is visible in the distance, beyond is the Oregon district. Storefront in the foreground belongs to the Liederkranz-Turner, as its on their parking lot.

Playing with typology... This is sort of following on my interest in those modified I-houses as a local urban vernacular here in Dayton. Back in that Oregon thread I posted a few months ago I was sort of speculating on how that vernacular might have been worked out or developed by local builders. Here in St Anne’s Hill, same thing...& how the style gets deployed throughout a neighborhood, retaining that side door feature, often centered on the side façade…...but starting to see modifications... Starting with a true I-house, long front to the street, on Fifth Street… I-House, adopted for the urban lot, on a side street…with the side porch.. Later version? (after 1869), asymmetrical placement of doors ..note that you will start to see more examples of doors on the gable end, facing the street, as well as the side door. example with the side porch and an abbreviated L or T in the rear…. Missing a window? This house dates from the early 1860s, just before or during the Civil War..and is selling for $138,000…. The front porch is probably late 19th or early 20th century @@@@@@@@@@@@@ The other common house type is the cottage, and I think this might have been the original type of house on a number of properties here, as they show on the 1869 county atlas as being built on, but the style of house is too late for 1869, so there has been some building replacmenet going on in St Anne’s Hill. Maybe worth more of a look some other time…. The original cottages were probably small frame ones, like this. You can’t see it too well, but this one has a symmetrical side façade, with two doors under the square upper windows, which is just like small farmhouses or rural tenant houses in KY. A few more small cottages (with some additions) Larger cottages (which look like one story versions of those "urban I-houses" upthread.

The Steamboat House…Rob you are correct on your observations. From the now out-of-print Craig McIntosh “Dayton Sketchbook”: “With more fancy than fact, some imaginative individual decided that the façade of this house at the northeast corner of McClain and Josie Streets looked like the exterior of an old paddlewheel riverboat and gave it the romantic name by which it is still know to many Daytonians.,,” “Actually the house was built by a local real-estate man, Albert McClure, in 1852. From about 1865 to 1876 the homes occupant was John L Frank, who was first a practicing attorney and then a probate judge here in the 1870’s.” “During that period however, William Dickey was the apparent owner who sold the house in 1871 to Jacob O Joyce, inventor of the railroad jack and later president of the Joyce-Cridland company. The George Shroyer family… lived in the house until 1918” “When the house was built it was a six-room structure with huge cooking fireplaces. The ‘steamboat’ porches where added about 1889. Queen Anne dormers and two rooms were added to the front at about the same time. Four rooms were added to tbe back about 1903. When the house was sold at auction a few years ago it comprised sixteen rooms plus carriage house. When its present restoration is completed…it will contain thirteen rooms, four baths, full attic and basement, plus four porches. And through a lot of diligent effort its beautiful interior woodwork is being saved.” “Like the St. Anne’s hill area where it stands the house declined with age. But like that area, as restoration continues, it should be a stirring reminder of past glories.” This was written in the 1970s, revised in 1985, so the house had undergone restoration, and was in pretty good shape when I took a tour of it back when I first moved here in 1988 of 1989. I don’t have pix, but it has a sort of funky diamond-plan widows walk on the roof, too (and it being one of those long & narrow Dayton houses, the steamboat analogy just fits) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ More unusual St Anne’s Hill things…… The Dayton Society of Painters & Sculptors has a gallery in this 1870 house. They acquired it early, in 1967… “Built by Wesley Boren, President of the Dayton Surprise Bedspring Company and brick contractor for his son-in-law William H. Pritz…” (who was the son of a local ag implement manufacturer…), Parts of St Anne’s Hill have these midblock (actually end of block) alleys, which feel like country lanes a bit, some with houses on them. McLain Street, is the cross street running east west more or less. It occasionally has houses on it like these two twin houses (they look like they are joined but are separate) The oldest house on St Anne’s Hill? This house is supposedly the Dutoit farmhouse, from the 1838, but it sure looks newer. There is an L addition that sort of faces 5th street, so that might be the 1830s part and this side, facing Detroit Street might be newer. That elaborate gable looks later, that’s for sure. The newest house in St Anne’s Hill? This place is a hoot, a suburban tract house built in the middle of the neighborhood. It must take up four lots or more. And the name St Anne’s Hill…no one is sure where it really comes from, though there are multiple theories. It also used to be called Smith’s Hill (south of Fifth) and Bacon’s Hill (north of Fifth), and oldest city directories will refer to these place names in lieu of streets.

I was at the Liederkranz-Turner Kristkindlmarkt today, and since was in the neighborhood decided to walk around St Annes Hill and take snaps. I was thinking of giving this neighborhood "the treatment", as its one of those 19th century districts of Dayton that I'm interested in, but this is just some random pix without all the graphics and maps and stuff.... The German hall....they will be having a very nice German xmas concert here next weekend.... I could do a thread on the "corner stores of St Anne Hill" There is no St Annes parish on St Anne Hill...this is St Lukes UCC, which is sort of a landmark. The violin shop and the old Odd Fellows Hall...for some reason this caught my eye. the way the light was working here.... Dayton rows.... The view of downtown is, no doubt, simply fabulous from the corner porch of this house....(retaining wall built of "Dayton Stone") The forlorn and deteriorating "Steamboat House". Wonder what the story is here, why this landmark and gem of the neighborhood went down the tubes? Amazing building with that massive stone masonry. No doube once a church, but now people live in it.

Thanks, I would appreciate this....I really would like to see what this is going to look like, or is being proposed. Kroger has doen an "urban infill" stores before. They did one in the Douglas Loop neighborhood in Louisville, off of Bardstown Road. Next time I'm in Louisville I should take some pix of it as an example of what could be done @ W&W. I agree with you about Dayton govt holding the developer to a higher standard at this site. There is precendent here, too, on Brown Street, about doing commercial that fits into the streetscape or creates a walkable street, so there really is no reason not to do that @ W&W.

Yes. The Dublin pub was a gas station, too, which is what made me think of W&W, as they are proposing a gas station as part of the package. Here's another version: The scope of the W&W project is going to be a lot smaller than what they did to the Haymarket. Preservation Dayton has the Ecki Building as one of their "Most Endangered". I think they should broaden their concept and say that the "Neighborhood Commercial Districts" are one of the most endangered, as I can think of TALS Corner, Santa Clara, and Troy & Valley going the same way as Wayne and Wyoming. TALS Corner and Troy & Valley both have deteriorating, vacant landmark commercial buildings, sort of like the Ecki in the relation to the cityscape, but different in style. Another way of looking at this is that Dayton has saved two neighborhood commercial districts, W. Third @ Wright-Dunbar and E 5th @ the Oregon. Machts nichts if the other ones get torn down for redevelopment or because they are obsolete, abandoned and falling apart as two "representative examples" have been saved.

Back in the 1980s that old Places Rated Almanac said it was Green Bay that had the most bars per person, but that was 20 years ago or more. @@@@@@@@@@ Palestinians in Lakewood. Thats interesting. I should tell my brother in law.

Im interested in that bar town thing. I knew Lakewood had all the gay bars, but its a hot spot for straight barflys too?

I seem to be spending more time with Louisville now as I realize I know the place a lot less than I thought I did.... If i was closer to Cleveland, though, I am interested enough in that Asia Town area to do something like what I've done with Dayton, as I'm really into those surviving close-in neighbrohoods. And id like to do something with the rural Western Reseve, taking that driving tour in that Orange Frazier architectural guide and doing it in pix & maps. Cleveland & surroundings really piques my interest when I'm up there (which has been very rare).

From awhile back, my pix/maps thread on Wayne & Wyoming Bachelors Alley... There are some abandoned houses here, but if this neighborhood is "blighted" so is pretty much all of close-in East & North Dayton.

For the Wayne & Wyoming shopping center and surrounding area, they can dust off this plan for a similar intersection further in town on Wayne....

Cardinal Stadium was used by a tripple A team back in the early 80s. You're talking about this area, and the area to the south, correct? I've always wondered about it myself. It is a no-mans land of sort. But maybe some investigation into some local urban geogrpahy & history could be interesting and a bit of fun here...... Lets start with old 19th century Louisville...the city in 1916, not showing the suburban growht too much outside of the city limits, you can see this town had grown mostly to the east and west, and somewhat to the south...a big Chicagoesque grid.... Taking a closer look at the southern edge of town...The old "house of refuge" reform school, which was to become the UofL campus in the 1920s, and a collection of railroad mainlines, junctions, and transfer tracks sort of blocking off the area beyond. Yet, beyond is the industrial suburb of South Louisville and the extensive (for 19th century Louisville) Kentucky Wagon Works (by 1917 they were making Dixie Flyer automobiles). Confederate Monument shown for reference. The area to the north, what is St James & Belegravia courts, was subdivided in the 1880s, I think. However, whats interesting is what was happening south of city. South Louisville was one of two industrial suburbs, Highland Park further south was another, and then there was a collection of horse race tracks, somewhat close to the L&N mainline so trains with racehores could pull off on sidings close to the tracks. Thats why Churchill Downs is where it is. Also, in the late 1880s the mayor bought one of the outlying knobs for a park, and built a boulevard to connect it. This was eventually wrapped into the "Olmstead" park system The new park and parkway became a draw for visitors, and streetcars where extended out to the new park and other local features of interest (Devils Backbone, or Coxes Knob, had been a summer retreat since the 1870s). Beer gardens and dance pavilions sprouted up at the end of the lines. And, the new car lines led to a real estate boom, forming Louisvilles' "South End" (Louisville has a East, West, and South End). The boom also resulted in Churchill Downs becoming landlocked. But the South End was just one of a few fingers of development extending out along the radial highways leading into the city, usually seperated by creek bottoms and hilly country...by the WII era the subdivided and built up areas where extending well out of the old 19th century gridded city in the Ohio River bottoms. The nearest extension of the built up area to the east was along Preston Highway, into the "wet woods", which is this real low and flat country that used to be seasonally flooded, sort of like a local Okeefenokee Swamp, but drained in the years before WWI. This "crawdad country" is tinted bluish green in the map: A close up of the area between Preston Highway and the South End, showing the limits of the built up area by the 1930s.... ...i think one reason this area wasn't built up was because it was somwhat isolated, not many roads, blocked off by railroad lines and yards and so forth, and probably pretty swampy further south. So it was this dead land until after WWII. It was always sort of an odd sort of no-mans land, which was developed into low density industry during the 50s & 60s. The big impact in this area, though, was during WWII when the airport was built. The site for the airport was selected due to surveys during the 37 Flood showing this being flat country, close in, but not hit by the flood. Louisville aready had an airport on the east end for commercial aviation, but it was getting small. Before any action could be taken WWII intervened and the military snapped up this site for the Army Air Force... ..the map shows the original military runway configuration and the big aircraft factory. The line of the wet woods lowlands..here called the Ash Bottom... and some other features, like a big indian mound called "Lone Hill", and original road configurations (Grade Lane was Lone Hill Road, and Crittenden Drive was Ash Bottom Road back in those days). One of the aerospace companies was Consolidated Vultee. Perhaps aviation buffs can ID the model here? WWII era construction on the runway. Notice how pancake flat the countryside is here, to the south.... After the war, the airfield was turned over to the civilans (though the military still has a presence there), and the aircraft factory became this giant International Harvester plant. The civilian terminal was located on the north side, built in the late 40s, around the same time the Watterson Expressway (US 60 Bypass) was built. Kentucky Turnpike (later I-65) finished in '56. around the same time the Kentucky State Fairgrounds relocated to the north of the airport, buying up alot of that dead land west of Preston Higway and the Southern RR main to Lexington. Also during the 50s & 60s the runways where extended for jet travel, obliterating Lone Hill, and the big Ford Plant was built south of the airport. By the early 1970s the airport was recognized as inadequate, being too hemmed in by ubanization. A big search went on for alternative sites, and one well to the east of Louisville, near Finchville in Shelby County, was chosen. The idea was to build a state of the art airport (like DFW or Heartsfield), with multiple terminals, people movers, etc. This attempt to postiion Louisville for the post-CAB era of hub-and-spoke air travel failed due to big NIMBY opposition. So that is how Louisville missed out on becoming a big hub airport. What did happend was the UPS hub, and the later expansion of the airport via the two big parallell runways and the UPS complex between them. This was a do-or-die thing, which meant some hardball tactics with the surrounding neighborhoods, some of which where totally bulldozed and removed. For some pix of that check out: Highland Park I & Highland Park II Other neighborhoods well to the south in the former "wet woods", but in the flight path, where also removed. I drove through those once, erie seeing the abandoned houses boarded up, ghost subdivisions of ranches and split levels. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sort of a digression there...the area around Churchill Downs has been drastically altered via that big highway they built (including a bridge) that is clearly visible on the aeriel photos. What this meant was the demolition of the 4th & Central neighborhood buisiness district right outside of the Churchill Downs gate. This place used to be where, the night before the race, the real racing junkys gathered..the gamblers, race fans, grooms, stable boys, industry types, for sort of a big street party. This was more the 'industry/racing fan party', vs the Infield or the Grandstands, which was the race fans for one day a year for the Derby. It was a bit more scruffy than the main event events. But that setting is all gone now. And they built this very cheesy shopping center near where that highway crosses the L&N mainline to Papa Johns Stadium. This would have been a primo candidate for new-urbanist development. What is this area like, around Churchill downs? Well, it used to be working class white. Think Upper Price Hill or East Dayton/Belmont. Lately, in the areas to the North of the Downs, that old South Louisville neighborhood, Ive been noticing it becoming more black than it used to. The area also gets some UofL students, but its not a real student neighborhood. And also some foreigners, as the catholic church in the neighborhood does some work with refugee resettlement. I recall when I was in Lousiville they had Hmong living near the church, and the church would sell their crafts in a parish bazaar.

^I'll leave that for necromantical