Jeff

The company town is looking for a new company. (yet this is in a Cleveland newspaper? Why would they even bother writing about Dayton?)

I am a man of constant sorrow I've seen trouble all my day. I bid farewell to old Kentucky The place where I was born and raised. It's fare thee well my old lover I never expect to see you again For I'm bound to ride that northern railroad Perhaps I'll die upon this train. ...this is a poor neighborhood, and they where distributing some free food.... Mayor McLin meets the citizens ....more politicians.... Mayor McLin buying a snow-cone? The Comet Bluegrass All-Starts are the house bluegrass band for the Comet bar in Cincinnati, & have been up here before. ..good dobro player... The 'Twin Towers' of St Marys lends its name to this neighborhood... The Comets have a female vocalist helping out...they did this good truckdriving song about the perils of driving in Oklahoma at night(?).... Sol Azteca is a folkloric dance group hosted by this community center...not all could make it as they where working....representative of the changes that are occuring in East Dayton.."the new kids on the block..." Guy in a charro costume (Meixcan cowboy), girl in an outfit with the Mexican colors... "Speak softly, don't wake the baby Come and hold me once more Before I have to leave Because there's a lot of work out there Everything will be fine And I'll send for you baby Just a matter of time" "Our life, the only thing we know Come and tell me once more Before you have to go That's there's a better world out there Though it don't feel right Will it be like I hope Just a matter of time"

Us gay folk, too. In fact I will be down there on Friday. I'll keep an eye out for the flying fickle fetus of fate.

We're so lucky! Flying Fetuses! Hmmm..well they dont know too much about Dayton if they think downtown is a "place where people congregate".

Well, I like the people pix that are scattered through the thread. St Louis does indeed seem much larger than I expected, actually almost like Chicago or Cleveland in some parts (the back porches are really reminiscent of Chicago), and also a bit like Louisville too, in some of the older residential buildings details. I don't see much comparison here with Cincinnati at all (except for the dense downtown)...this is a very different feel going on in St Louis. This is a particularly urban scene, almost akin to the Gold Coast or some of the neighborhoods near the lake, in Chicago.

You shouldn't have too much trouble to find historical info on Oakwood as that suburb is pretty well documented, for Dayton. There is a general local history entitled "Oakwood, The Far Hills". Then there is also a promotional book on Schantz Park (with copious illustrations of big houses) and a history of the Dayton Country Club. Back when there was a Montogomery County Historical Society and it published an annual magazine they had an article on the 1920s annexation fight. All of this is available at the downtown library, and perhaps at the Oakwood library as well. I think Oakwood even has a local historical society. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Though this sounds like I'm fluffing one of my old threads...extending the Oakwood mansion district south of Dorothy Lane: Kettering West of Far Hills (including some links to bios for a few local industrialists, so one can see where the $$$ came from)

Cicero still seems pretty healthy to me, too. The wierd thing there is they tore down most of the huge Western Electric plant and turned it into a big box retail shopping center (places like Home Depot), yet kept a few of the Western Electric buidlings (including I think the smokestack). Which is maybe something EStL (or Gary) should think about...redeveloping vacant land by building a discount power center or outlet mall as a way to re-use vacant land, and give the poor people there some cheap places to shop.

There is a lot of interesting things going on with the planning and landscaping in Oakwood west of Far Hills, the way the topography and dense wooded lots create a sort of optical illusion. Though large, the houses dont sit on "estates" like in, say, Indian Hills, just fairly large lots. The way the landscaping and plantings, street layouts, and topography work hide this density, giving the illusion of a less dense area. Its also neat the way the houses and streets interweave with greenspace (like the Houk Stream park) , the "rough" and back fairways of the country club, and Hills and Dales park.. What is interesting to speculate is that if the Olmstead firm did the country club, Hills and Dales park, laid out some of the subdivisions, as well as landscaped some of the estate grounds...though these where seperate commissions, perhaps the firm did them as additive pieces to an evolving landscape gesamtkunstwerk, where the parts add up to a whole.

Anne Heller, the Dayton Daily News food critic, did a retrospective on her years as food reviewer I think in the Friday paper. One of the things that I didn't know is that L'Auberge is fairly new, dating to only 1979. I thought the place had been around since the 50s or 60s. For newer restaurants (last five - ten years) I think Eclipse (in the old part of Centerville) is one of the best. Oh, I can see how this would work. Only one seating means the chef can lavish more time on the dishes, thus very high quaity?

Nothing like some pix of the Oakwood estate district to push me into thoughts of a Sunday drive! It is grand, isn't it? Yet, It was never ordained that Oakwood would become what it is today... The place was first platted in the early 1870s as an end-of-the-line horescar suburb, but it was not the only place like that in Dayton. Oakwood was competing similar end-of-the-line plats in east and west Dayton and with the Datyonview across the river. These places where at first more sucessfull than Oakwood in attracting Dayton's bourgouis. In fact Oakwood didn't expand beyond its orginal small plat for most of the 19th century, and there doesn't seem to be much from that era still standing. The horescar, later streetcar, company also operated a little picnic grove there at the end of the line, as a way drummng up buisness. The rich of Dayton preferred the Dayton View and Grafton Hills areas for "suburban" locations, thus Oakwood languished. It was probably the combination of the 1913 flood, the failure of Dayton's elite to secure a location for the country club off of Salem Avenue, and John Patterson's selection of Oakwood for his "Far Hills" estate that made Oakwood. One of the early Oakwood subdivisions, below the hill & closer to Dayton, was Schantz Park, and it is a great example of how restrictive covenants where used as a form of zoning, as that subdivision had sort of a gradation of value and size, based on the block and the street the lot was on. One was required to build a house of a certain size, with a yard of certain size, per deed restrictions. The developer, Adam Schantz (who was a brewer as well as a real estate speculator) also may have had something to do with the development of Moraine as well. Patterson had a great deal to do with Oakwoods 20th century developement. He had required his National Cash Register managment to live near him, which meant a real estate boom in the areas east of Far Hills avenue and south of the Patterson "Far Hills" estate...this was where the white collar workforce started to relocate, while buisness owners (like the Rike deptarment store owners) and CEOs lived in the mansions west of Far Hills. Oakwood also benefited by the streetcar extension up the hill and down Far Hills, following the plats as they opened. This line ran on private right-of-way, which is now the northbound lanes of Far Hills. The first defeat at suburban annexation came in Oakwood, in the 1920s. The haute bourgouis west of Far Hills felt that since they did not live in "Dayton", they had no real voice or influence in Dayton city government, thus wanted Oakwood to be annexed. It was the middle management/white collar workers east of Far Hills that didn't want this, as they liked the snob appeal of living in an "exclusive" suburb (which was restricted to whites and gentiles via deed convenants, though the Jews where permitted a cemetary..the Jews couldnt live in Oakwood, but they could be bureid there). So the east-of-Far-Hills people organized against the annexation/merger attempt, defeated it, and retained Oakwood as an exclusive suburb seperate from Dayton.

I really liked that Thoreau Institute article, especially about the engineering bias and decentralized approach in the development of the interstate system. It seems things like engineering-heavy programs seem to be fairly sucessfull, like the TVA and the "man on the moon" phase of the space program. I thought this was sort of interesting as well: This was probably a missed opportunity. A certain % of the gas tax should have been retained for insterstate operations, maintenance, and recapitalization, but the balance should have been redirected toward mass transit. Around the time the interestates where nearing completetion (early 70s) there was also the end of private mass transit, with public takeover of the last private transit companies. There was also the the start of the interest in mass rail transit, like light rail. The bulk of the gas tax should have been redirected towards revitalizing and expanding public transit, both the newly public systems and older public systems. Probably some formulaic approach could have been used, the similar to the way interstate funds where distributed.

Tumbleweed looks like it has a pretty good view of Jeffboat. And I see they are still mooring barges off Towhead Island. According to that wiki entry it looks like they are going to incorporate it into the design as some sort of enry feature. Another interesting thing is that the facade had been moved once before, relocated from an interestate ROW. Architecturally this is somewhat new for Louisville, though perhaps commonplace elsewhere. Louisville usually is pretty conservative/traditional when it comes to spec architecture.

Well, you know how demo-happy Dayton is. I doubt there is going to be any new parking garages. They can be pretty expensive, running between $5,700 to $8,000 - $9,000 per space, depedning on how many levels the garage and how large the site is. I'm not sure the city has any money for this. The re-orientation or better marketing of that big garage by the Neon, as what was mentioned in the article, is probably what they will be doing.

Gee, I dont know. What outback?

Here are some flood pix of the vicinity of this proposed complex...put out by some opponents of the scheme Photos page, Floods "Your new condo is straight down this road about a half mile or so. You should be able to get home sometime in the next couple of weeks..."

The original bridge was pretty odd in its approaches, especially the one on the Russel side, which had these righ-angle turns on the ramp leading off the bridge. There is another one of those cable stayed bridges in the Huntington-Ashland area, over on the east side of Huntington, across to Ohio.

I think I posted on the one here in Centerville. There are a few others around Dayton too.

It is in the way of the developement. The history behind this facade is somewhat tragic, as this patriotic display was in reaction to some fairly violent anti-immigrant/sectarian violence. Interestingly enough The Point gets its own wikipedia entry! The Point was a thriving 19th century neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky, east of Downtown Louisville and opposite Towhead Island along the Ohio River. It was also located north of the present day Butchertown area. Starting in the 1840s it was home to many upper income residents who had moved from New Orleans, giving the area on Fulton Street the nickname "the Frenchmen's Row". They built many mansion houses in the area, the best known of which was the Heigold House (completed in 1853), which featured a very detailed facade with the faces of early American leaders engraved on it. It was built by immigrant stonemason Christopher Heigold. In 1854 many houses where demolished when Beargrass Creek was rerouted from Downtown Louisville through the area. Many more houses where torn down after the great Ohio River flood of 1937. Comtemporary Louisville leaders wanted the entire area depopulated and replaced with a park called Point Park Project, which was done to the extreme northern part of the area, now called Thruston Park, although those plans never came to fruitition for the rest of the area. However, many residents gradually did leave and by the 1970s the entire area was vacant. Today the only remaining structures are the decorated front facade of the Heigold house and the adjacent Padgett house, both of which were moved to their present location from the area of Frankfort Ave and I-71. There are currently plans to build 400 unit high rise condominum complex called River Park Place at the site [1], where the facade would be moved to the project's Frankfort Ave entrance, while the fate of the historic Padgett house remains uncertain. There have also been talks of converting Bandman Park into a wetlands bird sanctuary, pending the movement of the soccer fields there. ...well, I never knew about that French connection, as I thought the New Orleans settlers and trade connections where more at Portland and Shippingport. LOL..really? Maybe in New York. The towers and plaza look like a lot of fun, but the low rises are pretty bland. It looks like the thing is raised above grade (perhaps there is a big parking garage at grade, with the earth mounds screening it somehow? In any case I dont see how this could be built at grade do the flooding issue..surely the COE would never permit this. Not only that, he remains fairly civil, too.

I was thinking of the problem of people not wanting to walk a few blocks to the 5th Street strip because they want parking practicaly next door or are afraid to walk in the city after dark. There are times I've had to park a bit further than just a block or two beyond Fifth, but parking was not that far away...usually out beyond the Gym Club near Dayton Towers, or out around Patterson towards the library, or off of Wayne An those whining Oregon residents, who have been whining since I moved here in 1988, whining probably ever since they moved in and gentrified the neighborhood. One thinks they would be happier in a century house in Germantown or Miamisburg instead of in the heart of a city next to a big nightclub district. But its this uncompromising suburban mentality/fear of the city thing that just annoys me sometimes.

Both events are free and open to all. The Celtic Festival is held on the riverfront, last year drew 50,000 downtown, so is proving to be quite popular here! Multiple stages, vendors, food and drink, etc. The Celtic Festvial will be on 28th, 29th, & 30th of July. Dayton Celtic Festival @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ The Blues Festival is held on Dave Hall Plaza, and wil have two stages, vendors, food & drink. It will be the 13th of August (Sunday).

You know, Akron, as its not featured here too much, would make a great Urban Ohio meet. As for the passport..heck Id take the tour, just to take the tour.

They are close-in, but they aren't downtown. This is sort of a no-mans-land area along the Ohio, with low density industrial stuff and vacant land (including an island in the river, Towhead Island). Part of this is being developed as parkland, and I think this developement will abut the park (not sure about that though). The area used to be called "The Point", as it was a point of land between Beargrass Creek (Louisville's "urban stream") and the Ohio, where the creek ran parallell to the river. Beargrass was eventually relocated and the dry creekbed became a city dump, later the route of I-71 and "Spaghetti Junction". The Point was once a real neighborhood, with houses & river-related industry...sort of a river rat neighborhood like Shippingport Island...., but it flooded out so much that all that was eventually either washed away or was torn down, leaving but one remnant, the old Heigold House front, which was patriotic display by a German immigrant. This house front will have to be relocated to make room for this complex.

What a sad, sad commentary on Dayton. Also, has anyone here noticed how 5th Street in the Oregon never was really completely developed, as there are still a number of vacant storefronts and buildings on it....this was the case in 1988 when I moved here and it's still the case today.

One of the things that distinguishes Gary from a place like, say, Youngstown, is that the downtown was completley abandonded by the buisness community. At over 100,000 pop Gary was not a small town, and had its own banks and proffessionals and so forth, but they left en-masse for the suburban areas around the Lake Mall. The hospital was going to leave too, but the city government had to play hardball with things like federal grants and state liscensing to force it to stay in town.

The plan is available for download, so you all can read it. I have, and it looks pretty good. Of course, this being Ohio, it will probably not be adopted. But there is always a first time. If it is this would probably be a landmark in te history of controlling sprawl in this state.