Jeff

Well, when I think of some popular or important urban affairs writers of the recent past: Louis Mumford Jane Jacobs Joel Garreau Mike Davis James Kunstler ...none of these had backrounds in geography, urban planning, or architecture. The posters at SSC and SSP seem to be fairly well informed, but yeah, there is this "who's dick is bigger" mentality on those boards...where information sharing can quickly devovle into exchanging spin. I'm a bit too cynical for all that boosterism, though I post quite a bit at both boards....which I sort of wonder about as I'm not that super-interested in skyscrapers or "development".

I moved to Dayton before the Trotwood/Madison Twp merger, so I guess I see the Salem Avenue/Salem Mall area as its own area, not so much part of Trotwood. For me Trotwood was pretty much the old town you see in the pix, plus the surrounding subdivisions and some small strip development. Legally, with the meger, about half of Drexel is now part of Trotwood, too.

...nothing in Dayton is that big, except that Cityfolk thing, where they actually do close a few blocks along the river for it. It is also a combination with 4th of July. The MLK Day parade & rally was actually pretty impressive, moreso for being held at the heart of the city, 3rd & Main.

The oldest house in my community, Washington Township, is the Ewing House, later renamed Quaker Hill 1797 (the "Mount Vernon" style portico is a later addition, from the 1940s). Though most of the very early houses in Dayton are gone, there are a few survivors of the early 19th century in Centerville and Bellbrook Ashael Wright house..not sure if this is the oldest in Centerville proper, but it is represntative of the oldest houses at the "four corners"... 1817, 1830 addition perhaps an inn or commercial building, in Bellbrook: 1820s

The oldest building in Dayton not on its original site. Newcom Tavern, one of the first buildings in Dayton, relocated to Carillon Park. Originally at the corner of Main and Monument downtown 1796 The oldest house in the city limits on its original location...an old farmhouse from 1809 or so in Westwood...this could be the oldest brick building in Dayton, too... Early 1800s (there may be other early farmhouses within the city limits, but ' not aware of them...I have some guesses, though). The oldest house in downtown Dayton, before the canal era. This is the oldest true 'city house' on its orginal location.... 1827 (there is supposed to be an older one down the street, but I don't have a date, or a pix) The second oldest house in downtown Dayton...and the earlierst extant 'double'... 1829 The oldest dated house from the Oregon 1840 I think there was an entire era of building that is mostly lost to us, the pre-canal (pre 1829) and early canal era..the 1830s and early 1840s. Very little survives from before that era in the city. Beginning with the 1840s more and more buildings survive into our era.

I don like comics, nor comic-based movies...except that the X-Men movies was pretty good, mainly because of the excellent performances by the two leads...Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan..tho the second one was sort of heavy handed on the "gay rights" subtext. As for this one, Hugo Weaving would be a good reason to see the movie as I recall his great performance in Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Lord of the Rings (and yeah, the Matrix).... ...however I understand he is wearing a mask during this movie? Umm....not sure about that. I did sort of think Ed Norton (i think?) as the King Baldwin character in that Crusader movie was OK, as an example of an actor playing a roll without one seeing his face..., but that was a supporting character.

What's sadder is the couple from Franklin Furnace who wanted to go on a honeymoon to Dayton. Not Cincinnati, or even Niagra Falls....Dayton. (the Ohio Franklin Furnace is not to be confused with the infamous New York City Franklin Furnace who's hipster types would never ever ever consder a honeymoon in Dayton)

Yeah, there has been discussion here of percieved bias in the Enquirers urban coverage. I dont read that paper, but from what ive read on this Urban Ohio site, it seems they really are "not helping" when it comes to urban revitalization.

Robs discussion on my Springfield pix thread made me think again about the pix I took of the Darke County Steam Threshers event last summer. I figured Id go ahead and post them as they are just so much fun. And they actually are relevant to urbanization in Ohio and elsewhere in the Midwest, as it was the manufacturing of farm implements and machinery that played a part in the industrialization of the midwest...and industrialization often led to urbanization. That certainly was the case for Dayton as I've seen ads for "land locomotives" and also early illustrations of them, from Dayton city directories and a city atlas. This was Springfields big buisness too. And it was the case for a numbe of smaller and mid-sized midwest cities. Starting out with a few Case engines. Made in Racine Wisconisn. ...and, painted on one of the rear tanks, a great illustration of the Case factory in Racine...with a river port on Lake Michigan. Case imported its workforce from Denmark, and Racine has the largest Danish ancestry community in the US as a consequence: An Advance engine, made in Battle Creek. This engine was made in Richmond Indiana... ...as you can tell it takes quite a few parts to build one of these, requiring skills like molding, machine shop work in making the parts with some precision, as well as some engineering knowlege. So the manufacture of these things helped midwestern citys develop "human capital", a workforce with technical skills that could be applied to other things, such as automobiles, gas enignes, parts, etc..... A Minneapolis engine. I wonder if this company was the forerunner of Minneapolis-Moline? This was neat..this old farm lady was running this engine. It was made in Columbus, Indiana.... "land locomotives" And some in action. Starting out with a threshing operation...seperating the wheat from the chaff, I guess.... ..connecting to the combine.... And another demonstration....this one to generate power..... As this draws people from all over the woods are sort of the campground and food/drink place... ...related organizations.... ..and also demonstrations of smaller examples of labor saving machinery, such as motorized washing machines and water pumps and such..... hmm...????..... And this sawmill demonstration was sort of interesting..... ...interesting, you can see they have a tensioning wheel for the "big rubber band" (belts are probably really out of leather) ..another Case enigne... product, with power source in backround... Then there was a good little tractor show, too.... ..the big red one in the foreground is a "Massie-Harris", probably a forerunner of Massie-Ferguson: Art Deco John Deere.... "Sweet Allis-Chalmers"...made in Milwaulkee, West Allis... Minneapolis-Moline...I have a personal connection with this company as my grandfather worked there (at their St Paul plant) back when he was in Wisconsin..he'd come back to work on the farm on weekends but lived in St Paul during the week in a bording house...worked in MM machine shop... And a few Oliver tractors. Made in South Bend. Before Studebaker and Bendix, the Oliver company was the big industry in South Bend. The Oliver Mansion, Copshalom (and a workers house, to show how the other half lived), is open for tours...a pretty good house museum. But this is what they made, amoung other things (Oliver started out making plows)....they imported workers from Poland and Hungary... ...neat deco/streamlined design.... ...the Midwest, famers, wheat, tractors (made in the Midwest): And some farewell pix:

The last statement all of a sudden makes sense. Since the Dayton paper and Middletown paper dominate the area directly north of Cincinnati, from Middletown and Lebanon north, the Cincinnati papers out-of-city market probably dips way down into rural northern Kentucky...deeper than just the Covington/Newport/Boone County area but extending to the next tier of counties south, like Pendleton and Grant, and east along the Ohio River to probably Augusta. So they Enquirer is could be really reaching down into Kentucky for their market and readership, beyond metro Cincinnati.

...continuing northwest on the bikepath from Air Hill we come to Brookville. Brookville is much more substantial than Trotwood, with a fairly built up mainstreet, and as its close to the interstate (I-70) it has more suburban style development and commercial development in a more conventional suburban style between the old town of Brookville and the interstate. Yet the charm of the place is, of course, the old part of town. One of the original Dayton & Western stations survives here...Brookville was a junction point, where the railroad forked, with a branch to Greenville and a branch to, I guess, Richmond. old house near the station old commercian building near the station Some bits of Brookvilles substantial main street. residential Brookville.... Brookville is somewhat interesting, as the town is laid out at strange angles, not a true grid, and there is a creek passing through the center of town. These pix dont show that. And I had to crib this one from the Brookville Historical Society...one of the grand victorians of Montgomery County, which is a house museum now.... Heading north out of town, a brief excursion to the National Road (US 40), at Bachman. This is sort of like Airhill, not much left of what was probably just a small station and cluster of houses.... Bachman...looking toward Brookville (and, beyond, Airhill and Trotwood) and northwest toward Wenger Lawn and Verona US 40/National Road, heading west toward Indiana and a few old houses/buildings hiding in the trees. Not really a well developed "string town" one finds elsewhere on US 40, like Centerville, Indiana, or maybe Aurora, to the east of here in Montg. County. So thats about it for our trip along the old Dayton & Western, now the Wolf Creek Trail. Beyond here, Wenger Lawn is more a villiage, and i dont know what Verona looks like. Hopefully they will extend this trail into Dayton one day. A final look at US 40/National Road, into the east. Quintessential midwest rural landscape, but we are still in Montgomery County..the country is always close at hand in Dayton.

Heading out of Trotwood, Air Hill was the next stop on the Dayton and Western. Not much is left, but its a pleasant country drive.... we get to Airhill by following the "midwest grid" of country roads south and west and north of Trotwood ..this is all thats left of a rural villiage or locality called Post Town exurban ribbon/intermittent development along country roads A word here about Sycamore State Park, which probably no one has heard of. This was going to be the Newfields new town, part of a "new towns" program sort of copied after the British example. I think only one of these ever really happened, Jonathan, near Minneapolis. Newfields was going to be the Dayton new town, to be developed by the Huber interests. Land was aquired but something happened, and nothing was ever built. The land became Sycamore State Park, which acts as sort of a greenbelt between Trotwood and Brookville. These roads pass through Sycamore State Park, which partly surrounds Airhill. Getting closer.... ...and we are there. Nothing there except two or three houses, including this big white double at the railroad crossing.. bikepath and Airhill House. I can see this as a bed and breakfast catering to cyclists...??? Airhill "Station" Sycamore State Park..mostly dead fields and woodlots.... Bikepath to Trotwood. ..and northwest to Brookville, which will be our next stop. ...on to Brookville...

On a map Trotwood looks like a vast expanse of area. That is because Trotwood merged with Madison township. Much of that land is open country still, though there are suburban developements scattered about, more closer to Dayton. The place started out as a railroad stop on the Dayton & Western, the first railroad west of Dayton...to Richmond and Greenville. Later this became part of the Pennsylvania Rairoad, their passenger mainline west to St Louis. Trotwood proper is the "old town". An old railroad town, perhaps even a bit of a railroad suburb. The place reminds me very much of the outer 'railroad suburbs' of Chicago like Winfield or Bartlett or Itasca, or at least what they used to be like before being overwhelmed by sprawl. You could take Trotwood and move it up to Chicagoland and back 30 years and give it commuter rail service and this is what those outer burbs would have looked like. As it is this is one of Daytons hidden suburban gems. It really is mostly untouched by sprawl, though there is some 1950s developement attached to the old pre WWII suburb. Heading out of town to the south and west there is no subdivisions or commercial development and you are in open farm country. So, Trotwood.... ..a little farmers market thing downtown.... ...chech out the pressed metal siding made to look like stone on this baby: Trotwood side streets.... busy street heading west out of town... 19th century neogothic church, but with a newer vestibule and steeple.. This is Wolf Creek. Channelized in Dayton, it is free-flowing around Trotwood, around the south of the old town. There is a real nice park along it where they have a fairly large jazz festival in the summer.... This is one of those vernacular Dayton "urban I houses", usually found on tight urban lots in the old 19th century working class neighborhoods of Dayton, here in a more open setting: ...wow!: This is a real old farmhouse, set way back in its lot... The Iams family, of whom that Iams who founded the pet food company came from, lived here. I think the owners where the grandparents of the pet food Iams... The house has a collection of Ohio pottery and china.... ..and furniture made by Dayton furniture makers... rear of the Iams House.. Heading into downtwon Trotwood from the west (the Iams House is to the south) is where one can catch the bikepath. The railroad is now a bikepath up to Airhill, Brookville, Bachman, Wenger Lawn, and Verona. It doesn't continue into Dayton, though. We'll follow the bikepath north to Airhill for some country road riding in western Montgomery County....on to Airhill...

Me too...I am really interested in this old industrial developement and technolgoy. Hard to find sources though on local things. Linseed oil mills/presss?..run by water power. An early industry in Dayton..but what did the machinery look like? Rattler rooms in foundries? ..I see these on the Sanborns, but whats a "rattler" in this context?

The hydroelectric connection happened here in Dayton in a way. The old Dayton View hydraulic canal, which was built for waterpower via wheels and turbines, became the source for hydrolectric power for DP&L, the local utiltiy, which built its first generating station on the race, in what is now McKinley Park...that park was orginally the industrial site for the Dayton View Hydraulic, but attracted only a few factories. The Dayton View Hydraulic was the last built in Dayton at least "sucessfull", was filled in, and is todays Great Miami Bouelevard. Springfield had a three or four hydraulic races...the one at Lagonda, and one that tapped Buck Creek about there and then went downtown, with the tailrace factories near Limestone street (some foundation ruins and one factory survive)..and a creek south and west of downtown (which now runs partly underground through downtown proper) provided waterpower to some early factories, including the first Champion plant just south/southeast of downtown.

I think AK could break the union, if they can get enough replacement workers to run the mill. It might be a good sign for the union if AK is advertising for these, as it could indicate they are not able to run the mill they way they would like, with the people they do have on hand.

I think the union should just follow what the Ashland plant agreed to. That seems to be what AK is looking for. As it stands AK seems pretty serious about sitting the union out on this.

....well, they made turbines in Springfield, as water power kicked off industrialism here, so there was an interest in the technology. According to an old map, this was part of the 'Champion Machine Company", and it appears there was indeed a hydraulic race here, but on the side of the river (Buck Creek) that I am taking the pix from. Nearly nothing left but foundations. This was a huge complex by the old maps. The area was called "Lagonda", sort of an industrial suburb at the time. I think this may have been built around the 1880s.

I don't see Warren County doing much to retain "the pleasantries of a rural environment". A bunch of jawboning by politicians for he NMBYs. Warren is going to be a mess. They pretty much repeated the same crappy development pattern in Springboro, beteen I-75 and Springboro Pike, that you can see in Montogomery County by the Dayton Mall.....bad example up the road, and they just repeated it.

The Sparks guy comes off as an asshole who is not very empathetic towards the plight of the people in his photos. I laughed at a few of his lines though: There is no building that cannot be made into a ghetto church in Dayton. I thought that was decent. It is sort of hard to be emphatic with some, but then poor people have to live somewhere...and the somewhere around here is the City of Dayton, Drexel, and parts of Riverside, Fairborn, and Harrison Twp. I guess what I like about him is that he sort of sees the city the same way I do. You'll note I nearly never post pix of gentrification or redevelopement, as that is not really representative of what is going on here. ..I look more at the old factory districts and old neighborhoods, and the suburbs. And at the impact of urban renewal in emascualting the city. As for his comments I see them more as sardonic and gallows humor. Not sure how much an asshole he is...never met him. He and his SO make an appearance in the This Old Crack House blog as the whacky neighbors As for the hanging man, I think I recently took a pix of that house...that is just down the street from where Sparks lives.

or the Haunted Soul Factory? "Got seven dollars to my name Got sixteen cigarettes somehow I just ain't smoked yet Got two shoelaces and two shoes I should toss ‘em on the telephone wire as a monument to my blues" "I'm goin' down to get a coffee Gonna mean one less buck Maybe six will bring me luck Got a little shake I kept in the fridge Gonna drink my bean and walk out smoking on the Walt Whitman Bridge" "Faraway from these winter streets On a cloudless day Your memory Blows away" My heart is the bums on the street With nothing to eat and their dirty hands cupped up My heart is the squirrels in the park Late Sunday evening dodging the raindrops My heart is a barrel on fire That blows burnin' ashes at a telephone wire My heart is the avenue wind rattlin' street signs With its delicate din... My heart is the smell of the sewer, The taste of the lobster, the price of the wine My heart is the rush of the traffic The tug of the music, the scene of the crime My heart is the crowd that keeps cheerin' The trains by the river, the points that we score My heart is this wondrous city With its love and its life And its one..slammin' door I've waited all through the years love To give you a heart true and real Cause I know you're living in sorrow In your loveless mansion on the hill The light shine bright from yer window The trees stand so silent and still I know you're alone with your pride dear In your loveless mansion on the hill This was the Common Sense Engine Company. Engines of Common Sense. I guess they ran on pragmatism. (song lyrics from Marah and Hank Williams)

Sounds like me. I am definetly going to check it out, and Vistula, too. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ I can't speak to the Cincy music scene...they have had some interesting things like the Ass Ponys and Messerle & Ewing, but I found this online by a singer songwriter who was originally from Cincy, but moved to Nashville and then to Dayton..... "In Fall 2001 I relocated to southern Ohio from Nashville, TN. I lived outside Cincinnati for a year, commuting to Dayton, OH for school and work, and scoping out both cities' musical offerings. In my first estimations, I found the Cincinnati scene creatively conservative and laden with a certain emotional testosterone. Coming from Nashville and a more even gender balance among musical artists, it was unsettling to be in the minority again. Don't get me wrong, being surrounded by men is a great way to get noticed, and although I appreciated the attention (being a girl was never a "gimmick" in Nashville - there were far too many of us) I felt immediately relegated to the lesbian folk scene in Cincinnati, a common generalization of guitar-proficient women songwriters in our culture. Legitimate guitar chops seem to translate into a suspicion of one's true femininity. I heard the compliment more than a few times, "you play guitar like a man!" It is a compliment that comes with a limitation for my gender, and always makes me a little sad, despite its intent. I moved to Dayton in the summer of 2002 and started to carve out the smallest of niches. I felt like I had stumbled upon something subtle but very intricate and full of life in the Dayton music scene. This town seems to be a crossroads of the Midwest. There are amazing resources hiding around every corner - from Canal Street Tavern (God save it) to some very well-established studios to the numerous regional and national touring artists who've gotten their start here. But where were the women artists? I sought them out instinctually. I met a few right away: Sharon Lane, for one. I saw her on a Tuesday at the Canal Street co-op. I remember disinterestedly reading a book at a table by myself, never expecting the soul that poured forth from that dusty old instrument. I stared wide-eyed at her, thinking to myself, it's 10:30 on a Tuesday night in Dayton, Ohio - who is this woman at the piano? It's almost as if the mid-sized quality of Dayton breeds an appreciation for originality that many markets miss. Not originality for its own sake, mind you, but a factor "x" that can only result from honest art delivered without pretense to an audience who accepts and expects just that. Many of the artists in this area share this quality, but I became intrigued by the women artists, who I quickly found to be more numerous than in many cities of a similar size. I wanted to begin to study and understand what sort of feminine voice this unique, creatively-charged, if sometimes-sleepy scene would propagate. There are so many expectations for women in music - I was interested in the music that comes from women when the dominant expectation is inimitability, as it seemed to be in Dayton, Ohio." link

good grief...that cartoon.

Only one vote against. Very impressive! No more comments from me about Cincinnati being conservative. This wasn't even close. I just hope they don't partner with the Ohio Restoration Project/Patriot Pastors/Ken Blackwell and work some sort of a statewide ban on gay rights laws, like whats being attempted in Kentucky. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Of Ohio's "big six" cities, this leaves Dayton and Akron without gay rights laws.

....two dozen means 24 places in three blocks on those two streets. That is a remarkable concentration, well beyond what we have in Dayton, even for the Oregon District. The place in Toledo that I will probably be visiting if I go there is this Irish place called Mickey Finns, which apparently has live celtic/acoustic music. It is in the Vistula area, I think. @@@@@@ This discussion got me interested in whats happening downtown here in Dayton. I did two maps of the downtown and adjacent areas of Oregon and Webster Station, showing the various types of bars (one is an enlargement), as far as I know them. Some places can be a mix, like the hotel bar on the top of the Crown Plaza being a good jazz venue on weekends. For the GLBT places, one is really a mixed straight-gay place (the Masque disco). And some dance clubs, like Foundry, will have the occasional live show. I've also shown defunct places from over the years with a dotted circle...one of those was a branch of Toledos' Mutz..it was on the river, across from downtown, overlooking the skyline. Another one was one of those black bars ColDayMan mentioned, the Buckhorn, at the corner of Third and Jefferson. I was in there once, and it was actually pretty friendly, being an older black clientele mostly. It fell victim to the aborted "Entertainment District" concept of Hutchins Reality, as did the popular Boston Bistro on Jefferson and 2nd. And yet another was the bar at the SpagHouse, a restaurant bar which did have some people who went there to drink...which was turned into their smoking area. ...I've also shown those two proposed jazz places on Main Street on the block between 2nd and 1st. One is for sure going to open, where Skogalnics (and, before, Thomatos and Kittys) used to be. Not sure about the other yet, across the street from the Victoria. As of yet, there really isn't too much going on in that Webster Station area. Canal Street Tavern was there for years, but the new places are Therapy, Brixx, and the relocated Southern Belle. The place I am really liking for atmosphere and live music, after-show, after going to the Shuster, is J-Alans, in the Talbott Tower..it is turning into a pretty good live band venue, though it is somewhat isolated from the rest of the action downtown. Sort of an interesting discussion. I guess for drinking, really, I go out maybe more for the music and atmosphere, not so much to drink or meet people (though at the gay bars, I do "check in" with the regulars...sort of a neighborhood tavern concept for me, not really there to cruise).