Posted April 29, 201015 yr Although South High School has been removed, this should still be a great tour. Those of us attending can set up a time/place to meet. You are invited to a once-in-a-decade event — the chance to visit the interiors of significant pieces of Ohio architecture “up close and personal.” Its Springfield’s “Forbidden City Tour,” which takes place from 1:00 to 5:00 on Saturday, May 22. The tour features five buildings rarely open to the public. The buildings include: Metallic Casket Castle Knoll Crowell Collier The Tecumseh Building 915 E. High Street Each of these structures are incredible pieces of Springfield and Ohio history, and each has both incredible architecture to showcase and stories to tell. Docents will be available at each tour stop, and light refreshments will be served at Castle Knoll. The cost for tickets is $20 in advance, and $25 on the day of the tour. The Forbidden City Tour is sponsored by Preservation Ohio, Hucklebuck Design Studio and by students at the Springfield campus of Clark Technical College. http://preservationohio.org/2010/02/21/take-a-tour-of-the-forbidden-city/
April 29, 201015 yr Thanks. I will be attending for sure. Will tripods be allowed? I guess I should call them.
May 16, 201015 yr I will be attending this with my sisters, Quimmie Ann & Quimmie Sue. We all have bad feet. When we go out walking together it's pretty comical. anyway, while you are in Springfield..... Westcott house on E High Lagonda Club on Spring & High Between these 2 locations is where the rich & powerful lived. Later they moved to Ridgewood. Go uo Fountain to the north end of, I believe, abandoned Mercy Hospital at Sunnyside. Turn left & then go straight to Pythian & turn right to Brighton or just get on Brighton from Sunnyside. This is the Ridgewood neighborhood pioneered by Harry Kissel. His house is further up Fountain at 1801. Soon to be demolished Memorial Hall is just NW of Crowell Collier The new hospital is due north of Memorial Hall Just south of downtown on Fountain is the S Fountain Historical District This is a block west of South High. Ferncliff Cemetery on Plum just west of Wittenberg & Cliff/Veteran's Park Dining & grub suggestions Groeber's at Bechtle & First st Used to be known for the best burger in town. O'Conner's off Home Road on Moorman ok sandwiches Roberts on Miami on Miami just west of the square in Urbana about 10 miles north of Springfield on Limestone. kinda eclectic There is a restaurant in the Springfield Inn in downtown. It's adequate. Linardo's on 2230 E Main Old school Greek Hickory Inn on Limestone & Chestnut just north of downtown Casano's Pizza King on N Limestone just past Harding Thin salty pizza from the Gem city It's cut into little squares Schuler's Bakery just east of Downtown on Main Be sure to pick up some Mumford's potato chips (made in Urbana), too.
May 19, 201015 yr Sorry about that, folks! I revised the page recently, which changed the URL -- and hence the link. Silly me forgot to update it here! Here's the correct link: http://preservationohio.org/2010/05/14/take-a-tour-of-the-forbidden-city/ Hope to see some of you on Saturday. Hunt me up -- I will be in the Tecumseh Building. Thomas/presOhio
May 20, 201015 yr So, I ordered tickets but I have no idea where to go, where to pick up tickets... From the FaceBook page, it appears South High is on the list? Is there a phone number for the organizers?
May 22, 201015 yr Looking forward to seeing folks tomorrow during the tour -- I will be at the Tecumseh Building. Ink is absolutely right -- you can pick up online purchase tickets at Castle Knoll, 901 West High Street. The response to the tour has been nothing less than overwhelming, I'm thrilled to say. One pre-sale location had gone through 50 tickets as of last night; we got them 20 additional tickets this morning, and they were gone by 2:00 p.m.. We sold many more than that number online.
May 23, 201015 yr The tour was ok. It was very poorly planned & executed. Communication was poor. I don't say this to jump anybody's pooh. My fellow travelers & I have been involved with organazizng similar events. Maps - They should have had maps of the area. Literature - should have been packaged & included the map. Sponsors could advertise to offset costs. Nearby restaurants, bars, cafes & such. Tourists, especially out of towners, would want info for these establishments, too. As it was, PDFs could have been available online so tourists could have printed their own info sheets. This goes for the missing map as well. Locations were running out of info sheets as early as 3. Announcements could have been made to inform people of the unique issues of the Crowell Collier building - Notice of the need for good shoes & flashlights should have been made. Signage - balloons were good but balloons at corners would have helped. Tecumseh Building - C'mon, the building was completely stripped. What was the point? One thing that was there was the directory. Well the frame. The listing plaques were all gone. But wait! They weren't! The docent lead us back to a pile of the plaques. WHY WEREN'T THEY IN THE FRAME? cool tidbit, WHIO had a news office in the building. Nobody would know this if they just walked in & out, tho..... Hat tip to the docent who pointed them out. The factories had no frame of reference. Posters on easels with old pictures & some text describing what went on when manufacturing was still going on would have been helpful. Pictures can frequently be found in old newsletters & promotional brochures the companies published. The FOR SALE sign in front of the Bushnell Dimond house was tacky. Some docents were about useless. All were very nice & seemed to be really into what they were doing but some seemed to have no knowledge of what the buildings they represented. The guy at Metallic Casket was great & very knowledgeable. Anyway, glad the tour was so successful. Hopefully enough money was raised to do a better job with future events. One thing Quimmie Sue suggested was to have a guestbook at the buildings so people could jot down their relationships to & memories of the buildings. Thanking the folks involved online would be a nice touch. ALSO Part of the density of the Crowell Collier Building was to cut down the the vibrations of the presses (not just to hold 'em up) so the pre-press dept on an upper floor (6th ?) could do it's job. Color separations were done by camera & exposures could take several minutes through the dark dense filters. The blue filter (for the yellow printer) was really dark. If the camera was vibrating, the image would get fuzzy. They used 4 - 6 arc lamps to light artwork back then. Noisy, stinky filthy nasty arc lamps. ugh..
May 23, 201015 yr I thought the tour was great, although I was disappointed that only the first floor of the Tecumseh Building was open. I was being naive, I suppose, but I was very excited about climbing the floors of that building and wished we had known upfront only the first level would be open.
May 23, 201015 yr Thanks for the comments -- even those which were less than glowing. I am aware of what went on “behind the scenes,” and it is incredibly helpful to connect that information with feedback from participants. I will share that we were obviously caught offguard by the turnout. This was our first attempt at such a large-scale tour, and the response greatly exceeded even our most liberal estimates. In this difficult economy, at that price point, we had estimated dozens – not hundreds – of participants. We got an idea of the response earlier in the week when in-person ticket vendors reported brisk sales, and we tried our hardest to match a much higher estimate. Even then, on the day of the tour, we had another 70-75 purchase tickets at the door. The Tecumseh Building was also our biggest disappointment. That news (as to the upper floor closure) came to us on the very morning of the tour. Many of your ideas, Quimbob, are top-notch. In particular, I love the ideas about the guest books and online interface. I will pass all of your ideas on to the tour committee and to our entire Board. Speaking of which – we have every intention of doing this again, an in particular to rotate it to other Ohio communities. This is just a small part of what Preservation Ohio does, and all of it takes not only planning, but creative ideas like the ones you shared. We are sorely in need of Board members and volunteers who would be willing to share that creativity, particularly members of the upcoming generation who would like to be involved in statewide preservation efforts. It’s a great group of people to work with, and we have a great deal of fun. Please don’t be shy about contacting me about becoming a part of the organization. Take my word for it -- you would be incredibly welcome. Last thing – PDFs of the information sheets for each tour location are now available on our website -- http://preservationohio.org/2010/05/14/take-a-tour-of-the-forbidden-city/ Thomas/presOhio
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