On the return from my walk down Jefferson Avenue, I ambled back up Madison Avenue toward the Toledo Museum of Art. 

 

Levis Square sits on the site of the original Federal Building, and a block of Madison Avenue closed between Summit and St. Clair. The area was cleared as part of the Riverside Urban Renewal Project. The sculpture is "Kabuki Dance" (1984) by Jerry Pearl. The Square was renovated in the last few years, and hosts weekly concerts and food truck Thursdays during the warmer months. 

 

 

The Libbey name means Glass in Toledo. Almost every tall building in the city owes its origins to glass manufacturing. 

 

The International-style Tower on the Maumee was built as Fiberglas Tower, HQ for Owens-Corning.

 

Constructed as part of the mid-1960s Riverview Urban Renewal Project, it is said to be the first "open-office design" skyscraper constructed in the US (1969).

 

OC moved their headquarters a few blocks to the southwest in 1996, and this building sat empty until about three years ago when its longtime owner Eyde Company began renovating the upper floors for apartments.

 

A credit union and other businesses are beginning to occupy the other floors.  

 

Looking up Madison Avenue

 

Looking up Superior toward the Toledo Blade building. 

 

The "Four Corners" of Huron and Madison: Spitzer, Nicholas and Nasby Buildings

 

The Spitzer Building is cherished in Toledo. The Chicago-style building opened in 1896 and was soon doubled in size, and for decades housed many of the city's most prominent attorneys. The building was emptied about ten years ago, and suffered water damage a few years ago (no) thanks to an out-of-town owner.

 

The city has recently sought letters of interest from developers to renovate the Spitzer and Nicholas Buildings. The company completing renovations on Fort Industry Square has said they will start working soon on the Nasby Building. 

 

https://lucascountylandbank.org/properties/four-corners 

 

The "Four Corners Feasibility Study" has images from inside the Spitzer and Nicholas Buildings. 

 

The Huron facade of the Spitzer Building, showing the addition on the back-left. Behind that is LaSalle Apartments, in the glorious LaSalle Department Store (later Macy's) Building. 

 

The Nasby Building is named for Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby, a pseudonym for Toledo journalist David Ross Locke (1833-1888), who published "ironic, course and vicious Copperhead views of the Civil War" to illustrate Locke's support for the Union and vehement opposition to slavery.

 

The Renaissance-style tower was completed in the 1895, and was modeled after the Giralda Tower in Seville, Spain. The adjacent four-story Wayne building was completed in the 1920s. The cupola was removed from the Nasby Building in the 1930s, and then both the Nasby and Wayne buildings were "modernized" in the 1960s, the detailed facade mangled and destroyed. My dream for this building is to see it restored to its glory, much like the Schofield in Cleveland. 

 

Giralda Tower in Seville, inspiration for the Nasby Building

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giralda#/media/File:Sevilla_Cathedral_-_Giralda.jpg

 

Nasby in the early 1900s.

 

 

 

Posting this here for comparison - the Nicholas, Spitzer, and Ohio Buildings, and the smokestacks of the Edison Plant still visible down Madison Ave. 

 

Post-1960s facade

 

The city removed the facade several years ago, hoping to attract developer interest. 

 

https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2017/10/09/GALLERY-Nasby-Building-in-downtown-Toledo-through-the-years/stories/20171009142

 

 

 

Wayne Building

 

The Nicholas Building housed 5/3 Bank for several years before it moved to One Seagate, former HQ of Owens-Illinois. 

 

I think there's a future thread on abandoned pedestrian plazas in downtown Toledo. This is Galbraith Park, next to a former Toledo Area Regional Transit Assoc (TARTA) bus stop that was closed a couple years ago. The renovation of the Nasby and Wayne Buildings were on hold until the developer could get control of this area for parking (a garage perhaps?). TARTA consolidated the downtown stops and bus loop to the former Goodwill Building on Cherry Street, leaving this stop and Galbraith Park empty. 

 

Looking down Erie Street (Ohio State Route 25)

 

Looking up Erie Street to the Lucas County Services Building (L) and the Michael DiSalle Government Center (R) designed by Minoru Yamasaki, Toledo's 4th tallest. 

 

Louisville Title Building, corner of Madison and Erie. 

 

Looking down Ontario to the Pythian Castle behind the trees. 

 

The Hylant Building was the first international-style, postwar tower in Toledo. Competed in 1960 as the headquarters of the Libbey-Owens-Ford Company, which supplied windshield glass for US automakers, the building today houses the Hylant Corporation, a major insurance services firm. 

 

The Main Branch of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, constructed during the New Deal, and the brick Toledo Building on Michigan Street. 

 

Much of the infrastructure in downtown Toledo is decades old and in bad repair. However, I'm quite fond of the crackle that appears on most light posts around the downtown. 

 

This is the new home of Toledo area Goodwill, which moved from Cherry Street a couple years ago, and where the downtown bus station is now. 

 

Another view of the Bitwise renovation of the Jefferson Center. Originally the Toledo Central Post Office, when complete it will house a training center for entry-level technology jobs. 

 

The venerable Toledo Club, still active and hosting many important social functions in the city. 

 

Toledo School for the Arts is the arts school in the city. Outstanding music, fine arts, drama and performing arts. The school is starting its first expansion, due to be complete next year. 

 

 

The Hillcrest Building, an antique full of apartments. 

 

View toward Adams Street, Manos Greek Restaurant, the Attic Bar, and other small businesses. 

 

 

Looking up the desolate last few blocks of Madison.

 

The Ebeid Center opened several years ago, and houses Market on the Green, the only grocery store in the immediate uptown area. (Yes, Seaway is on Cherry and Bancroft). I stopped here for mushrooms and a snack before heading back to the Toledo Museum of Art and home.

 

My tour of Madison stops here because there isn't much to see other than a blank wall from Mercy Hospital, it was getting dark, and there were quite a few unhoused folks around, so it felt a little awkward to carry around a camera.

 

Hope you enjoyed this walk up Toledo's Madison Avenue.

Very impressive architecture, the question is, where have all the people gone in many of our downtowns in America.

Summit and St. Clair streets are seeing more pedestrian traffic now because of the ProMedica HQ, recent conversions of empty office buildings to apartments, and two renovated hotels downtown.

 

You'll see people out walking dogs in the evening, but most of the traffic is event-driven, and there were no events on this Sunday afternoon.

 

Toledo's downtown and uptown are taking some tentative steps toward re-habitation, but it will take hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars before the area can be called vibrant. 

I adore walking tours.  Thank you!

speaking of events, looks like they brought friday rally by the river back in the summer, or at least sporadically? i hope so, that was always fun. 

 

so regarding streetlife, besides adding residential, one thing they could try is to revive what was a little greektown that was i think around manos. i see on streetview that a lot of the area is torn down down around there, with some new apts built, but lots of empty lots. anyway, that's one thing i would do around downtown if i was mayor of t-town.