Posted January 27, 200718 yr As a follow-up to this thread.... The 1855 Church Street plat and adjacent areas, now part of the Twin Towers neighborhood. This should be part of a photo-thread on Twin Towers and Xenia Avenue, yet it is also related to Newcom Plain, as an example of how US 35 divided a community back in the 1960s.… US 35 as a moat dividing the neighborhood, the twin towers of St Mary’s in the background. This area shows how the street system was rearranged and “suburbanized” via cul-de-sacs and the curving auto-oriented road geometry to accommodate an overpass. Widen open spaces and auto-friendly cul-de-sacs and turning radius Now all you need is a little shopping center with a Kroger and a big parking lot…. This is another interesting little transitional neighborhood with workers cottages and some of those urban I-houses. On what’s lefty of Haynes Street…. In this case we might be seeing spec building, and things get cheaper, as there is no side entry or rear T of L. Entrance from the front, but different ways of treating the façade and porch, in detail. Getting closer to St Mary’s, one gets that stereotypical urban Midwest image of a big Catholic church as the centerpiece of a neighborhood of workers cottages and two-stories…. (small, zero lot line cottage…maybe more typical of the blocks to the west of St Mary’s) In this area one sees some of the last of the old-school side-entry urban I-house, but done in wood as rather than brick (similar to the blocks north of US 35). A comparison of some St Anne’s’ Hill brick version compared with Church Street woods…the family resemblance is pretty clear, I think now on to Church Street, which is in pretty good shape, considering…. …the brick porch is probably from the 20th century, but nice little ne0gothic touch in that attic window, found throughout the city on houses of this type.. Looks like asbestos cement shingles… Leaving church on to Nassau Street…I wonder if this was actually a reference to the German state, instead of to William and Mary (as in the Nassau references on the East Coast). Seeing those shotguns made me think of the types you find in Louisville, and these next two look like a local version of the camelback, on a Dayton-style “sawed-off shotgun” (not as long as the ones found down south). X More housing, off in the Newcom Plain plat now..streets stubbing off into the freeway, mix of two stories and cottages, late 19th /early 20th century detail on that porch to the left, and an alley house, which appear every now and then in this area….. And one of those pix or images that just stay with you, at least this one sticks in my minds-eye for this neighborhood.
January 28, 200718 yr Interesting stuff, I was just driving around this area today! Although I like looking at this neighborhood from 35, I don't like seeing the highway (and what it did) in the neighborhood.
January 29, 200718 yr Great job! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
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