Those few of you who read my threads might recall that super-in-depth look at neighborhood retail …corner stores and busy street retail….in St Anne’s Hill back in the winter.  Well, I am not going to do that again as it just takes too much time to research. 

 

Instead, just a quick tour of more corner stores, this time in South Park (which is turning into the hot new gentrification area in Dayton).

 

 

Starting with the uncool  “Lower South Park”.  This building looks like it might have been a corner store, but its heavily modified. 

 

 

Then maybe a corner tavern or storefront church?

 

 

This is a modern example of neighborhood retail, probably built in the 1950s when Brown Street was a busy street leading into town from the south, before urban renewal and freeway construction cut the street up.  Aztec in this case is an asbestos removal contractor, not something Mexican.

 

 

Hickory Street has some great corner stores (and neat buildings in general).  The fabulous Orleans House, sitting on Brabham Hill.. 

 

 

The façade is great on its own right, without all the wrought iron hoo-hah

 

 

 

 

Corner of Hickory and Bonner

 

 

 

The little windows make me think this was a tavern at one time.

 

 

again, maybe another tavern in the post prohibition era.

 

 

 

…deeper into the neighborhood.  One interesting thing is that the following three stores are on N-S streets, and face west.

 

 

One can tell there was some advertising on the side at one time….

 

 

 

Side view showing the porthole windows

 

 

I talked to the contractor who has his HQ here, and he said that this was all one store, a grocery, at one time, and the rear addition (not shown) was built later.  I had thought the side annex was another store, but he said “no”.  Brick corbelling on the annex reminds me of Columbus rows.

 

 

 

 

 

This store could be a cousin to the Orleans House.  I like the way the steps spill out into the sloping sidewalk.

 

 

This is, I think, the only mid-block store.  It is or was the “South Park Preservation Works”, which used to be a community development corporation. 

 

 

Finally, at the end of Park Drive.  This is under renovation.  As far as I recall this was the last store to be open in the neighborhood, back in the 1990s.

 

 

So, a nice little collection of an obsolete building type.  Here is a brief typological analyses or taxonomy of the type as found in South Park, as a local Dayton commercial vernacular.

 

 

 

 

 

Some details that are common to many (but not all) corner stores here, and can be found elsewhere in Dayton.  Perhaps elements of a local vernacular architecture?

 

 

A closer look at the storefronts (which could be fun to analyze further), showing some similar features. 

 

I am not saying these were built by the same builder, but that similar details and approaches to design and construction were used in this neighborhood, and elsewhere in Dayton, by contractors and builders…like the panels under the store windows, the limestone water table or sill, the stone columns and capital detail, and so forth.

 

 

Finally, a closer look at one storefront, investigating proportions and aspects of the design, finishing up with the simple but elegant detailing that survives.

 

 

 

They don’t build ‘em like they used to.

 

 

 

It's amazing how distinctive the architecture in South Park is compared to other sections of the city.  Almost Oregon meets NOLA in a sense.  Great job.

:-D

Thanks for the tour, Jeff. I saw some of those Friday night during the Rehabarama. I love posts like this, that St. Anne's Hill one was a mindblower.

I first heard about South Park the TV show by overhearing some bar conversation about it, about "those South Park kids", and I thought they were talking about kids in the neighborhood of South Park, not knowing about the TV show at the time.

 

As for corner stores as a form of vernacular architecture, there is next to nothing on this topic out there, as far as I can tell.  The only thing is or was a catalogue from a National Building Museum exhibition.  I think this is a bit suprising given all the work done on housing types by architectural historians, folklorists, and geographers.

 

 

#2 looks as if it had a flat roof but the gable was installed at a later point for maintenance sake.

Enjoyable thread, and nicely done as usual.

 

I miss what the corner stores stood for in terms of lifestyles and neighborhoods. When I was in my teens and twenties, buildings like that still housed drug stores (with soda fountains) and barbershops and a few grocers. They didn't need to tear down surrounding properties for parking, because most of their regular customers came and went on foot.

If I am not mistaken, I actually lived in the house in picture #7. It sure looks like it, at least. (McClain and Milton.) That was a dozen years ago when I was at WSU. According to the owner, it was a store, and also a church. The carpetting on the inside looked like it was setup as a church, with one like strip of carpet in the middle.