Oh wait a minute, do you mean the building with the columns across the street in front of Lazarus?

The one with the Doric columns on the left:

^The building with the Doric columns on the left is still there at the southwest corner of High and Town Streets.  It was most recently a bank.  It is currently vacant.  And it is almost unchanged in appearance today from this 1914 photo.  Even those neat light fixtures in front still remain. 

 

AUDITOR'S SITE: PHOTO OF 167 S. HIGH ST.

 

Also, the building with large windows just behind it is the famous downtown Lazarus Building.  That building went through alot of changes.  The building was expanded to the north.  The large windows got bricked in later.  The High Street portion got a new facade of pink marble in the 1950's.  Lazarus gets closed by those Macy's/Federated a-holes in the 2000's.  A city-backed downtown development agency buys the building in 2005 and does a complete inside and outside renovation which unbricked all of those large windows.  So that the Lazarus Building now looks pretty much like it does in this 1914 photo.

 

Here is a link to a photo the development agency has of the City Center demolition that shows the former bank building and the Lazarus Building in the background.

 

JAN. 2010 PHOTO OF THE AREA FROM DOWNTOWNCOLUMBUS.COM

 

Thanks for the info rider.

 

I saw the large sign advertising Lazarus in the old photo, pretty neat that it's still in use and in great condition.  Gold certified LEED too.

 

 

I found this website about the Lazarus building.  Very nice job.

http://www.downtowncolumbus.com/progress/the-lazarus-building

 

Glad to see the lights are still at the bank building. I was wondering about those.

 

167 S HIGH ST

This one still reads surprisingly quickly (High at Broad, looking north, right?):

 

 

 

I think you're wrong on this one.  That looks like the Atlas Building on the right hand side, which would indicate this photo was taken looking south from in front of the statehouse.

I absolutely love these old photos of the busy street life from the early teens.  Thanks for sharing!  If only I could travel back in time to experience that for a few days.

This one still reads surprisingly quickly (High at Broad, looking north, right?):

 

 

 

I think you're wrong on this one. That looks like the Atlas Building on the right hand side, which would indicate this photo was taken looking south from in front of the statehouse.

 

The Atlas building is on the east side of High, north of the State House, so I think I'm right (for once).

You're right. I also noticed the taller building on the SW corner of Gay & High. Don't we have some hilarious intersections?

I was also trying to place the corner on which "The Union" store is shown (pic #5 down). I don't know how many here remember it (since most of you are young), but The Union was an upscale dept. store (as I recall it was taken over by Marshall Field in the 80's and eventually folded, but still there in the 70's) directly across from Lazarus on High St, but as I recall it was mid-block, so the pic looks like it was in a different location. Just wondering...

^ In that picture, The Union is on the NW corner of Long & High. The white brick, five-story building is still there, with some kind of gallery on the ground floor and offices above. Its last retail use was a Readmoor book store, which closed 10 years ago.

Fantastic! What is/was the building on the far left in first photo?

 

It's a bank. The building still stands, but is vacant, at the SW corner of High and Town.

^ In that picture, The Union is on the NW corner of Long & High. The white brick, five-story building is still there, with some kind of gallery on the ground floor and offices above. Its last retail use was a Readmoor book store, which closed 10 years ago.

thanks, and I remember the Readmoor bookstore! Wasn't there also an old restaurant called "The Clock" on that stretch that had a long, elaborately carved bar?

Yes, the Clock is still there, it's now the Elevator restaurant.

Yes, the Clock is still there, it's now the Elevator restaurant.

 

When I drove by the other day, I didn't see the clock. I think they removed it.

LOL, my Columbus geography is getting a little hazy as time goes by.  You're correct Kingfish.

I think The Clock's clock disappeared in the '90s. Portsmouth had it's own version of The Clock, but I don't think there was ever a large clock outside; it just had a lot of clocks in it.

Sorry, I meant, a restaurant is still there that used to be The Clock, but it's now The Elevator Brewery & Draught House. More history of the building on their web site.

http://www.elevatorbrewing.com/

Great set of pics.  Thanks for sharing your find.

thanks, those are amazing photos! It never ceases to amaze me how well-dressed everyone in those old pics looked. Now everyone basically just looks like a bunch of f%#&@ing slobs (including me), regardless of age, income, race, or social standing.

 

Yeah, but I'd bet you a $.05 head of lettuce that we smell better today.  If that's any consolation.

 

I think the peak of the good-smelling American was in the '80s or '90s. There are lots of smelly obese people around today, and the de-emphasis on appearance that attacked in the '90s extended to odor for some people. But until the the '50s early '60s most people, especially men, bathed sparingly. Then dirty hippies increased the stink level until the mid '70s.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks of the stink when I see old pictures. In Victorian times it was rare for a person to wash their hair (or sit in a bath tub) more than once a month. It think about this every time I walk through Victorian Village.

^does that last line have a double meaning? ahahahaha, maybe I'm the only one seeing subtle extra humor there. I'm not going to elaborate.

Note: The Great Northern railroad car is not a dining car. It is one of Ranch lunch counter coffee shop lounge cars assigned to the Empire Builder. The Ranch cars were the  coach passengers' lounge and as a lower cost alternative for the full diner. Sleeper passengers had their own lounge car.

I found these fantastic photos of High Street in 1914 and wanted to share.  They depict the city in a way I've never quite seen before and it's a big reminder of all that was lost from the 1940-1980 "urban renewal" crap and the suburban movement.  The photographer apparently walked from Town Street to Goodale Avenue snapping photos, so you get a sense for all that was Downtown at the time.  Unfortunately, these are not the high resolution photos as I'm not able to post them, but they're still cool.

 

The first photo is taken at the corner of High and Town looking north.  The Lazarus building on the left is likely one of the few remaining buildings from this image.  The second image is a Google streetview taken from roughly the same position.

 

 

The second photo is Capital Square.  Broad and High is in the background. 

Third is the corner of Broad and High.

Next is from the corner of Gay and High.  It is absolutely horrifying to me at just how many buildings are gone.  What a drastic change.

 

 

Next is the corner of Long and High. 

Next is Spring and High.  There is quite literally nothing left from 1914. 

These are awesome. Thanks for taking the time to post these. Not being all too familiar with the history of Columbus, this is kind of intriguing, yet saddening to see. That last view makes me cringe. My how shortsighted we were. It's a shame so much character was removed for the sake of 'progress.'

Finally, we have the intersection of Goodale Avenue and North High.  This is perhaps one of the most drastic changes of all.  The buildings to the immediate left, just before Goodale (the first street on the left), were torn down by the Greek Orthodox Church in the 1980s because they wanted to expand.  The buildings on the right were torn down either before or during construction for the Convention Center. North of Goodale, a good many of the buildings were destroyed with the construction of I-670.  If you look closely, just past and to the right of the building with the domed rotunda, you can just make out the roof outline of the Yukon Building, which is the first line of buildings that survived north of the 670 construction in the Short North.  It's really hard to imagine what Columbus and these areas would've been like today had all this not occurred.  It's simply incredible how short-sighted people were at the time.  It would probably be nearly impossible to get a similar type of project done today.

i love that set of pictures--thanks for adding the present day with it.

 

one thing i always found interesting about them is how few trees there were on high street--its almost devoid of them. It is something urbanists take very seriously today, but it wasn't necessary for urbanism to be successful 100 years ago

Next is Spring and High.  There is quite literally nothing left from 1914. 

 

I wonder if William Green's 'crown' was an 80's homage to that old hotel.

Next is Spring and High.  There is quite literally nothing left from 1914. 

 

I wonder if William Green's 'crown' was an 80's homage to that old hotel.

 

Maybe.  That was the Chittenden Hotel and I believe it lasted until the Nationwide complex was built in the 1980s.  Same for a lot of that block. 

 

 

I thought the Chittenden burnt down...

Very cool to see the before and after... Looking at old photos of our cities can be so depressing lol...

I thought the Chittenden burnt down...

 

I think the original one did, back in 1893.  The one in the photo was built in 1895 and remained open until 1972. 

Very cool to see the before and after... Looking at old photos of our cities can be so depressing lol...

 

Yeah, it is.  It looked more like a city 100 years ago than it does now with the drastic difference in street level activity and density.  Just goes to show that bigger buildings don't necessarily add much beyond a skyline.

good job here - i always love before and after views. do more when you can!

good job here - i always love before and after views. do more when you can!

 

Thanks, I will definitely be doing more.

Look at all those lawless people jaywalking!!!

By happenstance, I ran across a Cornell University website that included several photos of the 1885 Franklin County Courthouse not long before it was demolished in 1974. I thought they were worth sharing.

 

Original construction

 

Early on, the window patterns were changed on the wings. I would guess that there were large courtrooms at either end that were subdivided into two floors.

 

Unfortunately, the Second Empire building was stripped of its tower and mansard roof at some point

 

 

 

 

Today, five columns from the building are all that remains. A plaza, Dorian Commons, exists on the old courthouse site.

 

Perhaps Franklin County would still have a historic courthouse if a new courthouse was constructed as part of the Civic Center in the 1920s/30s.

 

Cornell site: http://library24.library.cornell.edu:8280/luna/servlet/view/all/where/373%20S.%20High%20Street%20(Columbus,%20Ohio)/when/1885-1887

Ridiculous.

wow, would love to see interiors. After, the butchering, might as well tear the sucker down.

Of course, if it was in Cincinnati, they would have burned it down...

^Honestly, I think you could have scrubbed the whole thing and removed the "boxes" on the roof where the old mansards were and you would have had a decent, landmark building.

I never saw pictures of the 1960s version, sans mansard. That's horrible. And now we have yet another new courthouse that would be right at home along any Outerbelt interchange -- a building suitable for a Dunder-Mifflin regional headquarters.

What a beauty!  Further proof that our more ornate structures tended not to survive.  I assume the cost to maintain them caused their devolution into bastardized remodelings and eventually pulverized lumber, limestone and marble.  Sad.

Where did it stand? Was it where the current complex is or in another part of downtown?

^It was located at the Southeast corner of Mound and High, where Dorian Commons exists today. I believe the annex building at Fulton and High had been constructed along site it prior to demolition.

I remember this well.  The building exterior was still imposing, even though it was bastardized with the horrific stucco boxes in place of the mansards.  The interior was still impressive, and largely intact.  There was a fantastic staircase and an amazing antique elevator. I went there a few times.  The opposite side of High St was a mess of wooden one floor ramshackle offices painted battleship gray.  Depressing would be a kind description.

 

Quite a few people were disappointed when the old courthouse was torn down, many wanting to have it restored to original state.  Their pleas fell on deaf ears.  The Hall of Justice was a sad replacement, looking dated and adding nothing to downtown. 

 

The old county jail was just around the corner on Fulton.  It was a spooky looking building resembling a medieval dungeon. 

It must have been awful in the '60s and '70s seeing 75% of Downtown hauled away.