Posted January 30, 200916 yr Wandering the windy cold streets of Dayton, empty brass foundry now an empty closed nightclub …Halloween or close to it….always a special time in the rustbelt, Devils Night, corn maizes, etc. My city of ruins. ….railroad tracks from previous use. There is a history here, and if anyone is weally weally intwested, it’s told in the usual firehose flood of text, maps and diagrams (not all by me for once) here: Thresher Mill Lots ,..and here: The Corner of 4th & Wayne To the extreme left is the buffalo head from the Buffalo Gals buffalo burger booth. Wish I had a pic of that. This looks interesting. Leftist conviviality. The 101st thing of 101 Things You Can Do With A John Deere Rider Mower (actually I think this is cute..something that made me smile rather than sneer.) I like the mixed messages: .the rustic fire circle + hammock set in urban landscape At the end of the space was this big easel with a painting of the Wayne Avenue viaduct, which separates the landscape in the first pic of this thread from this space. Looking back, the big white building is Farmers Friend, one of the oldest factory buildings in Dayton, the oldest part dating to the 1870s. Typically, a proposal for the nearby Oregon District would tear down this landmark for parking. Whatever. The best thing Dayton has going for it is the live music scene, or scenes since there is more than one. An event isn’t an event if there isn’t one or two bands playing. Music makes this city….rockin’ the urban prairie at Garden Station: …and then the sun came out. I like this one because the "natural" surroundings make you think this is out on some farm out in the country or something, not in the heart of Dayton Ohio (but mentally edit-out the buildings hiding behind the tree to the right) Blue hair, blue sky, blue curvy thingy, beautiful. I love days like this… Datyon on a fall afternoon, sun setting, windy broken sky, getting colder, winter on the way....Dayton is an October sort of city.... Back into the city to get drunk in some dive bar. What Dayton needs is more scale…oh, wait…. The ball is over, it’s after midnight, and Dayton Ohio has turned into a pumkin.
January 30, 200916 yr Absolutely awesome thread, Jeffery. Nice to see the near eastside on such a nice fall day. What event was that anyway?
January 30, 200916 yr The Circus' "Haunted Harvest", which was held the same day as the Oregons' haloween street fair.
January 30, 200916 yr Awesome. It looks like it was a lot of fun. Needs a little more publicity, though, so I would have known about it!
January 30, 200916 yr This is one of the better uses of an urban prairie I've seen. After looking at this im wondering where the power came from for the band! Yeah, they do art things here from time to time, this "Circus" arts group, which are a bunch of young folks (younger than me), but they also use old empty storefronts downtown or in "Webster Station" too. This prairie is their first semi-permanent space, though i think they are going to be using the new c-space more often. What yr seeing now is the underground art scene move beyond Front Street closer in to downtown. That this is happening at all in a place as square as Dayton is sort of heartening. It would be neat if this town developes a scene like Hamtramck. Dayton, the Hamtramck of SW Ohio. Yeah, maybe....but also with music.... Like I say, what Dayton needs is a Tony Wilson.
January 31, 200916 yr Thanks! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
February 2, 200916 yr So great to see this here! :clap: Lily Whitehead and I are the Garden Station Managers and would LOVE LOVE more community involvement @ Garden Station! We just got our lease from the City in June and spent most of the year cleaning up all the trash and poison ivy and building garden beds. Just about everything on site was donated and done with just a few volunteers. MetroParks GWYN program is helping us a great deal with the community garden plots which are available to local residents to adopt. We got water in July and should get power this April so we will be able to have bands and movies without needing a generator! other projects in the works include constructing a main mosaiced archway entrance and wheelchair accessible ramp, a deck and a straw bale garden shed with a green roof that will be done as a workshop with MetroParks and blue rock station on mother's day weekend. We are now looking for some local business sponsorship for some of these projects. Oh, and you don't have to be a "youngster" to help, most of our volunteers are over 40 ;) For more info check the links below! THANKS! Lisa Helm www.groups.yahoo.com/group/DowntownGarden www.myspace.com/gardenstation www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=14574773660 www.daytoncircus.org
February 2, 200916 yr Jeffrey! Thanks so much for this! Wonderful photos! I`d forgotten what a lovely afternoon it turned out to be, it was a chilly, windy day and as the suns warmth faded it got very cold. I think it took me a few days to thaw out! Power came from a rented generator, which unfortunately, inexplicably poo`d out around 10:30 pm leaving us in utter silent darkness. The good thing is that it didnt run out of gas, it was actually defective and the company we rented it from gave us a refund. Luckily our crowd had mostly ventured on to the party on Fifth, so aside from our food vendors packing up in the dark, there wasnt a crowd of disappointed people boo-ing. This, aside from the fact that we need regular lighting and to be able to run a pump in the pond is why we are planning to have an electric drop installed this coming spring. We WILL be hosting the Harvest Fest again next fall but we will probably bump it up a couple weeks to earlier in October, hopefully before the weather hits that unpredictable point and to avoid conflicting with the Boo Bash on Fifth. We will be having a spring kickoff event, most likely in April. I`ll be sure to post the info here. We are looking forward to the awakening of our baby trees planted last fall. Two Weeping Willows, two dwarf Pear & an ornamental Plum, donated by St. Annes Hill Violins & North Dayton Garden Center. We have regular Saturday morning gardening when the weather is warm, we welcome volunteers! We have three raised planting beds built and will be building more in time for this years planting. We invite fellow Daytonians to adopt a bed, plant what you like and maintain it through the season. We need donations of all kinds. Services, dollars, sponsorship. If you clean out your garage give us a call before you throw stuff away. You`d be surprised what we can make use of, although we wont turn down new stuff either! I could go on forever! Working on this project has been amazing. We hope for Garden Station to be a place for everyone who loves Dayton to come and stroll with their dog, swing in the hammock, soak up the warmth of the sun on the redwood platform, daydream with the fishies, read the paper while reclining in a bathtub, create art on the wall, enjoy smores alongside a bonfire, eat a burrito, play a guitar, watch a movie or play video games on our larger than life easel!
August 9, 201212 yr Wow! A country festival in the city core. How surreal. I love your photo essays. This one is short and simple but it's so out of left field. Yep, Dayton sure is an October kind of city. That wording evokes "The October Country" by Ray Bradbury.
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