Found Drawings

While emptying a room of clutter, I found these old measured drawings of the Gamble House. I know the guy who measured and drew these (back in the 80s?), and he was a very good draftsman. I'm not sure where the originals are, and these copies are not so great, resulting in inferior scans. I have more of them... and for posterity sake, I will scan those soon and add them here.

 Longitudinal Section

North Elevation

East Elevation

Twenty Years Ago

.... Sander Hall was demolished

1608 Hoffner

Saw this building being demolished yesterday in Northside.  

Does This Building Stay or Go

I've heard that this building may be demolished for a new development on Vine. Is that true?
 

A drawing on 3CDC's website seems to show it missing:
 

Non-profit corporations are allowed an exemption to the Historic District guidelines which prohibit demolition, but so far as I know 3CDC has not used this exemption much, if ever. In another drawing, it looks like the building will remain:
 

[where: 1314 Vine Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

Ohio Demolitions 2010

The video could be much much longer if it showed all the Cincinnati demolitions this year:

28th District School

I was thankful for this comment on a recent post:
"You were correct about the large institutional building at the Klotter Park. It was the location for the old 28th District School.Built in 1880 with an addition in 1887. There is a book "A History Of The Schools Of Cincinnati" by John Brough Shotwell.Look it up on Google books. It has a pic on pg 308. It was on Browne St.(guess it was a street back then,not an alley) west of Baymiller."

So I looked up the book, and for the public record here is the sketch and description:

18 rooms x 55 pupils each = 990 students!

And here is a Sanborn Map showing the School:

Fire on New Years Eve

This building was engulfed in fire Dec 31, 5:30 am. The interior had been gutted of plaster, and the wood was dry and very combustible. Cause is undetermined, but this is located right behind the roughest part of Vine Street, the 1600 block, and it is likely that someone broke in so they could shoot-up or sleep inside.
[where: 1616 Pleasant Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

Click on photos for larger views:

Fire still smoking at about 10am:

Burned building, later that day, with Greg Spring, the city's favorite demolition contractor fast at work. Note they also demoed the short building to the north, 1618 Pleasant:

The odd, one-story, zee-brick building, 1618 Pleasant Street from a few years ago. 1616 is just south across Levi Alley

Picture of area 2 years ago. Only the top of 1616 Pleasant is visible in this photo, as it is set-back from the street by a few feet:

UPDATE:
From the auditor's website, here is a photo of 1616 Pleasant 10 years ago, when it was last occupied. It is the red building on the left.
 

2009 auditor's photo
 

Barr's Loans Old Old Location

621-23 Central Avenue, Kenyon Barr neighborhood, demolished

This post triggered by two other posts:
Visualingual post of Barr's Loan Ghost Sign in OTRVictorian Antiquities post on Kenyon Barr

Corner of Freeport and Campbell

 

This is the corner of two alleys. The wider alley (to the left), Campbell, is actually a twenty-foot wide back street. The other alley is just a one-block long alley named Freeport. I suspect Freeport will disappear someday soon. There once stood on this small block, 16 buildings that included a significant church, maybe a hundred residences and a dozen businesses. Gayle Smith now owns it. He demolished several buildings, and now Findlay Market is doing some raised bed gardening here. This property is on a very visible corner (Elm and Liberty), it will be on the streetcar line and I suppose it could be a major redevelopment spot.

The auditor's map of the area:
 

1703 Elm, last year, now gone and planted with okra:

In this 1996 aerial you can see 7 buildings that are now gone:
 

Federal Policy Depopulated Cities

In an editorial piece in the Enquirer last month, Ed Cunningham claimed that Federal Government policy assisted the depopulation of US cities. As I read this, I thought that his point can be demonstrated by my own family history. On a recent trip to the library, I paged through a 1911 City Directory and wrote down the addresses of 3 great-grandfathers, and found that two of them lived in houses that were later destroyed by freeway construction and urban renewal projects:

In 1911 Thomas, a plumber, lived at 1060 Wade Street. The house was near the Reds baseball field, which I guess is why my grampa was always talking about sneaking into games etc... This whole area was reconfigured for I-75 and the site is now the Enquirer printing press:

Anthony, a coachman, lived at 3840 Colerain. This site is now right next to an I74freeway ramp and the house was later demolished for the construction of a gas station:

Today:

Edward, a pressman, lived in Mt Auburn at 556 Milton, and thankfully, that house still remains in use:

I have no info on the fourth great-grandfather who was on a farm in Alexandria, KY in 1911.

It was a mistake to install freeways through the center of the our city. Thousands of brick dwellings were destroyed, and the properties nearby were made unpleasant and unlivable. It did not have to be this way. Freeways in Europe for example were often built on the edge of the city and connected via boulevards. Urban boulevards can move lots of cars and still support a vibrant city. As it is, we are still struggling to reconnect the parts of our city that were divided by freeway construction.

Anyway, I thought it was a relevant look back. Does anyone else out there want to share a story about their family home being demolished for highways, road widening or some urban renewal project?

Friar's Club Demolition

I walked around the Friar's Club site a few days ago, and the building was already half demolished. The site is pretty interesting, and quite large. If some overgrowth was cut away there will be dramatic views of downtown over the hillside. I hope that the new development is appropriate for this site. See Abandoned for better photos and explanation:

 

Detroit Demo Map

Last Wednesday, Mayor Bing announced a list of residential buildings to be demolished:
 

Detroit Border

This aerial photo shows a partially demolished Detroit neighborhood with an intact neighborhood just across a moat in Grosse Point. No commentary, just thought it was interesting:
 

This location on Google Maps here.

Similar aerial views can be seen when looking at Israel and both sides of the wall that divides Jews from Palestinians.

Donna's Stop and Shop

This post is triggered by an online discussion at Victorian Antiquities about the nearest building in the photo below. It is 24 West Elder Street, and the City recently added it to a list of building's that they propose to demolish:

My earlier post on 1974 Findlay Market included this photo of these buildings:

A map of the area, there once was a school in the north half of the Findlay Playground:

Following are some photos from this weekend:

The owners of this building are completely unreachable or maybe even deceased. The tax mailing address is a housing project in the West End that was demolished years ago. The OTR Foundation included this building in a proposed receivership proposal to the City in 2008. As far as I know the receivership plan has not progressed beyond talk. The side, front:

Alianthus tree growing out of window:

Rear of the building, where two alleys meet, and across the street from the Findlay Baseball field:

Deteriorated side porches:

This corner of OTR is interesting. It is more abandoned than the rest, and many of these buildings have unreachable or stubborn owners who do nothing. These two buildings are just north of the Findlay Playground on a stub of Republic Street, near Schwarz's Point. Seems like this owner was in the news for criminal resale of baby formula or some such scandal:

More vacancy along Goose Alley. The other side of these buildings face Race Street:

Republic Street, just south of the park. The pink building on the left is a really cool lot with buildings that face both Republic and Vine Street. Not surprisingly, this is another vacant building owned by longtime slumlord Sondra Walls:

The north wall of the Sondra Wall's buildings:

Karkadoulias

A few weeks ago, the Cincinnati Business Courier had an article highlighting the demolition by neglect that one property owner, Gale Smith has been conducting at the corner of Elm and Liberty. Here is a picture of 1703 Elm Street, one of his remaining buildings:

This got me thinking about the 1500 block of Elm, where I once lived. I used to see another a block south of this every day. It was vacant, but still a good quality building. I always liked it and always wondered why it was vacant. I heard that the owner was named Karkadoulias, and that he/she was the same person who had produced this sculpture that is now at Sawyer Point Park:

Anyway, the building I lived near was 1527 Elm. I later found out that the Karkadoulias' bought the building in 1979! Heck, Gale Smith only bought his six years ago.

So this is what that once beautiful building looks like after 30 years of neglect and vacancy:

The rear:

When I first noticed this building, it had windows with glass, and a good roof. The metal roof blew off last September, and has not been repaired yet:

Mercene Karkadoulias owns a few buildings in Over the Rhine (and in other neighborhoods), all bought decades ago for a pitance and most vacant and deteriorating. Here is another one, 1733 Vine:

The City of Cincinnati barricades these buildings and puts the expense on the tax bill:

And another one she owns, recently had a shooting on the doorstep.

I really don't mean to pick on this one owner, but unfortunately this kind of situation is all too common. From what I understand, Mercene Karkadoulias has some extenuating circumstances in her life. But when you look into all these cases of vacant buildings and slumlords, they all have extenuating circumstances of some kind. I met one man who owned several buildings who was quite paranoid and not mentally stable, but he was somehow able to buy some vacant buildings and drive them into the ground. Now he owns some vacant lots with tax liens. Some lack the technical skills or just have no idea where to start. But for whatever reason they don't want to sell. We, the community, should not allow this to happen.

Whatever the circumstances, there is no excuse on earth for owning a building for 30 years and letting it deteriorate to the point of collapse. Even if it was not a historic building in a significant historic district, would you want this building as your neighbor? Either fix it up or sell it to someone who can.

To top it all off, Ms. Karkadoulias recently put For Sale signs some buildings. The asking price for 1527 Elm? $95,000, firm. Mind-boggling.