Friday, January 25, 2008

"Bommy's Place": Old Dayton View

Surfing through the Lutzenberger Collection one wonders sometimes "where is this (or more typically, "where was this"?)

Such was it with Bommy's Place.

One suspects that Lutzenberger might have been a "wet" since he did include taverns and hangouts on occasion in his photos. This apparently was a Dayton View landmark saloon, and according the caption had "excellent" sandwiches (maybe it was a free lunch place?).

But were was it?

The description and the river in the background give it away. This was on Riverview between Salem and the Dayton View bridge, but on the river side.

Here is the map, and the "find" here is that Bommy's was part of a little neighborhood shopping district, that also included the Riverside Brewery of Adam Schantz (1882) and a line of row houses! All of this backed up to the river.


Across River Street were what look like some Victorian villas and maybe a few houses from early Dayton View (that corellate with the 1869 map). And one can see that Van Ausdal mansion.

The character of this area has drastically changed with time:


Note the bench. According the Craig Daltons book on Dayton breweries:

"

The Riverside Brewery, as well as a small house where Adam Schantz, Jr. was born, was situated on the ground which needed to be cleared and removed to improve the river channel. This meant the razing of both structures. A large piece of land was left between the river and the street. The heirs of Adam Schantz, Sr. donated this to the city of Dayton in December, 1918. A fountain with a lily was built in memory of Mary Schantz, their mother, and an oak tree was planted nearby in memory of Adam Schantz, Sr., their father. Although the lilies are gone and the fountain runs no longer, the benches that are part of the fountain still overlook the beautiful Miami River, and couples who sit there are shaded by the old oak tree whose branches reach over as if to shelter the monument to his wife from the storms."



No oak nor fountain, but maybe this is one of those benches.

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