Sunday, April 5, 2009

"Downtown" New Germany

..being the intersection of National Road, Zink, New Germany/Trebein & Colonel Glenn Highway. It probably wasn't a real downtown, but it did have a school house and country store at one time.

Today, from the Greene County Auditors website, an aerial with property lines, we see a mix of businessess and houses. The yellow numbers here are keyed to some pix later in the post.


Taking away the picture and throwing in some labels and colors, shaded yellow is the original road alginments, which have been distorted due to recent development and I-675.

There is some branded food /drink places, but they're outnumbered by four "Dayton Originals":

a. Tsao's Cuisine, a strip center Asian place which Dayton has a lot of. This one did get two good reviews at an online , as well as a positive twitter.

b. WO Wrights, a bar/food thing that books live music, so definetly a shout-out from this blog.

c. Submarine House (in a real house), a local chain.

d. Tuty's, which has been here since the early 1970s and is a restaurant that actually delivers to Wright State student housing (not far away off Zink Road). In a predominantly suburban environment sandwiched between southern pop culture icon Waffle House and the new Sonic Tuty's is, or was, sort of a campus hangout. The orginal Tutys burned in 2005 but was rebuilt.

One can also see the used car dealers, the drive-through for beer, wine, and low-test spirits. Also shown are some odd features, like the road to nowhere, "Joes Garage" , which is visible from the interstate, but is not really called that (just thought of that Zappa album when I saw it), the hotels (and some foot traffic that happens between one and the Sub House), and the big Sonic Drive-In "plat" shaded in red, which has an access road out to Colonel Glenn. Sonic does cover a lot of area.

And then there are the two brand-new extended stay hotels.

Stepping back a bit we can see the New Germany area in context. What's shown here are by no means all the businessess, just ones that seem to concentrate and cluster here. ...churches and car lots?

There are three churches in the vicinity. And six car lots, one for new (Dave Dennis Chrysler) and the balance little used car places, two of them in old gas stations. For alchohol, two of the local places are bar/restaurants, and there is that drive-thru.

Living in Downtown New Germany


According to the auditors website, for New Germany & National Road area, for the surviving property that is still residential, this is the distribution in age. More in the postwar era, but still a lot of older things, including a flurry of house construction just prior to WWII, which we saw elsewhere in Beavercreek.
Some of the houses near "downtown New Germany", keyed to the aeriel earlier in the post. These are dated via the county auditors' website.

This is the last of old Grange Hall Road looking south towards I-675. There was ribbon development to the left on the road, but that was all removed for the interstate. This one house survives, dating from 1951.

On New Germany/Trebein Road, renamed Germany Lane, this very early ranch from 1949.
Across from the intersection with old Grange Hall (which has been renamed something else) is this prewar house, from 1940. Also a very early ranch style. The lots here are pretty generous, too.

The Submarine House, in a literal house. By the architectural style, prior to WWII, maybe even as far back as the late 1920s/early 1930s. But it's a sub shop now. They do make pretty good subs, too (yer humble host stopped in for one). As noted upthread this place seems to get some walk-in traffic from the hotel down the street, since it would just be silly to drive one block for a sandwhich.

And finally, the last of old New Germany, from 1920. Down the street you can see the intersection with Colonel Glenn, and the used car dealer at the old gas station at the
"point" of the intersection.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jeff,

I just wanted to say that your blog is fantastic. The depth of the information you provide is amazing.

Thank you,

Eric