Indirectly, of course, since it was demolished in the late 1950s. 
The article is here, and is about delays in the project due to unforseen site conditions, long lead times for certain items, and RTA blaming the contractor.
The contractor notes the unforseen site issues in the passage below. The underlined items sound like remnants of the old market house or its neighbors, since buildings along North and South Market had under-sidewalk and perhaps under-street vaults. And maybe the market itself had a basement:
Myers said construction problems relate directly to the unique circumstances of the site, a narrow space between buildings formerly called Market Street. Underground issues included foundations that were not known to be there, existing utilities that had to be rerouted or modified, electrical problems, basements and vaults, and a gas line that was supposed to be there but could not be found.
Too bad no one thought to do subsurface investigation here. Perhaps this was even an opportunity to do some urban archeology.
For more on the market house and neighboring buildings (lengthy map and pix essay):
From Market House to Bus Hub
Monday, May 25, 2009
The Old Market House in the News
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8 comments:
When I was a kid of 8 or so going downtown with my mother on the bus in the 1960s, I remember walking and standing on these grates set into the sidewalks all over downtown that seemed to be atop bottomless pits full of rumbling machines. I didn't want to stand on them for any length of time. And weird frosted glass block lattices in other sections of sidewalk that evidently provided some light for below-ground "areas". Basically, it seemed to me like humble lil' downtown Dayton was honeycombed with below ground utilities, hallways, passages between buildings, rooms, etc. Do you have any information on this subject, in general? I doubt there's a forgotten subway down there :) but perhaps there are intelligible traces of what came before.
Great post, especially the extended section on Urban Ohio. It's amazing how much history there is in each tiny street.
I'm going to show this to my grandfather. He moved to Dayton in the 30's and remembers the old city very well. He did illustration and design in Dayton after WW2. Those architectural sketches of the Mall Park look very much like his style. He has thousands of old advertising drawings he made in Dayton for various businesses and architects over the years. He also told me he has extensive photography of the Haymarket area he took for a painting he did of that area. Might have to spend a weekend helping him go through his old photos and artwork.
Thanks for the History lesson! So is that old house with the bay windows been demolished? In the photos it looked like it was preserved with th
He also told me he has extensive photography of the Haymarket area he took for a painting he did of that area. Might have to spend a weekend helping him go through his old photos and artwork.---
That would be a real find as there is next to no photographic documentation of that area. The Sanborn maps cover it pretty good, so with a mix of pix and the maps one could get a good idea of what the place was like.
Thanks for the History lesson! So is that old house with the bay windows been demolished? In the photos it looked like it was preserved with th-- If you mean the one on Bank Street yes, it's gone.
Basically, it seemed to me like humble lil' downtown Dayton was honeycombed with below ground utilities, hallways, passages between buildings, rooms, etc. Do you have any information on this subject, in general?---
From what I recall from Chicago these under-sidewalk vaults were for loading and unloading and probably storage. Some of them had built-in scissor lifts or elevators that would raise and lower to sidewalk level. The sidewalk glass block was for daylighting.
They could have been used for building machinery of various sorts, too..like air intakes or exhausts.
I was referring to the one in you Urban Ohio post with the wrought Iron balcony, right next the the new bus terminal your writing about in this post.
It may be a while before we can find those photos, but I will investigate further. The painting he made of the area is really nice too. It sort of a mix between abstract and pop art. 1950's style. It has the Steamboat house in it, too. Dayton is/was one of his favorite subjects.
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Oh, ok..yes that house with the bay windows is still there. I think they took the wrought iron off, though. The wrought iron work was installed when they built Mall Park back in the early 1960s.
If you walk on the sidewalk outside of the old Arcade Seafood storefront on Ludlow, you're standing 15-20 feet above a large room that. There are at least two metal hatches in the sidewalk that could have been used for loading supplies for the Arcade, and the chambers themselves extend from the alley behind Kinko's to the Commercial Building. Would make a cool nightclub.
They had refrigeration machinery in the basement of the Arcade (for cold storage rooms) and some of those hatches on the Ludlow sidewalk for that.
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