Dayton Daily News gets it right re Kettering's isolationsim

I really don't mean to pick on Kettering. I really like that suburb. I really do. It is just such a nice suburb. And, can a place that produced Bob Pollard and Ted Rall be that bad?

But darn it they can be so parochial.

The DDN has a great op--ed condemning the place for rejecting that dispatch center, and calls for the county to press on with the concept without Kettering.

"Kettering critics of consolidation have gotten enough signatures to put the issue of whether to participate in the talks on the ballot in November. Some people think that voters probably would endorse keeping things the way they are, and that city council members don't want to be seen as being on the wrong side of the public."

"OK. But if voters are only hearing from those who want to keep their jobs or who think this is still the 20th century when it comes to public safety technology, that doesn't bode well for the future. Even Mr. Schwieterman admits that by going it alone, Kettering citizens will pay more — about $3 million over 10 years."

"The Montgomery County communities that are dedicated to finding ways to save taxpayer money and that can see the benefits of a bigger, more modern system need to go forward even without Kettering — and the other cities that, unlike Kettering, never sat for even a minute to discuss consolidated dispatch."

"One day the price will become too much for all of them to pretend they're islands."

Amen to that! And I will be exploring that soon, how Kettering is not an island.

Kettering's Hidden Poverty Pocket

The area in the red circle. While the recent "Section 8 Controversy" was about Oakwood folks up in arms about poor people living across Shroyer from them (which has been the case since at least the 2000 census), there is also a poverty concentration in the southern reaches of Kettering, off of Whipp.

Let's take a look:

I will be taking a closer look at Kettering's deteriorating socioeconomic situation later this week.

Tschermans!

The German Fest was relocated this year, to the Fairgrounds. Carillon Park raised their rates so they relocated to the Fairgrounds. I am not a fan of the Fairgrounds, but the new venue did permit the event to expand. There were more vendors (inside the round barn), and kiddy rides.

And, of course, lots of good beer. They always have a good beer selection here, both bottled and on tap. And friendly volunteers to serve it, too.
Dayton’s German ancestry community has managed to maintain an institutional presence more solid than one would expect, as this wasn’t as big a center of immigration as Cincinnati was. There are three German clubs in town, the Edelweiss, the Eintracht, and the Liederkranz-Turner. I think it’s the Liederkranz that sponsors this event.

Dayton’s “Deutschtum” was mostly an east side community, moving east on 5th, and then south down Wayne to Xenia Avenue (nicknamed “Dutch Boulevard” for its Germanic character). The German community helped support a decent sized brewrey industry here, too...check out Curt Dalton's excellent history of the brewing trade here.

German neighborhoods were the Oregon, Haymarket, St Anne’s Hill, Xenia Avenue, and probably South Park. The Germans also drove the formation of some of the older Catholic parishes here.






I really don’t know the history of this community as well as I should. There are a number of archival sources, but they are in German, as this was probably a bilingual community during the 19th and early 20th century, using German among themselves but English in dealing with others. This persisted until WWI, and perhaps even later.

Yet, by now, the German-Americans of Dayton are thoroughly assimilated, though new Germans do move into the area, supporting a German language radio program on Saturdays and German items in certain local food stores (like Charlie’s on Troy Street and the Brotzeit Deli in Lebanon, which has a strong Dayton-area patronage).

And, of course, this fun festival: food, music, dance, beer, sing-alongs (they give you a song sheet), makes it all very gemutlich!



For more pix click here

The Arcade Story in Four Parts

When I was heading down to the library to do some research back in June Leon Bey, who used to work in the local history room and still volunteers there, handed me a flyer for "Friends to Save the Arcade". After reading that I knew I had to help out.

Curious, and knowing there is a lot of hearsay around the Arcade, I decided to find out how the dire situation came to pass, and what was the history of these buildings at the very heart of downtown. I became totally engrossed in the subject. I even some vacation time to research it, spending days and evenings in the history room poring over musty city directories, yellowed news clippings and grainy microfilm, as well as online research using the DDN archives, the digital Sanborns, and the libraries Lutezenberger photo collection.


Here is the result of this, a history of the Arcade in four parts. Hopefully this won't end up an online memorial to a building left to die from neglect.

1, The Arcade Block in the 19th Century An illustrated prehistory of the block, including some "rephotography" using modern pix taken by yer humble host, combined with images from of the libraries Lutzemberger collection plus old city and Sanborn insurance maps.

2. The Arcade 1904-1975 This is a history of how the building was used. I look at public markets in Dayton, the construction history, and the types of shops in the market and the arcade, the different apartments, and the interesting businesses in the office parts (including the involvement of the Beerman interests. Lots of graphs, diagrams and colored floor plans. I did a lot of work with the old city criss-cross directories to reconstruct the Arcade occupancy and what type of businesses where there, through time.


The next two would be of particular interest to those of you interested in local politics, economics, and political influence.

3. Redevelopment and Bankruptcy..Mid 1960s to 1984. I spent a lot of time on this part, which required a lot of work with the news clippings and microfilm, as well as old planning documents from the 1960s. Fortunately the library had things on file, and the D J-H and DDN did some good coverage of this project, including the financing, which was all well-preserved in the clipping files, so the record is out there.

4. Bankruptcy, closure, the "Danis Era", to today. This includes that Arcade Centre urban renewal project, the food court, and the fishy dealings & motivations (IMO) that brought control to Danis, and that long closed period, with some personal speculation from yours truly to wrap it all up. So, pour yourself some nice cold iced tea or lemonade, put some good music on, and settle in for a (I hope) interesting history of this downtown landmark.

Citirama!

My first visit to a Citirama show last weekend. I think they have these every year? This is a takeoff on those Homeramas they have out in the suburbs, where you can ooh-and-ahh at pretty awful yet pretty big spec housing, and the fabulous interior decorating inside. At least that was what the Homeramas were like in in Louisville. I haven't been to one in Dayton yet but I figure they are similar.


Anyway, this Citirama was in the old University of Dayton (UD) "student ghetto", an old blue collar neighborhood off of Brown Street, between the UD campus and Irving Street. What's happened here is that UD had acquired probably nearly all of the housing in the neighborhood, and is using it student housing. What usually happens in these cases is the houses are acquired before they are torn down for campus expansion, but are rented out to students in the interim, which form funky little communities of young folks. A famous example of this was Perry Lane next to Stanford, immortalized in Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" as the home of Ken Kesey and his circle.


Here in Dayton something different happened. UD kept the houses, and, instead of tearing down the neighborhood for expansion or conventional dorms, is housing students this way as a matter of policy. This is pretty unusual for a US university. Since the neighborhood is now a keeper, UD is renovating the houses, and building new infill in some cases. Citirama had a block of new row houses on display, which was designed to break up the mass of the building so it would read as individual units. There was some remodeled older units on show, too. The interiors are pretty spartan, designed for hard use, which is to be expected with dormitory rooms. I noticed that the upperclassmen can live in a slightly larger unit, and there was definitely ADA compliance in the latrine layout.


But the real story here is that UD is committing to a form ofneighborhood conservation; instead of bulldozing everything for a big new impersonal "complex", they keep the old neighborhood, with all its positive features such as walkability, front porches, and human scale.


And there is the fabulous Art Street

...which is probably one of my favorite new buildings in Dayton right now (this is worth it's own post).

Take a quick online tour of Citirama (and more commentary from yer humble host) at the Urban Ohio Citirama pix thread

Witamy....to Dayton's Polonia!

The occasion was the annual Polish Club Picnic at the "Polish Country Club" picnic grove off Needmore Road. One of secrets of the Dayton area as it is so under-promoted. I've heard about this event in the past (usually on the German radio program!), but this was my first visit.

Icky weather, but a nice little crowd, a polka band: Duane Malinowski (are they local? They play the Czechoslovakian Club a lot), and, of course, food and beer. Probably one of the few opportunities outside of the Amber Rose to get kolachki, pierogi, and golabki (pronounced ga-wump-k), and that sour-cream & onion cucumber salad. And sausages. They said this food was from "Sigs" though Sig the butcher has been closed for years now, so maybe it’s the kids using the old recipes ?
Polonia? What is that, you may ask? It is the Polish Diaspora, people of Polish ancestry who live outside of Poland. I come from the Chicago Polonia, from an old working class neighborhood that grew up around the factories and the church, settled mostly by Poles and a few Italians. American urban Polonia is pretty much like that, found mostly along or near the Great Lakes and in the Northeast, too (like the industrial towns of the Connecticut Valley).


Dayton is about as far south as one finds this urban Polish history. The Poles settled at the edge of Old North Dayton out Valley Street, founding St Adalberts parish (1903), and the Polish Club across the street.


One would think this community is gone, moved to suburbia, but the census still shows a light concentration of Poles in that census tract, which is about right as the Poles were among the last of the Eastern/Southern European immigrant groups to finally assimilate, and leave their city neighborhoods. Old North Dayton was the old neighborhood for a number of eastern Europeans groups: the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Hungarians, and the Germans, who founded the first parish in the neighborhood in 1880s and have a similar picnic grove (the Eintracht). The last relics here are the parishes themselves, the social clubs, Charlie's import market, and the excellent Amber Rose restaurant, a true Dayton treasure.


Though I grew up in a similar community in Chicago I have no connection to the one in Dayton, and have been to only one event here before, a parish carnival at St Adalberts. And to a Cityfolk event at the Polish Club for Irish or Scots music/dance. So coming to this picnic was exploring new ground for me. This is a good place to go with a group, and especially with your girlfriend or wife, as the centerpiece is the music and dancing.

Greenways for West Dayton

Lots more here illustrating the concept:

West Dayton Regional Open Space

The idea is to address the mix of large scale industrial abandonment and underutilization + ongoing residential abandonment on the West Side + demolition of public housing.

An urban design concept is investigated involving a mix of large urban parks (something Dayton lacks), forest preserves, and urban ag, tied together by a bikeway and parkway system.

The concept also works with the topography by proposing a skyline drive, and suggests urban infill and commercial intensification in the remaining neighborhoods, as well as parkside housing to better define the city edge at the parks.

Note that this is mere "paper architecture" as there are no real-life proposals for something like this.