The Century

Downtown Dayton used to have quite a collection of bars and cocktail lounges, at least according to the Sanborn maps and old city directories. There aren't too many old time bars left downtown. I think the Embassy, Bingers, and The Century might be it. The Century is probably my favorite non-music bar in the city.

It was a lunch counter orginally, then became the Century in the 1940s. A pretty basic place, with the usual mixed drinks & hard liqout (including those new single barrel bourbons) and about four or five beers on tap ('Stella', Newcastle, Blue Moon, and I think one or two others...I usually drink Newcastle or Blue Moon)
What makes the place is the absolutely fabulous back bar: heavy carved wood, decorative lights, stained glass, and mirror back, set in this very high ceiling space. It's like you're going to the communion rail and having an elaborate altar as the backdrop. The afternoon barmaid tells me that it was built for the Gibson Hotel in Cincinnati, back in the 19th century, and eventually found its way to this space.
But a bar is only as good as its staff and clientele. This place has very professional yet personable bar staff and the clientele is a real mix. I really don't come here that often, but I notice it seems to get a somewhat older early crowd (late afternoon/early evening), then a younger hipster crowd later at night. The place gets a mix of ages, genders, races and classes, so its not all one way or another, which keeps things cool...the vibe is usually pretty laid-back.

The "C-Bar" has a pretty good jukebox, too. Though this is not a live music place I stopped here after Celtic Fest and noticed they did have some live thing going on, so it does happen on rare occasions.

For more Century intel, check out the bar myspace page. Yeah, even bars have myspace pages now. It is definetly worthy a visit when in downtown Dayton.

Wright Sites nominated to UNESCO World Heritage List

Well, not really nominated yet, but the National Park Service is proposing to nominate that various Wright Brothers sites here (along with a number of Mound Builder sites). The DDN hasa nice article on it.

Compared to Europe the USA, Canada, and Mexico don't have too much on this list. The US has only 3 post-contact cultural landmarks on the list: Independence Hall, the Statue of Liberty, and (as one site) Monticello and the original University of Virginia campus.

The rest of the US sites are natural landmarks or pre-Columbian sites like Chaco Canyon and Cahokia.

The European list has things as diverse as an old steel mill in the Saarland, a geodetic arc in Baltic region, the Ironbridge Valley industrial site in England and the Rhine Gorge cultural/natural landscape, as well as the expected castles, palaces, and cathederals.

The Euros are not shy about using the UNESCO World Heritage designation for tourism purposes, as I've seen tourist things for the Rhine gorge that mention this. If they Dayton sites get nominated this will certainly bring world attention to the area and may lead to more foreign visitors.

For more on the list follow this link to a nice Wiki article + links to the global lists.

Building 26.

The old WWII codebreakers building, Building 26, is in the news again, with a string of comments. It looks like demolition is starting, with a salvage effort to be incorporated into a display at Carillon Park.

One has to wonder why, when they tore down the rest of NCR, they didn’t tear this one down? Maybe because it could've been reused as the modern addition is not that old, and has a flexible floorplate?

26 is an interesting case. Most of the complaints are about the "Cold War Modern" steel frame curtain wall office building that wraps around the old reinforced concrete 26, using tan colored spandrel glass to mimic the old NCR buff color scheme. That building is a fair example of mid-century modernism( MCM), a design style that has caught the interest of architectural historians and design fans. Dayton hasn't really caught this wave yet, except at The Brick Ranch blog, which links to some neat websites dealing with residential MCM.

The original code breakers building is more or less intact (in terms of structural system and floor plan, not facade) within the new building. Considering the contrasting structural systems and materials it should be possible to do a renovation that plays off this. The cost-benefit aspect of this might say to demo & rebuild, but one could say that there are historical considerations that might cause a "keep" decision.

First, the existing floor plan from one of the Save 26 websites


Then lay in the structural systems based on the plan (and the restrooms and stairs)
Removing the plan, there is an obvious contrast between systems. The old 26 is pretty obvious in plan
Then a renovation concept that plays off the contrasts of the buildings, while doing some minimal interventions in the old 26 to bring back the original plan. One office could be given a period restoration, while the other could have a replica of one of the Bombe computers plus maybe some small exhibits. The rest of the building could be modern offices.



Another more philosophical question is if a site should be preserved for historical purposes if it has lost its historical appearance? The issue is more the history that happened inside the building vs its archictural value or architectural features. This philosophy of preservation is what is used at WPAFB.

Perhaps a more sophisticated approach would be to consider 26 as a quasi-ruin, with enough intact to provide an allusion to the historic events, vs a full restoration to a specific time period (in this case WWII).

In a sense this is a modern version of what one sees in Europe, with older structures being accretions from different historical periods, and also contrasts between moden and old, like in Sverre Fehns' Hamar Museum or Carlo Scarpas' Castelveccio.

"Precision City" : Dayton and the Tool & Die Industry

One has to be impressed by the resilience of the local tool & die industry. Metalworking of various types has long been a big part of Dayton manufacturing, and machine shop work was one of the very earliest industries of Dayton, with the first machine shops being mentioned in the 1830s & 40s.

Precision machining and manufacturing became such an important part of local industrial scene that the city was nicknamed “Precision City” in the first half of the 20th century. Today Dayton is supposedly one of the top five locations in the USA for tool and die work.




The industry is not very visible due to its structure. It is a network of smaller shops, usually family owned, which are not as “visible” as big mass-assembly companies such as Delphi or GM. Yet you can see these small factories around town, with a bit of a concentration on the north side.

News reports in the later 1990s indicated that the Asians were targeting this line of business, and then the recession came. One would have expected the tool & die industry to be hit hard along with other types of manufacturing, which was the case, according to this graph based on numbers from the census County Business Patterns (for Montgomery County):


Yet the recent reports in the Dayton Daily News indicates the industry is on the rebound. The report was on the troubles the industry has in recruiting apprentices to refill the ranks of retiring tool & die makers, and on a minority recruitment program.

Apparently the industry in Dayton was somewhat insular, with new workers being recruited through an informal network of friends and family of tool & die makers. It seems this network isn’t generating enough new apprentices to replace retirees, so the industry is turning to a minority recruitment program as well as a training program at Sinclair, Step II. Step II dates back to 1994, and is a nationally known intensive training program intended to prepare apprentices for the industry.

(Sinclair also has the Top Gun program to improve the skills of machinists as a way to improve the competitiveness of the local industry)

This is an area where education is important. Though this is factory work of sorts it is skilled labor, requiring good math and geometry skills. If the local schools don’t teach math well, particularly schools that serve the minorities the industry is trying to attract, this will mean a smaller pool of potential workers.

What is interesting is that even with foreign competition there is still a demand for new workers in this field

The Fairgrounds as Park and Neighborhood

There's been some posting over at Esrati and For the Love of Dayton (which has some good graphics on the plan) about the Fair Board proposal for remodeling the county fairgrounds. My put is that the site needs to be redeveloped as something other than a fairgrounds. And I agree with the late John Patterson that at least part of the site should be a park.

Here is the basic design concept expressed as a site section:What it might look like, basing the urban design on New Urbanist principles. The two old landmark buildings would be kept, pretty much as is. The housing could be thought out more, but think "Wright Dunbar meets a Chicago neighborhood".



The fun part is the overlook, which could be developed into an appealing landscape architecture feature taking advantage of views over the city:



More discussion explaining the design + graphics, particularly about MVH, Main and Stewart streets at this link.

Three + Two (and a few more)

Lest Daytonology be seen as “that 'festival of the week' blog", here is something different.

Five favorite books. Three ones that I have read and re-read + two that are recent finds. None of these are about Dayton, but they influence how I interpret Dayton. A theoretical underpinning for "Daytonology", if you will.

Three Old Favorites:


Chicago, Growth of a Metropolis
This underrated and little-known book is probably the greatest influence on my thinking about urbanism and the basis for much of my interpretations of Dayton posted at Urban Ohio the past 2 years or so. The book looks at the historical development of the city and suburbs…the neighborhoods and industrial districts and transporation infrastructure…not just downtown architecture and mansions of the rich. The book uses the vernacular urban fabric as a way to read the city. The extensive use of photography to document and explain the city was innovative for its time. Companion books would be “The Urban Wilderness” and Streetcar Suburbs, both by Sam Bass Warner



City of Quartz
The author has moved on to apocalyptic writing, but this muckraking historical account of Los Angles made him famous. Mike Davis' quasi-Marxist, class-based analytical framework, describing on how money and power influence city politics and urban form was quite intriguing. The concluding essay on Davis’ home town of Fontana, California, is a gem. The companion book to City of Quartz (maybe should be read first), is Reyner Banham's excellent explication of Los Angeles urban form: Los Angeles, The Architecture of the Four Ecologies.





Seeing Like a State
This book is, in a way a validation of Jane Jacobs' writing, reinforcing her insights on the failure of planning via a critique of "High Modernism" and master planning as a way to solve problems. There was a critique of the author in not acknowledging his intellectual foundations (Austrian economics and English conservative philosophy), but that doesn't detract from what is said here, the vivid examples used, and the excellent writing style. Companion volume would be Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”




Two Recent Discoveries:




The Origins of the Urban Crisis.
An investigation of the downfall of Detroit, this book opens ones eyes on how racism, socioeconomic self-segreation, and economic change worked together to destroy a city. The relevance for Dayton is obvious. I am starting to investigate the color line in Dayton, so this book is becoming an underpinning to my research. Companion book would be “Redevelopment and Race”, which is more of a planning history, and the jouranlistic account "Devils Night". The Shrinking City exhibition catalogues are also good companions to this work.





City Center to Regional Mall
Another Los Angeles book, heavily illustrated, thus similar to that Chicago Growth of a Metropolis, but more analytic text. The City of Dayton is just part of a mostly suburban metropolitan area, so I’ve been looking closer at suburbia. This book has influenced my research into suburban Dayton as it is about the development and history of suburbia and suburban shopping areas, how retail development changed in response to urban growth and transportation technology. Though it is about suburbia, there is a good chapter on how LA downtown retail geographically sorted itself out into different market segments, which one can see in Dayton, too. Companion books are Holy Land, a Suburban Memoir (another LA book) and the pioneering Main Street to Miracle Mile.

Lebanese Festival

Last weekend the event to go to was Alefest, which apparently drew some very large crowds (from what i could see driving by on Patterson). Yet, at $20 cover, $30 day of show, just to drink a bunch of craft brews? Out of my budget. I can do my own beer tasting at home, with a bit of help from Arrow Wine or the excellent Belmont Party Supply.

Instead this past weekend I went to the Lebanese Festival at Riverscape, which wasn't rained-out this year. The popular attractins here are the food (and the DDN did a nice write-up on this aspect):
..and the entertainment, which involved folkloric danceing with some audience participation.
In a way this seems like a parish festival for a local Lebanese church, but held more as an event open to the general public. One can hope for some of the other ethnic groups to hold festivals down here. I know the Latinos have an event coming up here. What would be really interesting is if the local Indian community would hold an event. I think there was a plan to do this a year or two ago, but it fell through and the event was cancelled.

The next big ethnic event for Dayton is the popular Greek Festival, over at the Orhodox Church in Grafton Hill. This is a very popular festival, and there will be a shuttle bus from a downtown parking lot.

For a tour of the Lebanese festival click here.