Dayton has lost an almost unfathomable amount of its historic architecture over the years, ranging from once-grand downtown office buildings, stores, and hotels to neighborhood business districts and homes all over the city. Many people rightly think of the 1950s and 60s as the decades that did the most damage, as prevailing approaches to urban renewal often called for the complete destruction of areas deemed undesirable. But there has still been a significant number of losses in more recent years. A good way to track trends of roughly the past decade is Google Streetview, which faithfully captures images of the same spot across time starting in 2007. It also lets you scroll around the image, zoom in or out, and click through to see the full map from that time period. Let’s take a quick Streetview Tour to see some of what Dayton has lost.
(Too many Streetview embeds don’t load well, so I’ve split this article into two pages; link to the second page is at the bottom)
The Dayton Daily News and Schwind Buildings
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Ludlow St. shot
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Buildings on S Main St. just north of 35
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“The Point” in Old North Dayton at Valley near Troy
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Farther west on Valley St
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Thanks for making me absolutely ill. I knew about some of these, but not the sum total. And there’s no one to punish! Thank goodness for Google Streets. I only wish building anew were a part of the nastiness.
It is certainly depressing to see them all in one place. I hope that in a few years’ time some of these sites can be redeveloped. If you haven’t already seen it, I did post an article more recently with new construction in the same timeframe; hopefully that might make you slightly less ill!