Brown St. near Miami Valley, one of the many blocks the hospital has gobbled up in its massive expansion over the years.
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The Ecki Building at Wayne and Wyoming in South Park/Twin Towers
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N section of Warren St
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Roosevelt High School, built in 1923 and believed to be the largest high school in the eastern US at that time. (It has been replaced by a new school building, the Dayton Boys Prep Academy.)
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The rebirth of much of East Third St has been a popular story recently. On the other side of the river on West Third St, several whole blocks have already been razed to the ground completely, outside of the small surviving commercial district in the Wright-Dunbar area.
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To be clear, this isn’t a blind call for the preservation of every single structure without taking into account its context. In Dayton, as well as in many other cities, vacant buildings in many areas are too far gone to save and can quickly become targets for crime as well as bring nearby property values down. But when it comes to the urban fabric of a former powerhouse like Dayton, how much can we lose and still call it the same city?
Fortunately there are many examples of dedicated preservation efforts in Dayton that succeeded against all odds, as well as new construction springing up around the city to fill in some of the lost density.
Next week we’ll take a look at some of what Dayton has gained in the Streetview era.
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!