What 'progress' did to my town.

[Jayce]

Can't think of a good title, but that one sort of fits. I was at a local bar and grill for the first time today to try them out. Got a huge burger and had a hard time finishing it. Very good, but huge! Anyways, they are in a building that was saved after four other turn of the century buildings on that block burnt to the ground in 2005. My eye was drawn to the wall as I was leaving and I looked at the old photographs that were framed there. One was a photo of Tuscarawas Avenue looking down thier side of the street south from 3rd street. Judging by the cars it was either from the late 50's or very early 60's. It was shocking to see what was there. There were Victorian era and turn of the century buildings all lit up and full of businesses going clear down to the river. Basically out of sight of the camera as it was an evening photo. Out of all those buildings, only three of them stand now on that side of the street. Dover went through an urban renewal fit in the late 60's that turned into a blunder that destroyed over half of the downtown. They call it progress, but it was a blunder. I just had to share this as I am always shocked with how much of my town has disappeared. Maybe that's why guys like us try to save history as much as we can like antique radios.

[Carl Travis]

Jayce,
Haven't been up your way for awhile. Enjoyed the Warther museum.
Also, liked to shop at the Riverfront Antique Mall, but their inventory was dwindling the last few times we were there.

[Jayce]

cwtravis Wrote:Jayce,
Haven't been up your way for awhile. Enjoyed the Warther museum.
Also, liked to shop at the Riverfront Antique Mall, but their inventory was dwindling the last few times we were there.

There are still some neat things here, just not much left overall after years of losses. I was the the Riverfront Antique Mall the other day and it is definitely dying off slowly. When they first opened that place was huge. I can rememeber that being Rinks department store when I was a little kid and the Riverfront took up the whole space including the stock room when they opened there years later.

[Arran]

Unfortunately that urban renewal fad did a lot of damage to the heritage of many towns and cities. When you get right down to it it was big government bringing in European pseudo sociologists and so called "urban planners" who were indifferent to North American history and culture and a disdain for what makes a city a city. Many were actually anti urban, their idea was to blow out all of the old apartment buildings, shops, businesses, and row houses in places like New York and to replace them with high rise apartments on park like estates, to have all of the functions located in different districts. The result is ugly Soviet Style archaetecture that has all the appeal of a concrete ice cube tray on end.
In my town most of the old buildings are still there on the main street but were defaced by a "face lift" in the late 70s to give it a tacky disco era ski village look. The old movie palace had a fire and was left to rot for a year with an open hole in the roof, later used as an excuse to demolish it, and the oldest hotel in town was torn down as part of a real estate scam.
Regards
Arran

[Jayce]

Arran Wrote:Unfortunately that urban renewal fad did a lot of damage to the heritage of many towns and cities. When you get right down to it it was big government bringing in European pseudo sociologists and so called "urban planners" who were indifferent to North American history and culture and a disdain for what makes a city a city. Many were actually anti urban, their idea was to blow out all of the old apartment buildings, shops, businesses, and row houses in places like New York and to replace them with high rise apartments on park like estates, to have all of the functions located in different districts. The result is ugly Soviet Style archaetecture that has all the appeal of a concrete ice cube tray on end.
In my town most of the old buildings are still there on the main street but were defaced by a "face lift" in the late 70s to give it a tacky disco era ski village look. The old movie palace had a fire and was left to rot for a year with an open hole in the roof, later used as an excuse to demolish it, and the oldest hotel in town was torn down as part of a real estate scam.
Regards
Arran

Ick, I know around here you have to be in certain cliques or no matter how historical your place is, the city will push you out and tear it down.
One problem I always thought with Uraban Renewal is that the people we brought in for ideas from other countries were basically from countries that were having to rebuild after WWII. Most of thier cities were damaged by bombs or totally wiped out by the war, so they HAD to rebuild. Unfortunately our government decided to do the same thing to our cities and make them look like they got bombed. Even now city governments still want urban renewal, looking at anything less then pre-fab boxes as a failiure. Don't even get me started on developers. I'm still watching the mess north of me at what was the old abandoned Chippewa Lake Park.

[Dave]

I wouldn't say that my hometown was not affected by urban renewal, but it suffered a lot less than many other cities. We still have most of our old buildings, they're just empty & falling appart. The biggest shame around here is the "development" of the rural areas. Where I grew up, there was nothing around us but farm land. Currently there is an interstate ramp and five lane road being built in my old neighborhood, the strip malls will soon follow.

[Jayce]

Motorola man Wrote:I wouldn't say that my hometown was not affected by urban renewal, but it suffered a lot less than many other cities. We still have most of our old buildings, they're just empty & falling appart. The biggest shame around here is the "development" of the rural areas. Where I grew up, there was nothing around us but farm land. Currently there is an interstate ramp and five lane road being built in my old neighborhood, the strip malls will soon follow.

We've had similar problems here over the years. More poeple are moving out my way and they forced zoning on us out here. One reason why I have never built an extra building. It's a shame about the old buildings in your town. If you could find ownership records it is a good guess alot are owned by one person or family with that bought them up years ago and are now slumming them to death. Between that and a city's lack of interest can doom what could be a nice downtown in smaller towns. We also have problems with building owners that refuse to put anything into a structure unless it is making them money. Not a good attitude to spur on growth!

[TA Forbes]

I went to visit my daughter and son in law in Alabama near Fort Rucker a couple of years ago. They lived in a small town on a 2 lane highway. About half of the old storefronts in the town were empty, but NOT torn down. There were old pieces of farm equipment rusting in fields and generations of handed down cars still on the property. Everywhere there were relics of the past in a state of peaceful decay, and if you were apt to listen, you could hear whispers of days long ago.

People there were not in a mindless rush to raze and flatten everything old and unproductive and erect upon the site symbols of our fixation with what is here and now.

I very nearly stayed there for good. It was like I remembered it to be when I was a boy. Before I too became "successful." It reminded me of things that are right and good and always will be, long after we are gone and the monuments to our own sense of here and now are torn down and new monuments to a new generation's here and now are erected.

[Arran]

Jayce Wrote:

Arran Wrote:Unfortunately that urban renewal fad did a lot of damage to the heritage of many towns and cities. When you get right down to it it was big government bringing in European pseudo sociologists and so called "urban planners" who were indifferent to North American history and culture and a disdain for what makes a city a city. Many were actually anti urban, their idea was to blow out all of the old apartment buildings, shops, businesses, and row houses in places like New York and to replace them with high rise apartments on park like estates, to have all of the functions located in different districts. The result is ugly Soviet Style archaetecture that has all the appeal of a concrete ice cube tray on end.
In my town most of the old buildings are still there on the main street but were defaced by a "face lift" in the late 70s to give it a tacky disco era ski village look. The old movie palace had a fire and was left to rot for a year with an open hole in the roof, later used as an excuse to demolish it, and the oldest hotel in town was torn down as part of a real estate scam.
Regards
Arran

Ick, I know around here you have to be in certain cliques or no matter how historical your place is, the city will push you out and tear it down.
One problem I always thought with Uraban Renewal is that the people we brought in for ideas from other countries were basically from countries that were having to rebuild after WWII. Most of thier cities were damaged by bombs or totally wiped out by the war, so they HAD to rebuild. Unfortunately our government decided to do the same thing to our cities and make them look like they got bombed. Even now city governments still want urban renewal, looking at anything less then pre-fab boxes as a failiure. Don't even get me started on developers. I'm still watching the mess north of me at what was the old abandoned Chippewa Lake Park.

Actually, and this is rather ironic, the European pseudo socialogists and urban planners I refer to came from France which was relatively unscatheded compared to other places in Europe, except in Normandy and at the Arden near the Belgian border. They built many of the so called housing estates in the outskirts of Paris and other large cities then they repeated the same experiments in parts of New York and Chicago, whether in France, Britain or over here they all ended up as high rise slums.
One of the biggest insults of urban renewell was the construction of the World Trade Center by the New York and New Jersey Port Authority. They expropriated dozens of old buildings, some dating back 200 years or more, wiped out dozens of small and medium size busineses, erased an entire street from the map, and put up a cluster of office towers that sat largely empty until the late 80s. The Port Authority is largely a branch of government, so in essence it was a government enterprise. Now the WTC site is considered hallowed ground, but it would never have existed if government had stayed out of the real estate business and left things alone.
Regards
Arran

[TA Forbes]

Southern France, between Marseille and Toulon, has places that look like they have remained the same for 200 years. Well, minus the paved roads.....