>> from the 1890s to the 1920s, this was the place to live in columbus -- where the barons of industry and business built their dream houses. >> some of the most clever and creative people in the city lived in this neighborhood and
have through time. >> as the city expanded, the suburbs lured many away. houses were abandoned, the neighborhood forgotten. >> so many people in the area wanted to move on up. and "move on up" in that case meant "moving on out."
>> property values dropped. absentee land owners became the norm rather than the exception and people weren't finding value and finding people who wanted to live back in the city. >> but now, these old houses have inspired a new sense of urban living, and people are
rediscovering olde towne east. >> they're buying these derelict houses that used to be shells and breathing whole new life into them. so what used to be -- just debris is now these wonderful masterpieces. >> if you want to see the
evolution of american architecture over the course of the last 100 to 150 years, you can find examples of it in olde towne east -- from the most common working man's home on the one hand, to the most elaborate mansion for a person who has some wealth.
>> the diverse architecture many people sought was already here. the diverse community many residents imagined is still being built. >> we really watch out for each other, we celebrate each other, and we support each other. >> it's not an exclusive
neighborhood, it's an inclusive neighborhood. >> all of the problems that we have had have just made us stronger. ♪♪ >> support for "columbus neighborhoods" is provided by -- since 1921, the state auto group
has called "columbus neighborhoods" home, offering personal and business insurance through independent insurance agents. for your car, home, and business, the state auto group. >> as we've grown and changed with columbus, we've never lost
sight of one thing -- we are neighbors serving neighbors. chase and it's more than 15,000 central ohio associates are proud to celebrate the historic neighborhoods of columbus. >> aep ohio, connected to your
life. more at aepohio.com. >> the law firm of bailey cavalieri -- a local firm with a national presence. baileycavalieri.com. >> and by these and other local foundations and families --
and viewers like you. thank you! >> there is something about a place that was built a long time ago -- that you're one of a number of owners and you view yourself as a steward. you're living in a house and
your adding to its history and you become connected with people you don't even know. >> our houses are tickets back in time and you just get the great feeling of warmth knowing that the people and stories that came before. >> i think when you walk into
historic homes, you get a glimpse of what the builders valued. there's something to be said for the power of place. people needed to have a sense of not only who they are but where they are. and places --
especially old places -- help us with that. >> the civil war is over and columbus is booming. downtown's getting crowded. rail yards clog the north side. the west side floods. the south side is choked with smoke and sewage from tanneries
and factories. if you've got money to build a fashionable home, where do you go? >> the east side is the logical place for the extension of relatively fashionable communities from downtown >> it was a time of innovation
and invention, but it was a transportation innovation that radically changed columbus and its neighborhoods. >> the olde towne east area is predominately a streetcar suburb. its golden age, its age of wealth and standing really dates
from the period of the 1890s into the first couple of decades of the 20th century. >> initially, it was how far you could walk to get to work or to do whatever you had to do in daily living. once streetcars came along, that changed.
>> if you think about having to get on a horse and ride a horse where the next place you have to go is, things moved a lot slower then. so streetcars, originally pulled by horses, eventually were powered by electric. that meant that you could get
around a lot faster. >> the street car made getting to the east side easy, and the location of some of columbus' grand and lofty institutions also made this a desirable >> certainly the blind school was a major anchoring institution.
it's been there since the 1830s. it was a landmark on the east side of the city. >> if you look at the style of the architecture, the grandeur, it was built to show off that we cared about these people and we were proud that we took care of them.
and people didn't mind living next to them. >> there are no real parks as we think about them. and parks become associated with a leisure class who enjoyed strolling in them, who used the gardens for sort of an extension of their own yard.
and it's the houses that grew up around the institutions, not necessarily the other way around. >> at one time, the city stopped at parsons farm, near what we today call "parsons avenue." the family had become a dynasty in columbus.
doc parsons was one of the city's first physicians. his son, george, was a remarkably successful businessman. >> his family, in fact, marries into european royalty. it is one of the most significant weddings in columbus
history when the parsons' daughter is married off. >> i think it was definitely a love marriage although i'm sure that there were a lot of whispers behind her back that it was about marrying for title or he married her for her money. and parsons mansion at the
corner of what is today parsons and briden is eventually gonna become the first columbus school for girls. >> these folks, these founders of columbus were individualists. they wanted to be different. they wanted to be special. >> they are the ones who will be
the bankers, department store owners, people who are venture capitalists of their day. >> they probably were merchants, professionals, people who were affluent and had a lot of disposable income and they put it in their homes and their lifestyle.
>> as the developing city pushed east, certain streets started taking shape -- livingston avenue on the south -- main street, which was part of the national road -- and broad street, the road to granville and the beginning of a
premiere residential boulevard. >> broad street, in a sense, is the sort of victorian dream street and persons who are really well off in the city of columbus tend to build their dream houses out along the east broad street corridor. >> that was the creme de la
creme for those who were the well-to-do in building houses which were really monuments to their own success back in the turn of the last century. >> they wanted to make broad street coming into downtown columbus a show place, so they built the finest houses they
could design and conceive and afford. these homes later became what we might say are "vanity houses." >> at the time these buildings were built, it was a broad avenue. it had tree islands in the middle of the street, so it was
a very graceful, very refined, very beautiful boulevard, and it was one of the main entrances into the city of columbus, so it was a very, very important street. >> broad street became home to some of the most influential people in columbus --
people like friedrich schumacher, famous for inventing testimonial advertising for the elixir peruna. >> my grandmother took peruna and she felt better. the horse drank peruna, he feels better. the dog has it.
you know, my great grandmother -- it cured everything. >> later in his life, schumacher donated his art collection which is the basis for the present day columbus museum of art on broad and broad street was home not only to the wealthy, but the
important. for years, ohio governors had a broad street address. >> originally, ohio governors didn't really have a mansion through most of the 19th century, through the 1800s. they lived in all sorts of places.
by the 20th century, it became apparent that it would be nice, like most other states do, to have a governor's mansion. so the lindberg mansion, having been built in 1905, was acquired by the state of ohio to become the governor's mansion. and it will serve as the
governor's mansion through the 1920s, well down into the 1950s when a new governor's mansion is acquired in bexley. >> well, legend has it and historians say they can prove that if you were wealthy and wanted to build a house on broad street, you had to be certain
things -- you had to be white, anglo-saxton, and protestant. and if you weren't all of those things but still wealthy, your alternative was bryden road. >> there used to be an arch over bryden road and the housing stock was just fabulous.
the trees were just tiny, so you could imagine what it looked like with the giant houses and just newly sapling trees. the neighborhood was quite magnificent. >> so bryden road was home to some incredible mansions built by the schottenstein family, the
lazarus family, and some noted catholics like theodore leonard. >> oh, bryden road was a luxury place of our neighborhood. we always went there on halloween 'cause we knew we would get something really good. sometime's they'd give us apples, sometimes a piece of
pumpkin pie, candy, so that was the first place we ever went when we went halloweening. >> old towne east is really a collection of probably 500 unique architectural styles. there are mansions on bryden road, east broad street, but there are also smaller houses of
trades people and some of the other folks that lived in the area. >> it was really a pretty diverse population where you could be in a big house on broad street and walk two blocks to a very, very modest house. those might have been people who
worked in the companies that the people on broad street owned. that's not how we develop cities today. we would never have what would be the equivalent of, say, a million dollar home next to a $50,000 home. >> in the late 19th century,
just like today, your house was where you showed off your wealth and standing, and that's exactly what they did. >> i think it's a nice, reflective piece of history for the u.s. at that time when the industrial revolution -- all this new wealth was coming
into favor and what they were doing with their money. >> they're solid architecture that says "we made our money. we are here." it's conservative, restrained, and yet it has the embellishments of what 19th century and early 20th century
architecture should have. >> i think it speaks to how the city grew over time, how people wanted to have nice places to live and how they made these neighborhoods what they were. >> they used the best resources available, sparing no expense to be fashionable with the latest
architectural styles. >> i think it's important to realize these were sophisticated people who knew what was going on in the world and were well read, well educated. they didn't have television, they didn't have social media, but they did have magazines,
newspapers, ways of reflecting what was the height of fashion during the day. >> i think they were getting a big influence from europe which is reflected in this home, because by 1900, when they remodeled the house, it was more common to have an english
interior, an english country house, or a french country home, so they were really directing their taste more to that than they were american. >> they valued craftsmanship and they valued materials -- quality materials. they built their homes to last
not for a few decades, but they literally built these homes to last for centuries. >> henry hallwood has a really long and interesting history. he was a miner in west virginia for a while. moving here -- and because of that
mineralogical background, he became an entrepreneur in paving bricks. so tons of his paving bricks were everywhere in cities all over america. you would see these little blocks and they would say "hallwood block."
>> architects were highly sought after when designing houses. not only did they design the houses, but many of them lived in the neighborhood. architects such as joseph yost of yost and packard who left a legacy of architecture in the schools, buildings, and homes
all over columbus. george bellows sr., who designed many landmark buildings -- including what is now the ame zion church -- and in their ranks was florence kenyan hayden rector, a female architect ahead of her time. >> she's really the first
licensed woman architect in ohio coming out of ohio state. her mentor was the university architect who gave her an important commission and that was to design a womens' dormitory at ohio state when florence was only 25 years old. he also gave her a male
assistant because he wasn't so sure that this was something a woman could handle. >> she was a smart woman and a little belligerent it sounds like, you know? and so she decided that she was gonna lock that guy out of the office.
she finished the project on time and under budget and we have the oxley hall at osu which was the first womens' dormitory at the ohio state university built by her. >> she designed a house that is architecturally incompatible and unlike any other house in the
neighborhood and it caused quite a stir for the day. and it always harkens back when people want to build new construction and you think about the architectural compatibility of that structure and then you think about the historic battle over architectural compatibility
that must have always been. >> people built their houses the way they wanted them, reflective of the formalities and functions of everyday life. >> certain areas of the house that we think are absolutely critical today might have been secondary.
there might have been public spaces like parlors that were a little more formal than the living spaces that the families had. the kitchen was purely functional and you would have a lovely dining room where you would be served dinner.
>> despite the architectural diversity of the neighborhood, most of the houses did have a common distinguishing feature -- a large front porch. they shaped the neighborhood and they shaped the way people lived their lives. >> front porches were part of
the extension of the house. it wasn't just to keep you dry on a wet day. especially, if you look at a lot of houses in olde towne east where the front porches were actually like outdoor living rooms. these houses were built without
air conditioning, so on hot days, it was comfortable being outside. it's also an opportunity for eyes on the street and you become part of what's going on around you. >> the movers and shakers on the east side were investing heavily
in their homes. they did not want broad street overrun with businesses and traffic that would come from developing commercial properties. >> they worked very hard to keep that traffic off of broad street, but the businessmen and
the burgeoning business community over on main street wanted the traffic to come past >> main street was kind of the commercial spine along with long street that really framed these neighborhoods in between and there was a lot of commercial activity along main street --
theaters, restaurants, professional businesses, stores -- >> the nearest area is a residential community, primarily, and always has been with a lot of mom-pop stuff stuffed on the corners. like in nodes, commercial nodes.
it followed the history of the you know, there'd be a drug store or something on the corner and you walked to it. and then there'd be one on a corner a few blocks away that they walked to. >> businesses came and went throughout the neighborhood, but
one has been here since the beginning. >> e.t. paul was my great grandfather. he started the business in 1896. he was a blacksmith and he built the business from just one single smithy up into 12 smithies working.
the shoes that he used were rubber pads to keep the noise down on the cobblestone streets. also, they used to race horses up and down rich street. >> and as automobiles replaced horse and carriages, e.t. paul, along with the rest of the neighborhood, made the
transition. >> he wasn't sure whether he wanted to stay in the smithing business or whether he wanted to actually transition into the automobile tires. a very good friend to him was the president of the bank and kind of encouraged him and
helped my great grandfather go through the transition. >> this new class of venture capitalists living on the east side were not only making names for themselves in columbus, but all over the country and the world. joe carr founded the modern day
nfl and lived on bryden road -- mary campbell, the only ever two-time miss america, lived on garfield -- and dr. lewis m. early lived on 20th. >> he was a general practicing physician in columbus, ohio, interested in photography.
in the late 1800s, he bought a camera, learned how to use it. the germans had invented x-ray technology, and dr. early, with a group of doctors here in columbus, worked on a patent to develop x-rays onto photographic paper and sold the patent to kodak in 1905.
>> the neighborhood always has been wonderful and creative and there's that creative spirit here. >> one of the neighborhood's most notable residents was george bellows. celebrated as an important american painter in the turn of
the last century, his bold depictions of ordinary life made him a leader in the realism movement and he became an acclaimed artist of his generation. >> his father was an extremely successful builder and architect.
his upbringing was distinctly conservative. bellows loved baseball, loved sports, and his family didn't prevent him from taking part of that and that was a big part of his life here in columbus. his father was a bit disconcerted by the fact that he
wanted to become an artist. he encouraged him to become an architect/engineer as he had done. and basically george has to not show up for one of his final exams to convince him that he really doesn't want to get a degree in that area of study at
ohio state. so that message gets through to his father and his father gives him an allowance and sends him off to one of the best art schools in the country in new york city but with a fairly tight leash. >> bellows' work was provocative
and extraordinarily popular. he later used his influence to encourage the development of the fledgling columbus museum of art. >> he arranges, in the early part of the 20th century, that there will be a show in columbus of his work and others.
but he wants to have incandescent light used, not gas lights. the papers report "well, the gallery show is going to be delayed in opening and that was too expensive and they couldn't meet that need." but behind the scenes, there's
something else going on and that is his artworks have arrived -- those that he has and those of his friends. the city fathers get wind of the fact that some of them depict male moods and others are boxing scenes. and columbus technically has a
law against pugilism and there is a great deal of discussion about should he be able to show these or not. and eventually, a deal is struck and they take those questionable paintings and they put them aside in a room. and it's really the mens' room
only that can view them. women can't see them. >> he was instrumental in bringing people in for teaching he did a number of portraits of professors for ohio state university and traveled back and forth to visit his family on a regular basis.
so he didn't forget his home town. >> not far behind george bellows was another artist from the neighborhood who would follow his success in art. >> it's said of her that she was one of the best watercolorists of her day, regardless of her
sex because men were the artists of the day. women stayed at home and took care of the family and alice schille did not do that. >> alice schille grew up in an affluent neighborhood in the olde towne east section of columbus on bryden road.
her father was a leading manufacturer of soda-pop. everybody in central ohio drank schille pop and was quite successful with that business. but tragically, he died when he was only about 40 years old and his wife carried on the business.
and i think that circumstance because of the wife's strength and her understanding of her own ability to run a business, she was very supportive of alice and encouraged her to go to the greatest schools. that gave her freedom to travel all over the world, help with
finances in the beginning days. alice schille also was connected with many of the prominent families and painted portraits of most of the leading families in central ohio between about 1905 and 1940. >> she became a nationally ranked watercolorist and did
paintings all over the country. >> life was good for the privileged people living in this neighborhood, but just as the development of the streetcar made olde towne east possible, a new form of transportation -- the automobile -- made it easier to move to newer
neighborhoods. >> as columbus started to move further east, i think it was a natural transition that a lot of people that were residents down in this area moved out to more the suburban. >> new housing was harder to find, so people had a choice
between older houses or opportunities to build new things in other areas of town and they opted for the latter. >> as people moved east, homes in the neighborhood became available. the exodus of columbus' elite provided an opportunity for
members of the rising middle class. olde towne east became more diverse. >> when blacks were able to purchase property, a lot of them were able to purchase in the east side first. prior to that, they were almost
all renters. >> blacks, whites, greens, blues -- everybody lived here. >> we had no racial issues within the neighborhood even though that we had clusters of blacks living in certain areas and what have you.
we played together, we did everything together. we even sometimes camped out on the porch with a mixture of black and whites. >> i think the biggest thing about it is that it was clean, quiet, residential, very much black middle class people who
had aspirations, who wanted their children to be well-educated, people who worked, took care of their property, and contributed something in terms of the character of the neighborhood. >> streetcars made the neighborhood possible.
the automobile made it possible for people to leave, and the highway nearly destroyed the community. >> it would be hard to underestimate the impact of the construction of the interstate highway system on the city of columbus or any american city
for that matter. think about thousands and thousands and thousands of buildings being demolished to make way for the freeway. >> two major, major thoroughfares came through the community and separated them and became physical, like,
boundaries for these >> it cut this neighborhood off from the north, the south, the east, and the west. i think that kind of changed this whole atmosphere. people left. left homes that were good to live in.
the suburbs exploded in the post world war ii generation, and that's where people thought life was better. >> families now were being presented with all those choices of the little house, the yard to raise their children in, and the fact it was a two-car family.
>> huge numbers of people begin to leave the old city and depart for the new suburbs some considerable distance away from downtown. as they do so, those older neighborhoods go through a variety of transitions. some revitalizing themselves,
some restoring themselves, some not -- some deteriorating. >> people start leaving. everybody wants something newer and bigger or smaller or more modern. and as they leave, then the businesses suffer 'cause there's
now shopping further out. >> when business moves away, then those buildings are vacant. and without residential or enough residential, it doesn't anchor a community through the hard times. >> people moving into a neighborhood create demand and
they want to be able to get to a store. they want a market. they want different services. they want restaurants and they'll patronize them. you've got to have that because it doesn't make and difference how much stuff you've got there.
if nobody's going, it's not gonna stay. >> in the age of the suburb, no one wanted a mansion with 10 foot ceilings. some were abandoned. some were turned into nursing homes, churches, or apartments. home owners were disappearing.
>> owners didn't want to be here any longer. they wanted to move out to the suburbs and that's what they did. so they left a lot of uninhabited property that became rental property. and that's how we ended up with
this mix of people that we didn't know. >> when you have a high rental rate, you have a large transient population and that transient population generally do not have the save values. values in terms of ownership. they don't have as much interest
in participating in the neighborhood activities. >> there were a lot of absentee landlords that could care less about our neighborhood, you know? they lived in the suburbs and they owned the property and all they were interested in was a
quick cash flow. and they didn't put any money back into their properties. >> and just sad that people didn't stay here to protect this. >> absentee landlords and indifferent city officials could have been a fatal blow to the
instead, these dark days opened might offer hope. across the nation, people in older communities were given a tool to preserve what had been built. >> the 1960s really was when the american preservation movement kicked into high gear.
and that really came about with the passage of the national historic preservation act in 1966 which set up a national preservation program. >> some neighborhoods are going to have highly restrictive preservation control put into place.
they're gonna become historic districts in one form or another. other neighborhoods don't go that way. they simple form organizations or working with existing neighborhood organizations. olde towne east is an example of
that kind of revitalization. >> the barons and business impresarios of columbus' past had built olde towne east, but it was the neighborhood association formed in the 1970s that fought to preserve it. as parts of the neighborhood were listed on the national
historic register, financial incentive programs became available and attracted a new wave of residents. >> i first came into the area in the late 70s and it was a great time for the price of the houses for people that didn't have means to afford big homes like
this with all the character to come down here and purchase a home. >> i was living on the university campus and wanted to get away from the noise and the hubbub of the students. and i knew this neighborhood and knew what noise and hubbub i
would run into here and it was fine. >> we felt that olde towne was the right place to be for us. and mainly for the architecture and for the spacing that you have in terms of footage. and being an artist and having a lot of work of my own.
and at that time, two kids -- it was just the perfect fit. >> we had just signed the contract for the house and kind of a little nervous and we got a phone call and it said "i understand that you have a contract on a house on monroe." and we said "yeah."
and he said "well, i'm the owner of the house and i hear y'all are artists and thought you might be interested to know that george bellows lived in your house. george bellows sr. built the house." so we're like "oh my god!
it's an artist's house." and it felt that. it had a special vibe when you walked in. >> in the old days, there used to be what was called "the demolition list." and the demolition list would go to the neighborhood groups as
well as the commission. who would both take a look at the buildings and decide which ones could really be saved and which ones probably -- the city was right -- needed to come down. lots of buildings were savable. there's some perfect examples
across from the columbus foundation, and there's four beautiful mansions along broad street there that were slated for demolition. and there was a thought of a high-rise apartment building there. great pains were taken to save
those buildings and they now stand there as beautiful mansions. >> i had watched the casto buildings go up because i had been aware of them for many years, that this was behind chain-link fence for 25 years. and this house was actually the
one that was beginning to fall in on itself. it was a summer day on the tour and the temperature was 100 degrees and the humidity was 100 degrees, and there were 20 houses on the tour that day. we came in and i took five steps inside that front door and the
house said to me, "save me." and so that was the beginning, and i had a check ready the next morning. >> i was active in the process of working with the american red cross, and convincing them that in the long run it would be much more substantially better for
our community not to tear down the residential housing to build additional office building and parking lot space. >> and the neighborhood association objected. and they worked with the american red cross, which is a terrific neighbor today to save
these wonderful houses. >> there was a building that had been torn down that left a giant footprint at oak and hoffman, and that was traded for housing stock that the red cross had purchased. and that's where the red cross parking lot is now.
it's a good piece of a collaborative work, and it was a win-win for all of us. >> people who moved into these houses knew it would be a challenge. a new floor plan could bring back a mansion that had been cut into apartments.
they could strip a house to the studs, then give it new life. through the '70s, the main concern was having enough money to get the work done. but then came a new challenge. one that made many people wonder if they could stay. >> in the '80s, our community
suffered with an epidemic of crack. a lot of other communities did, too -- rich and poor. and people became a little more frightened when houses were being burgled, or your car might get broken into so that your car stereo could be taken.
>> i could walk in one block in any direction, and i could find prostitution, i could find drugs, i could see crime. >> i remember reading that the police were not prepared because it was a type of violence and a level of violence that columbus was unfamiliar with.
it was a higher degree of violence. for the first time, i mean, never before do i remember people ever hearing gunfire or anybody getting shot or anything like that. and things like that began to happen.
so, that was a period of time when i really started to question whether we should be >> older people in the neighborhood were afraid to come out on their porches. every stranger was met with suspicion. many residents didn't trust the
police. if things were to get better, it would have to start with the people in the community. >> i noticed that the long-term residents that were here before us, they had an adversarial relationship with the police. >> in the black community,
there's no trust for the police. they've never been for us, they've always harassed us and what have you. >> they weren't invested in the neighborhood, they didn't respect the residents in the neighborhood the way they should.
and i think that we tried to show people that, you know the police are here to protect you, and we're gonna put them on notice that they have to do that. so, we worked really hard with the neighbors to make them feel more comfortable.
and we established block watches, which really helped. >> we were successful, at least, getting this part of fair avenue started and then we started expanding the block watch and then that's when we started seeing the advantage of it because it wasn't just one
street, we now had an area. and it probably took about two or three years before we got to the point that people felt safe to come back out on their porches again. >> i used to joke with people and say, "well, you know, we live in a demilitarized zone,"
because the helicopters were a constancy. and now we see very, very little of those kinds of issues in our >> it has been a tremendous change, especially when the police department gets involved by cleaning up this >> while block watches, and
other efforts to make the neighborhoods safe were successful when members of the community work together, revitalization brought another kind of tension that threatened to divide the neighborhood. some people who had lived there for years began to feel like
the newcomers. >> communities go through a transition, and part of that transition may be the return of folks of middle class standing back to communities where they had once lived, or persons of similar standing had once lived. this process is sometimes called
gentrification -- where low to moderate income people are somehow displaced by the newcomers who are returning to the city. >> the area was noticeably changing and people were coming in to renovate homes and to take on some of these bigger houses.
and they were facing social challenges with people who had lived in the neighborhood who felt, and rightly so, that they had preserved and kept these houses for so many years, that this was their neighborhood. >> olde towne went through some stressful periods as there was
some conflict between black and white, between straight and gay, between money and no money. >> there was a lot of people buying into the neighborhood that perhaps were coming for the architecture and not as much for the people. prior to that, people came here
and wanted to come here because of the people. >> many of my neighbors bought their houses back in the '80s with the dollar house program. and some of them said they were the only people living on the block at that time. >> the houses and all, they just
looked like there was just a movement to take over. >> you know, you have different people with different mentalities move into a different area and have a different mindset, who wish to create something that they feel familiar with or feel at home
with. and that's understandable, they just want to put their mark on their area. but you have to think of who was here before them, and who's here when they got here. and if people just moved in respectfully, things would go a
lot smoother. >> another point of friction came when bryden road was historic district. that meant home-owners had to follow codes and restrictions to preserve the original character of the neighborhood. >> bryden road is one of the
very few streets, in the near east side where there is a review done, and a board that is run by the city, that you run all your plans by -- your new storm windows, your new porches, your deck colors, all that kind of thing. >> i can remember when they were
attempting to make this street historic, and the majority of the people were just worried about surviving day to day living. i was opposed to it because when they say historical, they're not necessarily talking about my culture, my history, their
talking predominately european americans. and if i'm a taxpayer, then if i'm not included, then i don't wanna pay for your stuff. and then i don't wanna give up to -- the say as to what i can do to my property. >> certain groups of people
moved into the neighborhood, and the older folks who had lived here all their life, now on a fixed income weren't able to maintain their houses as they should be. and those groups that have moved in, have rallied together to force those people, through code
enforcement, to bring their houses up to that standard. >> it's just typical of any large city all over the country that the artist, and the gay community, and the creative class spot these bargains and see the value in things before their all dressed up and fixed
up. but hopefully it wasn't with an idea of any one group will move in and drive any other group out. >> the fault lines between established residents and newcomers was the subject of a nationally broadcast documentary
called "flag wars." some say it examined the resentments between people in the neighborhood. others say it exaggerated those resentments. >> that was probably the time when the neighborhood got a lot more attention than it had
before, because if you weren't involved in it before then you just probably never didn't notice it. but when all the publicity came out when the neighborhood was changing over as the source for gay ownership, that was a period that was a little bit rough.
>> it doesn't hurt to have to struggle a little bit to pull your community together. so it didn't hurt in the '90s to have people who really had no awareness of what had gone on before. they brought new ideas, and some of them worked -- and some of
them didn't. and some of those people are still here, and some of them aren't. and that's the true test of a >> as more people moved in, even with the community struggling to get back on its feet, olde towne east started to evolve into a
new kind of urban neighborhood. >> a lot of people really talk about the suburbs having been an empty promise, the fact that people felt more isolated there. you know, here in the city you're constantly crossing paths with people of all incomes, all races, all ethnicities.
it's a very vibrant, very lively type of feel. >> we knew that this was an area where there were a lot of really beautiful, old houses that had become neglected over time and really needed someone to come in and try to get it back. >> a friend of ours had
purchased a house at 39 north ohio, and most of his friends, most of us thought he was crazy, but when he started bringing this grand old beautiful house back to life, we began to envy him a bit more than think he was crazy. so, we started looking for our
own piece of history in the olde towne neighborhood. >> i think there's a pride of ownership of the neighborhood and individual properties that are coming back. it was started by, you know, a kind of core group of rehabers, but even long-term residents now
really are taking back the pride they have in the neighborhood. >> this has been a gallery that was built by artists and built for artists. we've tried to maintain and promote african culture, and to present it in a positive way for the community and the world to
see. >> i was definitely committed, when i got here, that i wanted to put in garden, i just knew it would take quite a while because of a limited budget and i did all the work myself. so, i did it in increments, and i started with the original part
of the property that came with the house and then eventually bought this side, which was the empty, vacant lot adjacent to the house. it's evolved over time. >> i thought i wanted an organ in the house, i never dreamed it would be a pipe organ -- i was
thinking of an older electronic instrument. i heard, through a friend of mine, he knew of this instrument which was in anderson, indiana in a church that had closed and had just so happened to be a 1928 wurlitzer. normally those were in theaters.
so a group of 10 friends of mine and i went to anderson, dismantled it, and brought it back -- none of us knew how deconstruct and reconstruct it. the components are on three different floors. the blower motor, which generates all the wind for it is
in the basement, because of all the noise it makes. the console is on the first floor and it has a cable that runs up to the second floor, where the organ itself is located. you used to see more of them in homes, but very rarely anymore.
so, it brings a lot of joy. i've been fortunate to be on a couple of the neighborhood home tours here, and we usually play it, especially at christmas time or holiday times. and people seem to really enjoy hearing it. >> when we opened, one of the
first reviews said that we were crazy, and we shouldn't have opened in olde towne east because there's nothing there. it also said, in that same article, if we don't become a destination restaurant, we will fail. a couple years down the road
another magazine said, "they are a destination restaurant," so, with that in mind, a lot of businesses saw that we're not only being successful, but thriving. so, other people were coming into the neighborhood and willing to give it a try.
>> we're looking around for a coffee shop location and there's just something about olde towne that stuck out, and it's one thing they really didn't have here and we're just trying to fill that void, fill that gap. >> when we all moved into this neighborhood, this entire corner
was completely vacant and it just looked like there should be something there. it looked like it was destined to be the hangout of the so, we just set out to change it, and with all of the other businesses popping up, it just has all come along really
nicely. >> not all new businesses were met with enthusiasm. broad street struggled to keep its postcard charm while accommodating a not so picture-perfect architecture of modern conveniences. >> the big fear about the
wendy's was that it would be a precedent, and that, you know, there would be that fast food establishment and there would soon be another and another and >> it was very controversial and something that really engaged the neighborhood, you know pro and con, and brought out all the
different perspectives on what this neighborhood should be. the good thing is that we had a really good developer, and he did a great job with his design work, he did a great job listening to the neighborhood -- taking their concerns into consideration and adjusting his
plans accordingly. >> to me, them hiring 80 people from the neighborhood was more important than it being a classic victorian house. i think it fits in real well and i use the drive-in and they've kept it up very neatly. so, i'm a proponent for that
kind of caretaking. >> many people living along the main street corridor would have a very different story to tell about what it's been like here over the past 20 or 30 years, because we've lost a lot of resources. businesses couldn't succeed for
a variety of reasons, and i think that impacted the people who lived in the neighborhood. >> we know that people here are struggling. we've got less than a 50% employment rate here. so housing, jobs, education, public safety are all major
issues for us. >> we've worked with eight different property owners to place cameras on their facilities. from there we can upload them to the internet where anybody with an internet connection can see what's happening.
and what we found was a situation that was really out of control, something that needed attention. so, i think what the cameras did there is it put responsible eyes on the street. it put eyes that cared about the community, put eyes that said,
"we're not gonna tolerate this level of misbehavior." >> main street's our largest commercial corridor. it's got good traffic but it's got an awful lot of vacant buildings and abandoned lots. we said, "yo, somebody has to do something."
and we came across great partners, like central community house, who had a plan for expansion and needed a little bit of gas in the tank. so, we provided some financing on that project. >> central community house is one of the most rich, needed,
vibrant services throughout this city. everybody's welcome. they deal with the needs of infants, children, the elderly. there's arts. there's musical events, clothing, food, i mean -- it's just, it's real.
>> we have a lot of programs here for young children. but we also have, for teens, a program called "teen arts." we do some leadership development with kids, but our teen arts program has been really great. it's called transit arts.
and it's a way for kids to come and get engaged. >> you know, there is so much violence and everything in the community where you need to have like a safe haven, and for sure, central community house and trans arts is that save haven. >> when you come down main
straight, i mean, you see little spots that are fixed up. and you're just hoping that pretty soon those fixed up places will meet. you know? and the neighborhood would become alive again. >> people in old town east are
excited about the changes they see in the neighborhood. the community has worked together to make it a great place to live. they're optimistic about the future. they also realize that the image others have about the
neighborhood has been shaped by forces beyond their control. >> if your entire impression of our neighborhood is built on what you see on the news, it would be very fearful, because typically what's presented on the news is violence, gangs, drugs, something very negative.
but 99% of the folks who live in this neighborhood are good people. they want to work. they're law biding. they want a safe place to raise a family, live, send their kids to school, grow old, sit on the front porch.
>> it's not, you know, the wild west over here. i'm a single girl. i feel very safe. i know all my neighbors. >> it's not the way it was that's a big change. somebody want to feel free to come and shop at, in olde town
east, feel free to come to olde town east. feel free to be a part of -- and we will welcome anybody. >> we do have a little bit of a brand, known for historic neighborhoods and historic houses, so we certainly have but what other people might not
know, in the central ohio area, is that we have a vibrant arts we have a lot of new businesses coming in. our tour of homes is one of our biggest p.r. events that we do every year and brings a lot of outsiders into the neighborhood. so, you can say other
you can say "short north." you can say "german village." everyone kind of gets a feeling and knows what that means. we want to be able to say olde town east anywhere in the city, and not have someone look at me and say, "well, where is that?" >> olde town east, it's a
neighborhood steeped in history. with magnificent houses, diverse architecture, and resilient it's a community, with a love for the old and willingness to embrace the new. and both old-timers and newcomers say there's no better place to experience the sprit of
olde town east than at the hot times festival. >> hot times started out as a flea market. and everyone brought little house pieces out. doors and windows and pieces of woodwork, and everybody traded around, because they were all
fixing their houses up. >> and so we decided to expand the festival. my neighbor, who's my friend, and i said to rowdy, i said, "rowdy, i need like a jazz group or a gospel group or something that reflects the neighborhood," because, you know, all i knew
were white kids playing rock n' roll. he says to me, "how about my old man?" and i thought he was kidding. and his old man turned out to have been a very famous columbus musician. >> we have jazz, blues, some
legends in the music world come in every year. old standards like gene walker and the american jazz experience, they're here. >> the history of jazz in columbus is a history of the east side, really. >> i go and work the stage form
8:00 to closing. i guard the stage and make sure the women don't charge it, and attack the musicians. >> one of the attributes of it, is the fact that it was always a community run activity. people always volunteered, and they just couldn't wait to
participate. so, therefore, it became an expression of the community. >> the event itself is a piece of cultural work unlike anything else in columbus. >> it's very family oriented, and it's a great way to bring a lot of different, diverse people
together in a community and celebrate what the community is all about. >> you step on to the site, and you're family. and there are differences, but they're not as important as the fact that everyone is family. >> i think the biggest thing is
just getting people to the to experience it, come on our home tour, come to hot times festival, come visit the galleries and museums, and really realize that it's a great place to be. ♪ somewhere in america the sun is shining right now
for all of us maybe someday we maybe someday baby someday ♪ ♪ we could give a little speak a little less breath a little more sleep under the same stars ♪ ♪ no matter who we are somewhere in america for all of us ♪
♪ maybe someday we maybe someday maybe someday we maybe someday ♪♪ >> "columbus neighborhoods -- olde town east" is now available on dvd. log onto wosu.org/shop for details. support for "columbus
has called columbus neighborhoods home. offering personal and business insurance through independent insurance agents. as we've grown and changed with columbus, we've never lost sight of one thing. chase, and its' more than
aep ohio, connected to your the law firm of bailey cavalieri, a local firm with a national presence. and by these and other local foundations and families. thank you.
have through time. >> as the city expanded, the suburbs lured many away. houses were abandoned, the neighborhood forgotten. >> so many people in the area wanted to move on up. and "move on up" in that case meant "moving on out."
>> property values dropped. absentee land owners became the norm rather than the exception and people weren't finding value and finding people who wanted to live back in the city. >> but now, these old houses have inspired a new sense of urban living, and people are
rediscovering olde towne east. >> they're buying these derelict houses that used to be shells and breathing whole new life into them. so what used to be -- just debris is now these wonderful masterpieces. >> if you want to see the
evolution of american architecture over the course of the last 100 to 150 years, you can find examples of it in olde towne east -- from the most common working man's home on the one hand, to the most elaborate mansion for a person who has some wealth.
>> the diverse architecture many people sought was already here. the diverse community many residents imagined is still being built. >> we really watch out for each other, we celebrate each other, and we support each other. >> it's not an exclusive
neighborhood, it's an inclusive neighborhood. >> all of the problems that we have had have just made us stronger. ♪♪ >> support for "columbus neighborhoods" is provided by -- since 1921, the state auto group
has called "columbus neighborhoods" home, offering personal and business insurance through independent insurance agents. for your car, home, and business, the state auto group. >> as we've grown and changed with columbus, we've never lost
sight of one thing -- we are neighbors serving neighbors. chase and it's more than 15,000 central ohio associates are proud to celebrate the historic neighborhoods of columbus. >> aep ohio, connected to your
life. more at aepohio.com. >> the law firm of bailey cavalieri -- a local firm with a national presence. baileycavalieri.com. >> and by these and other local foundations and families --
and viewers like you. thank you! >> there is something about a place that was built a long time ago -- that you're one of a number of owners and you view yourself as a steward. you're living in a house and
your adding to its history and you become connected with people you don't even know. >> our houses are tickets back in time and you just get the great feeling of warmth knowing that the people and stories that came before. >> i think when you walk into
historic homes, you get a glimpse of what the builders valued. there's something to be said for the power of place. people needed to have a sense of not only who they are but where they are. and places --
especially old places -- help us with that. >> the civil war is over and columbus is booming. downtown's getting crowded. rail yards clog the north side. the west side floods. the south side is choked with smoke and sewage from tanneries
and factories. if you've got money to build a fashionable home, where do you go? >> the east side is the logical place for the extension of relatively fashionable communities from downtown >> it was a time of innovation
and invention, but it was a transportation innovation that radically changed columbus and its neighborhoods. >> the olde towne east area is predominately a streetcar suburb. its golden age, its age of wealth and standing really dates
from the period of the 1890s into the first couple of decades of the 20th century. >> initially, it was how far you could walk to get to work or to do whatever you had to do in daily living. once streetcars came along, that changed.
>> if you think about having to get on a horse and ride a horse where the next place you have to go is, things moved a lot slower then. so streetcars, originally pulled by horses, eventually were powered by electric. that meant that you could get
around a lot faster. >> the street car made getting to the east side easy, and the location of some of columbus' grand and lofty institutions also made this a desirable >> certainly the blind school was a major anchoring institution.
it's been there since the 1830s. it was a landmark on the east side of the city. >> if you look at the style of the architecture, the grandeur, it was built to show off that we cared about these people and we were proud that we took care of them.
and people didn't mind living next to them. >> there are no real parks as we think about them. and parks become associated with a leisure class who enjoyed strolling in them, who used the gardens for sort of an extension of their own yard.
and it's the houses that grew up around the institutions, not necessarily the other way around. >> at one time, the city stopped at parsons farm, near what we today call "parsons avenue." the family had become a dynasty in columbus.
doc parsons was one of the city's first physicians. his son, george, was a remarkably successful businessman. >> his family, in fact, marries into european royalty. it is one of the most significant weddings in columbus
history when the parsons' daughter is married off. >> i think it was definitely a love marriage although i'm sure that there were a lot of whispers behind her back that it was about marrying for title or he married her for her money. and parsons mansion at the
corner of what is today parsons and briden is eventually gonna become the first columbus school for girls. >> these folks, these founders of columbus were individualists. they wanted to be different. they wanted to be special. >> they are the ones who will be
the bankers, department store owners, people who are venture capitalists of their day. >> they probably were merchants, professionals, people who were affluent and had a lot of disposable income and they put it in their homes and their lifestyle.
>> as the developing city pushed east, certain streets started taking shape -- livingston avenue on the south -- main street, which was part of the national road -- and broad street, the road to granville and the beginning of a
premiere residential boulevard. >> broad street, in a sense, is the sort of victorian dream street and persons who are really well off in the city of columbus tend to build their dream houses out along the east broad street corridor. >> that was the creme de la
creme for those who were the well-to-do in building houses which were really monuments to their own success back in the turn of the last century. >> they wanted to make broad street coming into downtown columbus a show place, so they built the finest houses they
could design and conceive and afford. these homes later became what we might say are "vanity houses." >> at the time these buildings were built, it was a broad avenue. it had tree islands in the middle of the street, so it was
a very graceful, very refined, very beautiful boulevard, and it was one of the main entrances into the city of columbus, so it was a very, very important street. >> broad street became home to some of the most influential people in columbus --
people like friedrich schumacher, famous for inventing testimonial advertising for the elixir peruna. >> my grandmother took peruna and she felt better. the horse drank peruna, he feels better. the dog has it.
you know, my great grandmother -- it cured everything. >> later in his life, schumacher donated his art collection which is the basis for the present day columbus museum of art on broad and broad street was home not only to the wealthy, but the
important. for years, ohio governors had a broad street address. >> originally, ohio governors didn't really have a mansion through most of the 19th century, through the 1800s. they lived in all sorts of places.
by the 20th century, it became apparent that it would be nice, like most other states do, to have a governor's mansion. so the lindberg mansion, having been built in 1905, was acquired by the state of ohio to become the governor's mansion. and it will serve as the
governor's mansion through the 1920s, well down into the 1950s when a new governor's mansion is acquired in bexley. >> well, legend has it and historians say they can prove that if you were wealthy and wanted to build a house on broad street, you had to be certain
things -- you had to be white, anglo-saxton, and protestant. and if you weren't all of those things but still wealthy, your alternative was bryden road. >> there used to be an arch over bryden road and the housing stock was just fabulous.
the trees were just tiny, so you could imagine what it looked like with the giant houses and just newly sapling trees. the neighborhood was quite magnificent. >> so bryden road was home to some incredible mansions built by the schottenstein family, the
lazarus family, and some noted catholics like theodore leonard. >> oh, bryden road was a luxury place of our neighborhood. we always went there on halloween 'cause we knew we would get something really good. sometime's they'd give us apples, sometimes a piece of
pumpkin pie, candy, so that was the first place we ever went when we went halloweening. >> old towne east is really a collection of probably 500 unique architectural styles. there are mansions on bryden road, east broad street, but there are also smaller houses of
trades people and some of the other folks that lived in the area. >> it was really a pretty diverse population where you could be in a big house on broad street and walk two blocks to a very, very modest house. those might have been people who
worked in the companies that the people on broad street owned. that's not how we develop cities today. we would never have what would be the equivalent of, say, a million dollar home next to a $50,000 home. >> in the late 19th century,
just like today, your house was where you showed off your wealth and standing, and that's exactly what they did. >> i think it's a nice, reflective piece of history for the u.s. at that time when the industrial revolution -- all this new wealth was coming
into favor and what they were doing with their money. >> they're solid architecture that says "we made our money. we are here." it's conservative, restrained, and yet it has the embellishments of what 19th century and early 20th century
architecture should have. >> i think it speaks to how the city grew over time, how people wanted to have nice places to live and how they made these neighborhoods what they were. >> they used the best resources available, sparing no expense to be fashionable with the latest
architectural styles. >> i think it's important to realize these were sophisticated people who knew what was going on in the world and were well read, well educated. they didn't have television, they didn't have social media, but they did have magazines,
newspapers, ways of reflecting what was the height of fashion during the day. >> i think they were getting a big influence from europe which is reflected in this home, because by 1900, when they remodeled the house, it was more common to have an english
interior, an english country house, or a french country home, so they were really directing their taste more to that than they were american. >> they valued craftsmanship and they valued materials -- quality materials. they built their homes to last
not for a few decades, but they literally built these homes to last for centuries. >> henry hallwood has a really long and interesting history. he was a miner in west virginia for a while. moving here -- and because of that
mineralogical background, he became an entrepreneur in paving bricks. so tons of his paving bricks were everywhere in cities all over america. you would see these little blocks and they would say "hallwood block."
>> architects were highly sought after when designing houses. not only did they design the houses, but many of them lived in the neighborhood. architects such as joseph yost of yost and packard who left a legacy of architecture in the schools, buildings, and homes
all over columbus. george bellows sr., who designed many landmark buildings -- including what is now the ame zion church -- and in their ranks was florence kenyan hayden rector, a female architect ahead of her time. >> she's really the first
licensed woman architect in ohio coming out of ohio state. her mentor was the university architect who gave her an important commission and that was to design a womens' dormitory at ohio state when florence was only 25 years old. he also gave her a male
assistant because he wasn't so sure that this was something a woman could handle. >> she was a smart woman and a little belligerent it sounds like, you know? and so she decided that she was gonna lock that guy out of the office.
she finished the project on time and under budget and we have the oxley hall at osu which was the first womens' dormitory at the ohio state university built by her. >> she designed a house that is architecturally incompatible and unlike any other house in the
neighborhood and it caused quite a stir for the day. and it always harkens back when people want to build new construction and you think about the architectural compatibility of that structure and then you think about the historic battle over architectural compatibility
that must have always been. >> people built their houses the way they wanted them, reflective of the formalities and functions of everyday life. >> certain areas of the house that we think are absolutely critical today might have been secondary.
there might have been public spaces like parlors that were a little more formal than the living spaces that the families had. the kitchen was purely functional and you would have a lovely dining room where you would be served dinner.
>> despite the architectural diversity of the neighborhood, most of the houses did have a common distinguishing feature -- a large front porch. they shaped the neighborhood and they shaped the way people lived their lives. >> front porches were part of
the extension of the house. it wasn't just to keep you dry on a wet day. especially, if you look at a lot of houses in olde towne east where the front porches were actually like outdoor living rooms. these houses were built without
air conditioning, so on hot days, it was comfortable being outside. it's also an opportunity for eyes on the street and you become part of what's going on around you. >> the movers and shakers on the east side were investing heavily
in their homes. they did not want broad street overrun with businesses and traffic that would come from developing commercial properties. >> they worked very hard to keep that traffic off of broad street, but the businessmen and
the burgeoning business community over on main street wanted the traffic to come past >> main street was kind of the commercial spine along with long street that really framed these neighborhoods in between and there was a lot of commercial activity along main street --
theaters, restaurants, professional businesses, stores -- >> the nearest area is a residential community, primarily, and always has been with a lot of mom-pop stuff stuffed on the corners. like in nodes, commercial nodes.
it followed the history of the you know, there'd be a drug store or something on the corner and you walked to it. and then there'd be one on a corner a few blocks away that they walked to. >> businesses came and went throughout the neighborhood, but
one has been here since the beginning. >> e.t. paul was my great grandfather. he started the business in 1896. he was a blacksmith and he built the business from just one single smithy up into 12 smithies working.
the shoes that he used were rubber pads to keep the noise down on the cobblestone streets. also, they used to race horses up and down rich street. >> and as automobiles replaced horse and carriages, e.t. paul, along with the rest of the neighborhood, made the
transition. >> he wasn't sure whether he wanted to stay in the smithing business or whether he wanted to actually transition into the automobile tires. a very good friend to him was the president of the bank and kind of encouraged him and
helped my great grandfather go through the transition. >> this new class of venture capitalists living on the east side were not only making names for themselves in columbus, but all over the country and the world. joe carr founded the modern day
nfl and lived on bryden road -- mary campbell, the only ever two-time miss america, lived on garfield -- and dr. lewis m. early lived on 20th. >> he was a general practicing physician in columbus, ohio, interested in photography.
in the late 1800s, he bought a camera, learned how to use it. the germans had invented x-ray technology, and dr. early, with a group of doctors here in columbus, worked on a patent to develop x-rays onto photographic paper and sold the patent to kodak in 1905.
>> the neighborhood always has been wonderful and creative and there's that creative spirit here. >> one of the neighborhood's most notable residents was george bellows. celebrated as an important american painter in the turn of
the last century, his bold depictions of ordinary life made him a leader in the realism movement and he became an acclaimed artist of his generation. >> his father was an extremely successful builder and architect.
his upbringing was distinctly conservative. bellows loved baseball, loved sports, and his family didn't prevent him from taking part of that and that was a big part of his life here in columbus. his father was a bit disconcerted by the fact that he
wanted to become an artist. he encouraged him to become an architect/engineer as he had done. and basically george has to not show up for one of his final exams to convince him that he really doesn't want to get a degree in that area of study at
ohio state. so that message gets through to his father and his father gives him an allowance and sends him off to one of the best art schools in the country in new york city but with a fairly tight leash. >> bellows' work was provocative
and extraordinarily popular. he later used his influence to encourage the development of the fledgling columbus museum of art. >> he arranges, in the early part of the 20th century, that there will be a show in columbus of his work and others.
but he wants to have incandescent light used, not gas lights. the papers report "well, the gallery show is going to be delayed in opening and that was too expensive and they couldn't meet that need." but behind the scenes, there's
something else going on and that is his artworks have arrived -- those that he has and those of his friends. the city fathers get wind of the fact that some of them depict male moods and others are boxing scenes. and columbus technically has a
law against pugilism and there is a great deal of discussion about should he be able to show these or not. and eventually, a deal is struck and they take those questionable paintings and they put them aside in a room. and it's really the mens' room
only that can view them. women can't see them. >> he was instrumental in bringing people in for teaching he did a number of portraits of professors for ohio state university and traveled back and forth to visit his family on a regular basis.
so he didn't forget his home town. >> not far behind george bellows was another artist from the neighborhood who would follow his success in art. >> it's said of her that she was one of the best watercolorists of her day, regardless of her
sex because men were the artists of the day. women stayed at home and took care of the family and alice schille did not do that. >> alice schille grew up in an affluent neighborhood in the olde towne east section of columbus on bryden road.
her father was a leading manufacturer of soda-pop. everybody in central ohio drank schille pop and was quite successful with that business. but tragically, he died when he was only about 40 years old and his wife carried on the business.
and i think that circumstance because of the wife's strength and her understanding of her own ability to run a business, she was very supportive of alice and encouraged her to go to the greatest schools. that gave her freedom to travel all over the world, help with
finances in the beginning days. alice schille also was connected with many of the prominent families and painted portraits of most of the leading families in central ohio between about 1905 and 1940. >> she became a nationally ranked watercolorist and did
paintings all over the country. >> life was good for the privileged people living in this neighborhood, but just as the development of the streetcar made olde towne east possible, a new form of transportation -- the automobile -- made it easier to move to newer
neighborhoods. >> as columbus started to move further east, i think it was a natural transition that a lot of people that were residents down in this area moved out to more the suburban. >> new housing was harder to find, so people had a choice
between older houses or opportunities to build new things in other areas of town and they opted for the latter. >> as people moved east, homes in the neighborhood became available. the exodus of columbus' elite provided an opportunity for
members of the rising middle class. olde towne east became more diverse. >> when blacks were able to purchase property, a lot of them were able to purchase in the east side first. prior to that, they were almost
all renters. >> blacks, whites, greens, blues -- everybody lived here. >> we had no racial issues within the neighborhood even though that we had clusters of blacks living in certain areas and what have you.
we played together, we did everything together. we even sometimes camped out on the porch with a mixture of black and whites. >> i think the biggest thing about it is that it was clean, quiet, residential, very much black middle class people who
had aspirations, who wanted their children to be well-educated, people who worked, took care of their property, and contributed something in terms of the character of the neighborhood. >> streetcars made the neighborhood possible.
the automobile made it possible for people to leave, and the highway nearly destroyed the community. >> it would be hard to underestimate the impact of the construction of the interstate highway system on the city of columbus or any american city
for that matter. think about thousands and thousands and thousands of buildings being demolished to make way for the freeway. >> two major, major thoroughfares came through the community and separated them and became physical, like,
boundaries for these >> it cut this neighborhood off from the north, the south, the east, and the west. i think that kind of changed this whole atmosphere. people left. left homes that were good to live in.
the suburbs exploded in the post world war ii generation, and that's where people thought life was better. >> families now were being presented with all those choices of the little house, the yard to raise their children in, and the fact it was a two-car family.
>> huge numbers of people begin to leave the old city and depart for the new suburbs some considerable distance away from downtown. as they do so, those older neighborhoods go through a variety of transitions. some revitalizing themselves,
some restoring themselves, some not -- some deteriorating. >> people start leaving. everybody wants something newer and bigger or smaller or more modern. and as they leave, then the businesses suffer 'cause there's
now shopping further out. >> when business moves away, then those buildings are vacant. and without residential or enough residential, it doesn't anchor a community through the hard times. >> people moving into a neighborhood create demand and
they want to be able to get to a store. they want a market. they want different services. they want restaurants and they'll patronize them. you've got to have that because it doesn't make and difference how much stuff you've got there.
if nobody's going, it's not gonna stay. >> in the age of the suburb, no one wanted a mansion with 10 foot ceilings. some were abandoned. some were turned into nursing homes, churches, or apartments. home owners were disappearing.
>> owners didn't want to be here any longer. they wanted to move out to the suburbs and that's what they did. so they left a lot of uninhabited property that became rental property. and that's how we ended up with
this mix of people that we didn't know. >> when you have a high rental rate, you have a large transient population and that transient population generally do not have the save values. values in terms of ownership. they don't have as much interest
in participating in the neighborhood activities. >> there were a lot of absentee landlords that could care less about our neighborhood, you know? they lived in the suburbs and they owned the property and all they were interested in was a
quick cash flow. and they didn't put any money back into their properties. >> and just sad that people didn't stay here to protect this. >> absentee landlords and indifferent city officials could have been a fatal blow to the
instead, these dark days opened might offer hope. across the nation, people in older communities were given a tool to preserve what had been built. >> the 1960s really was when the american preservation movement kicked into high gear.
and that really came about with the passage of the national historic preservation act in 1966 which set up a national preservation program. >> some neighborhoods are going to have highly restrictive preservation control put into place.
they're gonna become historic districts in one form or another. other neighborhoods don't go that way. they simple form organizations or working with existing neighborhood organizations. olde towne east is an example of
that kind of revitalization. >> the barons and business impresarios of columbus' past had built olde towne east, but it was the neighborhood association formed in the 1970s that fought to preserve it. as parts of the neighborhood were listed on the national
historic register, financial incentive programs became available and attracted a new wave of residents. >> i first came into the area in the late 70s and it was a great time for the price of the houses for people that didn't have means to afford big homes like
this with all the character to come down here and purchase a home. >> i was living on the university campus and wanted to get away from the noise and the hubbub of the students. and i knew this neighborhood and knew what noise and hubbub i
would run into here and it was fine. >> we felt that olde towne was the right place to be for us. and mainly for the architecture and for the spacing that you have in terms of footage. and being an artist and having a lot of work of my own.
and at that time, two kids -- it was just the perfect fit. >> we had just signed the contract for the house and kind of a little nervous and we got a phone call and it said "i understand that you have a contract on a house on monroe." and we said "yeah."
and he said "well, i'm the owner of the house and i hear y'all are artists and thought you might be interested to know that george bellows lived in your house. george bellows sr. built the house." so we're like "oh my god!
it's an artist's house." and it felt that. it had a special vibe when you walked in. >> in the old days, there used to be what was called "the demolition list." and the demolition list would go to the neighborhood groups as
well as the commission. who would both take a look at the buildings and decide which ones could really be saved and which ones probably -- the city was right -- needed to come down. lots of buildings were savable. there's some perfect examples
across from the columbus foundation, and there's four beautiful mansions along broad street there that were slated for demolition. and there was a thought of a high-rise apartment building there. great pains were taken to save
those buildings and they now stand there as beautiful mansions. >> i had watched the casto buildings go up because i had been aware of them for many years, that this was behind chain-link fence for 25 years. and this house was actually the
one that was beginning to fall in on itself. it was a summer day on the tour and the temperature was 100 degrees and the humidity was 100 degrees, and there were 20 houses on the tour that day. we came in and i took five steps inside that front door and the
house said to me, "save me." and so that was the beginning, and i had a check ready the next morning. >> i was active in the process of working with the american red cross, and convincing them that in the long run it would be much more substantially better for
our community not to tear down the residential housing to build additional office building and parking lot space. >> and the neighborhood association objected. and they worked with the american red cross, which is a terrific neighbor today to save
these wonderful houses. >> there was a building that had been torn down that left a giant footprint at oak and hoffman, and that was traded for housing stock that the red cross had purchased. and that's where the red cross parking lot is now.
it's a good piece of a collaborative work, and it was a win-win for all of us. >> people who moved into these houses knew it would be a challenge. a new floor plan could bring back a mansion that had been cut into apartments.
they could strip a house to the studs, then give it new life. through the '70s, the main concern was having enough money to get the work done. but then came a new challenge. one that made many people wonder if they could stay. >> in the '80s, our community
suffered with an epidemic of crack. a lot of other communities did, too -- rich and poor. and people became a little more frightened when houses were being burgled, or your car might get broken into so that your car stereo could be taken.
>> i could walk in one block in any direction, and i could find prostitution, i could find drugs, i could see crime. >> i remember reading that the police were not prepared because it was a type of violence and a level of violence that columbus was unfamiliar with.
it was a higher degree of violence. for the first time, i mean, never before do i remember people ever hearing gunfire or anybody getting shot or anything like that. and things like that began to happen.
so, that was a period of time when i really started to question whether we should be >> older people in the neighborhood were afraid to come out on their porches. every stranger was met with suspicion. many residents didn't trust the
police. if things were to get better, it would have to start with the people in the community. >> i noticed that the long-term residents that were here before us, they had an adversarial relationship with the police. >> in the black community,
there's no trust for the police. they've never been for us, they've always harassed us and what have you. >> they weren't invested in the neighborhood, they didn't respect the residents in the neighborhood the way they should.
and i think that we tried to show people that, you know the police are here to protect you, and we're gonna put them on notice that they have to do that. so, we worked really hard with the neighbors to make them feel more comfortable.
and we established block watches, which really helped. >> we were successful, at least, getting this part of fair avenue started and then we started expanding the block watch and then that's when we started seeing the advantage of it because it wasn't just one
street, we now had an area. and it probably took about two or three years before we got to the point that people felt safe to come back out on their porches again. >> i used to joke with people and say, "well, you know, we live in a demilitarized zone,"
because the helicopters were a constancy. and now we see very, very little of those kinds of issues in our >> it has been a tremendous change, especially when the police department gets involved by cleaning up this >> while block watches, and
other efforts to make the neighborhoods safe were successful when members of the community work together, revitalization brought another kind of tension that threatened to divide the neighborhood. some people who had lived there for years began to feel like
the newcomers. >> communities go through a transition, and part of that transition may be the return of folks of middle class standing back to communities where they had once lived, or persons of similar standing had once lived. this process is sometimes called
gentrification -- where low to moderate income people are somehow displaced by the newcomers who are returning to the city. >> the area was noticeably changing and people were coming in to renovate homes and to take on some of these bigger houses.
and they were facing social challenges with people who had lived in the neighborhood who felt, and rightly so, that they had preserved and kept these houses for so many years, that this was their neighborhood. >> olde towne went through some stressful periods as there was
some conflict between black and white, between straight and gay, between money and no money. >> there was a lot of people buying into the neighborhood that perhaps were coming for the architecture and not as much for the people. prior to that, people came here
and wanted to come here because of the people. >> many of my neighbors bought their houses back in the '80s with the dollar house program. and some of them said they were the only people living on the block at that time. >> the houses and all, they just
looked like there was just a movement to take over. >> you know, you have different people with different mentalities move into a different area and have a different mindset, who wish to create something that they feel familiar with or feel at home
with. and that's understandable, they just want to put their mark on their area. but you have to think of who was here before them, and who's here when they got here. and if people just moved in respectfully, things would go a
lot smoother. >> another point of friction came when bryden road was historic district. that meant home-owners had to follow codes and restrictions to preserve the original character of the neighborhood. >> bryden road is one of the
very few streets, in the near east side where there is a review done, and a board that is run by the city, that you run all your plans by -- your new storm windows, your new porches, your deck colors, all that kind of thing. >> i can remember when they were
attempting to make this street historic, and the majority of the people were just worried about surviving day to day living. i was opposed to it because when they say historical, they're not necessarily talking about my culture, my history, their
talking predominately european americans. and if i'm a taxpayer, then if i'm not included, then i don't wanna pay for your stuff. and then i don't wanna give up to -- the say as to what i can do to my property. >> certain groups of people
moved into the neighborhood, and the older folks who had lived here all their life, now on a fixed income weren't able to maintain their houses as they should be. and those groups that have moved in, have rallied together to force those people, through code
enforcement, to bring their houses up to that standard. >> it's just typical of any large city all over the country that the artist, and the gay community, and the creative class spot these bargains and see the value in things before their all dressed up and fixed
up. but hopefully it wasn't with an idea of any one group will move in and drive any other group out. >> the fault lines between established residents and newcomers was the subject of a nationally broadcast documentary
called "flag wars." some say it examined the resentments between people in the neighborhood. others say it exaggerated those resentments. >> that was probably the time when the neighborhood got a lot more attention than it had
before, because if you weren't involved in it before then you just probably never didn't notice it. but when all the publicity came out when the neighborhood was changing over as the source for gay ownership, that was a period that was a little bit rough.
>> it doesn't hurt to have to struggle a little bit to pull your community together. so it didn't hurt in the '90s to have people who really had no awareness of what had gone on before. they brought new ideas, and some of them worked -- and some of
them didn't. and some of those people are still here, and some of them aren't. and that's the true test of a >> as more people moved in, even with the community struggling to get back on its feet, olde towne east started to evolve into a
new kind of urban neighborhood. >> a lot of people really talk about the suburbs having been an empty promise, the fact that people felt more isolated there. you know, here in the city you're constantly crossing paths with people of all incomes, all races, all ethnicities.
it's a very vibrant, very lively type of feel. >> we knew that this was an area where there were a lot of really beautiful, old houses that had become neglected over time and really needed someone to come in and try to get it back. >> a friend of ours had
purchased a house at 39 north ohio, and most of his friends, most of us thought he was crazy, but when he started bringing this grand old beautiful house back to life, we began to envy him a bit more than think he was crazy. so, we started looking for our
own piece of history in the olde towne neighborhood. >> i think there's a pride of ownership of the neighborhood and individual properties that are coming back. it was started by, you know, a kind of core group of rehabers, but even long-term residents now
really are taking back the pride they have in the neighborhood. >> this has been a gallery that was built by artists and built for artists. we've tried to maintain and promote african culture, and to present it in a positive way for the community and the world to
see. >> i was definitely committed, when i got here, that i wanted to put in garden, i just knew it would take quite a while because of a limited budget and i did all the work myself. so, i did it in increments, and i started with the original part
of the property that came with the house and then eventually bought this side, which was the empty, vacant lot adjacent to the house. it's evolved over time. >> i thought i wanted an organ in the house, i never dreamed it would be a pipe organ -- i was
thinking of an older electronic instrument. i heard, through a friend of mine, he knew of this instrument which was in anderson, indiana in a church that had closed and had just so happened to be a 1928 wurlitzer. normally those were in theaters.
so a group of 10 friends of mine and i went to anderson, dismantled it, and brought it back -- none of us knew how deconstruct and reconstruct it. the components are on three different floors. the blower motor, which generates all the wind for it is
in the basement, because of all the noise it makes. the console is on the first floor and it has a cable that runs up to the second floor, where the organ itself is located. you used to see more of them in homes, but very rarely anymore.
so, it brings a lot of joy. i've been fortunate to be on a couple of the neighborhood home tours here, and we usually play it, especially at christmas time or holiday times. and people seem to really enjoy hearing it. >> when we opened, one of the
first reviews said that we were crazy, and we shouldn't have opened in olde towne east because there's nothing there. it also said, in that same article, if we don't become a destination restaurant, we will fail. a couple years down the road
another magazine said, "they are a destination restaurant," so, with that in mind, a lot of businesses saw that we're not only being successful, but thriving. so, other people were coming into the neighborhood and willing to give it a try.
>> we're looking around for a coffee shop location and there's just something about olde towne that stuck out, and it's one thing they really didn't have here and we're just trying to fill that void, fill that gap. >> when we all moved into this neighborhood, this entire corner
was completely vacant and it just looked like there should be something there. it looked like it was destined to be the hangout of the so, we just set out to change it, and with all of the other businesses popping up, it just has all come along really
nicely. >> not all new businesses were met with enthusiasm. broad street struggled to keep its postcard charm while accommodating a not so picture-perfect architecture of modern conveniences. >> the big fear about the
wendy's was that it would be a precedent, and that, you know, there would be that fast food establishment and there would soon be another and another and >> it was very controversial and something that really engaged the neighborhood, you know pro and con, and brought out all the
different perspectives on what this neighborhood should be. the good thing is that we had a really good developer, and he did a great job with his design work, he did a great job listening to the neighborhood -- taking their concerns into consideration and adjusting his
plans accordingly. >> to me, them hiring 80 people from the neighborhood was more important than it being a classic victorian house. i think it fits in real well and i use the drive-in and they've kept it up very neatly. so, i'm a proponent for that
kind of caretaking. >> many people living along the main street corridor would have a very different story to tell about what it's been like here over the past 20 or 30 years, because we've lost a lot of resources. businesses couldn't succeed for
a variety of reasons, and i think that impacted the people who lived in the neighborhood. >> we know that people here are struggling. we've got less than a 50% employment rate here. so housing, jobs, education, public safety are all major
issues for us. >> we've worked with eight different property owners to place cameras on their facilities. from there we can upload them to the internet where anybody with an internet connection can see what's happening.
and what we found was a situation that was really out of control, something that needed attention. so, i think what the cameras did there is it put responsible eyes on the street. it put eyes that cared about the community, put eyes that said,
"we're not gonna tolerate this level of misbehavior." >> main street's our largest commercial corridor. it's got good traffic but it's got an awful lot of vacant buildings and abandoned lots. we said, "yo, somebody has to do something."
and we came across great partners, like central community house, who had a plan for expansion and needed a little bit of gas in the tank. so, we provided some financing on that project. >> central community house is one of the most rich, needed,
vibrant services throughout this city. everybody's welcome. they deal with the needs of infants, children, the elderly. there's arts. there's musical events, clothing, food, i mean -- it's just, it's real.
>> we have a lot of programs here for young children. but we also have, for teens, a program called "teen arts." we do some leadership development with kids, but our teen arts program has been really great. it's called transit arts.
and it's a way for kids to come and get engaged. >> you know, there is so much violence and everything in the community where you need to have like a safe haven, and for sure, central community house and trans arts is that save haven. >> when you come down main
straight, i mean, you see little spots that are fixed up. and you're just hoping that pretty soon those fixed up places will meet. you know? and the neighborhood would become alive again. >> people in old town east are
excited about the changes they see in the neighborhood. the community has worked together to make it a great place to live. they're optimistic about the future. they also realize that the image others have about the
neighborhood has been shaped by forces beyond their control. >> if your entire impression of our neighborhood is built on what you see on the news, it would be very fearful, because typically what's presented on the news is violence, gangs, drugs, something very negative.
but 99% of the folks who live in this neighborhood are good people. they want to work. they're law biding. they want a safe place to raise a family, live, send their kids to school, grow old, sit on the front porch.
>> it's not, you know, the wild west over here. i'm a single girl. i feel very safe. i know all my neighbors. >> it's not the way it was that's a big change. somebody want to feel free to come and shop at, in olde town
east, feel free to come to olde town east. feel free to be a part of -- and we will welcome anybody. >> we do have a little bit of a brand, known for historic neighborhoods and historic houses, so we certainly have but what other people might not
know, in the central ohio area, is that we have a vibrant arts we have a lot of new businesses coming in. our tour of homes is one of our biggest p.r. events that we do every year and brings a lot of outsiders into the neighborhood. so, you can say other
you can say "short north." you can say "german village." everyone kind of gets a feeling and knows what that means. we want to be able to say olde town east anywhere in the city, and not have someone look at me and say, "well, where is that?" >> olde town east, it's a
neighborhood steeped in history. with magnificent houses, diverse architecture, and resilient it's a community, with a love for the old and willingness to embrace the new. and both old-timers and newcomers say there's no better place to experience the sprit of
olde town east than at the hot times festival. >> hot times started out as a flea market. and everyone brought little house pieces out. doors and windows and pieces of woodwork, and everybody traded around, because they were all
fixing their houses up. >> and so we decided to expand the festival. my neighbor, who's my friend, and i said to rowdy, i said, "rowdy, i need like a jazz group or a gospel group or something that reflects the neighborhood," because, you know, all i knew
were white kids playing rock n' roll. he says to me, "how about my old man?" and i thought he was kidding. and his old man turned out to have been a very famous columbus musician. >> we have jazz, blues, some
legends in the music world come in every year. old standards like gene walker and the american jazz experience, they're here. >> the history of jazz in columbus is a history of the east side, really. >> i go and work the stage form
8:00 to closing. i guard the stage and make sure the women don't charge it, and attack the musicians. >> one of the attributes of it, is the fact that it was always a community run activity. people always volunteered, and they just couldn't wait to
participate. so, therefore, it became an expression of the community. >> the event itself is a piece of cultural work unlike anything else in columbus. >> it's very family oriented, and it's a great way to bring a lot of different, diverse people
together in a community and celebrate what the community is all about. >> you step on to the site, and you're family. and there are differences, but they're not as important as the fact that everyone is family. >> i think the biggest thing is
just getting people to the to experience it, come on our home tour, come to hot times festival, come visit the galleries and museums, and really realize that it's a great place to be. ♪ somewhere in america the sun is shining right now
for all of us maybe someday we maybe someday baby someday ♪ ♪ we could give a little speak a little less breath a little more sleep under the same stars ♪ ♪ no matter who we are somewhere in america for all of us ♪
♪ maybe someday we maybe someday maybe someday we maybe someday ♪♪ >> "columbus neighborhoods -- olde town east" is now available on dvd. log onto wosu.org/shop for details. support for "columbus
has called columbus neighborhoods home. offering personal and business insurance through independent insurance agents. as we've grown and changed with columbus, we've never lost sight of one thing. chase, and its' more than
aep ohio, connected to your the law firm of bailey cavalieri, a local firm with a national presence. and by these and other local foundations and families. thank you.
