Tag Archives: Before and After

Before and After July 2014

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The Before and After July 2014 edition shows a few famous Downtown buildings and what ultimately happened to them.

The Hippodrome Theater
Operated from October 26th, 1914 to December 31st, 1933.
Address: 77 N. High Street, Downtown
Seats: 300+
First movie shown: “The Nightingale” with Ethel Barrymore
Last movie shown: Unknown
Opening Admission: 10 cents

Photo of the entrance to the Hippodrome Theater, 1915.

The silent-era Hippodrome Theater was developed by G.E. Overton, who took over the Bonnett Jewelry store that occupied the building previously. News articles at the time of its opening described the décor in this way:

The little theater, which seats over 300, is neatly decorated in yellow. The lobby is attractive in white marble and the foyer is in yellow and gold. There is no stage; the picture being projected against a large screen as in most picture theaters.

The Hipp, as it was referred by, had a 6-piece orchestra under the direction of W.H. Claspill. It was the first movie theater in Columbus to have an orchestra.

There seems to be a bit of confusion on just when this theater opened. The official first movie shown there was in 1914, but by some accounts, the theater actually opened in April, 1910. Also, there is some mystery on the lone photograph above. Some list it as having been originally taken in 1915, but others have it listed from 1934, after the theater had closed.

The current view of the site.

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The Park Theater
Operated until November 24, 1893. The date it opened is unknown.
Address: 217 N. High Street, Downtown
Seats: Unknown

The Park Theater began operations sometime in the 1880s or very early 1890s, and may have operated long after 1893 if not for a disaster from the building just to its south, the Chittenden Hotel. In 1889, Henry Chittenden purchased the office building of the B&O Railroad, added 2 floors and spent $400,000 (an enormous sum at the time) converting and renovating the building into a luxury hotel. In 1890, a fire broke out and gutted the entire building, but spared neighboring businesses like the Park Theater.

The second Chittenden Hotel. The Park Theater building can be seen on the very right. The photo is from 1892.

Chittenden decided to rebuild, and the 2nd Chittenden Hotel was completed in 1892. This second hotel had its own theater, the Henrietta, which was still partially under construction on November 24th, 1893. That evening at around 8pm, a fire started during a performance there. The fire originated in the auditorium, in an area that was still under construction and spread into the seating area itself. Once the flames breached the theater, strong winds quickly spread the fire and began to burn the hotel as well as surrounding buildings, including the one that housed the Park Theater. By the time the fire burned itself out just the next morning, both theaters, the hotel, a drug store, saloon, shoe house and clothing shop were all completely destroyed.

The second Chittenden and Park Theater, November 1893.

The Park Theater, November 25th, 1893.

Improbably, despite 2 hotels in the same locating burning down, Chittenden rebuilt for yet a 3rd time, with the largest and grandest version of all- not to mention with far better fire-resistant construction. The third time, it seems, was the charm, and the hotel survived from its completion in 1895 to its final demolition in 1973.

The unlucky Park Theater itself never rebuilt, though the lot had a new commercial building in its spot by 1895. That building also faced the wrecking ball in 1973.

The current location of where the Chittenden and Park Theater once stood.

Before and After Franklinton

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*Some photos have been updated since the time of the original Before and After Franklinton post.

Before: South Central Avenue, looking north, during the flood of January 21-24, 1959.

After: 2015

The 1959 flood was the 2nd worst in the history of Franklinton after the 1913 disaster. The Frank Road crest on the Scioto River came on January 22, 1959 and was 27.22 ft, 3.22 ft above flood stage and a few feet below the 1913 crest. This crest would not cause serious flooding in Franklinton today, as the Franklinton Floodwall, completed in 2004, will protect the area to crests of up to 30.9 ft. Few people know that, prior to the wall’s completion, federal guidelines prohibited almost all types of construction in Franklinton, a contributing factor in the gradual decline it faced after the 1950s.

Before: Bellows Avenue Elementary on Bellows Avenue in 1922.

After: 2017

Bellows Elementary was opened in 1905 and barely escaped destruction during the I-70/315 highway construction. The building remained a school through the 1970s before closing and being sold by the city in 1984. It has remained vacant since then. Recent proposals to turn it into apartments, particularly as Franklinton has begun a massive revitalization, and the building has received a new roof, so further deterioration has been stopped for now. The building, however, is threatened by possible demolition once the 70/71 split is reconstructed in sometime in the mid-2020s.

Before: The Columbus Heating and Ventilation Company building at 433 W. Town Street in 1916.

After: 2016

The Columbus Heating and Ventilating Company began in 1903 and still exists in the city, although obviously not at its original location. It later served as factories and parts of the complex were even used to enrich uranium for the Manhattan Project. The old building eventually went into severe disrepair and most of the roof had collapsed by the time it was demolished in 2011 as one of the first steps in the area’s rebirth. Multiple redevelopment plans have come and gone for the site, but so far, nothing has come of them.

Before: Mt. Carmel Hospital, looking southwest on Davis, in 1909.

After: 2018

Mt. Carmel was originally known as Hawkes Hospital. The first section was completed in 1886, with later expansions in 1891 and 1908. Eventually, the old structures were deemed outdated for modern hospital purposes, and the entire complex was demolished in the late 1940s. Today, the site is very different, with the current buildings built on top of the old Davis and State Street intersection. The hospital moved most services to a new location in Grove City in recent years, with plans to demolish part of the complex to create a new mixed-use development.

For thousands more before and after photos from all parts of the city, click here:
Historic Building Database



Before and After February 2013

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To an urbanist, the following Before and After February 2013 sets of photos are truly disturbing. I’ve heard it said many times over that Columbus is a new city filled with suburban design, and that it never really had a true urban, historic core. The sad thing is that that is dead wrong, and I say it’s sad because so much of it was lost in the name of progress. 99 years ago, Downtown was truly a beautiful, vibrant place, and the present-day shots only serve to make the transformation all that much more awful. You have to wonder what people were thinking in terms of design and the way that they systematically destroyed the environment that made the city what it was.

In any case, the photo set from 1914 was apparently taken by a photographer that walked the length of High Street starting from the intersection of Town Street all the way up to Goodale Avenue at the beginning of the Short North. They are some of the best historic photographs I’ve ever seen of Downtown Columbus. Let’s begin the tour.

The photo above at Town and High shows Lazarus Department Store on the left. It is one of the few buildings that remains today, as shown below.

The next set is the before and after from Capital Square, just south of the Broad and High intersection. The tall building in the center of the photo is 8 E. Broad and one of the few still standing today.

The next few photographs show the very heart of Downtown, the intersection of Broad and High. A few buildings remain, but most is gone.

Next is High Street just north of Broad and looking north. Notice just how many buildings are gone.



Up next is the intersection of Long and High, just south of the Atlas building (on the right). The Atlas Building still exists and is in the process of renovation. There are also a few buildings across the street that survived. Few others did.

For the 2nd to last set, we have the intersection of Spring and High. The old Chittenden Hotel is the large building on the left with the Lyceum Theater behind it. Most of these buildings were torn down to make room for the Nationwide complex in the 1980s. There is literally not a single building from 1914 still standing in this area.

And finally, we have the intersection of Goodale Avenue and High Street. This before and after shows a drastic transformation. Many of the buildings in the photo, including the building with the beautiful domed rotunda, were demolished to clear the right of way for the construction of I-670. Others succumbed due to the Convention Center’s construction or the Greek Orthodox Church’s expansion in the 1980s. There is only one point of reference to know this is the same place. To me, this is the most tragic photo of all. Like so many cities, Columbus had incredible architecture in abundance, and the leaders in the middle part of the 20th century squandered it all away, leaving the current generation trying to rebuild a divided, empty shell of what once was. Much of it, however, can never be restored. Let it be a visible reminder that development has real consequences if not followed through wisely.