Before and After: The Near East Side Transformation



Given the popularity of the Weinland Park Before and After, I am finally getting around to posting this one for the Near East Side, which is a combination of Olde Towne East and King-Lincoln. Like Weinland Park, the NES has seen its fair share of struggles over the years, but unlike Weinland Park, its revitalization has been decades in the making. It has seen steady house-to-house renovations since at least the 1980s, and is now at the point where the pace of larger scale redevelopment is picking up. There are currently at least a dozen infill projects in the works, with even more renovations.

North Ohio Avenue
Before: 2009 North Ohio Avenue looking north.

After: 2017

These photos don’t represent all that big a change, but it shows some of the infrastructure improvements going on around the neighborhood. This picture is just south of the Poindexter Place development on North Ohio Avenue. The photos show the addition of a multi-use path, new sidewalks and pavement. Bike lanes, which aren’t shown in the Google image, were also striped.

Poindexter Village
Before: 2009 North Ohio and Hawthorne, looking east.

After: 2017

Poindexter Village was the first large-scale public housing complex in Columbus, built back in the 1940s. All but 2 of the original buildings were torn down to make room for a redevelopment, called Poindexter Place. The last 2 buildings will become a museum. The change from 2009 to 2017 is drastic.
Before: 2009 Champion and Mt. Vernon, looking southeast.

After: 2017

Before: 2011 Champion Avenue and Hawthorne Avenue looking south.

After: 2017

Oak Street
Before: 2009 Oak and 18th looking northeast.

After: 2017

Long Street
Before: 2011 Long and 17th, looking southeast.


After: 2017

Before: 2011 Long Street and I-71 looking northwest.

After: 2017

Bryden Road
Before: 2009 Bryden and Garfield looking northwest.


After: 2017

Before: 2015 Bryden and Ohio Avenue looking north.

After: 2018



Before and After German Village



German Village dates back to the early 19th Century, when it was sometimes called called Germantown. Unsurprisingly, by the middle of the 20th Century, the neighborhood had declined significantly, yet still retained the vast majority of its historic buildings. The city of Columbus had it in mind to bulldoze a large part of the neighborhood in the 1950s for public housing, but activists organized against those plans. Instead, in what was one of the first major success stories of Columbus preservation, German Village was saved. The entire area was eventually added onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and today it is still the largest historic district on the registry anywhere in the United States. Here are just a few before and after photos around the neighborhood.

Before: Stewart Avenue Elementary School, looking northeast, in 1920.
before and after German Village
After: 2017

The school was constructed in 1873 and remains in use today, one of the oldest continuous schools remaining in the city.

Before: City Park Avenue at Lansing Street, looking south, in 1898.

After: 2016

Before: The Max Neugebauer Tailor Shop at 764 Mohawk Street in 1897.

After: 2016

Neugebauer arrived in Columbus in 1887, but it’s unclear when he opened this business.

Before: Beck Street and Mohawk, looking east, in 1950.

After: 2017

German Village was considered a “slum” by 1950, so the before photo would’ve been around the time of the neighborhood’s low point.

Before: Third Street and Beck, looking east, in 1981.

After: 2016

The photo shows a German Village “Haus and Garten Tour” through the neighborhood.