For today’s Random Columbus Photo 12, we don’t go back too far in history, but the before and after are definitely one of the more dramatic comparisons featured so far. Larger versions of both photos are available if you click on them.
Before: N. High Street at Hubbard Avenue looking northeast, around 1980. The Short North by the 1970s was considered a declined neighborhood with significant crime and prostitution problems. Police were called there often, and history tells that it was the police themselves who coined the name of the neighborhood, since it was an area that was just “short of Downtown”. In the photo, you can see buildings at 790 N. High and beyond. At the time, they were a Trailways bus station and some kind of office building. Trailways was eventually replaced by other businesses and restaurants over the years, the last being the restaurant Haiku until it was all demolished for the current hotel building.
After: The same view in 2024. The picture from 2024 shows a drastically transformed neighborhood. After more than 40 years of renovations, revitalization and construction, the Short North has shed it’s drab and shady past. Crime stubbornly persists despite the improvements, but not nearly to the same degree. The taller apartment building in the older photo was torn down in the 1990s.
A new Random Columbus Photos after a multi-year absence!
Photo Location: Aerial photo of North High Street between Smith Place and 7th Avenue. Photo Date: Around 1985 Photo History: Located just north of the Short North and south of the OSU Campus, this part of High Street was often left out of revitalization and development efforts. By the 1980s, much of the urban fabric had already been torn down, leaving mostly parking lots and vacant lots, with only a smattering of buildings.
And the same view today. The Kroger, while realigned and larger, still retains a large surface parking lot, as does the business across the street, but otherwise, the area is significantly more filled in than it was in the 1980s. That trend will continue with more- and larger- projects planned for the stretch.
Columbus, like many cities, has a decidedly mixed history with historic preservation. It has lost so much, and it continues to lose more with every passing year. The Columbus Landmarks Foundation puts out of list every year of Columbus’ most endangered historic buildings in imminent danger of demolition. Here is 2019’s list. Not all of the threatened old buildings in Columbus get attention. Here are a few more that are likely to meet the wrecking ball relatively soon.
Highland and 11th Block 1619 Highland Street Built: 1905 Ohio State recently purchased this building after reportedly trying to buy it for decades. The university now owns the entire block that this building sits on, and the plans are for eventual redevelopment within a few years. What might replace it is not yet known.
1619 Highland in 2019.
141 W. 11th Avenue Built: 1890s If OSU decides to redevelop the entire block, and that seems to be the plan, another historic building near 1619 Highland could also be lost. The German House is the last remaining original home this far west on 11th Avenue in what was once a historic neighborhood. OSU has systematically demolished almost all of the other homes along 11th Avenue, beginning in the 1950s. While there are no announced plans for its demolition, news of the block’s redevelopment seem to predict this old home’s doom.
The German House in 2015.
King and High Block 1343-1347 N. High Street Built: Around 1920
1343-1347 North High in 2017.
1355-1359 N. High Street Built: Around 1890
1355-1359 N. High Street in 2015.
Both of these High Street properties, directly across the street from the Weinland Park Kroger, are under threat from a proposed redevelopment plan. Originally, the developer had proposed an 11-story, mixed-use building for this block with the intention of incorporating both of the old buildings into the plan. However, it seems that they became frustrated with the approvals process, and so, in seemingly a total spite move, greatly reduced the size of the project as well as any intention of saving the old buildings. The out-of-state developer’s new design doesn’t require any variances, and so it seems like the final product is out of the hands of the local neighborhood commission and city, unfortunately. What could’ve been a great project is now essentially a middle finger from the developer and arguably one of the worst-designed proposals in recent years.
Here’s a great video of High Street with a Short North drone flyove from 2018. It gives a fantastic view of all the new development built in the last decade along High Street between the Short North and Campus.
To see historic photos of how the Short North used to look, visit the Short North Historic Buildings page to see all sorts of before and after historic photos of the neighborhood.
And for more videos around Columbus through history, the Columbus Videos Through Time contains more than 50 different Columbus-specific videos on a wide-rage of topics.
Photo Location: Broad and High Photo Date: Sometime in 1849 Photo History: Random Columbus photo 5 is one of the earliest ever known to have been taken in Columbus, and shows a group of bystanders looking at several people on horseback. The year this was taken, 1849, is significant in that it references the events taking place. 1849, of course, was the year that gold was discovered in California. The men on horseback are 49-ers, getting ready to depart Columbus to join the great California Gold Rush, and the crowd was gathered to see them off.
Click on the image for a better look.
Unfortunately, not much else is known about the photo, who the people were, or in what direction the photo was even taken.
