John Krygier recently sent me the following photos (shown across then down), taken May 2018, with accompanying information:

When the City contractor dug down to put the new median (with trees, plants) on Indianola Ave. by Studio35, I took a few photos of the road subsurface and they can be found here.

The construction of the road was rather interesting. Like many other Clintonville streets, Indianola has brick
pavers under the asphalt.

If you look at the photos you will notice that train rails are running perpendicular to the road, and seem to have been used to reinforce the road from below…

I’m wondering if the rails were scrapped from the rail spur that came in from the main line, through Glen Echo (the north side of the ravine) to the old sewer pipe factory (now the site of Columbus International High School).

The cross-section of the roads seems to be (from top down):

Asphalt (newer)
Pavers
Concrete
Soil

Also, here is a PDF about early 20th century street construction in Cleveland, which seems similar to our city streets constructed at the time.

And here is an article about resurfacing roads in Columbus.

Thanks John!

I’ve written in the past about this stunning house at 242 E. N. Broadway–a beautiful renovation job by the current owner. When the house was put on the market in 2018, a video was made and you can tour the house’s interior by video here.

This is the oldest existing house on E.N. Broadway. Here are some old and new pix.

Original house:

And today, after years of loving restoration:

[Video and current image courtesy of Judy Minister Realty. The older image was part of the Clinton League’s notebooks and the digitized equivalent is among the “Ohio History Connection Selections” of the Ohio Memory project. Click on the thumbnail image above to reach their page.]

Elford Inc., a commercial construction company located near Grandview on Dublin Road, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2010.

To mark the occasion, the company published a 70-page hardcover book detailing Elford’s history, from its founding by Edward “Pop” Elford in 1910 to today. It’s available as a PDF here. The book chronicles the company’s history decade by decade, focusing on the marquee projects of each decade.

From a Clintonville and Beechwold perspective, the following are standouts:

[PDF booklet courtesy of Elford by way of Wendy Bayer.]

Amanda Page wrote a very nice article about Frank Packard, architect of the former North High School. The article is in Ravinia Spring/Summer 2014, pp 1,3.

Clintonville Area Com- missioner Judy Minister furnished us with a copy of the deed for Clinton Elementary School. It’s attached as a PDF.

A nice image of the Calumet Street Viaduct i.e. the Glen Echo / Calumet Street bridge. Elford Company built the bridge around 1924. The photo was taken from the area where the scoreboard on football field of the high school (formerly North High) is located. You can see some houses in the background, which are along Olentangy Street east of Calumet. [Thanks to John Krygier for sending this along to us.]

And here is the view of those houses today, using September 2016 Google Streetview.

From 1956 until 1975, the United Presbyterian Synod owned the building at 3040 North High Street, at the corner of Weber and North High Street. The building later served as the Capital Care Center, an adult health services clinic that provided, among many other health services, abortions, and as a consequence the building became known for the demonstrations held weekly at that corner for almost 20 years. The building has since been torn down, but this is a picture of the empty lot in 2007.

And here is a Google Earth image of the old building’s rooftop in 2004.

Some cool memorabilia from the Zinn Lumber Yard, courtesy of John Clark (great grandson of J. Harvey Zinn).

I just learned that Leeann Faust passed away. What a loss.

If I could describe Leeann in just one phrase, that phrase would be “all in”. When Leeann was enthusiastic about a person or cause, she was all in–whether it was an actress (Leeann was a long-standing president of the Carol Lawrence Fan Club) or the North High School Polar Bears (she was the historian/editor of the Alumni Association), or the history and legacy of her family (she was a descendant of Mathias Armbruster). Leeann was extremely generous with her time and her knowledge and her collection of articles, newspapers, & memorabilia. She was indefatigable in contributing to the community around her; she kept her friends close; and she was routinely cheerful.

Leeann, you will be missed.

Leeann’s obituaray can be found here.

When I first moved to Clintonville, there was a prominent vintage-looking advertisement painted on the south side of the brick wall at 3230 North High Street. (Today, this faces the parking lot for the Clintonville Resource Center’s North High Street location.) Today the paint has mostly been removed, and I don’t have a picture of the billboard back then. The attached picture is from Google Street View in 2011.

I thought I remembered the billboard as being for “Clintonvilla Pizza,” and containing an ad for a cola drink with a tag line such as “Relieves Fatigue”–something that hearkens back to the days when soda drinks contained some invigorating pharmaceutical ingredient such as coca (or maybe just caffeine). Actually, that’s the real reason that the ad stuck with me. But truly, today I can no longer remember it.

Here is the history of that business:
—1956-1970: that address, or 3232 North High Street, was occupied by Pizza Villa Restaurant. Pizza Villa was owned by Fred DiPietro and Rose Bucci (both Clintonville residents in 1970). You can find an online obituary for Fred R. DiPietro (born April 25 1934, died Jan 17, 2007 at age 72), “owner of Pizza Villa in Delaware and Columbus OH”) here.

I found a Rose C. Bucci (born 11 Jul 1932, died 14 Sep 1994, lived initially in Columbus but died in a nursing home in Delaware County) who had been a manager of an eating establishment, but really, I’m just fishing and have no idea if this Rose was one of the owners.

Fred DiPietro may have gotten divorced in 1974. Regardless:
—1971-1973: Nothing was listed for that address.
—1974-1981: 3230 North High became PJ Villa Restaurant. It was PJ Villa until 1981.
—1984-86: it was Jim’s Pizza. After 1989, it was no longer a pizza establishment.

Does anyone remember the exact wording of the sign, or have any pictures of the billboard?