The blocks east of Fairgrounds Park are in rough shape. I am concerned about the future of this portion of the city. It is near where Bob Reuter’s boyhood home is. There are a few pockets of houses left, but for the most, the streets are desolate.
Tag: Fairgrounds
Burnout, Warne Avenue
Update: Demolished and lot graded by December of 2019. I always get sad when I see something like this, because I see the well-maintained bushes out front, and I realize this house was probably occupied when it burned. Looking back at Google Streetview, I also discovered this was a rare, Italianate wood frame survivor from…
North Side of Fairgrounds Park, Part 3
Many houses sit on streets that are blocked off, and abandoned houses’ grass and trees grow out of control. It is a strangely isolated area, with all of the closed streets.
North Side of Fairgrounds Park, Part 2
There are many old wood frame houses in this area, and they are clinging on, but there is a lot of abandonment.
North Side of Fairgrounds Park, Part 1
Messing around on Google Maps, I realized that the strip of land to the north of Fairground Park, and Lee Avenue (extra wide for streetcars) is a fascinating area of small back streets. Too wide for one whole block, and too narrow for two blocks, short streets, places and open grass fields create a unique…
Oil of God Ministries Church, Former Zoar German Methodist Episcopal Church
Update: Thanks to a reader’s help, this church was identified as Zoar German Methodist Episcopal Church, which occupied this building from 1905-1920. Built around 1922, this church at Gano and Carter is an interesting specimen. It has been added onto, repaired, patched and bricked up. But it is still occupied, and while the rest of…
Fairgrounds Neighborhood, Revisited
The Fairgrounds neighborhood is isolated by closed streets and Fairground Park on the south, but it is an interesting, eclectic neighborhood, architecturally. I photographed Lee Avenue in November of 2015 and December of 2019. I returned in the summer of 2023. It shows evidence of having been built up over a very long time, and…
Somewhere Around Penrose or Fairgrounds Neighborhood
I always find it fascinating how a row of houses born together begin to die and transform as the decades go by.
Lee Avenue, Fairgrounds, Revisited
Update: I went back and revisited Lee Avenue in September 2017 and December 2019. I returned in the summer of 2023. The streetcar used to come down Lee Avenue, and its wide expanse makes for what could be a grand boulevard in the Fairgrounds neighborhood. Unfortunately, it is in bad shape, and its stunning architecture…
Dashed Dreams?
I think this is an incomplete church, where the congregation never completed the upper stories. But research does not reveal any explanation about what this was. Records say that the F. W. Caspar & Co. was at this intersection in 1906. Which corner? I suspect this might have been a Christian Scientist church, judging from the…