?? old neighborhood North College Hill (Cincinnati, Springfield: middle-class, appointed, renting)

[cdcdguy]

I left Cincinnati years ago(regretfully) and wanted to know what my old neighborhood was like today. This was a long time ago. Lived in N College Hill as a kid from 1965-1970. Zip code 45224 Near Daly Rd. and W Northbend Rd. McEvory park was very near. Then it was a nice newer middle class area for young families. There were a million kids on our street. Went to Pleasant Hill Elementary. I am sure it has changed a lot, but is the area still ok?

[Ohioan58]

One dead in North College Hill shooting | cincinnati.com | CommunityPress.com

I just visited friends in College Hill. Admittedly not what you asked. Our friends said that CH is changing, and not all for the better. More, ah, "urban" ... in a bad way. NCH appears similar.

[Sarah Perry]

I drive through the area of North Bend and Daly pretty frequently. The neighborhood looks pretty run down.

[Spartan06]

It's amazing how quick things can change within cities. Just within the 2 to 3 years I have been in Cincinnati , I have noticed the positive momentum occuring in OTR and the decline in some of the westside neighborhoods and suburbs. Oh, and the changes in Tri-County Mall. I RARELY ever go to that mall, but each time I go there, it seems like a store has closed, or either an 'urban' clothing store has replaced a major retail chain.

[SonnyDaze]

Pleasant Hill Elementary recently got a new building but the school is now 95% black if that gives you any indication of how things have changed demographically in that area. There are still alot of decent streets in eastern College Hill as you get closer to Finneytown, but on the whole, College Hill has seen quite a bit of decline over the past few decades.

[goyguy]

The Daly/North Bend area isn't part of either College Hill or NCH. An unincorporated section of Springfield Township, it was known as Brentwood in the early years of its existence and later as Finneytown. (Both the names have been fairly interchangeable. In recent times you rarely hear "Brentwood" any more, aside from some longstanding businesses in the neighborhood which include it in their names i.e. Brentwood Bowl on Winton Rd.)
The Capes and ranch houses which characterize that community were mostly constructed after WWII and up until the mid-1960's. "Diversity" is nothing new; AA families began moving in alongside Caucasian ones over forty years ago. But changes in demographics accelerated in some parts of the neighborhood, notably west of Daly and south of Compton, by 1975. It remains a fairly "mixed" area between Daly and Winton but is now predominantly Black west of Daly - until you reach the adjoining section of College Hill with its shaded streets and upper-middle-class vibe. There's "integration" there as well, but slanted more towards White. THEN...south of North Bend the complexion of the residents is almost exclusively dark again. But there hasn't been any major shift in the population's makeup since the '80s or so. What's noticeable now is that the lighter-skinned population is almost entirely aging, which logically translates into few White kids in classrooms.
College Hill (south of North Bend) has been in the news some lately because of an uptick in drug dealing around Cedar Ave and Groesbeck Rd which has led to at least one homicide. These sorts of crime trends tend to peak and ebb. Once community uproar has brought on enough heat from the cops, the dealers pack up and go. Similarly, a few bad apples in NCH have brought negative press to bear on that city. You have the incident linked from the upthread post (I always laugh and roll my eyes when "no one has any idea" why somebody with a mile-long rap sheet was targeted.) Then there was the infamous Christmas tree caper of 2008, when Cub (Boy?) Scouts selling fresh-cut pines for the holidays were robbed. Another widely publicized incident was the shooting of a clothing-store owner by someone who knew him and was after his money. All it takes is a few isolated episodes for people to read about them and then look up and down their street at who lives there now and think, "We've got to get out of Dodge." Whether NCH is really all that bad these days depends a lot on whom you talk to. To some, the rowdy teenagers hanging around Galbraith and Hamilton at all hours are foretelling the doom of the town. To others, they're just rowdy teenagers.
Particularly during the day, that portion of Greater Cincinnati is still "OK" to pass through or even to spend time in - in this one person's opinion.

[cdcdguy]

Thank you all for the replies. I lived on Liveoak Court, which I think was right off Hollywood. The street had 10-12 houses, and they were all smaller 2 stories with basements. I think our house was new when we moved in in 64 or 65.

I think what is really happening as I approach 50 is I am looking back on great times as a kid and this neighborhood at the time was very special. It was never an upscale area, middle class at that time. Guess I am a little disappointed it has declined, but must accept that things change.

[nightrider127]

Originally Posted by cdcdguy

Thank you all for the replies. I lived on Liveoak Court, which I think was right off Hollywood. The street had 10-12 houses, and they were all smaller 2 stories with basements. I think our house was new when we moved in in 64 or 65.

I think what is really happening as I approach 50 is I am looking back on great times as a kid and this neighborhood at the time was very special. It was never an upscale area, middle class at that time. Guess I am a little disappointed it has declined, but must accept that things change.

I think we all tend to do that CD as we grow older. I know I look back on my childhood and wish things were still the same. I grew up in Southeastern Ky and things were so different then. I grew up in the era of Sunday afternoon walks and skinny dipping in the creek. Now I would think twice, maybe more, before doing either.

[goyguy]

Ahh, Hollywood Ave is definitely within College Hill. That's the area I outlined above as having shaded streets and an upper-middle-class vibe. Its developer must've been surnamed Wood, what with all the "-wood" street names there! (Edwood, Devonwood, I could go on.) There's actually a little bit of an off-the-radar rejuvenation of the neighborhood happening along North Bend, with Collegevue (sp?) Place - to name one block - now "gaslit" and gentrifying. I haven't snooped around any of the side streets recently. But when I did, Oak Knoll and others were as placid and sleepy as ever. Some people of varying hues were languidly bicycling while others tended their yards and chatted. Bird songs filled the air and all was well.
What's changed markedly wherever you go is that groups of kids playing outside are rarely seen any more. Computers, two-income families, day care centers, "play dates," etc have done away with what we older folks remember as fun times. Heads of household are too wrapped up in their careers and themselves to while away an evening getting acquainted with their neighbors. With a lack of familiarity comes wariness in terms of turning the young 'uns loose even on a dead-end street with other kids. My sis and BIL lived for many years on a block in Loveland which was filled with families, and her stay-at-home status spearheaded a return to bygone days of spontaneous play. Word got around in no time that a trustworthy adult was present during the week. So at least in that enclave you'd see the next generation engaged in "unstructured activity" - biking around the neighborhood, having pickup football games, etc etc. But that's a rarity in this century.
True neighborhood "decline" isn't always spelled out by an increase in crime or a lower caliber of resident. The decline can be in the sense of community held by the people living there. By that measure, my own environment could be read as declining . Streets are clean, homes are well maintained, and "nothing ever happens." People in their 40's or older are sociable; we stay in each other's personal business and look after pets and property. But aside from one thirtyish couple who are active in the life of the street, the younger denizens are completely self-absorbed and can't be bothered. Their attitude's along the lines of, "I'll be here only until my next job transfer or when I'm through with school. None of these persons around here can help me enhance my resume, so I'll just keep my iPod in my ears and my thumbs on my Blackberry and ignore them." When moving vans appeared recently on my block, I had no clue which of the people carting out stuff from the building had been renting the condo there. In the other case, the tenants had not only been apathetic but on one occasion had been deliberately rude. Snotty individuals of any age who do nothing more for a neighborhood than occupy space can make that neighborhood go downhill in its quality of life as surely as a meth lab can.

[nightrider127]

I tried to rep you goyguy and it wont let me. I love your posts.

Here's some rep for you, for all the board to see.