Questions About Golf Manor

[Hartwell Girl]

The Mayerson JCC JCC: Home is also in the Amberley Village neighborhood near Reading (and even my little neighborhood of Hartwell) just to add to your list of areas to look at. There is also a nice synagouge in Wyoming on Springfield Pike (which is near Hartwell too). Good luck on your search!

[soozycue520]

Originally Posted by GManorborn

As I recall, the retail building on Losantiville between Stover and Obermeyer's had Sobel's drug store, Klostermann's bakery, Boerger's dairy and one other store.

My friend's mom worked at Plotnick's drug store which was in the next block past the UDF. I remember Stanley's, Bucheims's and a hobby shop also in that building.

When I lived in Golf Manor {late 1960's until early 1980's}, the retail building between Stover & Obermeyer's had a Leist Real Estate office & a Grote Bakery, as I remember. There may have been a drug store. I thought the hobby shop was here, as well, but I may be wrong.

The retail strip behind UDF on Wiehe & Losantiville had Boerger's Dairy {and Plotnik's drug store & Stanley's Delicatessan}. Buccheim Bakery was diagonally across the street, on Wiehe, on the west side of the bowling alley.

Edit: Maybe the Leist Realty Office was in the back of Obermeyer's parking lot?

[dshfcgfgaerstuhy]

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[ShawnoeTrail]

Box2565

Stanley's was the Jewish restaurant that also sold Kosher meats. Plotnick's was the Pharmacy. I've lived in GM since 1980 and my sister lived in GM since 1970. We're both still here on Vera. She moved to Boston for 17 yrs., but moved back here with me 4 years ago. GM has really changed. It use to be a wonderful place to live, but now the housing is becoming run down, businesses are pretty gone. United Dairy Farmers is the oldest business still here. The pool has been closed for years. The property taxes are the highest in the area. Crime isn't real bad here. We still have a wonderful police and fire department.

[Elaine S.]

I lived in Golf Manor back in the late 90s. It was my first house. It was an interesting mix--the Orthodox Jews, the Lithuanians who didn't speak English, the mixed-race couples, the white families who were pretty crammed in their tiny little houses. We moved to another part of town about two weeks before the Cincinnati Riots in 2001. In the short time we lived there, I thought it was going downhill. I no longer felt comfortable running in to the local UDF (a convenience store/gas station) because there always seemed to be groups of young men coming in and just looking/hanging around. My once-quiet street was starting to get a lot of people who liked to yell at one another from several hundred yards away. Several businesses in the area (on Section and Reading Rd.) closed. Someone got carjacked near The Cincinnati Gardens nearby. Someone was shot in a nearby hotel. There always seemed to be a cop car with its lights on. Going to church one Sunday I saw a man resisting arrest in/on the street we were on and said "enough." I've heard that the Catholic church closed. Don't know about the really nice nursery/garden center or Song Long Vietnamese restaurant--the only two things we missed when we moved. Maybe things have improved. I know the village council is trying but the crime was getting worse and that type of thing is hard to get rid of when it takes hold.

[goyguy]

The Catholic church (Our Mother of Sorrows) is scheduled to close in June. Its school had ceased operations two years ago, and is now a charter school. Song Long is still there and keeps packing 'em in. The only nursery/garden center I'm familiar with around there would've been Natorp's, which was on the other side of Bond Hill along Reading Rd. It was doing fine in that location - they had to shut down because they leased the property and the landlord (a church, so I'm told) wanted it for another purpose. Similarly, the Indian restaurant once called Udipi and now known as Amma's Kitchen is still adjacent to the Valley Shopping Center in the building which once housed the Fortune Kookie. And Roselawn Pharmacy isn't only hanging on, no small feat in this era of Walgreen's and CVS, it's getting ready to open its brand new freestanding store.
But the point raised is as valid as it is sad. Things have gotten so out of hand north of Summit Rd that someone advertising an apartment on Stillwell last fall was claiming that it's located in Golf Manor. Out of all the dozens of brick multi-family buildings on Losantiville, Reading Rd, etc few if any are not Section 8 conversions now. Recently there was a homicide in the Glenmeadow Lane complex, which along with Shona Dr and Joyce Lane (and of course the blessedly extinct Swifton Village) had once been a place where people put their names on waiting lists to get in. What keeps bad stuff happening isn't only the downgrading of rental housing, but also the sleazy bars and clubs that provide the "nightlife" along Reading and Seymour. Not only that, on Stover Ave no less, a prostitution ring was recently busted And two kids looking to buy weed were shot near Cincinnati Gardens, a crack house on Losantiville was raided, on and on it goes. The community council does wage an uphill battle, and what's even tougher to control than the crime rate is popular perception. Large portions of Roselawn and Golf Manor persist in being well-kept and pleasant places to visit and live. But every scary headline helps the public think differently.
I've half-jokingly said here before that "brick box" apartment buildings from the 1930's to '50s, with their garages out back and their picture-windowed living rooms, might become the next cool place to live. This doesn't seem likely, any more than it seems likely that Golf Manor's trademark houses (cramped Capes and bungalows) will be the trend after 2010. There's also next to no likelihood of very many middle-class families' being eager to put down roots in a community with atrocious educational options, let alone of Jews' resettling in their former stronghold. So, "Villages of Daybreak" notwithstanding, I think the nails are going to keep on getting hammered into the coffin of that area.

[Elaine S.]

Song Long is still there and keeps packing 'em in. The only nursery/garden center I'm familiar with around there would've been Natorp's, which was on the other side of Bond Hill along Reading Rd.

Goyguy--
Glad to hear Song Long is still bringing them in. It deserves the business. I remember reading of those 'Best Of' issues of Cinti magazine that said if Song Long were located in a better part of town you'd have to make reservations. I love their menu. As for the nursery, I was thinking of Evers along Langdon Farm Road. They had more plants than 10 Lowe's or HD's. And cheaper. I know they used to be partners with the Cinti hot pepper club and have a ton of really exotic hot peppers you could buy. I could lose myself there for hours just soaking up the smells and textures. Those two places and French Park are what I miss most. I wish the village council well in trying to turn things around.