1950's-1970's Stratford Manor & Eastwood Village (Green, Norwood: renting, home)

[Hyden]

NightBazaar, Great job on posting the pictures..Our family had a family reunion this passed weekend, my brother and sister came up from Mason & Milford. My brother brought some pictures with him and the Manor is in the backgound. He is supposed to have his son post them and email them to me. There are only about 3-4 that are really good but in one there is one where you can plainly see the building on the corner of Kingsley and Eastwood. I will be sure to send them to you first. I am so proud of what is on here, I only wish we had more to share theirs..

[franke01]

Originally Posted by NightBazaar

Thanks again to Hyden for the scan of an article from the Cincinnati Enquirer (1960) which shows a clinic at
Stratford Manor which was located behind the Manor’s shopping center.






Here's a blow up of the photo. To the right of the line is a nursery (daycare center). In the background is where a
laundromat was located by the shopping center. I don’t think this clinic was there when I left Stratford Manor in 1959,
so it was pretty new when the photo was taken.

Great pictures and information as always!

BTW, I got my "sugar cube" in 1958 - we were bused down to the old Woodward High School in OTR from OMS in Roselawn.

[NightBazaar]

Hyden, I'd love to see those pics. I'm sure there are more out there somewhere. Who knows? Maybe a few more will find there way here on this thread.


Franke01, where was Woodward High located?



I was in the 7th grade at Madisonville Jr. High, which was on the NE corner of Duck Creek Road and Madison Road until we moved in April 1959. I was kind of a shrimp in height at the time, but I had kind of a beatnik streak in me, so I started learning to play the bass violin at school, with the dream of slapping the strings with a beat rather than using the bow. I don't know why I chose to play a monster like that. I had to stand on a chair to play it. LOL.

[Ohiogirl81]

Wasn't Woodward where the School for Creative and Performing Arts is now, on Sycamore? (and there's a new school under construction near Music Hall -- don't know what will happen to the current building)

NightBazaar, I've noticed that Cincinnati is now on Google's Street View. The side streets in Madisonville aren't up yet, but they should be in short order.

[NightBazaar]

Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81

Wasn't Woodward where the School for Creative and Performing Arts is now, on Sycamore? (and there's a new school under construction near Music Hall -- don't know what will happen to the current building)

NightBazaar, I've noticed that Cincinnati is now on Google's Street View. The side streets in Madisonville aren't up yet, but they should be in short order.

Ohiogirl, I saw the Street View for Google's Maps, but from what I could see, I'm not sure what the difference is between Street View and the Map View (or the Satellite Views of the images I posted). I have snail-speed dialup connection, so maybe Street View requires a fast connection speed like Broadband? Is it something like Google World?

[RedBankGirl]

Originally Posted by NightBazaar

I remember the area called Stratford Manor. I spent 4 years growing up there in the mid to late-50s. It was located a few blocks off Madison Road, somewhat between Oakley and Madisonville. We lived on Kingsley Drive. It was a fairly clean place to live.

I remember a small shopping center with a grocery store, drug store, barber shop, etc. It was large enough to handle the needs of the area. I also remember the grade school, which was called Eastside Elementary School. Across from the grade school, there was an orphanage with several cottages. The school building seems to still be there, but I’m not sure if it’s still used as a school anymore. The orphanage buildings also seem to be there, but again, I don’t know if it’s used as a residence for orphans.[/font][/SIZE]

Here’s what I remember about the area. There was quite a number of apartment buildings. Each building was two stories with 2 apartments upstairs and two downstairs. Across from the shopping center, I think there were a few single story units, more like duplexes.

There were several streets in the area, but I can only remember Kingsley Drive and Stratford Drive. The apartment buildings were arranged in a fashion so that the back sides often faced a central courtyard with walks, small fenced playgrounds, and fenced locations for garbage cans. Not far from where we lived there was a fairly good-sized laundromat for the residents, but there must have been others around the area.

There were a couple of wooded gullies in the area with trails here and there where kids would ride their bikes, walk, or run around playing games. There were drainage streams that flowed through some of these “wild” areas.

To the north of Stratford Manor (I think it was north) was a farm that grew corn in the summer. The farm had a pond. Kids and adults alike would “sneak” over a back fence to swim in the pond in the summer and skate on the ice in the winter.

If you haven’t done it already, you can Google “Stratford Manor Cincinnati Ohio”. You should see a graphic street map of the area at the top. There are a number of online maps that should show the area. On one online map I looked at a couple of years ago, you could select an aerial photographic of the area that can also zoom in on for a closer look at details.

What I saw was surprising to me, as I guess I somewhat hoped to see the old place and maybe even the building where I lived. Instead, I saw what appears to be some kind of large area near the grade school where there trucking freight trailers are parked, like some kind of warehouse or something. Where our apartment on Kingsley Drive was located, there’s now what appears to be a large shopping mall or something that extends on what used to be the farm. There are also a number of smaller buildings in the area that may be single story professional offices.

I guess for the sake of nostalgia, I Googled Stratford Manor a couple of years ago just to see what it looks like now, and whether I could spot where I used to live. I was surprised to see there’s not even a hint that it was once filled with apartment buildings. There’s almost nothing remotely recognizable there now. Everything there has changed with the passing of time.

Although it was a long time ago, I still have a lot of great memories about Stratford Manor.

Oh my gosh! I just happened onto this site and couldn't believe my eyes. I grew up near Eastwood Village, went to Eastwood, Lyon and then Withrow. The house I grew up in is still located next to Hillsdale School. What a great walk down memory lane!
I have recently been trying to locate some of the school teachers from Eastwood. i.e. Miss Reed (Art), Miss Jones (1st)

[RedBankGirl]

Hyden, I too grew up near Eastwood in the 50's through the 70's. I remember the Thriftway, the drug store with the soda fountain. I also remember going into a little bar there and had my first taste of pizza. I used to do babysitting in the summer in the Manor and always went with my friends to the pool there. What great memories!
Someone was talking about the time before 71 was built. A friend of mine and I used to put our roller skates on and skate all the way up the concrete ribbon of highway just to get up near the mall and when we would skate back down, we would just squat down on our skates and let the hill take us all the way! It was a blast.

[RedBankGirl]

Originally Posted by NightBazaar

Franke01, thank you for the compliment. I'm glad the shots were able to bring back a few old memories for you. Unfortunately, my family didn't really take a lot of photos while we were in Cincy. I'm not really sure why. I guess they just never really thought about doing that very much there. No real real reason though. It was just a fluke that I happened to come across these ones.

I think my younger brother has a yearbook that belonged to our older brother when he attended Withrow High School. No idea if Withrow is still standing. Most likely, it too has gone the way of the dinosaur. If I can get my hands on it, I'll try to copy some photos from it. Although, it's mostly school oriented, I think there are some photos in it that are not necessarily school related. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything of Stratford Manor in it.

Good News! Withrow is still standing and I volunteer there once a week. The school has certainly seen it's share of changes but over all, the place still looks beautiful. Glad to see someone still remembers the place!

[NightBazaar]

Originally Posted by RedBankGirl

Good News! Withrow is still standing and I volunteer there once a week. The school has certainly seen it's share of changes but over all, the place still looks beautiful. Glad to see someone still remembers the place!

After I posted that about Withrow, I Googled images of it. It certainly has changed. Nothing like it was long ago, but that's not too unexpected considering that so many things change over time. It seems the clock tower has been left intact as a historical reminder.


What sort of memories do you have about Stratford Manor/Eastwood Village? I'd love to hear about it. Sounds like you were there around the same time I was.

[RedBankGirl]

I grew up on Red Bank which was just across the street from the manor. I walked to school (Eastwood Elem.) by way of Eastwood Village. Along the way, friends would join in and we would end up at school in one giant group. After school, we would stop at the drug store for a soda and we shopped at Thriftway. My mom didn't drive and when she wanted cigarettes, she would send me to the drug store with a note to buy them.

Eastwood Village eventually deteriorated. Seems like the apartments weren't being taken care of, crime went on the increase. By that time, I had finished going to Lyon Jr. High and was headed to Withrow. The times they were a'changin.

The house I grew up in still sits on the street. It is one of the only original farm houses that still exists from the age when that entire area was all farmland. I hear the school (Hillsdale/7 Hills) is buying up houses all over that area, including those on Ellmarie Drive.