Mid-to-late 20th Century Vine St/Springfield Pike (Cincinnati, Hamilton: relocate, estate)

[goyguy]

Vine Street...longest street in Cincinnati...starting point for east-west street address numbering...originating at the mighty Ohio, bisecting downtown and OTR, going diagonally up none other than Vine St Hill, truncated to Short Vine in Corryville to make way for University Plaza, skirting the Avondale/Clifton boundary, moving onward through the midst of St Bernard and Elmwood Place and Carthage, caroming away from the Paddock/Anthony Wayne crossroads to pass the fairgrounds and traverse western Hartwell...only to become Springfield Pike at the city limits and continue on through Wyoming and Woodlawn before again tacking northwestward to serve the western sectors of Glendale and Springdale before hitting the Butler County line. Vine Street, this is your CD thread. Mid-century Reading Rd has had its turn, and with the way that subject has taken on a life of its own it's time you had your own forum space. So here we go!

If you live(d) on or near Vine St or Springfield Pike, c'mon in. Here are some past and present businesses a lot of us should remember, to get the party started:

Okura antique/gift/junk shop (OTR)
Bogart's (Corryville)
A & T Soul Sounds Records (Avondale)
Seiler's Bike Shop (Carthage - later Valley Cyclery in Hartwell)
Vogue Cafe (Hartwell)
Obert's Pharmacy (Wyoming)
Century Inn (Woodlawn)
Springdale Plant Farm (a few blocks west, on Cloverdale)

[MiddleCincinnati]

Originally Posted by goyguy

Vine Street...longest street in Cincinnati...starting point for east-west street address numbering...originating at the mighty Ohio, bisecting downtown and OTR, going diagonally up none other than Vine St Hill, truncated to Short Vine in Corryville to make way for University Plaza, skirting the Avondale/Clifton boundary, moving onward through the midst of St Bernard and Elmwood Place and Carthage, caroming away from the Paddock/Anthony Wayne crossroads to pass the fairgrounds and traverse western Hartwell...only to become Springfield Pike at the city limits and continue on through Wyoming and Woodlawn before again tacking northwestward to serve the western sectors of Glendale and Springdale before hitting the Butler County line. Vine Street, this is your CD thread. Mid-century Reading Rd has had its turn, and with the way that subject has taken on a life of its own it's time you had your own forum space. So here we go!

If you live(d) on or near Vine St or Springfield Pike, c'mon in.

Don't mind if I do:

There was a chili place on the west side of the street, somewhere near
Towne, called "The Chili Bowl." It was owned by a Mr. Kahn, whose son
now runs Weil's funeral home. (No guarantees as to the spellings of
either of these.)

Fries and Fries flavor factory, between Vine and the Millcreek Expressway,
near Seymour. Now a division of a much larger corporation.

On the southwest corner with North Bend was the Velvasheen outlet.
Velvasheen made printed t-shirts and sweatshirts with company and
team logos. The outlet store had over-runs and seconds which were
priced accordingly.

On the northeast corner was the Country Kitchen, a chain of restaurants
with truck-stop fare. There was another one of these on Bypass 50,
between Woodlawn and Evendale.

Just to the north was Cherokee Motors, with its colossal neon brave
beckoning all to come in and buy a used car. Quite incorrect, politically,
nowadays.

Also in the same block were Kline on Vine, another used-car business,
and Louis the Florist. Already described in the Reading Rd. thread, the
florist shop featured an unusual trapezoidal-shaped showroom. Cars
purchased from Kline's featured a license plate holder sporting the
logo "Kline Sold Mine". Mr. Kline could occasionally be seen tooling
around town in his 1910 Cadillac.

Just north of the intersection with Anthony Wayne was/is the venerable
Carthage Fairgrounds. A separate thread has gone into some detail on
the fairgrounds. The annual Hamilton County Fair was held here. I
believe that trotters were either raced there, or exercised there, as well.

To the east of the fairgrounds, abutting the expressway, was the
distillery. Their brands included Gilbey's vodka and de Kuyper aperitifs.
Just to the north of the distillery was a footbridge over I-75, enabling
pedestrians (remember them?) to make a relatively hassle-free trip
between Edgemont Terrace / Roselawn and Hartwell / Lockland.

Across Vine from the fairgrounds was a Chrysler dealership which,
some time around 1970, became a Buick dealership. Just north of
the dealership was Rockenfield Ford.

North of the car dealerships and fairgrounds was the Mill Creek, crossed
by the "Singing Bridge," so named because of the sound tires made as
they crossed the metal grating at city speeds.

Just north of the bridge lies a railroad trestle, which may have been
the Baltimore and Ohio line. Caldwell Rd., to the west, leads up the
hill to some fine scenery and overlooks of north-central Cincinnati,
linking up with North Bend near Finneytown. Just off of Vine, on
Caldwell, was the Hartwell Country Club.

In the early 1960's, there was a gas station on the east side of the
street, about even with Caldwell. It may have been a Bonded station.
To the east lies the village of Carthage, a quiet residential area with
1900-era houses. Up and down Vine in these few blocks lies were stores
and a few taverns, probably the central business area of Hartwell.

On the southeast corner with Galbraith was Jake Sweeny Pontiac.
I cannot recall what preceded the dealership on this corner. On the
northeast corner is the Hartwell Elementary School. On the southwest
corner used to be a park and a municipal pool, but this was razed to
make room for a Kroger's some time in the late 1970's.

Somewhat east on Galbraith, at Woodbine, was an old apartment building
that was obliterated by the August, 1969, tornado. A few of the
residents were killed. Also to the east, but before Woodbine, is a
railroad crossing - the same line that crosses Vine near Caldwell.

Just west on Galbraith is Drake Hospital. Continuing further west, there
used to be the Meyer estate, on land which is now the Evergreen
retirement center. West of that is Wyoming.

Galbraith and Pfau form the southern terminus of Valleydale, a hamlet
wedged between Hartwell and Wyoming.

North of the Hartwell school was the Sixty Second Shop. In the local
short-order hierarchy, this chain ran a distant third behind Frisch's and
Carter's. The restaurant disappeared some time in the mid-1960's. At
some point a fish-and-chips restaurant appeared near the site, possibly
Long John Silver's. On the same block was Ames, which may have been
a furniture store.

Across the street was a small plaza which has hosted numerous store-
front businesses. There was a furniture discounter there in the mid-
1960's. A pizza carry-out, Italian Village, flourished in the early 1960's.
Some time around 1970, a Famous Recipe (chicken) franchise opened
on that block.

To the north of that plaza was the Big Melon grocery, which was sort
of like the WASP answer to Bilker's. The Big Melon later moved to the
north, near the new Igler's Pharmacy. Next to the old Big Melon site
was the original Schwallie Pharmacy, which later moved to the new
Compton Medical Arts building, around 1966.

At the southwest corner with Compton was a Sohio. South of the
Sohio was a Frisch's. That Frisch's was torn down some time around
1980 and then rebuilt on a different location of the same lot.

On the northwest corner with Compton used to be a tavern - I've
long since forgotten the name, but the place seemed to have been an
old landmark. Around 1965 it was replaced with a Burger Chef, later
known as Hardee's. Burger Chef's claim to fame was that the burgers
were "open-flame broiled." Even as kids, we knew that this meant to
watch out for that patch of black with the "new car" taste.

To the north was the Vogue Theater, which showed second-run
movies. The 10-cent Saturday matinees were a major draw for kids
from neighboring Hartwell and Wyoming. Before the movies started,
the owner, a "Mrs. Chase", would raffle off door prizes. It was one
way to get us kids to quiet down, though, as she would only whisper
the winning ticket numbers.

Southwest of the Vogue was a Kroger's, and due south, on Vine, was
the Vogue Cafe. The Vogue Theater was torn down in the late 1960's
to make room for a branch of the Liberal grocery chain. There was a
Liberal store in Swifton, as well.

As Goyguy noted, Igler's Pharmacy, to the east, was relocated to a
small strip mall. The mall included a United Dairy Farmers branch, a
florist and an Ohio state liquor store. Adjacent to that mall would
later appear another strip mall, oriented perpendicular to Vine, which
was to house the Big Melon, a bookstore and some other businesses.

Continuing north, it's mainly residential Wyoming on both sides of the
street. The central Wyoming business district begins at Wyoming
Avenue and continues east to the (same) railroad tracks. Across
the tracks begins Lockland and, further east, Reading, which is
centered around Reading Road.

Once in Wyoming, Vine Street becomes Springfield Pike. Near the
intersection with Wyoming Ave. are St. James elementary school,
to the west and the Wyoming Civic Center, to the east. At that
corner is a small collection of storefronts which included Obert's
pharmacy and Sansone's food store. The second story housed
some small offices - apparently Willie Thall had an office there at
some point. To the east of Sansone's was Robinson's Cleaners
and, further east was the old Wyoming High School, which
became a middle school in 1971. Sansone's was replaced by
a King Kwik in the mid-1970's. Currently a French bakery is
located there - Cafe Gaugin, or something like that.

On the northeast corner with Wyoming Ave. is the public library,
originally known as the Bonham branch of the Hamilton County
libraries.

Continuing north, it's again mainly residential until Fleming Road.
Just north of Fleming was a gas station, on the west side. On
the east side was a candy store - Murray's? Some time around
1970, a Friendly's ice-cream store was built. Further north,
around Vermont, a drive-through beverage store appeared, ca.
1970.

A K-Mart was built on the west side of Springfield Pike in the late
1960's. There was some controversy at the time, as the land had
some historical significance. The K-Mart became an Odd Lots in
the 1980's, and has since been razed to make room for a
subdivision. Across from the K-Mart was a King Kwik and a tavern
- maybe Keig's?

Beyond Wyoming is Woodlawn. There were a few stores and small
business along this stretch, as well as a stately tavern. Notable
here would be Midwest Salvage, which was a sort of surplus store.
Midwest Salvage sold all kinds of quirky stuff - they even had old
seats removed from Crosley Field for sale.

At the southeast corner with Bypass 50 was Sutherland Lumber.
In those days, the "lumber yards", as they were known, also sold
the sorts of home-improvement goods you now see at Home Depot.
Grueninger Oldsmobile later appeared near this site.

On the northeast corner was a large Kroger warehouse, at which
semis would load and unload. Actually, that whole stretch of
Bypass 50, all the way to Evendale and even the area north to
Mosteller Road, housed a whole slew of warehouses. To the north
of the warehouse was Goodwill Industries.

Just to the north of Goodwill was Jerry's Restaurant. Jerry's was a
chain of eateries then found in the Midwest and South, probably
inspired by Big Boy, but very bland. Jerry's disappeared in the late
1960's and was at some point replaced by Mr. Jim's Steakhouse, which
also had a branch near Summit Bowl. In the mid-1970's, Mr. Jim's
was replaced by a branch of Daily Doughnuts - a local chain which
had been around since the early 1960's or before, when it was
known as Daisy Doughnuts. To memory, their doughnuts were not
sickly sweet nor did they have the oily aftertaste of some of their
cheaper competitors. Anyway, this was the only branch of the
chain I can recall that actually had a dining area and served loose
tea, as well as coffee in huge "grumpy cups".

At this point the road forks. Springfield Pike becomes Route 4 and
heads to progressively more rural locales, running north-northwest.
Princeton Pike runs due north to Tri-County, passing through
Springdale and Glendale. I'll let someone else continue with tales of
the Century Inn and points north, but will note some geography:

Just north of the fork, off of Route 4, is road running east-west.
A mile or two down the road used to be a day-camp called
Claybanks, which was later the site of the Oola-Khan Grotto.
The significance of this area is that it abuts the western source
of the Mill Creek. The actual source of creek is the West Fork
Dam in Winton Woods, whose spillway is just up the hill.

Well, you asked for it. I grew up in Wyoming but, frankly, still feel
that the area around Reading Road is much more interesting than
this part of Vine Street.

[franke01]

The Woodlawn Drive-In was just north of bypass 50 about where Goodwill Industries was.

[veteran observer]

Right on about the Chili Bowl and its ownership. The double deck hamburger there was called The Big Joe. The Chili Bowl was actually next to the Elmwood town hall at Maple and Vine. Across the street was Hyams Furniture. It was sold to Gilbert Levine in the mid-1970s and became Gilbert's Furniture.

As for Velva Sheen, that may have been the spot that was previously occupied by Wolfe Bros. Furniture Store. There were four independent furniture stores in the area, Wolfe Bros. in Carthage and Hyams, Bond's and Leuger's in Elmwood. Bond's, on the west side of Vine just north of the Elmwood School playground at Maple, was wiped out by the tornado in the mid-70s. Leuger's closed all of its locations, I think, sometime in the early 90s.

Cherokee Motors was owned by Irv Singer, who did his own commercials on live local TV. He wore and Indian headdress and used the name Chief Shomawk.

[goyguy]

Originally Posted by veteran observer

Cherokee Motors was owned by Irv Singer, who did his own commercials on live local TV. He wore an Indian headdress and used the name Chief Shomawk.

"Where Paddock meets Vine at the Indian sign!"
To my unceasing amazement, that sign is still standing and is kept freshly painted. I think it was given some sort of historic designation or other. Unfortunately, the neon tubing which at night was lit to give the effect of the - uh - Native American waving people into the car lot burned out a long time ago.
The new-car business in Carthage burned out a long time ago too. Used-car operations have moved in along Vine opposite the fairgrounds, but to buy the latest model of anything you have to go to Fields-Ertel Rd. When Jennings Buick occupied the gray building with the wall of windows at Vine and Fairpark the place was what my dad would call "plush" or "showy." Skylarks, Rivieras, etc fresh from Detroit would be polished to a spit shine and arrayed on the showroom floor for all passersby to see. Now the building's partially boarded up and in a sorry condition. Down the road a piece, Hochmuth was the spot for Chrysler/Plymouth etc sales and service, but its home has stood empty for years. Rockenfield Ford vanished without a trace some time ago. All I remember of them was their vertical sign, with incandescent light bulbs flashing brightly around the old Ford logo at the top.
In a symbiosis of sorts, the Byrnes-Conway paving company was once located downhill from - and in back of - the car dealers. Much as one could get strong whiffs of sweet artificial flavoring from Fries & Fries and deKuyper, so could one be subjected to the reek of tar right after (or before) crossing the "singing bridge." I have childhood recollections of picking up metal barrels of blacktop and "sealer" with Dad there, and trying to keep my nose pinched the whole time lol. I wonder when the last time anybody repaved their own driveway was.
Point of info, the Hartwell rec center wasn't torn down. When Kroger's relocated from Mary St into its larger present quarters, they set up shop near the corner of Ridgeway. To placate the immediate abutters who were less than thrilled at the prospect of a supermarket being put there, Kroger contributed a large chunk of change toward rebuilding the rec center. It's now graced with a modern meeting facility in addition to the swimming pool and basketball courts. Kroger's had, of course, long since crushed its Albers competition (housed near the "Indian sign" in Carthage in the yellow brick building which later was home to Feldhaus Sporting Goods for quite a while and now is - I think - an auto parts retailer.)
To this day I still have some Velva Sheen T-shirts. That outlet store was a great haunt for '70s kids, since part of "the look" was a T-shirt - and not one bearing a clothing-company logo. You could be in line with the latest fashion trend for a buck or two per shirt, imagine that.
I got my biggest laugh of the day upon reading the description of the Big Melon as being the WASP answer to Bilker's. True! Interestingly enough, its propietor - Joe Geraci - never lived in Newport or West Price Hill. His home was in Amberley Village. So maybe he drew inspiration from his surroundings.
With all that's changed in Hartwell, it puts a smile on my face every time I'm back in the area and see Frisch's and Hug Jewelers and the Vogue Cafe still operating. 21st-Century kids have no idea what they missed out on by not catching a flick at the Vogue Theater: walking under what seemed like a gigantic trapezoidal marquee with an untold number of blinking light bulbs across the bottom to buy your ticket, and then strolling through an interior door into seeming total darkness to hunt for a seat and wait for the opening cartoon features to roll. I even remember being driven there for shows, getting there extra early to win a space in the tiny parking lot out back. The lot was covered with what could only be described as small rocks, larger than gravel or pebbles, which would go POP POP POP as the car passed over them and kicked them against the chassis. I bawled on the day in the late '60s when I discovered that the Vogue was being torn down. The cineplex experience can't match what it was like to see a film there.
The latest incarnation of the venerable storefront at Wyoming Ave and Springfield Pike is the "Half Day Cafe." As its name strongly suggests, it's a breakfast and lunch place which has apparently gone over well with the locals. The previous occupant was a French bistro wannabe called Cafe Cezanne; prior to that, a realtor was there after King Kwik called it quits.
Growing up in northern Wyoming, it was fun and easy to not only haunt Murray's for candy and snacks but also to make junk-food runs to Westendorf's Market at the corner of Charlotte Ave. But the youth of that area now have only the Wyoming Convenience store (nee King Kwik) near the Woodlawn border to visit for treats. Murray's is long gone, and Joe Westendorf saw the writing on the wall when what the Wyoming cops called "King Kwik North" opened - he sold his property to LaRosa's.
I remember the Chili Bowl for its bright white facade, and also Leugers, when jogging the memory bank for associations with Elmwood. One of my first intimations of getting older came when I was riding in a car up Vine St with a 4-year-old, lol. As we approached St Aloysius Church (northeast corner of Vine and Township, still there but no longer with ministering in English) I was about to ask the kid what its big rose window surrounded by much smaller round windows reminded him of. Then I realized he'd probably never seen a phone with a dial on top. So much for passing along "the church with the phone dial windows" as a mnemonic to the next generation.

[Hartwell Girl]

Okay....I am SOOOO Blown away by this....More more more....

In one of the posts about the apartment building which was detroyed in the 69 tornado, that was Hartwells origional school. A mother and her town children died under a stairwell. The building was later torn down. I have only seen one photo of it and it is a watercolor which hangs in the current Hartwell Elem. school.

If any one has old photos, please share. I love this thread!

[jem53]

Hartwell Girl,
My mom came from Hartwell, moved to Atlanta at 18 and later met my dad (who was on a weekend leave from the Navy) during WWII. They married, she moved up north to Ohio and here I am! We visited our grandparents and extended family every summer in the 50s and 60s and have visited infrequently since. I love the south because of the great memories I have of my family and Hartwell and also visiting Atlanta cousins in the 60s. (It sure has changed!) I will always have a place in my heart for Hartwell. My mom told me sooo many stories about going to a one room school and later to Nancy Hart (high school? or elementary?).

[goyguy]

We could start a whole separate thread about the Nati tornadoes of 1969 and '74. I was elementary-school age at the time of the earlier one, out of the country attending high school (relocated P & G brat) for the dozen that hit five years later.

While the rest of the country awoke to word of the Manson Family murders in California, Hartwell and Wyoming and Arlington Hts and Reading reeled from the tornado which had struck late the previous evening. My family lived a little over a mile north of its path, but I'll always remember the yellow-green sky and hearing those sirens that're loud enough to shake a house. Like many others, just as morbid curiosity led us to drive down Reading Rd after the uprisings of the year before and the year before that so did it draw us to view the wreckage. The twister initially touched down in southwest Wyoming, completely removing one house from its lot and damaging others, then had skipped east on Compton Rd before hopping over to Galbraith and Vine. Before it was done, it'd wreaked its worst damage in eastern Hartwell and Arlington Hts. Once the Lakeshore Apts in Reading had been "visited" with fatalities resulting, that was the end of it. In its wake were the destroyed old school (northeast corner of Woodbine and Galbraith at the end of Hartwell Ave), overturned and smashed mobile homes at the former Arlington Trailer Park, mere remnants of the former McIntosh's Restaurant and the Rob Paris photo studio, many ruined or heavily damaged houses, and quite a few mature trees uprooted and hurled across streets and yards. I recall that, thanks to the warning system, only seven people were killed. Seeing the destruction made that hard to believe.

The one anecdote I'll recount here involved two high school girls from Wyoming who were driving home and had stopped for a red light at Galbraith and Vine when the tornado bore down on the intersection. Their car, headed west on Galbraith, was picked up by the winds. Then it was tossed back to earth facing north on Vine, upright and in the proper lanes, leaving them shaken (of course) but unhurt. It may have never happened before or again that a tornado conspired with a motorist to violate traffic laws! The snarky exchange going around as this story spread went like this: "There'd been emergency broadcasts all over TV and radio. Didn't they hear anything?" "Oh, they probably had the radio on, all right. But it would've been something stupid like WSAI." LOL

"Thirteen sixty, double yew ess ay eye!" But I digress.

[MiddleCincinnati]

Originally Posted by goyguy

We could start a whole separate thread about the Nati tornadoes of 1969 and '74.
...
The one anecdote I'll recount here involved two high school girls from Wyoming who were driving home and had stopped for a red light at Galbraith and Vine when the tornado bore down on the intersection. Their car, headed west on Galbraith, was picked up by the winds. Then it was tossed back to earth facing north on Vine, upright and in the proper lanes, leaving them shaken (of course) but unhurt.

Some friends of ours had a high-school age daughter who was driving
in or near Wyoming that night. Her car was lifted off the ground by
the tornado. Wonder whether it's the same person.

[Hartwell Girl]

Looking for old photos of Hartwell whether they be of homes, schools, families or businesses...we are putting together a Hartwell Calendar as a neighborhood fund raiser. Any help would be greatly apprecaited.

Keep posting your memories here...I love checking in everyday to see if there is something new to read. Thanks to all those who have shared such wonderful memories!