What Happened to Walnut Hills Proper? (Cincinnati, Newark: for sale, house, neighborhood)

[flash3780]

More of a curiosity than anything, really. But, I was wondering if some folks who have been around Cincinnati for a while knew what caused the area to deteriorate, or even some general history on the neighborhood. Driving through on E McMillian, the architecture suggests that the area was once bustling. Now, there's trash (newspapers, junk, etc) on the sidewalks and on the streets. The buildings are deteriorated and there are lots of folks hanging out on street-corners with seemingly little to do.

What sort of policies (government or otherwise) have led to the population of the neighborhood becoming so steeped in poverty?

What's going on in the neighborhood now to try to turn it around?

[austiNati]

Interesting post !!! I don't have an answer, but Walnut Hills has SOOOOO much potential to be a kick ass neighborhood

[unctheel-CH]

I can tell you a little as my parents grew up (at some points in their childhood) in Walnut Hills. They recently took me on a "tour" of buidings in which they lived. This was in the 30's, and by then I think parts of the neighborhood may have already been suffering because my father would remark..."but we had to move because we couldn't pay the rent" at least for 3 different places. When my parents got married, they first lived in Walnut Hills in what was called the "Seminary." It was an old seminary/college where Harriet Beecher Stowe's family had some connection (maybe her father taught at the college?) because many of the buildings carried her family's names. For example, there was one building called the "Beecher." I lived in the Seminary (converted to family housing sometime in the 40's?) until I was 5 (1955). We have photos of us playing there, and I do remember some families who lived there: the Siegels (now I forget others!). We moved in 1955 (to Bond Hill - which was a mixture of Jewish/Catholic/Protestant families) because "they' were tearing down the seminary to make room for a Cadillac dealership. Very sad in hindsight. I had an aunt who lived over near a grocery store called "Hinen's" (?) in Walnut Hills and we continued to go back to see her on a regular basis through the mid-to-late 60's. I attended Walnut Hills High School in the 60's, but the neighborhood was in much disrepair by then, and probably not one of the safer areas in which to wander. I am not sure of all the reasons for deterioration, but some can be attributed to what was called in the 60's "white flight." Unfortunately, people were not very accepting of diversity in those days, so as places like Walnut Hills became more diverse (in color mostly), people started moving northward to North Avondale, then Bond Hill and out to Roselawn. In the late 60's/70's those families continued moving northward into suburbs like Wyoming, West Chester, Evendale, etc. Sorry for such a long winded response. We didn't live in Walnut Hills at its peak, but I do have fun remembering living there when I see some of our old photos.

[unctheel-CH]

Oh, and I just remembered there was an awesome Presbyterian church on the corner of McMillan, a dime store down the street where my grandmother worked (Woolworth's??) and several doctor's offices down from the church. I remember Dr. Litwin who delivered me....he made house calls when we lived in Bond Hill!

[goyguy]

The entire Presbyterian church on Gilbert Ave was to be razed a year or two ago, but the Cincinnati Preservation Association struck a compromise with the property owner (a funeral home proprietor who wanted space for parking.) As a result, the steeple was saved while everything else bit the dust. It r eminds me of the "compromise" during the urban removal boom downtown, when the arched front entrance of the grand old RKO Albee theater was grafted onto a new building while the remainder of the structure was demolished. To me it's like severing a person's head and torso and leaving a limb behind. You can see pics of the old church on the CPA Web site: Cincinnati Preservation Association :: Vision :: HISTORIC PROPERTY FOR SALE .

I never knew what was on Gilbert where Thomson-MacConnell Cadillac has been for many years. Sad that still more history was bulldozed around there, but at least it's good that the dealership didn't high-tail it to suburbia and remains in business.

White - and "green" (money) - flight had been going on in Walnut Hills for quite some time following WWII, but the changeovers had been relatively gradual until 1967-8. Unrest in the streets went hand-in-hand with the "Cincinnati Strangler" panic of the times to turn the outward trickle of population into a torrent. I remember, barely, when Peebles Corner was a bustling commercial district complete with its own big Woolworth's. Street lights the likes of which were nowhere else in town filled the nighttime with artificial moonglow from their pairs of fluorescent tubes. Affluent and/or social-climbing homeowners kept the cash registers ringing at upscale businesses such as Palette Studios and Jones the Florist. By the mid-seventies, nearly all the retailers had closed up shop or followed the money trail out of the neighborhood. Now only Greenwich Tavern is still around, unless you include the Caddy dealer. The district which once "jumped" is now one to get jumped in.

What's interesting to me is, unlike the concerned residents a short distance east who held back Avondale's decay at Dana Ave there was nothing "on the radar" about their counterparts who undoubtedly put forth the same effort in Walnut Hills. The night-and-day contrast between the sections around Eden Park and east of Victory Pkwy, and the rest of the community, couldn't've been brought about without hard work. Forty-plus years later, one still never hears anything about organized local advocacy around Walnut Hills along the lines of Westwood Concern et al. But there must be something going on.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by goyguy

White - and "green" (money) - flight had been going on in Walnut Hills for quite some time following WWII, but the changeovers had been relatively gradual until 1967-8. Unrest in the streets went hand-in-hand with the "Cincinnati Strangler" panic of the times to turn the outward trickle of population into a torrent. I remember, barely, when Peebles Corner was a bustling commercial district complete with its own big Woolworth's. Street lights the likes of which were nowhere else in town filled the nighttime with artificial moonglow from their pairs of fluorescent tubes. Affluent and/or social-climbing homeowners kept the cash registers ringing at upscale businesses such as Palette Studios and Jones the Florist. By the mid-seventies, nearly all the retailers had closed up shop or followed the money trail out of the neighborhood. Now only Greenwich Tavern is still around, unless you include the Caddy dealer. The district which once "jumped" is now one to get jumped in.

Refresh my memory.

Wasn't that area seriously affected by the 1967 riots?

I agree with you about the Cincinnati Strangler scare. My mother used the McMillan YMCA pool when she was recovering from back surgery up until that incident.

I think that one of the last major businesses that remained in teh area was Schulhoff Tool Rental.

[goyguy]

Originally Posted by jlawrence01

Refresh my memory.

Wasn't that area seriously affected by the 1967 riots?

I agree with you about the Cincinnati Strangler scare. My mother used the McMillan YMCA pool when she was recovering from back surgery up until that incident.

I think that one of the last major businesses that remained in teh area was Schulhoff Tool Rental.

Peebles Corner was one of the worst-hit areas in '67, along with Reading Rd from not far north of Sears out past Forest Ave. Strangely, the Vine St corridor in between was largely spared. During those troubled times it didn't take much to get the natives restless. In Cincinnati's case, the "Strangler" murders were what set things off. Belief on the streets was that a suspect was brought in based on profiling rather than strong evidence. Whether a valid assumption or not, there was a homicide (on Cleinview Ave in East Walnut Hills) which fit the pattern that'd had the city ashiver and which occurred after the guy was jailed. There was already tension in the air following the devastation in Newark and Detroit, and that episode provided a reason to wreak mayhem. When trouble flared up the following year after the MLK assassination, it was more confined to Avondale but of course kept the moving companies busy.

I haven't "rolled" down McMillan St or William Howard Taft Rd or Gilbert Ave for many moons. But from all accounts the main retail category there is now "hair stores." Kroger's on McMillan is still there, and a non-profit business that recycles building materials has been established on Gilbert. That's about as far as it goes commercially. A small, distinctive new office building had appeared west of Victory Pkwy at MLK Dr when I traveled the latter street last summer - so there may be some redevelopment in the works and under the radar behind that. But the prevailing sense I get about Walnut Hills "proper" is that by and large it remains depopulated and depressed.

[jlawrence01]

Thanks for the information. Some of the things that I did not understand at age 9-10 are starting to make a lot of sense.

[Wilson513]

I don't recall it that way at all. My best friend's family ran the dry cleaners at Kemper and McMillan and I don't think there was any racial disturbance at all in 1968 at Peebles Corner two blocks away. Remember, that area was not an exclusively black area as it is today. We hung out at one of the several hillbilly bars (you know, the ones with the hand painted sign that says: "string music nightly"), and I don't recall anything on fire or broken there. Wills Pawn shop was open the whole time and would have been decimated if the riots had occured in front of the place. Reading Road at WHT near the white Castle was the closest riot. Most all of the destruction occured at REading and Forest. and, despite rumors and fears of roving bands of blacks, all of this was pretty much stationary.

As for Cleinview, I lived there and am sure that Posteal Laskey had nothing to do with Walnut Hills decline. People were afraid all over the city that year and no one moved anywhere on account of it to my recollection. I can however remember my neighbor's supposedly humorous remark: "I may look 55 but I'm only 39" (a reference to the demographics of Laskey's victims).

[unctheel-CH]

.

I never knew what was on Gilbert where Thomson-MacConnell Cadillac has been for many years. Sad that still more history was bulldozed around there, but at least it's good that the dealership didn't high-tail it to suburbia and remains in business.

Thanks for a great photo site and reminding me the road was Gilbert Ave and the area around the church was Peebles corner!! We frequented that area quite often when I was very young, my mom always saying "Let's go uo to Peebles Corner." I also remember a Checkers store in the general vicinity, and somewhere around the Seminary was a drama/dance school called Schuster Martin's where my brother took drama from a wonderful woman named Miss Rose. miss Rose also taught drama at Bond Hill School in the afternoons. She was a wonderfully charming grand dame!

Such much history in that neighborhood, it's sad to see most of it gone.