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Did a search on the forum and didn't see much about Silverton.
We currently live in Pleasant Ridge and love it, but we are looking at some other neighborhoods that might get a little more bang for our house buck. I feel like I know nothing about Silverton except that is where I go to the post office and drive through on my way to Kenwood. Is it quiet? Family friendly? Friendly in general? Is is more like Deer Park or like Kennedy Heights? And yes, by that I mean primarily black vs. working class white. As another poster put, we're white and appreciate diversity (our current street in P Ridge is 50/50 black/white) but we don't want to feel "out of place."
We are specifically looking at the small streets between Section and Montgomery (Siebern, Park, Kenton, etc.) b/c they feed into Pleasant Ridge Montessori (we have two young kids). But are also interested in other streets like Sampson and Elwynne.
For reference, we are also considering the small area of Kennedy Heights that feeds into PRM (Dante, Bantry, Iris, etc.).
Silverton has been mentioned in other threads, but it's been several years since there was a particularly "deep" one. (I recall that at least one person who posted had settled there, after having been brought up in Madeira, and been pleased.) It seems to be somewhat off the radar due to hyper-concentration on other east-side city neighborhoods and the "usual suspect" suburbs.
For a subjective personal opinion I can offer that Park Ave seems to have more cool houses than Siebern! But that's my liking for pre-WWII bungalows showing. There also appears to be a higher quantity of smaller homes (e.g. 1.5 stories at most) on that end of town than beyond Plainfield headed toward 71. Two children (even if of the same sex) sort of dictates that you have no fewer than three bedrooms - and having a "spare" for a study or guest room is also always nice.
Proximity to the Kenwood mall sprawl, while being free of its scads of driveways feeding into Montgomery Rd, is Silverton's strongest suit. Its tie-in to CPS is the weakest. The local elementary school doesn't fare too badly (or all that well) in the rankings sweepstakes, but it appears you have that issue covered.
What makes Silverton a "hidden gem" (here again it's strictly my opinion) is that "integration," "diversity," "'your buzzword here,'" etc HAS NEVER BEEN AN ISSUE. Any large-scale real estate "block busting" such as that which wreaked devastation on Bond Hill never occurred, though the tactic was used with less success in Kennedy Heights. Whether AA families have been steered away from Deer Park or other nearby White areas is a moot point here. The fact is that Silverton has stayed quietly and unassumingly "mixed" for a half century or longer. Part of this unusually stable and harmonious feel probably stems from its being a majority working-class community. Many nurses and postal workers call it home, for instance, and those are very color-blind elements of the employment sector. There's also no public housing and little if any that's subsidized. That in turn means there's recognition that a person's home is most likely THEIRS and that they have a corresponding stake in their street's well-being. Without resentments and suspicions based on economic status it's much easier to have racial harmony.
I also like the Iris Ave section of Kennedy Heights - again for its inviting-to-me housing stock - but over time that area seems to have lost a large part of its "pale" population. These days KH looks to have a stable and significant Caucasian presence elsewhere, that being along streets like Wyatt + Congreve + Aikenside + Davenant. And (as brought up in a much more recently active, dedicated, thread) the commercial district has pretty much hit rock bottom, although there are proposals afoot to try and use the Arts Center as an anchor for allied businesses. Unless you're willing and able to go upscale on a house in that four-street sector (or on other anomalous but eye-catching streets like Valley View and Orchard Lane) I'd put my money on Silverton.
Ok, Silverton. I really like Silverton. To me, people in Silverton work hard, care for their homes, hang christmas lights, drink real american beer, and aren't afraid to enjoy a cigarette. It reminds me of small town Ohio in that way. The Silverton Cafe is a slice of home in a way unlike any place in Pleasant Ridge.
If Hyde Park is wine, Pleasant Ridge is Craft Beer, and Silverton is a Jack and Coke.
I don't know if that's all fair or even true, but that's my impression.
I personally like the section of Silverton that you are talking about. Snug and homey. From a racial perspective, I think you'll find a similar mix to PR. It's about 50/50 white/black.
My biggest hesitation with both Silverton and KH would relate to the schools -- the rumor mill is that Pleasant Ridge will have to shrink its catchmant area because of student overpopulation as a result of recent enrollment growth. And given the proximity of both Silverton Paideia and Woodford Paideia, the district will probably be reduced from that general direction.
When I first picked up this thread and saw Silverton, my reaction was Silverton, is it still there? My first recollections go back to the 1940s when I was a small boy, my parents lived in an apartment in Deer Park, and my paternal and maternal grandparents had single family homes in Deer Park. Several of my aunts and uncles had married and taken up residence in Silverton.
My parents soon took up residence in Madeira. But they continued to do most of their business transactions in Silverton. My father and grandfather were in business together as painting contractors. They did all of their business and personal banking at the Silverton Bank, and purchased supplies from an independent paint store on Montgomery Rd. This relationship went on for some 20 years.
I also remember so many other businesses in Silverton, the Silverton 5&Dime which I believe is now the location of the Silverton Cafe, Marathon Inn a stalwart of the area, Blick & Blick tailors and dry cleaners, Grafton's Hop Off Inn, and so many others. One of the original Sixty Second Shops located there. Meier's Winery on Plainfield Rd was another stalwart.
In addition to restaurants and bars, there were a number of hard goods shops, truck and car repair, etc.
I also remember the Perkins Bakery on Plainfield Rd. When I went in there as a young boy the counter clerk always gave me a sugar cookie. Some time later they acquired another store down the street and opened the original Perkins Pancake House. Many pancake restaurants have taken the country by a storm, but I still acknowledge the one with humble beginnings in Silverton Ohio.
I can reminisce a great deal about Silverton. With the death of my grandfather things began to change in my family. My mother, who had the only formal education in my family, did all of the bookwork for my father's business. She typed up all of the proposals and contracts for their customers, did the billing, etc. She tracked and paid all of their business expenses, supplies purchased, etc. She tracked and paid all of the business taxes they owed, including the municipal income taxes their employees owned depending on the location of the job they were working. Payments to such as Ohio Unemployment Compensation came under this also.
She was a one person dynamo. I don't recall whether during my business career I encountered anyone who could type as fast as she, especially without error. In the days before C-phones and all of our other electronic gizmos, my father would go out to quote a job. He kept all of the pertinent data in a notebook. If he felt the customer was in a position to move quickly and he was favorable, he would call my mother on the old land line, give her her the distinguishing data, which she took down manually in short-hand, and by the time he got home that evening she had a full blown proposal typed for the customer. After all, she knew what wording he would use.
Over the years, my contact with Silverton has diminished considerably. I no longer have a single relative who lives there, they, or their heirs, have distributed all over the area.
So I flat out admit I have virtually no knowledge of the current makeup of Silverton. Lack of contact yields lack of comprehension. This is probably just nothing but a guess, but I guess Silverton and Deer Park are very similar. Another poster said hard working people proud to be the owners of their property. This is my feeling even though it has been over 50 years since I had any real contact with Silverton. Why do I feel this way? Simply, a recollection of the people who occupied Silverton. I just feel their personal ideals have probably not changed all that lot over the years.
Brill, that was an epic post. Thanks for taking me back with you to a time I could never know.
Do you remember where the perkins was? I wonder if the building is still there. I had no idea that chain started in Cincinnati, much less right next door (to me) in Silverton.
I remember back to my childhood when my mom took shorthand classes at the community college. She did medical documentation of some kind and this I guess was a must-have skill. I remember looking at her scribbles in wonder...how could this swoop and dash mean so much?
I am now of the belief the people who originated the Perkins Pancake House in Silverton was not the same family as owned and operated the bakery. This can obviously cause a lot of confusion as to who is who.
I think the doubling of the confusion results from the restaurant branch has always served some good baked goods, the muffins stand out in my mind.
I cannot place the exact location of the pancake house on Plainfield Rd. I am quite sure it was not barren land, that is they took over one or more existing businesses to establish the pancake house, did not build from scratch.
The one thing I am quite sure of is the Perkins Restaurants scattered around Cincinnati are results of the original pancake operations. It was a rapid expansion which had to diversify the menu when the initial pancake operations lost steam.
Adopting pancake recipes from William Smith of Smitty's pancake house in Seattle, Washington, Matt and Ivan Perkins opened their first Perkins Pancake House in Silverton, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati in 1958. Between 1958-1969, Matt and Ivan expanded the Perkins Pancake House into a franchise operation, and 10 years later, they retired and sold the business in 1979.
In August 1979, the Perkins Pancake House became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Holiday Inns, Inc.
In 1985, restaurant entrepreneur Donald N. Smith, purchased ownership interest in Perkins and became the Chief Executive Officer of the company. Under Smith's direction, the company was renamed the Perkins Family Restaurants in 1987 and organized into a limited partnership with interests publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. One year later, the company expanded internationally into Ontario, Canada.
In 2000, the Perkins Family Restaurants, L.P. merged with a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Restaurant Company. The company's operations were conducted through The Restaurant Company under the trade name Perkins Restaurant and Bakery.
In May 2006, the Perkins Restaurant & Bakery chain combined with Marie Callender's to form Perkins & Marie Callender's Inc. under the ownership of a majority-owned affiliate of Castle Harlan, Inc., a New York-based investment firm.
In 2010, there are more than 450 Perkins Family Restaurants in the United States and five Canadian provinces.
Ivan P. Perkins, founder of Perkins Family Restaurants, died of a stroke Wednesday at the Seasons Retirement Home in Kenwood. He was 83.
The entrepreneur was one of the first people in the country to franchise a business. He also invented the process of freezing fresh bakery goods for transport to other stores.
''He put his heart and soul into everything he ever did,'' his son, Michael Perkins, said. ''He was an excellent negotiator and entered a lot of humor into it.''
In 1958, Mr. Perkins and his brother Matthew founded the Perkins Pancake House. Two years later, they thought of selling the name of the restaurants across the nation.
''I remember him telling me that he wrote out the first franchise agreement on a napkin in a restaurant,'' said Louis George, a friend and tax accountant. ''He really had insight.''
Named one of the top 2,000 executives in the country for his innovative ideas, Mr. Perkins received an honorary degree from Stanford University. Born in Fraser, Colo., he moved to Alaska in the 1930s to supervise kitchens at a gold mine. Later, he worked as a trouble-shooter for Fleischman Yeast Co.
During World War II, he worked in Covington as the superintendent of a commercial bakery.
Mr. Perkins also founded Perkins Bakery in Silverton in 1948 and sold packaged mixes for cakes, pie crusts, biscuits and pancakes in groceries under the Perkins name. He served as president of the National Retail Bakers Association, the Cincinnati Retail Bakers Association and the Downtowner Motel Corporation in Memphis and was a member of Silverton City Council in the 1950s.
Also surviving are his wife, Cecilia; five other children, Patrick of Orinda, Calif., Kathleen Widup of Houston, Helen of Blue Ash, Martha of Walnut Creek, Calif., and Marlene Sullivan of Coral Springs, Fla.; ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Visitation will be 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at Thomas Memorial, 7500 Montgomery Road in Kenwood. The funeral will be 10 a.m. Saturday at All Saints Church in Montgomery.
Some great posts concerning the Perkins restaurant business. I was not 100% accurate, but am glad to learn the pancake business was started in Silverton.
Once Perkins branched out, they were more than capable of franchising the business, a feature they are still given recognition for originating.
I guess the claim as to who was the Original Pancake House will keep being argued.
But when I think back to the Pancake House in Silverton, I have to feel how much more original than this can you get.
So all of you Silvertonians, take satisfaction you live in a neighborhood where an international restaurant business was born.
We live in Silverton (with 2 small kids) and really love it here. I'll mirror the comments of everyone else in terms of the friendly, diverse feel of the whole town. The location is hard to beat - you can get almost anywhere from west side to milford / mason to covington in about 20 minutes. We bought this house soon after getting married and have been here 9 years.
We're moving soon and will definitely miss it here.
Silverton is a great neighborhood. What previous posters said is correct, it is very diverse, about 50/50, and there are some streets that are much better than others. There are a couple of things that are not as available in past years: Fire and Police. Silverton has fallen on tough times financially, due to an aging population, thus decreased tax revenue. They got rid of the fire and police dept. The fire joined with Deer Park, and the policing is now handled by Hamilton County sheriffs. They dont seem to come around as much as when Silverton had their own dept. One other issue to be mindful of is taxes. There is a 1% income tax, and there is no reciprocity. For example, in many municipalities, if you have taxes taken out because you work there, your home residence will give you a credit, but Silverton does not. So if you work in the city of cincinnati, mason, etc, you will pay state, place of business taxes, and silverton taxes. If you dont make a lot of money, 1% may not seem like a lot, but it is to many folks.
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