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What'd be neat would be to see the view from behind - the now-gone Girls Town convent, and all the land where St X High School stands today.
"Off-topic" really isn't a problem, but there's a long-lived Cincinnati Photo thread where you can post any pics from wherever in town you like!
, looking into the valley toward Seymour Ave, I think, though I don't recognize any of the landmarks. Around 1959 probably.
Just to the left and above center is the Cincinnati Gardens. The smokestack to its left may belong to Hilton Davis, the chemical company situated to the east. The brown smokestack in the center of the picture looks like it belongs to Fries and Fries, the flavor factory. If so, then the wooded area nearby probably contains Longview and the Maketewah Country Club. The ridge to the upper left appears to be Amberly, while the one on the right is probably the Hyde Park and Mt. Lookout area. It's kind of hard to see Swifton, but it is probably above and to the right of the wide clearing. We went down that stretch of North Bend many times at night, and you could definitely see the Christmas lights atop Mabley's (formerly Rollman's) each December.
Last edited by MiddleCincinnati; 06-10-2011 at 05:47 PM..
Just to the left and above center is the Cincinnati Gardens. The smokestack to its left may belong to Hilton Davis, the chemical company situated to the east. The brown smokestack in the center of the picture looks like it belongs to Fries and Fries, the flavor factory. If so, then the wooded area nearby probably contains Longview and the Maketewah Country Club. The ridge to the upper left appears to be Amberly, while the one on the right is probably the Hyde Park and Mt. Lookout area. It's kind of hard to see Swifton, but it is probably above and to the right of the wide clearing. We went down that stretch of North Bend many times at night, and you could definitely see the Christmas lights atop Mabley's (formerly Rollman's) each December.
I lived almost in the shadow of the Hilton Davis smokestack at that time.
did you know Roberta Rosemae Schmidt she lived in Swifton village on Grafton Ave.
Did you know roberta Rosemae Schmidt? She lived in Swifton Village on Grafton Ave.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RHONDA W1954
Hi, I lived in Swifton Village on Langdon Farm Rd. we were the last building on the left. it was a 2 story, nice enough all wood floors not the ugly tile like my dad had in his building on Rhode Island.
I went to Woodward High school and loved to hang out at the shopping center with my friends. I remember lots of people Pam Shields, Sonny Baker, Eddie Vinson, Dennis Nazarrini, Danny Campanello, Julie Hermes, Taffy Waites and lots more. I liked living there but my mom was going to remarry and I went to Western Hills to live with my Dad and Stepmother, then I went to Oak Hills. My oldest brother graduated from Woodward, the graduation was at Nippert Stadium. We used to go out in the front of the school on "the hill" and smoke between class and at lunch. I got swats for smoking in the bathroom during gym class one time. I remember Mrs Bebe, Mr. Swanda, Mr. Grosser, Mr. Mooney, and Biology teacher Mr. Kalkbrenner and his paddle named black beauty. I think the thing I remember most are the sit in's during 68. I think this is when we started having police in the school. I drove past the school and could not believe how small it looked, I used to think it was huge. Its nice to read others memories.
My family lived in Swifton Village around 1955-1956 era I dont remember much because I was so young but I do remember that when the Swifton Village Shopping Center opened Captain Kangaroo and Mr Greenjeans appeared
My family lived in Swifton Village in 1952-1955. We lived on Langdon Farm Road, as I recall my mother saying. (I'll have to ask her.) We lived there before Swifton Shopping Center was built--but while the excavating was in full-swing. My brother who was barely walking age tromped into the mud one day and got stuck. My sister and I had to go get Mom to pull him out.
Our neighbor, Scottie, had a red fire engine pedal care we loved to ride! I found it interesting to see some one else on this thread remembered shoes--and I remembered Scottie's. They were brown with white uppers--the part of the shoe above the toes. They were cool! But then, the shoes were not nearly as cool as the coon-skin cap we had (I cannot remember whose it was). I was particularly proud of my cap gun that looked exactly like Davey Crockett's--at least as far as I knew it did.
We moved before any of us were old enough for school but I always remembered my mother saying we would have gone to Carthage for grade school and Woodward High School. We moved north to West Chester--the 'burbs before there were really any such thing as suburbs. (it was really farmland then.)
Sorry to hear the buildings aren't there any longer.
I have enjoyed reading this thread very much. My family moved from Cincinnati in 1961 after I had completed 7th grade at Woodward. So many memories returned after reading the posts. I googled the line from a poem about nouns that I couldn't quite remember and one of the sites listed mentioned Bond Hill. I remembered that I had been moved from Roselawn Elementary to Bond Hill in 1959.
Don't remember if we lived in Swifton Village but I know that we lived in a large apartment complex across the street from the large shopping center. We were next to a golf course where we had a wonderful time with our sleds in the winter. I remember the hula show at the shopping center and a tiny,tiny village that was displayed one year. I bought my first, and only, Barbie Doll at that shopping center. Guess that it was probably when they first came out.
I lucked into this delightful trip down memory lane all because I couldn't remember 'Nouns are just the names of things! Thanks!
Let loose some more memories, AM! I and plenty of others love reading that kind of stuff.
Swifton Village was by far the largest apartment complex across from the shopping center - truly a village unto itself - but it wasn't the only one.
The Hillcrest golf club has been closed for who knows how many years. But its name is still on one of the strip malls which went up along Seymour Ave to feed off the Swifton traffic exactly the way such things feed off modern-day shopping centers. It was situated east of Reading Rd. Sometime during the 1940's or '50s (judging from their architectural style) a group of two-story apartment buildings, perhaps with some townhouses mixed in, was constructed along a street which runs in a triangle north off Seymour. The street is Joyce Lane. Roselawn Village is what the complex is known as now, but back in the day it was called Colonial Village. Its buildings are, yes, Colonials - stone or "equivalent" downstairs, wood-frame exterior upstairs.
Then, southwest of the Reading/Seymour intersection and behind Woodward, you have Maketewah Country Club. "Mak" is still very much alive, though I suspect few members reside within walking distance any more. No golfer am I, but those in the know think highly of the course there. Since the terrain around where Hillcrest was located is mostly level, I suspect any sledding would've been done at Mak. It covers much more ground and includes some hills/slopes. Abutting Mak to the north is a group of "saltine box" red brick buildings that comprise the Glenmeadow Apartments. They're strung along or close by a "Lane" by the same name leading into Seymour.
All of which is to say - having an apartment close by Swifton and a golf course, in a complex, doesn't necessarily equate with dwelling in Swifton Village.
For decades and to this day, hundreds of newly minted P & G and GE employees have landed in Cincinnati from elsewhere every year. Everybody needs a place to live. For the fresh-out-of-college Southerner I call my dad, that place turned out to be Wyoming. He boarded in an elderly widow's house at first. Then, after marrying, home was a brick-box apartment in the same suburb. On the "Goyguy Sr's" block there were no less than five entry-level GE and P & G types. Among them were some who'd originally landed in Glenmeadow or Swifton Village. In that bygone era it was no less respectable to rent in a Swifton-area "community" than it was to be a tenant in Wyoming or Pleasant Ridge or Westwood or what have you. Thousands of people now in their sixties or older did.
How things have changed! Swifton Village has bitten the dust. Enough shootings and robberies in Glenmeadow Apartments make the papers that I've taken to calling the complex "Glenghetto." Colonial - now Roselawn - Village looks much the same as ever, except that the paint on the shutters and window frames etc is a pinkish red instead of white. Nothing ever happens there that Gannett deems newsworthy. But chances are there's at least some subsidizing of rent and probably not much neighborhood stability.
"You can't go home again."
Approximately 1953 through 1958 I lived in Swifton Village, first for a brief time in an apartment on Seymour, then in a duplex on Snowhill Drive. I attended Carthage School during my time there and remember my favorite teacher, Mr. Davidson, who opened up the exciting world of ancient history. I recall him teaching us about the invention of the wheel and of fire, and about the history of Rome and its seven hills, to which the hills of Cincinnati were compared.
Other than my first turtle and a friend and neighbor named Nina McLin on Seymour, I mostly recall my time on Snowhill Drive. Besides my brother, I had one friend. My memory tells me there were not many kids around, or many people at all. My friend's name was Bobby Bumps and he lived in the adjoining unit to mine. Bumps was three years younger than I was, which meant I usually got to make the decisions about what to do. Bumps and I would string cans along wire from his window to mine and try to set them up as a means of communication. We would walk across the "border" to Norwood, which was very close since we lived at the end of Snowhill Drive. The walk would involve going through what seemed like a thick patch of trees along a (small) stretch of unpaved road. Just as we entered the trees into the Norwood side, there was an old, abandoned, dilapidated house to the right, down a slight incline. We sometimes cautiously stopped to look at the house and peer through the broken windows. But we were convinced it was haunted and that, if we stayed too long, something or someone would come after us. My brother and I used to walk the same route (without stopping at the haunted house, since he was older and not interested) to go to a store that sold what I remember as really big ice cream sundaes with nuts and cherries on top.
Sometimes Bobby Bumps and I would walk over to Cincinnati Gardens just to see what was going on. On a few occasions, we would see a Cincinnati Red dressed for a game, walking across the parking lot. As little kids, we never knew why a baseball player would be walking across the parking lot but we were pleased when it happened since, between us, we had a vast collection of baseball cards. On one of our hikes to Cincinnati Gardens, we discovered that an Aunt Jemima pancake event was in progress. We stood outside a big tent watching people eat pancakes and sausages and complementary foods. I don't know how long we stood there but the next thing that happened was that a man shoved two tickets into my hand and told us to go in. We may have looked very hungry and he probably gave me the tickets because he could see that I, a girl about age 10, was older and perhaps wiser than Bumps, who was about 7 at the time. We went in and ate a fair amount of food, since it was all-you-could-eat. I vividly remember how we sat at a picnic style table and Bumps ate 6 pancakes, 3 sausages, and 2 muffins. I didn't eat that much but I did eat my share and it probably started my everlasting appreciation of getting something for free.
My family left Swifton Village to move to Mt. Healthy, and after that, to Connecticut. I came across this forum because I was trying unsuccessfully to find Snowhill Drive on an online map. Finally, via Rand McNally maps, I did find Snowhll Drive, which unfortunately appears on every other map as Faith Street. I was truly disheartened to see that change (along with a slight change in the curve of the street) and to see that the land looks so raw and barren, as construction sites often do. But still the memory goes on.
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did you know Roberta Rosemae Schmidt she lived in Swifton village on Grafton Ave.
Colonial - now Roselawn - Village looks much the same as ever, except that the paint on the shutters and window frames etc is a pinkish red instead of white. Nothing ever happens there that Gannett deems newsworthy. But chances are there's at least some subsidizing of rent and probably not much neighborhood stability. 
