Kenyon Barr Collection: Cincinnati Historical Society Library

Collections Essays Kenyon Barr Collection Cincinnati Historical Society Libran, 1 think urban renewal was tbe greatest thing ever to happen to tbis city. Charles H. Stamm, 1973 Director of Urban Renewal Tbe West End was tbe hub of tbe universe. Paul Henry Former resident quoted iii 1973 Progress swept thr() ugh Cincinnati's West End in the 1950s and early 1960s. In the eyes of urban planners,the West End was a " complete slum." Charles H. Stamm,Cincinnati's first urban renewal director, commented fifteen years later, " all you had to do was drive through it to know that." For the more than 40,000 people who lived in the West End,97 percent of wllom were African American, it was home,and it was a vital community with an infrastructure of businesses, stores, schools,churches and social agencies. Stamm and the planners had plenty of hard data to back up their view. They focused on a section of the West End that contained nearly 2, 800 residential, commercial and retail structures built in the latenineteenth century. Slum lindlords had subdivided the residential structures into almost 10,300 dwelling units, and only four of those residential buildings did not have pending building code violations. From the planners' perspective, the best renewal strategy was to " treat the area as ' raw' land, clearing everything," including the historic street grid. lit tbe 19305 the Sterli, lg Hc, tel at Sixth and Motind was the social ceitter of the West End. Tbe Cottc}, 1 Club o, 1 tbe fi,· st flc)(, r drew s{), lic of tbe biggest natiies in litusic a, td provided one (, f tbe few places whites and blacks socialized together. By 1959,tbe Cotton Club tuaS c/ osed and the bc} tel' s glory days luere long over.The ott, iters bad converted the hotel ijitc,eigbtvfive apartments. The redevelopment plan envisioned three uses for the cleared land. First,the Mill Creek Expressway, which later took the federal designation Interstate 75, would bisect the area. Thomas McDonald, U.S. Commissioner of Public Roads, expressed the fundamental assumption of the time: " Cities need expressways so badly that they are worth almost any cost." Northeast of the expressway a " relatively small"area was designated for new residential housing. The larger area southwest of the expressway was projected as a light industrial park,which was dubbed " Queensgate" by a public relations firm hired by the city. Given the fact that it bordered the Central Business District and had unparalleled access to rail and truck transportation, SPRING 2006 M#, 61 f 11& 11 Mlill COLLECTIONS ESSAYS ift ]j\ I N' 11 L 2-7 if , 11 1 3 j r : 5 . J __ 40 4 i 'Sts\'\ 6--«i » 1 11' 11 .. 4.. 1 1 411 \, » 3 \/ 1. 2-, *fft » 414 '1_-_-_ si,11__-_] If-2-1-idLT, ,_ 3 --'-'»-) j]1--]i '1----= _jk -» rp£, 1 E12F Jrs t#* 06-41 ,-45----2 - '] 11555j LEGE N D RENEWAL AREA · » -KENYON RENEWAL BARR PROJECT SS» . 1 In 1956,tbe City Planning Commission published its map oftbe Kenyon Barr Redevelopment ayea, along witb its redevelopment plan. the hope was that Queensgate could compete with the industrial parks beginning to pop up beyond the boundaries of the city. City officials named the I clearance effort the Kenyon Barr Project after two streets in the area. To anyone who lived there, it was simply the West End. In the spring and summer of 1959, before the wrecking balls arrived,the city systematically photographed every structure and empty lot in the redevelopment zone. The resulting 2, 700 photos now reside in the Cincinnati Historical Society Library as the Kenyon Barr Collection. The photographs are not particularly artistic. This was a project designed 111LFRONT_li=**%> » « St)/\ 1 gf p, OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER CINCINNATI OHIO SCALE iN FEET FEBRUARY 956 and carried out by bureaucrats. However, it is a rich collection that can help historians reconstruct the fabric of the old West End, giving glimpses not only of the Italianate and vernacular architecture, but also at how life was lived in a neighborhood now gone. The collection can also reconnect former residents with the community that was swept...