Much like yesterday’s post on the Engineers Club, today’s post is about the history behind the beautiful and enigmatic Masonic Temple (aka the Dayton Masonic Center).
Here’s a short history of the building and a video from its construction back in 1925/26. Enjoy.
Interesting Facts
Timetable: Groundbreaking: July 20, 1925
Cornerstone laid: May 19, 1926
Building open: April 1, 1928
Construction time: Two years, nine months
Number of workers: 450, a majority of whom were Masonic Brethren
Cost: $2.5 million in 1926
Today’s Cost: Over $40 million
Style of Architecture: Grecian
Size of Lot: Approximately 8 1/2 acres
Dimensions of Building: 265 feet long by 190 feet wide by 80 feet high, equivalent to an 8-story building in height!
Cubic Space: 5 million cubic feet
Steel: 1,700 tons Cement: 85,000 bags
Sand: 6,540 tons Gravel: 13,500 tons
Stone: 55,000 cubic feet Bedford stone and 15,000 cubic feet hard limestone
Marble: 20 train carloads of Vermont, Alabama and Tennessee marble used for interior floors, wainscotings, partitions and stairways
Lime: 350 tons Plaster: 1,200 tons
Wire: 500,000 feet Brick: 2 millions bricks
Carpet: 5,000 yards Partition Tile: 1,600 tons Elevators: Two high-speed, self-leveling elevators
First, the blog. Then, the Foundation. And then the main site. And finally the Dayton Innovation Legacy website. The Engineers Club Story has a great 1935 motion picture of the Club and its early history.
Here’s a video of the Wright Brothers in flight form the Dayton Innovation Legacy site:
I know you do, so check out http://d8n.biz and buy some merchandise like cool shirts at http://www.cafepress.com/d8n (all proceeds benefit Dayton charities). Thanks to Key-Ads and Liberty Savings Bank for supporting this effort.
Gary Leitzell is the next mayor of Dayton!
This is a great day and a new day really is dawning for Dayton. David Esrati lost his race but I hope he can play an active role at City Hall or as an advisor to Mayor-elect Leitzell.
DDN Staff photo by Peter Wine
In other good news, the libraries and metroparks were both overwhelmingly supported. Yippee!
This REALLY COOL idea comes via Metroparks.org:
125 miles. 18 MetroParks. 7 days.
By now, most Miami Valley residents know of Five Rivers MetroParks and have been to at least one facility; however, lots of people are not aware of just how many facilities there are or where they are located throughout the county. Former MetroParks employee Angie Sullivan wanted to do something to raise awareness about the park system and educate the public about the fantastic albeit untapped resources to which they have free access. “Most folks I talk to might be familiar with one or two parks they frequent, but when I tell them we have 25 facilities located throughout the county, they’re shocked,” Sullivan says. Thus, the Kettering resident decided to do something that would showcase all Five Rivers MetroParks has to offer:
Sullivan, along with her fiancé Shane Sheldon, will hike to each MetroPark in just one week.
…
The couple will cover about 125 miles in approximately seven days, blogging, tweeting and snapping photos of the parks along the way. “We thought this would be a great way for people at home to take a virtual tour of all the MetroParks,” says Five Rivers MetroParks Outdoor Recreation Department Director Greg Brumitt. “It’s imperative during this election season that we make sure the voters know exactly what they get with a ‘yes’ vote – or what they’ll miss out on if they vote ‘no.’ Our park-wide festivals and entertainment events are fun, but if you just visit the parks during festivals, you’re not getting the whole picture. Park Trek will raise awareness of all our facilities in a context of nature and conservation, the core reasons why citizens founded the MetroParks in 1963.”
Park Trek will start and end in downtown Dayton. A kickoff celebration took place at Issue 4 campaign headquarters before they took off for RiverScape MetroPark, then lunched at the National City 2nd Street Market. Then, Sullivan and Sheldon headed off to Eastwood, Huffman and Carriage Hill MetroParks. The next day, the couple traveled to Taylorsville, Aullwood Garden and Englewood MetroParks. Monday’s stops included Trotwood’s Wetland Mitigation Bank, then on to camp at Germantown MetroPark. On Tuesday, the couple will hike to Twin Creek and Possum Creek MetroParks, followed by Cox Arboretum and Sugarcreek MetroParks on Wednesday. Hills & Dales, Sunrise and Wesleyan make up day six of Park Trek, and Sullivan and Sheldon wrap up the first-ever Five Rivers MetroPark facility circumnavigation at Wegerzyn Gardens, Island and Deeds Point MetroParks. The public is invited to welcome Sullivan and Sheldon back when they reach Deeds Point at approximately 9:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 30. “We’ll be tired, for sure, but hopefully it will all be worth it to make people aware of this great park system they have,” Sullivan says.
Sullivan and Sheldon say they understand the importance and unique value of Park Trek, and they are looking forward to getting to know the MetroParks in a new way as well as generate awareness about the park system. “I know what people might think when I tell them Shane and I are going to hike 125 miles in a week,” Sullivan laughs. “But we love taking on challenges like this. It took us five months to hike the 2,170-mile Appalachian Trail, so I think it’s safe to say we’re prepared for Park Trek.”
Follow Angie and Shane’s Park Trek on their Trail Journal blog, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.
I support it. View it here.
- No Neighborhood Left Behind
- A Simple Business Plan
- Growing Better Leaders
- Dayton Sports and Rec
- Regionalism
- Customer service- Metrics
- Population Growth
The Dayton Daily News is supposedly busy surverying every political race in the region. But it looks like they are busy endorsing incumbents instead. In Dayton, the DDN backs the incumbents for school board, city commission, and mayor. The same is true for Kettering school board, Kettering city council, and Washington Twp. trustees. The same is also true for Centerville. It’s probably true everywhere. I wonder why…probably because they don’t want anyone who challenges the status quo to have a voice in their region’s future.
If David Esrati ran unopposed for City Commission, the Dayton Daily News would become the first newspaper in the world to endorse “vacancy” over an informed citizen. In the DDN’s totally biased and illogical endorsement of Rhine McLin, candidate Gary Leitzell was belittled as a “stay-at-home father … who paints miniature figurines to add to the family income.” He’s a lot more than that. Read his rebuttal or check out his site.
Esrati has started a campaign to get Bcycle to Dayton in 2010. I fully support this effort. Dayton would do itself a favor by electing this man to City Commission along with Gary Leitzell as Mayor.
DaytonMostMetro [in conjunction with the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan, the City of Dayton, BikeWalkDayton, Courteous Mass, the Miami Valley Cycling Summit [Grassroots Cycling Summit], MVRPC, Five Rivers Metroparks [mountain biking MOMBA & new Riverscape regional bike hub!], the Miami Conservancy District [riverside trails] and many others] is mounting an effort to transform Dayton into one of the most bicycle friendly communities in the country. With our heritage and enduring love for biking, who could not support this great idea? Cincinnati can eat our dust… 
The Greater Downtown Dayton Plan (GDDP) is coming right along and the progress can be seen at DaytonMostMetro.com and the DMM Forum. Here are the links to the forum threads.
All the threads are intriguing (river corridor and active lifestyles, transportation, econ dev, arts, green and housing). Jeffery of Daytonology fame makes a great point in the Housing thread:
At first glance the Midpark recommendations look good.
But, looking closer, the recommendations read like old-school urban renewal from the 1960s. The planning area is divided up into functional zones and will undergo wholesale demolition, streets are vacated, and the property is replatted into larger parcels. This is made explicit for that little neighborhood between Burns and US 35,and it’s implied that this will happened to the remaining residential areas between Main and Warren, south of MVH.
The risk is that the area between Warren and Patterson will develop as a set of stand-alone office buildings surrounded by parking and landscaping, similar to the supposedly New Urbanist redevelopment at Hills & Dales.
There is an opportunity to do something a bit different here, since a future streetcar route will traverse the area. This would imply higher density housing and mixed use (housing/office/retail) buildings, but using & rationalizing the existing street grid (or even adding streets). The model would be some of the infill in the Gateway Quarter in OTR, or perhaps the Pearl District in Portland (which projected the downtown Portland street grid onto a vacant brownfield site). The discussion of Warren Street implies a mixed use concept, but this could also apply to Main Street and the areas between Main and Warren, as well.
For the area between Burns and US 35: the idea of demolishing an entire an entire neighborhood and replacing it with a suburban development model of patio homes is quite retro. Havn’t we done this already as public housing? Instead, a treatment using a mix of context-sensitive infill and existing housing, retaining the existing somewhat picturesque angled street pattern would conserve and enhance the fine-grained and intimate character of a 19th century neighborhood.
Sometimes this plan seems like two contradictory concepts. There are gestures to preserving the historic urban fabric (mentions of preserving Buckeye Street houses and properties on Warren) vs. a conventional quasi-suburban “zoned” urban renewal approach.
The Cliburn Manor site could be a real urbanistic disaster if not done right, as it’s a transition between the older parts of South Park and Warren Street. Putting in a medical office complex could lead to something out-of-scale with the neighboring residential area. Or the urban form would be that of a generic medical office building similar to the ones already near MVH.
A lot of what I’ve said is really about urban design. My bias is toward preserving as much as possible of the historic city. Preserving the remaining houses and street. but also improving the character by perhaps adding more streets and lanes, and encouraging higher density mixed use construction on vacant lots fronting the busy streets and on vacant land away from existing housing blocks (like the area around Benhams). For existing residential streets (like Vine Street and old Brown Street) restoration and smaller scale infill things. Small can be two flats and doubles and maybe a double with a granny flat over a garage in back. So population density could be increased while the residential scale maintained.
The key thing, though, is to make this area populated and busy enough, and dense enough, to where a streetcar would be a viable transportation option, as an alternative to short-haul trips. And the more population there is the more viable neighborhood retail becomes.
Midpark is that peculiar and all important space between Miami Valley Hospital, South Park and the central business district. It is ripe for development and could be a real compliment to its neighbors.
Via Esrati.com
Gotta raise money for those yard signs. So, get your special “Stand up to the political machine” poster, with an incredible illustration by local illustrator Geoff Smith, for $10 each on 80# cover stock. They are 11×17 and available for pickup at 100 Bonner Street, but if you donate $25 or more, I’ll hand deliver.
Kevin Riley: Here’s your chance to help shape downtown Dayton
By the Dayton Daily News | Monday, September 14, 2009, 03:17 PM
At Urban Nights last week, people got their first peek at the developing Greater Downtown Plan.
Led by Michael Ervin, a retired physician and health insurance executive, and supported by the Downtown Dayton Partnership, the planning effort is not yet complete. Citizens are still being asked for input.
And while the process is going slower than scheduled, Ervin and others are insistent that input and buy-in are more important than speed.
Hundreds of volunteers — many of whom Ervin personally recruited — have been marching forward with ideas and drafts.
They’re undeterred by issues that could slow them down, including deficits at Dayton and Montgomery County, the impending departure of Dayton City Manager Rashad Young and the looming election.
The plan will be highlighted in several upcoming “Open Studio” sessions, the latest events in Ervin’s relentless push for public input.
In every conversation, he insists that the plan isn’t “exclusive,” but instead must be the “community’s plan.”
Of the folks working on different aspects of it, he says: “We have no need to be right or have all the good ideas.”
And some of the ideas will grab attention, including:
BEING BICYCLE FRIENDLY
The latest draft proposes that Dayton pursue formally becoming a “Bicycle Friendly Community,” a designation that requires a different view of downtown streets and other transportation corridors. The plan would change the purpose of a downtown street as a “utilitarian tool to move vehicles through the city as efficiently as possible,” and instead focus on bikes, pedestrians and a park-like atmosphere. More access to rivers
The plan calls for making changes to the rivers downtown, including eliminating the dangerous low dams so boaters and kayakers could navigate larger and more visible portions of the rivers. Also, the levees would be modified to create access and views of the rivers.
HIDDEN TREASURE?
As volunteers have worked on the plan, they’ve also discovered a piece of infrastructure that some believe could give Dayton a key advantage in attracting businesses. When Dayton began modifying its traffic light system, it installed a nearly citywide loop of fiber-optic cable to control it. The city needs only a fraction of that system’s capacity to operate traffic lights — and the techies around town believe it’s possible to use the rest of the “bandwidth” for other things.
Those involved are cautious in their enthusiasm. But if the city can offer low-cost, super-fast network capacity, Dayton may have a special opportunity to attract businesses to downtown.
DOWNTOWN HOUSING
One of the potentially controversial parts of the plan involves creating downtown housing.
The group is wrestling with this part of the plan, and they face several challenges. In order to make downtown vibrant, more people have to live there. No one seems to disagree with that.
During the past 20 years, only about 600 housing units have been built or renovated downtown, according to the Downtown Dayton Partnership. For downtown to thrive, more housing in different price ranges would have to be available, especially if the city wants to attract young professionals who want to live in urban areas.
The plan could call for developing as many as 5,000 housing units during the next 10 years, although there is not yet agreement on a number. Most believe that some kind of private equity investment fund would have to be set up to help make it happen. Of course, the question also has to be asked: will it work?
How the overall downtown plan would be financed — including housing plans — will be the next big hurdle for Ervin and his volunteers. He hopes to begin work on that this fall.
But it’s good news for Dayton and the region that this work keeps going.
It would be tempting to slow down, or to dismiss big ambitions as pipe dreams in these difficult economic times. But the times are actually forcing people together and inspiring better ideas. Even in tough times, it’s important that we find ways to keep moving forward.
Downtown needs a plan, and the next two to three years are likely to be crucial for it — and the region.
“We need the whole region to support this,” said Ervin. “Dayton is important even if you live in Tipp City, Beavercreek or Centerville.”
TAKE A LOOK
What: View Greater Downtown Plan Where: 8 N. Main St., National City Building near Third and Main streets When: • Oct. 3: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. • Oct. 5: 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., 5 to 8:30 p.m. • Oct. 6: 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park has a blog!
Capture the spirit and imagination of three inventive, creative men whose lives came together in Dayton, Ohio—aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright, and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar—at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.
Here’s its most recent post:
Learn about Dayton’s Olmsted Parks.
Where : Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center, 2380 Memorial Road, WPAFB, 45433.
