Louie Montenaro was one of the many Italian boys that lived with their families on Glenn Avenue in Grandview. Louie was born in 1907 to Joe and Catherine Montenaro. His sister Grace married Anthony Martina, and became quite well known in the Columbus Italian community, and was an aide to Columbus Mayor Sensenbrenner. Louie worked as a caddy at the Aladdin Country Club when he was a boy, and later excelled at boxing, winning the AAU championship, and in 1925 boxed professionally under the name "Kid Martin". In this photo he is shown posing with his 1931 DeSoto sedan in front of the family double on Glenn Avenue. Louie also played football in an amateur league, and became a successful golfer. He married Margaret Crabtree in 1927, and passed away in 1984.
As many kids have done before and many more since, these three Columbus kids climb on “the rock” at Grandview Park, now known as Wyman Woods, in 1968. Kim Martin and brothers David and Timmy Noll climbed the 12 foot high rock and caught the attention of a Columbus Dispatch photographer. They were featured in the September 18, 1968 edition of the newspaper. The caption indicated that Grandview Mayor Joseph Wyman was “intrigued” with the rock, since it was one of a kind and unlike any other that he knew of in the vicinity, and that he wanted to find out how it got there. Historical Society records show that the “mystery" was solved by Ohio State University Geology graduate and Grandview High School science teacher Richard McClellan. According to McClellan, the rock and in fact the material that comprises the geology of the entire Grandview hill was the result of glacial activity that brought deposits from Canada during the ice age, nearly 20,000 years ago.
This 1937 photograph commemorates the establishment of the first highway emergency first aid station in Franklin County. The American Red Cross cooperated with state, county, and local authorities to provide lifesaving supplies and training in order to bring emergency services to areas near highways but at places not near to immediate medical and hospital care. As part of the program, all firemen and policemen in Grandview completed and passed the standard and advanced Red Cross training courses for first aid work. Shown in the photo are Grandview patrolman I.N. Neff, local physician Dr. W.B. Andrus, Mayor John Ryder, Dr. Drew Davies, Dr. Tom Lewis, and fireman R.A. Bowsher. Dr. Andrus was in charge of the medical training that the Grandview emergency personnel received. According to the Red Cross, the humanitarian organization worked to establish these stations all across the United States and simultaneously posted signs on the highways to "convey a visual warning to the careless and negligent motorist". Upper Arlington was the second such station in the county.
This 1939 home, designed and built for himself by Columbus architect Todd Tibbals, is on lot 16 of Utopia Subdivision, a less than 3 acre development and one of the last sections of this part of Grandview Heights to be platted. The 1938 plat shows Woodhill Drive as Utopia Drive. This photo of the house is featured in the November, 1940 Better Homes and Gardens magazine as one of three small homes with inspiration from the past and noticeable "door appeal". The article was titled Houses With a Past ... Doorways With a Future. The caption of the photo read in part "Its heavy, red-tile roof and whitewashed stone copy the colorful homes perched along the seacoast, and the deep blue shutters are a reflection of the bright Mediterranean waters." Tibbals graduated from OSU and started his own firm in Columbus in 1935. He Tibbals and his associate Noverre Musson (who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright) both won Architects Society of Ohio awards in 1942 for private residences they designed. Tibbals also designed the Drake Union and Hopkins Hall on the OSU campus, and in 1963 he designed the first senior living and assisted care community in the nation, First Community Village.
In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower established the President's Council on Youth Fitness to address what he saw as "physical weakness of American youth" as compared with kids from Europe. Students received badges or pins for completing different exercises in the fitness test. One of the tests, which scared many 50s and 60s children, was the rope climb. An 18 foot long 2" thick rope hang from the rafters in many gyms around the country, and kids had to climb to the top while being timed. In this 1962 photo, Grandview Heights student Ronnie Tyne climbs the rope, supervised by student teacher John Havlicek. Havlicek was a member of the sensational Ohio State basketball team that won the 1960 national championship, and he went on to a stellar career in the NBA, and was named as one of the 50 greatest players in pro history. He was known to have brought his OSU teammates to Grandview to talk with the GHHS basketball team as well, and he was the featured speaker at the 1962 Grandview homecoming ceremony. Havlicek died this past week at the age of 79.
In 1989, the anchor store in the Grandview Center was Nickleby's Bookstore Cafe at 1427 Grandview Avenue. The bookstore occupied almost all of the northern wing of the shopping center, where Aladdin's Eatery and Local Cantina are currently located. The store was established by Marie Rusch and her partner Dr. Palmer Cook (right) with the focus on developing a new concept in bookstores - the combination of bookstore, cafe, and entertainment venue. The store had an indoor cafe, an outdoor cafe, a stage with an upright grand piano, and hosted a stream of performance events, readings, and book signings. In 1992 Cook and Rusch were featured on the cover of the trade magazine Publisher's Weekly as the very first PW Bookstore of the Year. According to the magazine, the store was notable for its "cozy, bright, asymmetrical feel; its signage; its title selection; and its exciting ambience". Later that same year, Rusch sold her part of the business to Cook, an optometrist by training and education, who also taught part time at the Optometry school at Ohio State. Although Nickleby's was a very trendy and popular spot in Grandview, it ultimately saw sales drop with the arrival of three Barnes & Noble superstores and the expansion of three local Little Professor stores that added features that had previously distinguished Nickleby's. Cook cut back on its cafe hours and food service, staged fewer events, began selling used books, and started to discount some titles. Eventually all cafe service was reduced to beverages, and the appeal of the store faded. It was unable to compete in the expanding market and closed in 1995.
Mary Jane Price (lower left), the second child of Timothy J. and Mary Roberts Price, was born in Utica, New York in 1839 and moved to Columbus with her family in 1864. She married Charles Courtland Griswold, owner of Griswold and Sohl, world famous manufacturers of carriage accessories. Their estate, Dolgradog (Welsh for Lord of the Valley), shown here from three views, was on Roxbury where the French Quarter is currently located. Noted philanthropists and society mavens, they amassed a large fortune and entertained lavishly. One circa 1900 garden party included 300 guests who were transported by 2 special trains from downtown Columbus to Marble Cliff. A special dance pavilion was built for the occasion and the grounds were lit with tiny lights. The local press reported that guests were received by Mary Jane, dressed in black silk and diamond ornaments, and dined al fresco. Mary Jane gave $400,000 in memory of her husband to build the Griswold Memorial Building of the YWCA in 1926. She also left large sums to the Salvation Army, Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, and the YMCA. Her major impact on local history was her bequest of large tracts of land along Dublin Road to the Village of Marble Cliff. The land was sold to commercial interests and provided a sound tax base for the village.
This photograph is one of many unidentified items in the Grandview Heights/Marble Cliff Historical Society archives. It is a professional photograph from the Columbus Baker Art Studio and it is identified on the reverse as the "Leap Year Picnic and Dance June 7, 1888". A dance platform was constructed and approximately 30 well-dressed people were in attendance. Though positive identification as to the location and participants is not known for this photo, other information in our archives indicates that employees of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Rail Road held a picnic in Marble Cliff in 1892, a favored picnic area. Newspaper accounts of the event indicate a wooden dance platform was constructed in a wooded glen and an African American band called The Elliots provided the music. Close scrutiny of the photo shows a wooden platform, and an African American base player and guitar player at the rear of the dance platform.
In January of 1926, the congregation that originally convened in a small building at Virginia and Northwest Blvd. was formally organized as Boulevard United Presbyterian Church, with Rev. I. Marshall Page selected as the first minister. The new sanctuary was built in 1950, and a "Pipe Organ Fund" was established at the church in December of 1952. Mrs. L.H. Grinstead was its chairman and the impetus behind the project, which took 13 years to complete. A French-Canadian custom-built Casavant Freres organ was dedicated on December 12, 1965. The organ, pictured in the background, is shown during installation. Seated around the console in the inset photo are (from left) Mrs. Mary Harris, Gordon Harris, and Mrs. Grinstead, originator and treasurer of the fund.
During the First and Second World Wars, the government encouraged the development of personal and community gardens as a way of encouraging rationing and also building community togetherness. The result of this push were the V-Gardens, or what had become known as the Victory Gardens. Grandview had a community garden on Goodale Boulevard, and it was moved to the corner of Grandview Avenue and Goodale and eventually named Wallace Gardens. A community kitchen existed during World War I on First Avenue in which the vegetables from the community garden were prepared into community meals. After the first year, local Grandview women organized as the Civic Welfare Club, and delivered some of the meals to needy families in the tri-village area. This 1919 photo shows the Community Kitchen, located in the same building with a Kroger store and Mykrantz Drug store. The building was on the southwest corner of First at Oakland adjacent to the lot where the library would be constructed. The building later housed Bob Hexter's Grandview Cycle, and was bought and razed for the library expansion. Note the trolley power line above the trolley tracks that ran from Broadview to Arlington Avenue.
The Arlington Golf and Riding Club clubhouse shown here looking northeast from the railroad tracks was designed by prolific architect Frank Packard and was built in 1895 on the 4-acre site currently occupied by the Aladdin Woods housing development on Arlington Avenue north of First. The next year, an additional 12 acres was purchased to expand the club with a four hole golf course that crossed the Columbus, Urbana, and Western traction rail tracks (the wooden bridge at the left in the photo swung out and was used by golfers to cross over). In 1907 it expanded to 9 holes. Some members of the club wanted an 18 hole course and in 1916 established the Scioto Country Club just half a mile north. In 1918, the Shriners of Aladdin Temple we're searching for a club of their own and bought the Arlington Country Club, renaming it the Aladdin Country Club. It remained in existence until 1925. The clubhouse survived for some years, sometimes as a private residence, but mostly vacant. It was eventually razed to make room for the Aladdin Woods project of Marble Cliff Mayor Paul Falco.
M.M. (Milton) Williams was Grandview Heights Schools' second superintendent, serving from 1919-25.He is shown in this 1924 photo presenting certificates to students Doris Sutton and Bob Springer, both members of the class of 1928.Irene Hankinson, assistant principal and math teacher at the Grandview Junior High School, is at the desk. In 1925, Hankinson married Thomas Newton Brown, former high school principal. Their son, Herbert Russell Brown, is a Columbus attorney and former Ohio Supreme Court justice (1987-93). He also wrote several books and plays, including "Presumption of Guilt," published in 1991 by Penguin, and "Shadows of Doubt."
Grandview Heights High School English teacher Florence Hendee teaches Grandview high school students how to diagram sentences in this 1942 photograph. The approach to learning grammar in this way is called the Reed/Kellogg process, and dates back to 1877. Diagramming fell out of favor in the 1950s and 60s as teachers focused more on reading and writing as a better approach to learning sentence structure. Although many teachers still insist on students diagramming, most research has shown there is no correlation between learning grammar and diagramming and it's not to be found in the Common Core. Students either really hated it or really liked it. Poet and novelist Gertrude Stein once said (perhaps tongue in cheek), "I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences".
This photo, dated August 4, 1970, is inscribed with regards from John Glenn to Grandview Mayor Joseph Wyman. Glenn was running for Senate at this time, but lost to Howard Metzenbaum in the Democratic primary election. He ran again in 1974, and started his successful political career, which would last until 1999. Glenn lived in Summit Chase in Grandview for a time. Wyman (aka "Uncle Joe") was a career employee of Columbia Gas, but was better known locally as a long-standing councilman and mayor of Grandview until his resignation in 1971. As mayor, Wyman was not only active in local issues and activities, but was a well-known member of the broader Columbus community. He became an active member and on the executive committee of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), helped found and became President of the Franklin Count Mayors Association, served on the board and became President of the Mayors Association of Ohio, and helped found the Central Ohio Law Enforcement Council.
In August of 1914, the first work of laying out lots and the grading of roadways on the Miller Farm in what is now Upper Arlington marked the beginning of this planned community. The Upper Arlington Company, owned by brothers King and Ben Thompson, set out to construct the new development just to the north of what was then Arlington (what is now Marble Cliff) on the Miller farmland. The first streets to be designed were Arlington, Cambridge, Bedford, Roxbury, and Upper Chelsea. The formal entrance to the new community was at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Cambridge Blvd. The top photo (1915) in this composite shows the entry, with the stone fence and columns, the newly constructed road and curbs, and light posts and sidewalks. The middle photo, taken three years later in 1918, shows the same entry with newly constructed homes on both sides of Cambridge. The bottom photo is the same view today, with the original post shortened a few feet.. Development of the community was interrupted in 1916 when National Guard troops, preparing to participate in the protection of the U.S./ Mexico border, used the site as a training camp, known as Camp Willis. In 1915, eight homes were built; by 1918 there were 61 homes constructed, and plans were being finalized for a school and community center. UA was incorporated in March of 1918.