Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Ninth Street Then & Now


Here's a vintage postcard showing the view looking east down Ninth Street from Long Avenue. It's where Ninth makes a dogleg as it heads towards Broadway.

Driving over there this past weekend to photograph it (since there wasn't any snow on the ground), I wondered if the homes would still be there. I was surprised to see that the whole block was still intact.

I was even more surprised when I realized that I go down this very street each week on the way home after picking up my Selenti's Pizza every Friday night, and didn't recognize the homes on the postcard.

Here's the current view, complete with a dismal, colorless winter sky that makes the whole proceedings depressing.

On the same side of the street as these homes, a little further down Ninth Street just before Reid Avenue, is the former mansion owned by William Seher, who owned the Lorain Brewing Company (below).

Photographed January 2, 2012

6 comments:

-Alan D Hopewell said...

You're not gonna believe this....
I wanted to write a PTC on the Slattery house, which is the name I knew it by, but I couldn't find a picture....then, I go to your blog, and there it is!

Thanks, Dan!

Lisa said...

Lotsa changes in that old 'hood.
I've always known it as the Slattery house, too. It was coming up for sale on a fairly regular basis for a few years. It's on my short list of Lorain dream houses. I'm glad to see that someone (or something?) has taken care of the monster that hung from the porch roof for the l o n g e s t time.

Matt Swabb said...

Here's some info on the Seher's house architect

http://books.google.com/books?id=aHUoAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA36&lpg=RA1-PA21&ots=4iWGga6iTe&dq=paul+rissmann+architect&output=html_text#c_top

We found this while researching our house. Same architect. We own the Rice house on that page. Matt

Unknown said...

do you have any info on my home I am right across the street at 338 w 9th

Dan Brady said...

The next time I am at the library, I’ll see what kind of information that the city directories have about your property.

Dan Brady said...

The earliest listing that I could find for 338 W. Ninth was in the 1912 city directory at the library.

In the next older available directory (the 1905 edition) Ninth Street was called ‘Second Avenue” and it is almost impossible to determine if the house was there because the address at that point was unknown. Lorain changed most of its street addresses/house numbers in 1908 or so (which I wrote about here: http://danielebrady.blogspot.com/2012/07/lorains-street-renaming-plan-may-1908.html)

The first owner of 338 W. Ninth was likely the owner listed in the 1912 directory, Walter A. Bonsor. He was a building contractor and owned a company that he ran with his son Clifford. Perhaps he built his home at 338 W. Ninth. (He was listed in the 1905 city directory as living at 119 Fifth Avenue, so maybe he built his home when he moved to 338 W. Ninth – just a guess.)

He is listed as the owner until the 1926 city directory, when his widow Mrs Lena Bonsor took over the listing.

After that, no one seemed to stay in the house for very long. A B&O Railroad round house foreman (F J Rosenberg) lived there in 1937, a salesman (Edwin Holt) and his wife. Esther from 1939 - 1940, and a coal dealer R. L DePalma was living there by 1942. His wife and/or widow Eleanor was still there in the beginning of the 1950s.

Hope this helps.