Above is a page of photos by Journal photographer Bill Conley showing the buildings and dilapidated stores that would be coming down. The page ran in the paper on August 1, 1963.
By October 1963, it was full speed ahead with the plan, as described on this blog post in which a final tour of the condemned buildings was conducted. By mid-February 1964, the demolition phase was just about done, as shown in the photos and article on this post.
It's interesting to see what was torn down to make room for the housing project. Too bad.
Anyway, in the photo montage, I noticed some empty bottles of one of my favorite beers: Black Label!
4 comments:
And this is what is now known as Kennedy Plaza.I sort of wished they would have kept the old neighborhood as it was.
I have to agree; I lived in an ajacent neighborhood that was torn down not long after, to make way for a discount store that is itself nearly forty years gone.
Kennedy Plaza, the Federal answer to "slum" living, is itself a slum, a concrete and glass tenement that acts as monument to bureaucratic arrogance, as does its sister to the north.
Let us raise a glass to progressive hubris, and swirl the Kool-Aid ere we drink.
Amazing what government housing does to a city and neighborhood.
Those were tough times.
In a city near me, about half the size of Lorain, they tore down entire (poor) neighborhoods (except for one rich guy's house) to put up government housing and a "bypass" which killed the center of town. The highway is still there. The housing fell apart.
Then, again, none of those buildings that were torn down would've stood a chance of being there after 60 years. The neighborhoods would likely be gone, too. 60 years is a long time.
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