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I'm guessing these photos were taken sometime in 1954, possibly August.
This is a photo of my father's "new" Desoto. You can see an apt. building typical of those in Stratford Manor.
Our apt. building is out of sight to the left of the photo.
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Those are really great photos - I didn't live there but I did pass through fairly often and they bring back memories for me, also.
My dad was an avid amateur photographer but when I look over his photos about 95% of them are of birds and flowers and trees (which, when you think about it, don't really change a lot over time). I wish he had taken more neighborhood shots like your dad did.
NightBazaar, there's still a school in that location -- it was Eastwood Paideia, but the original building was torn down not long after I moved out of Madisonville in 2004. In its place is Shroder Paideia Academy, a 7-12 magnet school, which moved from Kennedy Heights.
Ohiogirl81, Thank you for the update about how the school has changed. The satellite photo of it seems to show it's not the same now as when I lived there. Your information confirms it. Nothing stays the same forever. LOL!
Do you have any idea what some of the other buildings are?
Those are really great photos - I didn't live there but I did pass through fairly often and they bring back memories for me, also.
My dad was an avid amateur photographer but when I look over his photos about 95% of them are of birds and flowers and trees (which, when you think about it, don't really change a lot over time). I wish he had taken more neighborhood shots like your dad did.
Franke01, thank you for the compliment. I'm glad the shots were able to bring back a few old memories for you. Unfortunately, my family didn't really take a lot of photos while we were in Cincy. I'm not really sure why. I guess they just never really thought about doing that very much there. No real real reason though. It was just a fluke that I happened to come across these ones.
I think my younger brother has a yearbook that belonged to our older brother when he attended Withrow High School. No idea if Withrow is still standing. Most likely, it too has gone the way of the dinosaur. If I can get my hands on it, I'll try to copy some photos from it. Although, it's mostly school oriented, I think there are some photos in it that are not necessarily school related. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything of Stratford Manor in it.
Directly above Eastwood Circle and across Duck Creek Road is where the original entrance drive to Stratford Manor was located. It now ends at a warehouse or whatever it is.
To the right of Eastwood Circle is where the Orphanage was located. You can still see the buildings and cottages there. I don’t know if it’s still used as an orphanage or if it’s now something else. It still looks pretty much the same as I remember it. To the far right of the photo, is the wooded area and its “dreaded threat of hidden quicksand pits”. LOL! I’ve wandered through there a few times, and never once came across anything other than trees and some brush. There was also a small creek flowing through these woods, the exact same drainage creek from the East Gully/Woods area of Stratford Manor. It ultimately drained into the Little Miami via a large concrete culvert that went under Madison Road. For all I know, maybe that creek was Duck Creek, although I never saw any ducks there.
Above the Orphanage and across Duck Creek Road is Eastwood Drive. To the left of Eastwood Drive is where the elementary school used to be. That drive didn’t exist when I lived there, nor did any of the other surrounding commercial buildings.
Another view of the infamous “Woods of Doom”, east of the Orphanage. Red Bank Expressway didn’t exist back in the 50s. If you look at where Red Bank Road meets Duck Creek Road you can still see a ‘line’ separating the trees. That’s where Red Bank Road used to go all the way to Madison Road.
I doubt there are still any ducks in Duck Creek, either, LOL. At least not living ones.
What's in that area now -- and my vision is going on four years old (I only knew about the school, which opened a couple years ago, because friends' kids go there) -- is the Coke bottling plant, the old U.S. Shoe headquarters facing I-71, which is now Fifth Third Bank's operations center, and a couple other light industrial-type buildings.
There are still a few streets' worth of houses off Duck Creek Road, and Seven Hills School takes up a good chunk of the area between Red Bank Road and the Red Bank Expressway. A friend of mine lives on Ellemarie, north of the school.
The original huge red brick orphanage building that faced Madison Road is gone; a preschool operated by the Children's Home is in that spot now. It was kinda sad to watch it come down. The Children's Home operates what was the orphanage: Welcome to The Children's Home of Cincinnati
It's fascinating to read all your memories. Anyone living in the area now wouldn't have a clue that a neighborhood once was there. Was it the construction of I-71 that hastened its demise?
Here's another interesting link I found: http://www.duckcreek.org/eastbound.html It mentions the neighborhood: "On your left is Eastwood Ave, which leads to a postwar apartment complex that has been in disrepair for some time and never really was successful."
Not to double post or anything ... but it looks from the images that you posted, NightBazaar, that the original Eastwood school is still there, and that the new school was built behind it.
I shall have to investigate. That's a good a reason to go back to Cincinnati for a long weekend as any other.
Thanks for those links Ohiogirl81. Interestingly, I also found the Duck Creek Org website last night, but I didn't go through all the links. Looks like you found the one including info about the Manor. Nice going!
I also came across a different link from the National Register of Historic Places. The main focus is about Eastwood Circle as a "historical" location, but it does make a short mention both the Orphanage and Stratford Manor.
It appears there was a successful ‘move’ to make the Orphanage an inclusion of the Eastwood Circle's honorary notation as a historical location. Since large red brick building is gone, that inclusion may have come later in order to spare the rest of the orphanage buildings from the wrecking ball.
It also appears that the residences of Eastwood Circle include a few upper crust people with some influential pull which is why it‘s included on the Register in the first place. It also appears that these residents were probably never all that thrilled about having ‘seedy’ Stratford Manor as a next-door neighbor. Here’s what the Register has to say:
“Ray Wirthlin, another early resident, said Duck Creek and northward was woods until a golf course was built. He helped a Mr. Bush with its construction. On this same site was built Stratford Manor, later known as Eastwood Village. It was built by the Marvin Warner family. It was designed for factory workers in the early 1950’s. This was constructed after the area residents sought to keep out GM when they initially proposed building Fisher Body on the site. The city razed Stratford Manor in the 1970’s, as it fell into disrepair. Residents feel that the city action, achieved with the help of neighbors Merz, Momper and Newman to close the backside of the circle to through traffic in the 1970s, has helped to preserve its integrity and beauty. In 1975 nine houses to the east on Madison Road were placed on the National Register…”
In a nutshell, even though it was the city who “razed Stratford Manor”, the residents of Eastwood Circle probably played a loud vocal role in the decision because the Manor (to them) was nothing more than an eyesore that would detract from the Circle’s Historical fancypants appearance. Wouldn’t want that now, would we? Better to flatten the Manor under the bulldozer and wipe it off the face of the planet as though it never existed.
Once the deed was done, and the northside entrance to Eastwood Circle was closed to traffic, Eastwood Circle could finally raise its nose in the air in snobbishness to appear to be some place important. I can’t think of anything more deserving of National recognition as a historical place than nine homes built by Sears.
To be fair, in context of other accounts about the final years of Stratford Manor, it appears that the place was falling apart and crime was on the rise there. If that’s true, then the cause of that would fall squarely on the shoulders of the Manor’s management for being too lax in who they allowed in the Manor and for not enforcing their own rules.
Regardless, when I lived in Stratford Manor, there was no crime and it was a clean, safe place for middle-income and working-class families to live. Some of the residents appeared to be in the category of low-income. But they were still people I am proud to say were neighbors. Virtually all the residents of Stratford Manor looked out for each other, and people took an interest in getting to know each other. Nobody cared where you were from or what your position on the social ladder was. Those were some of the great qualities that made Stratford Manor a place that provided a lot of great memories for the people who lived there in those days.
What became of the place after we moved out, is something that was unknown to me. It’s pretty sad that it declined in the manner as reports indicate. Nothing stays the same forever though. Even though its final days had became rather seedy, the history of Stratford Manor is one that I can say I’m proud I was there to be a part of its finer times.
But at least Eastwood Circle, thanks to residents Merz, Momper and Newman, can rest easy knowing that their “integrity and beauty” is intact now that the disgusting eyesore known as Stratford Manor/Eastwood Village has been erased from the face if the Earth.
Note: Some of my comments above are meant as sarcastic satire. LOL!
Last edited by NightBazaar; 06-13-2008 at 12:31 PM..
Not to double post or anything ... but it looks from the images that you posted, NightBazaar, that the original Eastwood school is still there, and that the new school was built behind it.
I shall have to investigate. That's a good a reason to go back to Cincinnati for a long weekend as any other.
It kinda looks like that to me as well, although perhaps some slight differences. I don't know when this satellite image was taken but it was fairly recent. There are differences between this image and images of the same area a couple of years ago. For one thing, the older image of the Manor area showed a number of smaller buildings in the area of Kingsley Drive, that appeared to be small professional offices or shops of some kind. The more recent image (which is what I posted) shows those buildings to be gone now. The point being that the images I posted are the most recent of the area.
If you do happen to cruise by the area of where the school is, please let us know what it looks like now. If you have a digital cam, maybe you can take a few snaps of it. If you need any help in resizing the file size any digital photos, feel free to send me a Direct Message and I'll be glad to help out.
Here’s an aerial photo from 1956 showing part of Cincy. On the far right about 1/3 from the top, you’ll see a light-colored area which is Stratford Manor. Thanks to Andy from Duck Creek Org for posting the original photo on the Duck Creek Org website, and to Hyden for sending the link to me. http://www.duckcreek.org/dc1956.jpg
Admittedly, the quality of the aerial photo isn’t all that good, but it’s enough to work with. I made a blowup of the Stratford Manor area. It only shows part of the western half of the Manor because that’s where the original photo ends. I’ll try to point out some of the features.
Near the bottom you can see Madison Road. The next road up is Duck Creek Road. And in between you can sort of make out Eastside Circle Drive.
Above Eastside Circle is the entry drive to the Manor. To the right along Duck Creek Road, you can see part of Eastside Grade (Elementary) School. The square shape to the left is where the market, etc. was located. Still moving up the drive is an odd “target” like shape at the intersection with Strathmore Drive. I don’t honestly recall seeing that, but evidently it’s how the sidewalks were designed at that intersection. The reason I don’t recall it is probably because how things look from the ground isn’t always the same as how they look from the air.
Continuing up the drive, you come to the intersection with Kingsley Drive. To the right would lead to where I used to live (not shown). To the left is a light-colored boot-shaped blob which is the embankment leading to the woods of the Westside Gully.
Going up the drive a bit further, it begins to veer off to the right. Above you can see part of the farmland north of the Manor. The dark triangular shape is the pond where kids and adults from the Manor would sneak across the fence to swim in the summer and skate on the ice in the winter.
You can sort of see how the apartment buildings of the Manor were arranged. The wider light-colored strips in the Manor are the streets or drives. The narrowest ones are sidewalks. And the medium-sized ones are alleys for resident parking. One alley starting near the store curves all the way to Kingsley drive (by the gully).
Hope that helps visualize how Stratford Manor looked when I was there. I wish there was a similar aerial photo showing the eastern side of the Manor.
Thanks again to Hyden for the scan of an article from the Cincinnati Enquirer (1960) which shows a clinic at
Stratford Manor which was located behind the Manor’s shopping center.
Here's a blow up of the photo. To the right of the line is a nursery (daycare center). In the background is where a
laundromat was located by the shopping center. I don’t think this clinic was there when I left Stratford Manor in 1959,
so it was pretty new when the photo was taken.
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That's a good a reason to go back to Cincinnati for a long weekend as any other.
1956 Aerial Photo
