Dayton – RDZ Photography

Dayton, Ohio – April 2021 – Historic Buildings

Architecture, Art, History, Transportation

The National Historic Registry shows more than 100 buildings in Dayton on their list. These include:

The Benjamin Kuhns Building. Opened in 1883, the Kuhns Building is in the Romanesque Revival style.

ATT Building – While not on the historic registry, the ATT building is in the classic Art Deco design.

Old Post Office and Federal Building – Construction on this building started in 1912, and it was still under construction during the great flood of 1913. It was finally opened in 1915.

It remained the main post office until 1969, and the Federal Court until 1975.

Dayton Daily News Building -(foreground) and Sacred Heart Church (rear) – Legend has it that the founder of the Dayton Daily News (James Cox) was turned down for a loan by a local banker, he told an architect to ‘build me a damn bank’, so the newspaper office was modeled after the Knickerbocker Trust building in New York City.

It was completed in 1910, expanded in 1920s, 1950s and 1970s, and abandoned in the 2007. The newer sections have been torn down, leaving only the 1910 portion.

The Commercial Building – Completed in 1908 next door to the Dayton Arcade, it was designed by Albert Pretzinger who is known as the greatest architect in Dayton history. It is being restored as apartments.

Dayton Arcade – Completed in 1902, the Dayton Arcade is an ornate complex of buildings topped by a glass domed rotunda 70′ high. It is said to be patterned after a guild hall in Amsterdam. It has been disused for a couple of decades, but new proposals are being put forth to restore it.

Below is a view of the interior and dome as it looked when it was first opened in 1902. The building consisted of two floors of commercial businesses, and two floors of apartments.

The Conover Building – A mish mash of styles and construction materials, the Conover was modified over the years, as evidence from the 1903 photo from Shorpy below.

American Building – One could argue that only the façade of this building is on the registry, as it was moved from a historic building to this building after the other was demolished.

Engineers Club of Dayton – Dating from 1918, this building was dedicated in a ceremony that included the reclusive Orville Wright speaking.

Dayton Memorial Hall – This William Earl Russ designed hall was opened in 1910. It is constructed of a brick exterior, ceramic tile roof, and highlighted by terra cotta and stone.

Easily one of the oldest buildings in Ohio is the Victoria Theater, dating from 1866. It burned in 1871, and was rebuilt and re-opened in 1885.

Another building that is not on the registry but should be is the Miami Conservancy District. Named after the nearby Miami River, the conservancy was founded after the disastrous 1913 flood.

And with that our day in Dayton is done.

Dayton, Ohio – April 2021 – Mural Groupings

Art, History

The city of Dayton, as with most American cities, have a decent number of murals.

In Dayton it seems they are grouped together by themes.

The riverbank has a large concrete flood wall that has a mural it’s entire length.

Another large collection celebrates Dayton’s history in Funk Music., an R & B mainstay in the 1970s and 1980s.

Not far away is a freeway retaining wall with the history of the Dayton Fire Department.

Dayton, Ohio – April 2021 – Early Spring at Wegerzyn Gardens

Nature

A day in Dayton started at Wegerzyn Gardens.

Dayton – December 2018 – Cool and Quirky Airplanes

Uncategorized

With family in town that has a strong interest in aviation, a day long visit to the Air Force Museum in Dayton was called for. For this visit I focused on the cool and quirky aircraft (and spacecraft).

We start with the horizontal stabilizer of Douglas VC-54C Skymaster with the name of ‘Sacred Cow’. It was the first presidential plane, serving FDR.

The Lockheed VC-140B JetStar was the first business jet produced in quantity for the civilian market.

Because of it’s smaller size it was sometimes referred to as Air Force One Half.

A view from the outside of the cockpit of the Independence.

Another look at the Sacred Cow. While it was state of the art, from this angle it looks like there were 100 pieces of aluminum cobbled together.

Not alien, just not useful.

Early Stealth – the Northrup Tacit Blue. While it was stealthy, it apparently was aerodynamically unstable.

Much of the day was spent checking out the quirky noses on many of the planes.

North American X-15A-2. One bad airplane – Built to fly high and fast it made 199 flights starting in 1959, and it speeds of 4520 MPH!

It was the world’s first piloted aircraft to reach hypersonic speeds, and allow the pilots to earn astronaut wings flying as high as 67 miles above the earth.

But then – they made spacecraft! A Gemini and Apollo.

Back to the quirky noses.

We always go through the museum ‘backwards’ – going straight to Hangar 4 for the Presidential aircraft and working our way to the front for the early flight.

Nothing better than a piston engine aircraft.

Dayton – September 2018 – World War I Centennial Anniversary

Architecture, Festival, History, Transportation

With 1918 being the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the USAF Museum in Dayton held a commemoration in the form of a period correct air show.

While this air show occurs annually, the 100th anniversary brought special meaning to it.

Many of the participants dressed in period clothing.

Most of the aircraft present were in flying condition, although some are recreations and not original, 100 year old planes.

Wright Patterson Air Force Base is huge, and could easily support the air show on a distant runway of the base.

As with other events, the re-enactors added to the scene.

Women were an essential part of the war effort as well, as represented by this Red Cross worker.

Not really sure why so many of the men had on kilts though.

A field hospital doctor with period medical pieces.

There was constant flights occurring – these are actual model aircraft flying while the full size ones took a break.

While they had nice paved runways, the period aircraft used the grass areas between the pavement for their movements.

Ready to go…

The Air Force base buildings also added to the atmosphere.

Usually the skies over Dayton are filled with screaming jets, but on this day the sounds were very different with the piston engines taking flight.

The building in the background house some of the museum’s 350+ aircraft.

While there were no female pilots in World War I, this pilot was flying today.

Dayton, OH – May 2018 – Origami Art

Art

The Dayton Art Museum featured for the last few months a display of origami.

There was a variety of models, some more impressive than the others.

The approaches seemed a bit random.

Although the more traditional patterns were most impressive.

Some were small enough to be displayed in a case.

One was completed using paper with print on it.

Another pattern based.

The finale was a room sized piece made up of corrugated cardboard.

Dayton – January 2018 – Airplanes as Abstract Art

Art, History, Transportation

With another exceptionally cold day greeting us, but wanting to keep up with the goal of 13,000 steps per day it was decided to make the hour trip back to Dayton to the US Air Force Museum. It is huge, it is inside and heated, and it is free.

Having been there a couple of times recently and taken photos, with a blog posting, I decided to focus on different views, which ended up what I am calling ‘Airplanes as Abstract Art’.

Rather than try to come up with profiles of each plane, I tried to combine angles, views and perspectives to come up with different views. With the very dark lighting throughout it made it challenging, but also added an interesting effect.

First up, a Fairchild C119J Right Propeller and the vertical stabilizer for the Space Shuttle mock up (for some reason the USAF Museum did not get one of the original shuttles).

A North American Twin Mustang ‘Betty Jo’ and a collection of other tails and wings in the ‘Cold War’ section.

A General Dynamics F111 Aardvark nose backed by an Lockheed AC130A transport plane.

A Lockheed F117A Nighthawk ‘stealth’

Douglas C124C Globemaster cargo plane with the cargo loading door open, coupled with the very symmetric ceiling of the hangar. The cold kept most people away, this is one of very few photos from the day that ended up with people in them (barely visible in the interior of the plane).

Douglas B18 Bolo

Fokker DR1 Triplane from the early days of flight. This one is hanging upside down from the ceiling.

A Hawker XV6A.

Finally a Lockheed XR71 Blakbird. For many years it held records as the fastest airplane (well over 2000 miles per hour) and altitude, at over 80,000 feet. With our walking steps goal complete we headed back out into the cold.

West Chester, OH – July 2017 – Crazy Cardboard Boat Races

Architecture, Art, Festival, Sports, Transportation

The town of West Chester, Ohio is located between Cincinnati and Dayton, with a rapidly developing suburban feel to it. It was here that we attended our second cardboard boat races ever, the first being a couple of years ago in the Ohio River town of New Richmond.

While both were entertaining this one was clearly geared more to youth, although there were some adult competitors. Still, the boats were creative, the competition at times fierce, and the opportunity for photography excellent.

The concept of a snow shovel for an oar must have seemed like a good idea at first – but it was an epic fail.

The victors of a heat return to cheers.

The ‘Five Peas in a Pod’ quickly realize one of their competition have sunk.

One of the more creative boats was the US Airway flight that landed in the Hudson, complete with a grey stash on Sully.

One young lady decided it was best just to close her eyes and paddle in any direction.

A couple of the adult heats clearly knew what they were doing and were extremely intense in their competition.

These young ladies made it back to the dock first, then promptly sunk.

Rounding the 3rd buoy and heading for home.

Another sinking at the dock.

Dayton – April 2017 – Proto Build Bar

Architecture, Art, Sciences

A find on the Roadside America website was the World’s Largest Claw Game. Located in Dayton, Ohio it was a must stop on our day in town. It turned out to be in somewhere very cool itself.

The Proto Build Bar is acknowledged by the folks in the coffee shop, as well as on their website as the World’s first ‘Buildbar’. It is a place that they claim is part 3D printing lab, part electronic maker space, and part cafe, and their advertising is spot on.

Upon entering we were welcomed by Betty, who showed us around and explained the concept.

There are many touches recognizing the genius of Nikola Tesla

And true to Roadside America they do indeed have the World’s Largest Claw Game. And to top it off I had an excellent turkey and swiss panini.

Dayton – April 2017 – British Transportation Museum

Architecture, Art, History, Transportation

Our primary destination in Dayton on this beautiful Saturday was to visit the British Transportation Museum. Located in a former grocery store warehouse the volunteers here are passionate about restoring British vehicles, and sharing the stories behind them. While there are many automobile museums in flashy buildings, or with larger collections, the people we met here were some of the friendliest.

I found this place on an internet search, and a couple hours after sending an email to the contact person (Pete) I received a reply welcoming us to come by the next day.

They have a nice collection including Mini’s, Jaguar’s, Austin’s, Triumphs and many others. The old building gives a true motor head feel to the place.

We were even treated to a tour of the auxiliary building where they store some of their overflow, as well as renting out space to others to store cars, as well as giant rolls of rubber/plastic seals for who knows what. What it did do was give one the ‘found a classic in a barn’ feel.