Before Crescent Park

Today, if you walk east on Worthington Avenue to where it ends at Crescent Avenue, you arrive at Crescent Park, a pleasant green space in the middle of a residential neighborhood—a playground and pee-wee sized soccer field surrounded by attractive landscaping. 

But if you look up, you notice that power lines extend across the southern portion of the park, disappearing behind a berm and some evergreens. Behind the screen of landscaping are railroad tracks, remnants of pavement, and the base of a now-removed crossing signal, all marking the path a road used to take through the park, across the tracks, and into the neighboring village of Lockland. Which raises the question, if the road is gone, what else that used to be here has disappeared, and why?

This was the heart of the Village of Wyoming from 1880 until the mid-twentieth century.  Sanborn Insurance maps show that the Wyoming-Lockland train station was located on the northeast corner of this park, and much of the rest of the land was covered by two buildings: a three-story Masonic Hall, built in 1887, facing north toward Poplar Avenue and a two-story commercial building fronting on Worthington Avenue to the south, built by Charles Woodruff in about 1875; the two were known collectively as “The Woodruff Block,” by the mid-twentieth century.

 The railroad and train station spurred Wyoming’s growth in the late nineteenth century. While the community was initially settled by owners of neighboring Lockland’s early industries, when the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad began passenger service to Cincinnati in 1851, reducing travel time to downtown from all day to half an hour, it became possible for upper-middle class commuters to establish a suburban residence in Wyoming. Travel though the station was a daily routine for many Wyoming men who worked downtown. The station was also where goods for local delivery were unloaded. It was logical that this confluence of supply and demand would lead to the establishment of stores and businesses in this prime location. 

Woodruff Building c. 1908
Source: Wyoming Historical Society

Woodruff Building, c. 1980
Source: Wyoming Historical Society

Woodruff Building c. 1981
Source: Wyoming Historical Society

Woodruff site today - Crescent Park

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the buildings of the Woodruff Block were home to the post office, a general store, a drugstore, a bakery, paper supply, doctor and dentist offices, a flour mill and later a feed mill. True to its name, the Masonic Hall housed that organization, as well as the Woman’s Exchange. For a time there was a roller rink within one of the buildings. The area where Poplar Avenue extended in front of Masonic Hall and the Railroad Station was paved, and a fountain was installed. In 1900 the village’s first telephone was installed in Mr. Dehmel’s Drug store in the Woodruff Building; calls were taken and delivered by messenger for ten cents.

Masonic Hall with Railroad Station at left
Source: Wyoming Historical Society

Masonic Hall during demolition, c. 1980
Source: Wyoming Historical Society

Former site of Masonic Hall

So what happened? Why did this hub of activity decline? Part of the answer is transportation innovations. In the 1890s streetcars were extended to Wyoming and Lockland, providing a less expensive alternative to commuting by train. These lines were located several blocks away from the Woodruff Building and Masonic Hall, on Springfield Pike and Anthony Wayne Avenue. Then in the 1920s automobile ownership took off, increasing the number of travelers on the main roads, rather than by rail. This meant that potential customers were no longer walking by the Woodruff Block on their daily commute; instead they were driving along Springfield Pike and Wyoming Avenue. New commercial buildings were erected on both these roads in the early twentieth century. The Masons also moved their meeting place in 1923, to a freestanding building at Wyoming and Grove Avenues. While I could not pinpoint when passenger service ended to the Wyoming-Lockland Station, the building was abandoned by the railroad in 1942, and later demolished (“B & O to Abandon Wyoming Station,” Cincinnati Post, Aug. 27, 1942).

All of the Masonic Hall and the second floor of the Woodruff Building were converted to apartments in the mid-twentieth century. However, by the early 1970s the cost of maintaining and upgrading the buildings was more than rents would cover. In an attempt to manage the redevelopment of this site, it was purchased by the City of Wyoming.

The city worked for almost a decade to find a buyer to rehabilitate and repurpose the buildings. While over the years there were individuals with interest in renovating the buildings for continued residential and office use, or even as a restaurant or dinner theater, no one could obtain adequate financing for the project, which by 1981 was estimated to be about $670,000. Local residents pushed for preserving the building, offering to donate money to continue efforts to keep it in its “mothballed” state. But these efforts were unsuccessful, given the state of deterioration of the building and the lack of faith of lending institutions in the viability of a project at this site. City Manager Rand Forester was quoted as saying “It’s in a questionable location near the railroad tracks. Maybe it’s not developable” This is complete change in attitude about the site from its heyday at the turn of the twentieth century. Now a site near the railroad tracks was considered burdened by the noise of warning signals and the vibration of the passing trains. (“Building Faces Demolition,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 23, 1981)

The buildings of the Woodruff Block came down in 1982, and were replaced with a park. Local historic preservation efforts of the 1980s, while unsuccessful at the Woodruff Block, led to the restoration of many neighborhood homes, as well as businesses along Wyoming Avenue. The green space became valued for the amenity it provided to the community. In 2000, as the Wyoming School District searched for a site for administrative offices, the City offered this site at minimal cost. However, neighbors strongly protested any change to the lot “that has been used as a park for years.”  A nearby resident was quoted as stating “We have so few areas in Wyoming for public space, and this park fosters community…We think it should stay and we are fighting for it.” (“Wyoming Schools Want Lot, Neighbors Want Only a Park” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 3, 2000)

View of buildings from Lockland, where Worthington Ave. crossed the railroad, c. 1980
Photo Source: Wyoming Historical Society

While the city’s comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance still presumed this site would eventually be redeveloped for office or commercial purposes, local residents, many newcomers to the community, had lost the memory of the role the block used to play as a commercial center. However, they considered the new use, a park, to be ideal. In 2000 open space and recreation areas were considered the most appropriate focal point of community, where a hundred years earlier it was transportation and commercial hubs where a community came together. Ultimately, public pressure prevented the construction of school board offices on the site. City policies eventually shifted to match residents' views. In 2006 the City of Wyoming purchased two commercial buildings on Crescent Avenue south of Worthington and adjacent to the railroad. They demolished these structures and closed off the Worthington Avenue railroad crossing in order to expand the park.