How wonderful to live in a close-knit, small-town atmosphere that’s also within minutes of big-city amenities. That’s what residents enjoy in South Park, a 130-year-old neighborhood located within Dayton, Ohio, and the city’s largest historic neighborhood. Conceived as a home for NCR employees, factory workers lived here alongside executives, so the area has an unusual diversity of housing stock. Large Victorians, two-story brick and frame houses, cottages and shotguns exist side-by-side.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, for example, neighbors carry on the tradition of gathering at Legacy Pancake House for an early breakfast, then riding en mass to the Partin Christmas Tree Farm to help each other saw, chop and bag up their evergreen treasures. The tree harvest is followed by hot cocoa (neighbors with pickups are especially welcome).
Once a victim of decline from the 1950s to the 1970s, South Park has regained its rightful place as a desirable place to live. The neighborhood has attracted a new wave of young, first-time homebuyers to its 24-block area of 700 homes dating from the 1880s.
They appreciate its historic and social aspects, but escaped the years of toil done by urban pioneers who worked to save South Park from demolition. In 1984, South Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places; today the pioneers can rest, having won landmark standards to prevent any further blight.
During the “pioneer” era, renovations were multi-year projects; teams sought government grants for improvement of public green spaces, period street lights and landscaping. The neighborhood also formed an investment group to purchase what would become South Park Tavern, on Wayne Avenue. Gunfire, police calls, noise and crime were eliminated once the neighborhood acquired the building.
Entertainment includes Shakespeare in South Park productions, free to the public on the South Park Green on Hickory Street at James.
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