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Columbus Alerts

A daily look at the most significant and interesting stories affecting Columbus. Written by Tyler Buchanan and Alissa Widman Neese.

Axios Columbus Thought Bubble

Axios Columbus

You can take the "penthouse-style" views and quartz countertops at 51 N. High St. all the way to the bank.

Up for sale: A two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,175-square-foot condo in the former Citizens Savings and Trust Company building for $482,500.

The 63-unit condominium features a rooftop lounge along with a restaurant, cocktail bar and coffee shop on the first floor.

Details: The eight-story building was constructed in 1917 on the corner of High and Gay Streets, described by the Akron Beacon Journal at the time as "the most prominent business location of the capital city."

It proved to be an inauspicious year for the bank, as a bookkeeper was sentenced to the nearby state reformatory for embezzling thousands of dollars, a Mansfield newspaper reported. 

The intrigue: Residents won't find bags of cash lying around these days, but the mail room is located in the bank's old vault.

Developer Jeff Edwards tried to keep original architectural elements while rehabbing the property, listing agent Pat Perkins of RE/MAX Affiliates tells Axios.

His preservation work earned special praise from the Columbus Landmarks group in 2018.

A bird's eye view of the rooftop of a condo building.

The property includes a rooftop lounging area at the corner of High and Gay Streets. 

Living — and checking your mail — in style

You can take 51 N. High St.'s quartz countertops all the way to the bank.

A condo building's mail room located inside an old bank vault.

The mail room at the Citizens Building is located in an old bank vault. Photos courtesy of RE/MAX Affiliates 

Real estate

You can take the &quot;penthouse-style&quot; views and quartz countertops at 51 N. High St. all the way to the bank.<ul><li>Well, former bank that is.</li></ul>

Real Estate

If you were to add up all the current NFL players from Ohio, you could field an entire team plus a full practice roster.

State of play: Few other states produce more pros than we do: 74 to kick off this season, Axios Sports' Kendall Baker writes.

Nine of them now play for the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns.

💪 Yes, and: Ohio State is also tied with LSU (52) for the second-most collegiate players currently in the NFL, trailing Alabama's 58. 

Of note: Six pros have completed the Buckeye State trifecta by playing high school, college and professional football here in Ohio.

Punter Kevin Huber, in his 14th year with the Bengals, gets bonus points for playing all three in the same city. 

James Hudson III: Central Catholic (Toledo), University of Cincinnati, Bengals

Denzel Ward: Nordonia (Macedonia), OSU, Browns

Kareem Hunt: South (Willoughby), Toledo, Browns

Kevin Huber: McNicholas (Cincinnati), University of Cincinnati, Bengals

Joe Burrow: Athens (The Plains), OSU (prior to transferring to LSU), Bengals

Sam Hubbard: Moeller (Cincinnati), OSU, Bengals

🏈 Ohioans in the NFL

Few other states produce as many pros as we do: 74 to kick off this season.

National Football League (NFL)

If you were to add up all the current NFL players from Ohio, you could field an entire team plus a full practice roster.State of play: Few other states produce more pros than we do: 74 to kick off this season, <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Axios Sports&#x27; Kendall Baker writes." data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sports-056cf654-c5e0-4940-bed4-54bd282636be.html" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sports-056cf654-c5e0-4940-bed4-54bd282636be.html" target="_self">Axios Sports&#x27; Kendall Baker writes.</a>

Sports

Speaking of fall, we're debuting a new Friday feature highlighting the best activities our region has to offer during our favorite time of year.

Now is a good time to head to these outdoor spots while the weather is still cooperating:

Pumpkins, peppers and other produce are just a strawberry's throw away from Route 270. 

10am-6pm Monday-Saturday and noon-5pm Sunday. 4600 Lockbourne Road, Columbus.

Families can make scarecrows and enjoy hayrides at this Delaware County farm.

10am-5pm Saturday and 11am-5pm Sunday through Oct. 23. 6142 Lewis Center Road, Galena.

Bring your knowledge of OSU football to complete this corn maze, which opens tomorrow and is designed to honor Ohio Stadium's 100th anniversary.

5-10pm Fridays, noon-10pm Saturday and noon-6pm Sunday through Oct. 30. 8657 Axe Handle Road, Milford Center.

Finish the maze or try your hand at apple cannon target practice.

10am-10pm Friday, Saturday and 10am-6pm Sunday. Cannon closes at 6pm. 9581 Morse Road, Pataskala.

🎃 Our guide to the best patches and mazes

Now is a good time to head to these outdoor spots while the weather is still cooperating.

Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images 

Speaking of fall, we&#x27;re debuting a new Friday feature highlighting the best activities our region has to offer during our favorite time of year.<ul><li>Now is a good time to head to these outdoor spots while the weather is still cooperating:</li></ul>

Things to Do

What did Columbus look like before highway construction divided and destroyed neighborhoods across the city?

An OSU research team is hard at work trying to piece them back together, business by business, home by home. 

Why it matters: The Ghost Neighborhoods of Columbus project can offer both insight on the past and a lesson for more responsible development practices as the city continues growing.

What they're doing: The university's Center for Urban and Regional Analysis is fusing modern technology with old-fashioned research methods to digitally recreate once-vibrant communities. 

Students use hand-drawn fire insurance maps dating back to the 1800s to get an accurate sense of how each block was once laid out. 

Old photographs and land parcel data are helping to fill in any missing pieces.  

What they're saying: “Our ultimate goal would be to come up with 3D visualizations that are realistic enough to give people a visceral feeling of what those neighborhoods were like,” Harvey Miller, a geography professor and the project's director, said in a news release.

A 1956 news clipping with the headline, "Ohio leads nation in highway construction."

From the Aug. 26, 1956, edition of the Coshocton Democrat, via Newspapers.com

State of play: The choices made by highway planners in the mid-20th century are still evident on today's map.

Routes 70 and 71 were built directly over predominantly Black neighborhoods like Hanford Village and King-Lincoln Bronzeville. 

In the latter case, the highway displaced residents, split the neighborhood in two and cut it off from downtown — the resulting economic ramifications are still felt today. 

Flytown, a melting pot community near the modern-day Arena District, was decimated by Route 315 construction that forced its residents to relocate.

Meanwhile, highway construction avoided white-majority neighborhoods such as Bexley.

Separately, the research team hopes to map out Franklinton as it looked before a devastating 1913 flood.

Worthy of your time: The Columbus Dispatch's 2020 feature "How highways destroyed Black neighborhoods in the '60s, as told by elders who were there."

Mapping out our "ghost neighborhoods"

Inside the effort to see how highway construction destroyed neighborhoods across the city.

A 3D rendering of former Columbus neighborhoods overlaid on top of modern highway locations. 

A 3D rendering of past Hanford Village buildings overlaid on present-day Route 70. Courtesy of OSU Center for Urban and Regional Analysis 

What did Columbus look like before highway construction divided and destroyed neighborhoods across the city?<ul><li>An OSU research team is hard at work trying to piece them back together, business by business, home by home. </li></ul>

News

On this day last year, the first-ever Axios Columbus newsletter hit your inboxes at 6:29am.

Why it matters: Full disclosure — it's pretty stressful pushing send on an email to thousands of discerning readers willing to take a chance on your coverage.

But we believed in Axios' mission of providing smart news that's worthy of your time, and it's clear you do, too.

What's happening: Since then, we've published nearly 250 newsletters. We've highlighted our city's housing boom and affordability crisis, our major economic growth, and our lengthy rebound from the pandemic and its challenging ripple effects.

We've showcased art and athletes, social ills and those trying to solve them, and occasionally played handball with pros or sampled the best crab rangoon in town.

We won't forget how we got here but are excited about where we're going.

State of play: Columbus is a diverse, rapidly changing place. Its culture is constantly being redefined. 

Our city is full of many transplants (us included!) experiencing the city's traditions and favorites for the first time, plus starting new ones. 

The bottom line: We couldn't do it without our subscribers, population 37,000 and growing.

More than 700,000 of you also visited our website to read the more than 650 stories we've posted in the last year.

You've given us suggestions on where to eat, people to interview, stories to pursue and questions to answer, making us fall in love with our engaged community of readers.

🙏 Thank you — and please email columbus@axios.com to keep the ideas and feedback coming.

💌 If you enjoy spending your weekday mornings with us, please encourage your family, friends and neighbors to subscribe and join the conversation.

Celebrating one year of Axios Columbus

We couldn't do it without our subscribers, population 37,000 and growing.

Illustration of a candle in the shape of an Axios logo with a flame that gets blown out.

On this day last year, the <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="first-ever Axios Columbus newsletter" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-columbus-9e1c6617-e772-4b61-9a4b-7fd01aa5a51a.html" data-vars-content-id="f89cdf97-d792-4f6f-9057-51a14a3ed87a" data-vars-headline="Celebrating one year of Axios Columbus" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-columbus-9e1c6617-e772-4b61-9a4b-7fd01aa5a51a.html" target="_self">first-ever Axios Columbus newsletter</a> hit your inboxes at 6:29am.Why it matters: Full disclosure — it&#x27;s pretty stressful pushing send on an email to thousands of discerning readers willing to take a chance on your coverage.

Tyler Buchanan

Featured stories

Celebrating one year of Axios Columbus

Mapping out our "ghost neighborhoods"

🏈 Ohioans in the NFL

🎃 Our guide to the best patches and mazes

Living — and checking your mail — in style