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Annual Downtown Dayton Photo Contest

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998702_10152509198158840_814700363_a Amateur and professional photographers are invited to participate in Downtown in Focus, a photo contest aimed at finding new and distinctive shots of our downtown. The City of Dayton, Downtown Dayton Partnership, Kaplan College and Dayton Daily News are sponsoring the contest.

One amateur winner and one professional winner will be selected in each of the following categories:

  • Downtown Living:  You know that place you and your friends go to every Saturday night downtown? Now is your chance to win some money for being a regular! Take photos showing off Dayton’s vibrant dining and nightlife scene, urban housing or anything else unique to living and playing downtown.
  • I Heart Downtown: The architecture of one of the historic buildings you have always admired. Your favorite spot along the river. That coffee shop where you buy your morning brew — this category is wide open to photograph anything and everything you love about downtown Dayton.
  • Skyline: It’s hard to single out the best thing about Dayton, so why not just capture the whole city? Show us your best shot of our downtown Dayton skyline!

A panel of judges ― consisting of professional photographers, photography editors and instructors, and arts community leaders ― will select the winners in each category and award a $250 cash prize to the Best in Show winner in each division. Honorable mentions also will be awarded at the discretion of the judges. In addition, City of Dayton Mayor Gary Leitzell will select one photo that best represents the City’s “Dayton Originals” motto. This photographer will receive a gift basket from the City of Dayton. Contest winners will be recognized at the Sept. 20 Urban Nights, and all entries will be displayed in a special exhibit during Urban Nights.

From approximately 8 to 11 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 2, during First Friday, many of downtown’s buildings will be lit for photographers who would like to capture night shots of the city.

The deadline to submit photos is 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 30, 2013. There is no fee for application or participation.

Photographers are not required to be Dayton-area residents, but winners must be age 18 or older. Photos must have been taken in Greater Downtown ― which includes the Central Business District, Oregon Arts District, Webster Station and the ring of neighborhoods that surrounds downtown ― within the past calendar year. Official contest guidelines and entry forms are available at www.downtowndayton.org and www.daytonohio.gov.

For more information, contact:

Kristen Wicker: 937-224-1518, ext. 228, or [email protected]

Courtney Deutsch: 937-224-1518, ext. 231, or [email protected]

For contest submission details and entry forms: www.downtowndayton.org

 

 

Hoofing It: One Girl’s Guide to Walking the Streets of Dayton

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Things I remember seeing during my 20-minute commute: Tree limbs swirling in a rain-swollen Great Miami River. Aged buildings with elaborate cornices rubbing shoulders with their modern-day glass and steel counterparts. Phil staggering down the sidewalk asking for spare change to buy a muffin.

Things I remember hearing during my 20-minute commute: The splash and giggle of kids jumping into a puddle. A glee club of birds overhead. The distressed screech of an ambulance .

I live in a historic neighborhood downtown, and since I live, work, hang out and work out downtown, I can walk pretty much anywhere I need to go.

Key words: Pretty much.

Places I drive: Kroger. DeWeese Park. Village Thrift Store. Taqueria Mixteca. Cookouts at friends’ back yards. And, I admit it, sometimes places as close as Drake’s Downtown Gym and the Dublin Pub.

One of my favorite shots taken during a walk home, shot from the Main Street Bridge looking east toward the Dayton Art Institute and Masonic Temple.

I’m about to find out exactly what “pretty much” means as I join Megan Cooper in an experiment in using alternative transportation to get from here to there. We’re both ditching our gas-powered rides for at least one week starting June 1. Megan will be trekking across town primarily via bicycle and the bus. Be sure to read her columns leading up to and during this adventure, in which she gives a frank and funny account of going car-less.

I will continue to get around primarily on foot, but I’m also going to figure out how to ride the RTA and rediscover my inner cyclist. The last time I rode the bus, I ended up at Children’s Medical Center while trying to get to Five Oaks, which is closer to Grandview Hospital. The last time I rode my bike any significant distance, my now- 19-year-old son was in a kid seat on the back.

But, like Megan, I’m determined to give this a whirl. Unlike Megan, my research and preparation for this adventure is a total zilch. Well, I did grab a fresh journal in which to chronicle the sights and sounds of this voyage. When I finish writing this, I’m going to try to figure out how to work a pedometer a friend gave me two years ago. I made a solemn vow to look at RTA’s web site tomorrow night. And cross-my-heart-hope-to-die, I plan to check my bike’s tires really soon.

I’m rolling ad hoc because I figure I can hoof it most places. I mean, perhaps my favorite thing about living downtown is the ability to walk so many cool places. I like having to step around Canadian Geese and their goslings on the gravel pathway atop the levee. I feel lucky I can stop at the RiverScape Metro Park concession and grab a cone of soft serve to enjoy on my way home. I even like the pitter-patter on my umbrella on rainy days and getting away with wearing rubber boots to the office.

Daffodils in full bloom at RiverScape MetroPark, taken during a recent springtime walk home.

Really, though, I am in denial.

I may live in a handy little city where I can walk from one end to the other in less than 30 minutes, but getting around is about to get a lot more complicated without a car. While visiting my sister in Piqua on Memorial Day, I realized I’d have no way to get up there to play cowboy and Play-Doh with my nephews without a car. Mulching some new plants tonight, I realized I’d have to travel toughman style if I needed to grab another bag of this heavy, goopy stuff and lug it on a bus.

View during my 20-minute commute on a recent May morning.

I also realize I am lucky to have a car, even an 11-year-old contraption missing the passenger-side window and in bad need of a new catalytic converter I lovingly call The Rattletrap. I feel like Barbara Ehrenreich as she recounted her experiences working as a maid and other minimum-wage occupations in Nickel and Dimed, a book I found so horribly patronizing I couldn’t finish the first chapter. I hope to be able to give you, dear reader, an authentic and entertaining account of this adventure with respect to those who have no choice but public transportation to reach such destinations as their workplace, school and kids’ day care. I hope to be able to examine the impacts of our auto-adoring culture on our health and environment with a fresh perspective. I hope to better understand the myriad ways transportation affects our daily lives.

And I hope you will help us: Do you get where you need to go without a car? If so, tell us your stories and (please!) give us some tips. Do you rev an engine to make it where you need to be? If so, tell us how you think your life would change if driving were no longer an option. Please share in the comments below.

And we’re off: One foot in front of the other!

The Litehouse Development solves a few of Dayton’s housing problems

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… but probably not what you think.

You know that the city of Dayton has a vacancy problem, and there has been a lot of discussion about what to do with vacant, abandoned properties. Tearing them down is one option of course, and probably the one that gets the most discussion, and there is a problem with tearing them down because then you have an empty space, and what do you do with that? I believe that the vacancy problem is two-fold. Not only does Dayton have too many homes, Dayton has too many of the wrong type of home.

Yes, Virginia, there really are people who want to live in Dayton Ohio. They want to experience all that Dayton has to offer- celebratory and inexpensive stuff to do, vibrant arts community, not-so-big city life. They want to be home owners, not renters, but they can’t find a house. Oh I know we have plenty of homes- too many homes in some neighborhoods. But for a certain type of buyer: young or creative or entertainment-seeking types who would be a perfect fit in the downtown area, Dayton doesn’t have what they are looking for because the housing stock that exists, is simply not a good fit for everyone. Downtown Dayton’s housing stock is plentiful, but it’s old, and the truth is that not everyone loves a historic home. Not everyone wants to live in or care for a historic home, and that’s okay, except, if you want a brick ranch, mid-century modern, vintage 20’s bungalow, or modern dwelling, then you have to live elsewhere. So the solution might be to mix things up a bit- not only tear down the unwanted housing stock, but build property that people want: Affordable, low maintenance, cool, hip, modern spaces that appeal to and attract a new breed of owners into the Dayton market.

I visited the Litehouse model home site last week during their Open House and was intrigued by what I saw. The exterior is modern and unlike anything else in the Dayton area. The interior is unusual as well, being a vertical stacked space that packs amenities onto a tiny physical footprint. This should appeal to a very specific buyer, but more than that, it’s going to add to the presence of residents in the direct downtown area, and that’s a cool thing, good for all the city residents.

The Litehouse townhomes focus on greener living, with local manufacturing, Leed standardization, Energy Star appliances to keep these homes as efficient as possible. This is going to be a growing trend and it’s nice to see a builder using proactive solutions for those buyers who are already looking in this direction. They are also looking to attract buyers who want an affordable home. This is going to be key for getting more buyers into Dayton: Affordable, modern, green properties that give buyers another downtown living option. The plan is to create a community of approximately 40 homes, and once a few more are occupied, you’ll see them attract more buyers- most people don’t want to be the first in a new development, although, you do get a nice view of Patterson Blvd right now.

These are sexy properties with a new attitude about how a home can function and what a home can be. Take a look at the couple to the right. Standing on the unfinished roof-top terrace of one of the Litehouse units, you can see the natural response to the possibilities this space might afford- the body language says it all. This is the type of housing that Dayton needs more of and it’s good for the entire Dayton area that we have the opportunity to watch this development add to our real estate options in Dayton Ohio.

So, how do you buy a new home? You can plunge ahead and contact the developer yourself if you’d like, or you can have a Realtor take you to a developer if you want a little extra guidance through the process. It’s similar to buying any home, except, as one developer told me, there is no other person’s dirt to wonder about.

The question is, can majestic historic beauties live in peace and camaraderie with ultra-modern clean cut lines? For all the talk about not wanting to live in little boxes that all look just the same, most people like a sense of continuity and similarity within their own neighborhood. With the Litehouse development, we can begin to integrate the new and old while we adjust to the future of Dayton real estate.

Photo credits: Teri Lussier

Choosing the City Life

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When my husband and I began to look for our first home almost ten years ago, we never thought of looking anywhere but the city of Dayton.  We lived in an apartment in Grafton Hill, and my parents had a lovely old house in Five Oaks.  We wanted an old house of our own, we wanted character, we wanted more for our money than we could get in the ‘burbs.

Most of our contemporaries thought we were crazy.  But we were thrilled when we found a big fixer-upper on a busy street in Belmont.  We had ourselves a “Belmont Beauty”.  At first we thought we might fix it up and sell it for a profit, but we soon discovered that we really liked living there.

So we’re still here, nine years and two-and-a-half kids later.

And we still really like living here!

We have super-nice neighbors, both with young kids, who have lived in their homes even longer than we have.  We have a double lot, so there is plenty of yard for our kids to play in.  Each spring we do something more to fix it up – this year it was a sweet swing set.  Next year, we’ll be gating off our driveway – the downside of the busy street we live on being that my kiddos can’t run free like I did when I was a child living on a lazy cul-de-sac.

There are other downsides of living in the city, of course: our old, uneven sidewalks and busy street make it difficult for bike riding and wagon-pulling.  But you know what?  Neither of my kids seem to think anything of that at all.  They have a safe, happy home full of fun, a nice big yard and a big front porch to play on.

And on every spring and summer date that even kind of qualifies as a holiday, they also get a free illegal fireworks show. 🙂  What more could a city kid want?