North Pull

The rags-to-riches rise of the Short North arts district

by Chris DeVille

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When the Short North celebrates 25 years of renewal Sunday night at its "From Blight to Brilliance" gala, casual observers might not realize just how much the neighborhood has changed since its business leaders adopted that moniker in 1982.

The stretch of High Street between Downtown and Campus has gotten a gradual facelift over three decades, growing from a rundown haven for junkies and prostitutes into a thriving arts district packed with restaurants, shops, nightclubs and galleries.

"It's hard to imagine how tough this street was," said John Allen, who opened the Short North Tavern in 1981.

The area had grown impoverished as many affluent city-dwellers moved to the suburbs throughout the '50s, '60s and '70s. It reached its nadir when construction around the convention center in the late '70s decreased neighborhood traffic even more, effectively shutting down many of the remaining businesses.

What was then known as the Near North Side became practically a vacuum between the city's government and education centers, offering passersby little more than a view of bums and boarded-up buildings.

But as the '70s came to a close, real estate developers began to take aim at the residential areas around the High Street strip, founding new neighborhoods such as Victorian Village and Italian Village. The new housing caused a renewed interest in the adjacent business district, at least among an optimistic minority, Allen said.

A small group of business owners and residents began to spur change. They established a plan to build the neighborhood around art, furnishings and entertainment, modeling it after neighborhoods such as SoHo in New York.

One of the earliest believers in the neighborhood was Maria Galloway, who opened the pm gallery with her husband in June 1980. She first noticed the neighborhood on her bus rides to work, when she spotted galleries, shops and charities such as UNICEF and Artreach popping up along High Street. Many other artists were attracted by the area's low rent.

The Light Stuff

JAMES D. DECAMP PHOTO

Technicians work on the arch lighting system in 2003

Using Dispatch reports, here's a look back at the long road to lighted arches in the Short North.

—Chris DeVille

Late 1800s: Lighted arches were constructed over High Street in what is now called the Short North. Columbus was known as "The Arch City" for a while, but in 1914, as cars become more prominent, the structures were removed for impeding traffic.

2001: The city and the Short North Special Improvement District began plans to construct 17 new lighted arches over High Street.

December 2002: The arches, lining High Street from I-670 to Fifth Avenue, were lighted for the first time. The lighting culminated a $3 million project, for which the city contributed $2.4 million.

Early 2003: The arch lights began to flicker, changed color and went dark. Only two of the arches continued to work properly.

April 2003: Investigators discovered part of the arches' electric system, an underground amplifier and transformer, submerged in water after a storm. Burned-out bulbs and an unpredictable computer control system were cited as other possible causes of the lighting failure.

January 2004: The city sued EG&G, the Akron-based designer of the arches, citing the flooded underground electrical boxes as the cause of the lighting failure.

December 2005: Columbus won its suit against EG&G and received $1.2 million, almost enough to turn the lights back on.

October 2006: Inflation, particularly in the cost of copper wiring, raised the price of the project by $277,595.

June 2007: The arches were lit once again, outfitted with 4-watt LED lights that should last 50,000 hours. And, you know, insulated electrical boxes.

"It just seemed like something was going to happen here," Galloway said. "It was like it was starting to wake up, and it just needed a little help."

The city chipped in with capital improvement money in 1982 to add trees, lighting, parking lots and brick sidewalk lining. The Department of Development also facilitated low-interest loans, which were hard to come by after years of inflation, Allen said.

A turning point for the arts district came with the involvement of real estate developer Sandy Wood in 1984. Wood's first purchase on High Street was a dump at the northeast corner of Lincoln and High.

"It was a dilapidated, run-down building housing a few very poor people," Wood said. His next project was in worse shape: an abandoned building with the floors caving in.

Wood, who will be honored for his role in shaping the Short North at this weekend's gala, tried to work hand-in-hand with the residents, letting them steer the course of development, he said.

"It's been a partnership from the bottom up for 25 years," Wood said. "It wasn't a developer that came in and started redeveloping the area and said, 'Come in and come lease my space.' It was the little people."

Wood's projects made a difference because he was one of the first to renovate entire blocks rather than isolated buildings, Galloway said.

"About the same time, we started doing the Gallery Hop," she said.

The artists in the neighborhood had tried to organize similar events in the past, but once the strip's art presence reached a critical mass and wasn't just speckled here and there, the event began to take off. And it helped that businesses from bars to salons contributed to the art-friendly atmosphere.

"Every single space, whether it was a gallery or not, had art on the walls, and good art," Galloway said. "Everybody was open. You didn't have to beg people to be open. It was something you could count on. 'You've got to be open for the Hop!'"

Gallery Hop "really hit high gear" in the fall of 1985, Galloway said. By the next year, Kent and Tasi Rigsby had opened Rigsby's Kitchen, the neighborhood's first fine-dining establishment. The ball was rolling.

Flash forward 20 years. The Short North is increasingly affluent. High-end restaurants and designer boutiques pepper the strip. The shiny, neon-lit Skully's Music Diner fits the neighborhood's look better than bare-bones nightclub Little Brother's, which is set to close this summer.

And while art and Gallery Hop continue to define the neighborhood, much of the avant-garde has been pushed to other neighborhoods in favor of more highbrow work, Elizabeth Lessner said.

Lessner has seen massive changes in the neighborhood even in the six years since she opened Betty's Food & Spirits.

"I watch every year tons of indie businesses go out of business, and it bothers me," Lessner said. "They've gotten squeezed out. I don't know why."

Lessner must admit, though, that it's still possible for indie businesses to thrive in the Short North. She opened a second restaurant, Surly Girl Saloon, last year, down the street from another hotspot, Bodega.

"People eat every day," she said. "They don't buy art every day."

Rising rent costs may be closing some shops and forcing some artists to relocate, but art remains the pulse of the neighborhood, said Rebecca Ibel, who started her Short North gallery in 1993. New blood is good, she said, and there's no reason to fear change.

"We're not a club. We're not bohemians," she said. "It is still a downtown urban experience."

Maintaining the neighborhood's personality in the face of its more commercial momentum will be residents' biggest challenge moving forward. Allen worries that the neighborhood might lose its character and its characters, its "bad case of Sesame Street syndrome."

Though he fears the kind of jobs required to afford luxurious living might leave little civic-minded free time, Allen hopes the new generation of residents, the ones filling up all those high-rise condos and patronizing high-end galleries, will be active in bettering the Short North.

Wood shares that mindset. He said the Short North as we know it was built on partnerships between businesses and residents, and he hopes that trend continues, even as he knows change is inevitable.

"The Short North has just changed every year, incrementally, and it keeps changing," Wood said. "And I think 10 years from now we aren't going to even recognize it."

June 14th, 2007

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