Enterprise Story

It is almost like a ghost town. Windows and doors boarded up, and loose siding dangling on the sides of homes, grass and weeds overgrown in almost every yard, sidewalks and streets disheveled, abandoned vehicles slumped over from flattened tires, glass sprayed on the ground from shattered bottles and windows from fights or disagreements are all that remain. One neighborhood nearly forgotten, remaining residents peer out their windows in fear. Now, try to imagine this same neighborhood more than 100 years ago, thriving proudly with some of the most prominent and up and coming residents. In the early part of the 1900’s in Columbus, Ohio stood the Driving Park neighborhood, once considered the area for recreational attractions in Columbus hosting park featured rides, buggy, bicycles, auto races, and airplanes attracted many diving, flipping, and turning through the air. Street cars a major source of transportation, zoomed down Livingston Ave the main road that crosses through the middle of the neighborhood. A breathing ground for prominent and notable residents like Eddie Rickenbacker an American fighter ace in World War I who grew up on Livingston Avenue just east of Lockbourne Avenue within the Driving Park district.  

In 1922, the attractions stopped and the Driving Park community once built for speed and fun was subdivided to create 522 city lots for housing. By 1924, Fairwood Elementary was built taking the Driving Park neighborhood into a different era. Several children new to the area attended the school and lived within close proximity of the school. Attendance and school records show student addresses and their parents’ occupations showed a greater part of parents worked as salespersons, teachers, shop owners, and bank employees. As the neighborhood began to settle into its own rhythm more African-American families began to move in around the late 50’s and 60’s which attest to the population of the neighborhood today. Residents who have moved in over the years selected the neighborhood because it seemed like a nice area. May Rice, 87, has lived on Berkeley Road since 1974 and she remembers a time when the neighborhood was booming. “I remember moving in this house, it was a time when neighbors would come on over and greet ya. Now, I know what people think when they drive through here, it’s become dangerous. All these drug dealers moves in and out, filled up the whole neighborhood with that mess now look” Pointing across the street only three other homes occupied, the others abandoned or have for sale signs.  The rise in crime in the area has been a significant result in why residents have long gone from the area.

In most recent years, 12 shootings and 6 murders have plagued the streets of the Driving Park community, bringing it a long way from the amusement and street car life it once was. The demographic of the neighborhood has changed just in the last 10 years, the population of the Driving Park area according to the 2000 Census Summary File 1 shows the total population was 14,644, the largest race in the population African Americans 11,952 of the total population and the population of single mothers in the area shows “Female householder, no husband present” as 1,090 holding 18.3% of the household population in the Driving Park district. Although several homes remain occupied with families in the area the 2000 census already showed an increase in vacant homes showing 1,590 vacant housing units.

The most recent General Population and Housing Characteristics 2010 Demographic Profile Data shows a decrease of 2,372 residents, the largest population still Black or African American race but depleting at 8,737, 71.2% of the total population in 2010. The number of vacant housing units is 1,984 a 27.2% of the total housing occupancy. Although a decline due to the declining total population still shows the population of single mothers at 799, 15% of the total population.  Single mother attesting to the consequences and decline of a community like this research found on “Discover the Networks” states, “children in single-parent households are raised not only with economic, but also social and psychological, disadvantages. For instances, they are four times as likely as children from intact families to be abused or neglected; much likelier to have behavioral problems; much more apt to experience emotional disorders; far likelier to have a weak sense right and wrong; significantly less able to delay gratification and to control their violent or sexual impulses”. The changes of the neighborhood are seen mostly in the faces of the students who attend the oldest school in the area that still remains open, Fairwood Elementary that opened at the beginning stages of the neighborhood. Ms. Morgan a teacher at the school for only the past five years has seen a decline in her short time there with the children from the surrounding area. “I have only been teaching here [Fairwood Alt. Elem.] for a few years, but I have a brother and sister who attended this school back in 1995, and I can tell you that it is different out there and it shows in here. Most the kids who attended this school in 1995, my brother and sister included came from homes where every parent worked, even single parents, the students wore uniforms crisp and clean every day, the school building was clean inside and out, we used to be able to have parades through the neighborhood, now it’s way too dangerous for that, we have to be on a level 1 lockdown every day for safety. Some many of the kids come in here hungry, dirty, and just mistreated and it was not like that back then”. The sound of children began to fade away as some grew other, or others wisely placed in safer places in the city to allow their children to grow up. The neighborhood did not seem to transform overnight, it has taken gradual moves seemingly in the wrong direction, spiraling out of control, crippling the people living within the skin and bones of it all. However, Driving Park Area Commission former president James A. Johnson who recently passed away on January 29, 2014 says this of rebuilding Driving Park, “Community leadership and resident participation are key ingredients in making the Driving Park neighborhood a safe and thriving community.”