We have numerous Lustron Homes in our community. All the interior walls in these homes were porcelain on steel also.

Help furnish ’50s house at museum

Public is being asked 
to provide items for the recreated prefab home

Associated Press 10:42 PM Sunday, January 1, 2012

    COLUMBUS — For an upcoming exhibit, the state’s history museum will recreate an entire 1950s prefab home that has an Ohio connection, and the public is being asked to help furnish it.
    “What we’re looking for are hands-on objects, knickknacks, things from everyday life, anything that would have been in your house,” said Cameron Wood, history curator at the Ohio Historical Center.
    The kinds of things the museum is looking for include comic books, toys and games, household appliances, furniture and clothes, Wood told The Columbus Dispatch.
     The donated stuff, which won’t be returned, will be part of an interactive exhibit set to open in the fall inside a reconstructed Lustron porcelain and steel home. It will be rebuilt inside the historical center in Columbus.
    “Our hope is that people that go through this will get a real sense of what it’s like to live in the 1950s,” said Mark Holbrook, marketing manager for the Ohio Historical Society.
     The society will dust off some 1950s artifacts in its own collection for use in the exhibit, including oddball items such as emptied metal tubes of shampoo, hair tonic, toothpaste and other household products.
    Also on display will be museum prizes from the era, such as a Cleveland Indians baseball pennant picturing and autographed by outfielder Larry Doby. He broke a color barrier in 1947 by becoming the first black player in the American League
    The exhibit will mark a homecoming for the Lustron house, which has been on display for three years at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
     The prefabricated, modular home was one of many turned out by a Columbus factory from 1948 to 1950 and advertised during the post-World War II housing boom as “The House America’s Been Waiting For.”
    The Lustron company fizzled quickly. It filed for bankruptcy and was liquidated in 1951.

 

Perhaps Mike, the spider, 409 and myself could "donate" ourselves as 50's relics. We all know what it was like living in the 50's as kids. The innocence, courtesy toward people and the "leave it to beaver" type of lifestyle were the theme of the day. Black and white TV with the Sat. westerns that seem to be on all day. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen on Sunday afternoon. The early days of the NFL with Jim Brown running over people each Sunday. (Pre-Bengals when the Browns were consistently good.) The Packers were dominate. Cowboys and indians, neighborhood kids dividing up sides and playing "war" running and hiding around the homes on the block. Midwestern Hayride on Saturdays at 6PM, right after wrestling with the Bargain City Kid and Willie Thall advertising things and then heaving them back at the cameras. Wildroot Creme Oil and Lucky Tiger hair lotion at the barber shop. Crewcuts, flat tops as hair styles. Slinkys were a big hit as toys. So were Lionel trains, plastic toy soldiers, Erector sets and Lincoln Logs. Thursday night fights in black and white on TV with Gillette razors as the sponsor. All Cincinnati beers Hudepohl, Weidemann, and Burger advertised and consumed by locals with loyalty to local products. Cigarette commercials on TV. "Pull the bottle out by the neck" vending machines with the door in the middle for a small glass bottle of Coke for 5 cents. Pull knob vending machines in the lobby of Frisch's for cigarettes for 35 cents a pack. Non-filter cigarettes as the only choice. Console stereos- no components. TV's with big wooden cabinets with doors-all tube. Call the TV repairman out in his van with a tube tester or take the tubes out of the TV and go to the local store to "test the tubes". Ahh yes, the 50's......thank God, the innocence was replaced by the rebellious 60's where we stopped believing Washington and the lying politicians and had enough of the standard of the day.... much different than our parents believed in the 40's/50's.

Downtown Middletown stopped being the shopping destination and activity hub of the town in 1958 when Middletown Shopping Center was built and activity and interest started going out east. Why they want to try to make downtown the hub again, I have no clue. All the focus is down there and none toward the east anymore. Changed their attitude of a few years ago about going east with everything. Why, especially with the failed developmental track record on past efforts? Let the downtown go, make it a bargain price to set up shop down there and leave it to private development if it is to happen at all. All, JMO.

I grew up in a prefab "Gunnison" home constructed in 1950. These used a lot of plywood and were sturdy homes. I believe most of the Gunnisons in this area were built by Fred Bendel Construction. These homes could be erected in about 4 days, once the foundation was in place and were ranch style homes. Gunnison link:  http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07069/767964-30.stm

SupportMiddletown wrote: It always impresses me how someone can post on any topic (including something a statewide organization in undertaking in COLUMBUS) and the MUSA crowd can do nothing but muster up negativity about Middletown.

Perhaps I missed your response to my sincere request for someone—anyone—to tell us exactly what is so "historic" about "historic downtown Middletown".  Would you please re-post your response here???

SupportMiddletown wrote: ^That comment has nothing to do with anything.   However, I would tell you that there are many reasons downtown Middletown is historic from events that occured there to the architecture. Many buildings along Central are National Register of Historic Places eligible and several on South Main are already within the National Register district.   You don't have to be Colonial Williamsburg to be historic. Local and regional history can be just as relevant and important.

So, in other words, there is NOTHING that YOU can think of that actually happened in “historic downtown Middletown” to make it “historic”!!!  It is simply all in YOUR mind...a figment of YOUR imagination…a handy catch phrase to use when trying to garner taxpayers’ money for special interests!!!   

Wait Mike - please don't make me historic yet - I would like a few more years before I have that designation.

Last week I posted an article about the historic “Lustron Homes” that were built in several areas of our city none were located in a historic district. We have numerous other buildings around Middletown that are unique and could be declared historic. We also have homes in the Historic Districts that are not historic at all, they are called infill homes. Not all homes that are located in a Historic District can be placed on the National Historic Registry.
The real reason to declare an area or building historic is for the tax break and or to receive government funding. So that must be the answer to why the City purchased the Sorg Opera House.

Why should one historic area or building receive funding and another receive nothing.
It is clear to me that the City is clearly discriminating against the Middletown Cemetery.

Mr. P,

In the broadest sense, everything is "historic"; about 4.5 billion years to some; to others more or less depending on your inclination and belief system. I was taught that the term "historic" referred to written and recorded events. For instance, the dinosaurs are "prehistoric" because no one was there to write about them. That shortens the "historic" era to somewhere around 4000BC. Since this geographic area was here and pretty much intact, it could be argued that the entire city is historic. If you'd like a tighter definition of geographically historic, it could be argued that buildings of at least 100 years of age are historic because they have lasted longer than the average lifespan of a person. Written records and photographic evidence such as displayed in books and on websites can also add to the historic designation.

I'm all for preserving history; particularly buildings and geographic areas of scientific or cultural interest. It should be of the highest priority to save and pass along that remembrance of those that came before us. It brings a sense of continuity and permanence to our lives which is why it is so disturbing to watch the city I grew up in disappear. I don't believe it's government's job to prevent this; the responsibility for this rests with all of us.

^Yes, Mike, that is exactly what I said.

SupportMiddletown wrote: ^Yes, Mike, that is exactly what I said.

Yes, SupportMiddletown, that IS exactly what you said!!!

I asked:

“exactly what is so ‘historic’ about ‘historic downtown Middletown’?”

You replied:

“^That comment has nothing to do with anything.”

Which can only mean that being EXACT is unnecessary, since YOU continued:

“I would tell you that there are many reasons downtown Middletown is historic from events that occured there to the architecture.”

Those were YOUR exact words.  That IS exactly what YOU said!!!

YOU said that “downtown Middletown” was “historic” due to some “events” that occurred there, and “architecture”!!!

Those were YOUR EXACT WORDS!!!

You didn’t say that Washington crossed the Miami from downtown Middletown to defeat the Hessians at Trenton, OH (he didn’t).  You didn’t claim that Kennedy was killed in Donham Plaza or that Lincoln was assassinated in Sorg’s Theater (they weren’t)!!!  You didn’t claim that Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous home, Smelling (sewer) Water, was a condo in the CG&E building (it isn’t).  You simply said “events” and “architecture”!!!  Those were YOUR EXACT WORDS!!!

So, we can only be left to infer that any person, place, or thing in Middletown--simply by virtue of their having been in Middletown and associated with "events" or "architecture"--are thereby:  HISTORIC!!!    

Mike....

You mentioned the car hoods. Don't drive down around Central and Broad much. No need to. Nothing there to go for. However, I really would have liked to have seen those controversial multi-colored car hoods on the side of the PAC. So "artsy" and innovative in idea. Would have livened up the area a bit with a splash of color and vibrance as one sipped on a wine cooler, ate their dainty finger food and gazed fondly on the area, invisioning the activity that is to come in the future as promised by our city leaders. Disappointed that they were not put up for all the world to see. Perhaps we shall see some car hoods above the marquee of the rejuvenated Sorg Opera House in the future or above the Manchester Inn entrance once the MMF sponsored folks put these HISTORIC structures back to their original splender. How about some car hoods lining the plaza as one walks past the Manchester to the city building? Perhaps an artist could take some of the "to be torn down" Riverside Village trailers, paint 'em up real spiffy and put a hunk of 'em down there for ambiance. That's artistic, right?

Mr. P,

I would tell you that this "historic" argument isn't really about what should be saved but how to about it. On that point, I agree with you. The city can certainly play a roll in development but that's usually more in the form of infrastructure and regulation. The simple truth is there has to this point been little private investment in the "downtown" development. There have been a number of public projects in the area and certainly there has been some investment but with very little assumed risk by private investors.

What would truly be "historic" would be someone to come along and articulate a "vision" or a "Master Plan" and ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH THE TASK!!! There would be a few square feet of "historic" turf to preserve!!!

Mike, you really are too much.