Columbus, Ohio

I think Soul Doctor is also from Columbus.

You tryin' to ruin my day, Boss?

Just re-read the long post, Setanta, as I have a bit more knowledge to anchor it all. You rock.

Clintonville so far sounds like it would fit what we are looking for best. Upper Arlington keeps coming up, but bland suburban values sounds awful. Interested in learning more about UA from you and P'ash.

Here's what I'm looking for, tell me what you think would fit best (I don't expect a 100% match):

- Green, leafy
- Body of water nearby is good
- Park nearby is good
- OLD HOUSES (big one)
- Liberal/ weird/ intaleckshull/ boho vibe
- Good schools

Whaddya think?

Victorian Village, without doubt. Right on Neil Avenue, the property values are sky-high, although you'd know best what would meet your price requirements. Basically the neighborhood runs from Buttles to King Avenue (about seven blocks) south to north, and High Street to the Olentangy River (about six or seven blocks) east to west. There are no bodies of water which might be considered "recreational" close to campus. I wouldn't let the dog wade in either the Olentangy or the Sciota, nor in Alum Creek anywhere within Franklin County. You would be a short drive from Alum Creek State Park, however, and the Hoover resevoir is not far off.

The closer one is to Neil Avenue in Victorian Village, the pricier. Within that neighborhood, there are still working class patches, and some student ghetto. North of King Avenue, the neighborhoods are largely "upscale" student ghetto. South of Buttles is Goodale Park, the railroad, and then downtown Columbus. It would take a healthy adult about 20 minutes or less to walk from Buttles to the south side of campus. From King Avenue, about five minutes. It is worth considering as one might easily avoid using an automobile to get to work at the BIG U. Clintonville might be better for the cost of housing, but then you are quite a way north of campus. Any neighborhood which immediately abuts the campus is going to be rundown student ghetto, and the neighborhoods to the east are particularly bad. Goodale Park is a nice place for children, and although somewhat of a dog park, the poop is not too bad (people around here don't clean up after their dogs). The only big drawback to Victorian Village is that you are far from any large shopping center. If you get on Fifth Avenue, however, and drive west, you are in Grandview, and although there are no big shopping centers there, there are nice shops and restaurants everywhere. Victorian Village is itself just north of a restaurant district which was already thriving when the hockey stadium was built, and that has made it an even more attractive site for restaurants. If one drives down Neil Avenue (south) to Buttles, and turns left (east) and drives to the east side of Goodale Park, and takes a right, they will be on Park Street, and about a quarter of a mile from the North Market--good place for your food shopping, bad place for your waist line. Best restaurant in the area, right across from the North Market, in my never humble opinion, is Tapatio. Hartley Coursen, one of the two Chef-owners, has started a bakery in the North Market, and the other owner, Bruce Hildreth, rides herd on the restaurant in the evenings.

Good luck, Boss, if you get any specific addresses, i'd be happy to see what i can come up with.

Ooh. . . S is right. . . especially as a professor family, you can't live anywhere near campus. . . what would the neighbors think? :-)

Upper Arlington is nice. . . I don't know if this is still the case (Dublin has given it a run for its money), but the SCHOOLS in UA are top-notch. We were there when I was actually of school age, and I can tell you that most of the kids are professors' kids, some regular old rich brats, and a few of the middle- to lower-class set, but mostly the people are pretty well off. It's a very safe, very comfortable-feeling community, lots of trees and sidewalks, kids walk to school, I had a paper route when we lived there, stuff like that. And I enjoyed my schools (I went to Greensview Elem. and Hastings Middle School, btw, which is more in the lower-middle class area)

It's VERY expensive. Our house was ridiculously priced for what we got, but the lots are nice, large yards, we had raspberry bushes, nice neighbors, plenty of trees, and a lovely screened in porch. There's not much new construction, I believe (S and Beth can supply that info).

For kids, there are soccer leagues and tball and lots of libraries (we lived down the street from one). There's not a lot of hanging out space for teenagers, though (which my dad and mom liked :-)) and I believe the only real "mall" (Lane Ave. Mall) has been closed. . . (is that true, experts?).

All in all, we liked it there, though the prices were a bit steep. . . all of my dad's professor buddies lived near by, and the community was close. . .

I don't personally care for UA, so i'll not weigh in on that one.

If you were to decide on Victorian Village, the streets you would look for in housing ads would be, from east to west Dennison, Hunter, Highland, Neil, Henry, Delaware, Harrison, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oregon--with Perry Street as the western boundary, and street numbers under 1200.

From North to South, King Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Fourth Avenue, Third Avenue (Starr Avenue, the eastern part of 2nd Avenue and Price Avenue are all iffy in terms of the character of the neighborhood) Second Avenue, Kerr Street, Wilber Avenue, Lundy Street and Buttles Avenue. High Street is "zero" for east-west addresses, so anything on those streets up to about 500 west. There are many paved alleys in Columbus, which can actually have street addresses, so not every street is in the list.

I'll try to pm you a map . . .

hehe. . . just read, soz, that liberal/weird is on your list. . . dunno how the professored elite in UA would handle THAT. . . :-)

I do remember that we looked for houses and would periodically go back to gaze longingly at houses in the Victorian Village area. . . it's really breathtakingly beautiful at parts, oh, heck, most of the time. . . but on a doctoral student's budget we couldn't afford it. . . on a professor's, however, you might get the house we wanted :-)

And come on, S. . . what's wrong with wading in the Olentangy? <g>

Nothin' . . . if yer wearin' lead-lined hip boots . . .

Ha!

This is great, great stuff, much appreciated.

Absolutely nothing is decided at this point, from whether he would get the offer to whether we would accept it to what the salary would be if he would up there to whether I would be working as well. One salary, low end, me not working, we don't have much to spend. Two salaries, his high(-er... he'd still be an entry-level peon), and we'd be OK.

The main thing I'm trying to do is psych myself up for the possibility, since I knew virtually nothing about Columbus before this came up and my immediate reaction was as recorded above. That has already changed a lot, thanks in no small part to y'all, especially Setanta.

The whole "professored elite" thing is kind of odd for me... a lot of our friends are professors (or assistant professors) and they heavily tend toward liberal, weird, boho and kinda by definition intaleckshull. So the place where professors live seems, to me, like it should have that kind of a vibe... no? (Seems like no from what you guys have said about UA.)

Thanks a lot for the details of having lived there, P'ash.

Victorian Village looks GREAT. I'm gonna go check out what's available/ housing prices.

I'd say no. . . my dad is an economics professor, so they're a pretty staid bunch, as are most of his other geeky professor friends, but Upper Arlington's not really your hip, happenin' sort of place :-)

And in Victorian Village, the residents always doll their houses up very nicely for christmas. . . that's the neighborhood where you drive to look at the lights :-) (since I was still in a christmaschristmasCHRISTMAS!!! age when we lived there, that detail sticks out sharply :-))

Ah. My model of lib/weird/boho/int professor paradise is Prospect Park in Minneapolis (grew up nearby, many friends lived there.) Not staid 'tall. Don't know how unusual that is for professorville.

I live in a Victorian now, like 'em. 20's bungalows are what I'm really interested in, though. Off to find those listings... feel so much more oriented! Grandview Heights, sure, I know where that is...

Setanta, can you tell me any more about the independent municipality thing? What are some practicalities... do you need to contract with an independent garbage collection co, or something? Any recommendations generally for city of Columbus vs. municipalities?

Looks like Upper Arlington has a lot of bungalows.

This sounds good:



http://www.noplacelikehome.com/profiles/grandvie.html

As far as the independent municipalities go, the organization differs somewhat from one to the other, but either they or the city of Columbus assure all public services. It generally means that you sometimes see cops from places you never heard of, and there are places you don't want to speed, because the town council is revenue hungry. In some cases, it makes a slight difference in property tax rates.

Upper Arlington is definitely not hip.

I actually found it kinda creepy, in a flat, suburban kinda way when we drove through it. I'm not used to seeing so many one-level bungalow, ranch houses.

Victorian Village is pretty, but hmmmm, a bit cliche, in its very emphatic prettiness. You definitely need to be able to - and want to - keep up with the neighbours in terms of 'appropriate' decorating there. Victorian Village is definitely a pretty place to walk around and look. Not so much a place for a tasteful, homemade wreath on the front door. The neighbours had better be able to tell what local floral designer created your wreath. (It may not be completely true of all of Victorian Village, but it's the vibe I got from the track there - people even looked appropriately decorative on their porches, sipping attractive drinks with their friends.)

Interesting that profs don't live near universities there. I'm used to professors riding their bikes to work, or walking. Must be a Canajun preference. The Annex here, where students and profs live in close proximity, is definitely of the boho vibe you're familiar with, soz.

I'm gonna be in Columbus at the end of the month. Maybe Opie and I can take some pix of neighbourhoods of interest - if you haven't found them online.

... trying to find a link ...

ahhhhhhhhh

found it - i've been told by people at another forum that this is a Columbus must-see, must-do - and that membership is really worthwhile

franklin park conservatory

this is from the current Chihuly exhibit ...

Beth, that has a lot to do with the fact that OSU is absolutely immense. . . the campus, and students, really take over the place, and High Street especially is loud, run-down, and kinda scary, actually. . . when my dad got out of teaching a class once (he stayed on after his doctorate to teach for a few years), he was mugged by one of his own students.

Additionally, campus abuts the inner city, which in general isn't a great place to be and in Columbus especially, unless they've done some major upkeep, is pretty rundown. We used to go downtown for the huge Greek festival that takes place at the main Orthodox church, and parking was always a nightmare because the area around was so iffy.

Where we live now, professors would KILL to live on campus (this campus being Duke's) and the most prestigious houses in the entire city are on its grounds or pretty near-by.

It just depends on the campus.

hmmmm

OSU doesn't seem that enormous to me, but that may be a contextual thing. I grew up in an academic town and Toronto is full of universities as well.

the Short North is looking quite interesting

i wonder if the area lives up to its blurb

50,000 students, I believe, when we were there. . . for a public state university, it's on the big-side. . . (not for the Big 10, but, eh. . . :-)) When set next to a private university, that's mindboggling. . . Duke, for example, has just under 20,000 students.

It may be contextual in a different way. . . in Columbus, at least in the city and surrounding neighborhoods (and this is the same with NYU, where the community is squished into a 10 block radius), you can't go anywhere without seeing a University kid. In Durham, the feel is much less intense. Maybe that's why the profs disappear (escape?) to UA? Some people don't want to see their students all the time :-)

But OSU itself is bigger than many average-sized cities in the US :-) Canadian and European unis tend to be bigger, I imagine. . . I'm heading to Bonn next year, and they say they have 40,000 kids, and I'm freaked :-)

We used to go to the North Market. . . I didn't realize there was a neighborhood attached. . . I guess we left in the heyday. . .

I believe there are now about 60,000 students. The old Greek Orthodox church was eclipsed when the Greek community built their cathedral, a truly beautiful bit of architecture. The area around there is now known as the Arena district, because they built the Nationwide Arena for the NHL team. It's very trendy now with eateries and the North Market. Greek festival continues.