reflects campus influence
Photos: (top) courtesy: James Anastas and (bottom) Evan Eile
By Emily Caldwell
A giant blue neon tooth hovers in a second-floor window on South Court Street,
advertising the presence of the only dentist's office on Athens' main Uptown
street.
The upstairs business is reminiscent of the era when Court Street was the
heart of a centralized business district serving all of Athens County. Though
lawyers are still aplenty in the Uptown area, many other kinds of professional
offices and various retail and service outlets have migrated to peripheral
streets over the years. In their place are signs, now more than ever, of
a small city influenced by the comparatively big university resting at the
edge of its downtown business district.
Those tracking Court Street's history tend to agree that the 1960s and '70s
marked a big shift in merchants' focus. Bars, never hard to find Uptown,
were even more prevalent in the 1970s. "There were a lot of them, and
they were always crowded, every night of the week," says Sandra Sleight-Brennan,
BGS '73, an assistant professor of telecommunications who experienced Uptown
Athens at the height of Ohio University's enrollment and activism, and when
the legal drinking age was only 18.
The bar crowds are still there on weekends, in addition to those lining
up daily to make copies at Kinko's or to buy a burger at Wendy's. But some
of those bars and dozens of service businesses and professional offices
have given way to student apartments, specialty shops, bagels, pizza and
cappuccino on the Court Street of the mid-1990s.
Though the street has a distinctive Ohio University flavor, some details
of Court Street remain a testament to historic Athens. Three-fourths of
the length of the street is still lined in brick. And many of the buildings
- those that survived the fires that have destroyed banks, hotels and businesses
- date back more than a century. The assortment of buildings looks almost
like a movie set, with the uneven rooftops creating a bumpy edge across
the horizon.
James Anastas, '47, can take in that view of Court Street, framed by nearby
hills, anytime he pleases from the patio of his Rock Riffle Road home. It
seems particularly appropriate that Anastas has such a view.
"I'm a Court Street person," he says. He owned the old Rainbow
Restaurant in the late 1950s, selling homemade candy and dairy products
in what is now a Revco drug store, and he's a retired senior vice president
of Bank One based at the corner of Court and Washington streets. Until recently,
he also was co-owner of the Nelson Building, home of Debi's Hallmark Shop.
Anastas still frequents the central business area. He goes to the bank and
barber Uptown, and buys any clothes he needs at Baron Men's Shop on South
Court Street. He also meets a group of friends for coffee every morning
in the basement of Burger King, the former site of Katherine Figg's dress
shop. The group moved to Burger King upon the closing of Woolworth and its
coffee shop in 1993.
Though he is nostalgic about Court Street's past, Anastas doesn't begrudge
Ohio University's influence on the Uptown area. A Medal of Merit winner
in 1975 and founder of the Green and White Club, Anastas is a major university
supporter. His vivid memories are recorded in scrapbooks and bags full of
old photos of the Court Street he once knew and loved.
"The magic to me of it was that it was all sole ownership," he
says. "You received special treatment. It served the populace. It was
the hub - the nucleus. Now it's more like a student service center."
Ironically, long before merchants lined the street to tend to community
and, later, student needs, the university played a major role in Uptown's
creation. According to Thomas Hoover's The History of Ohio University,
the first OU Board of Trustees named Court Street in 1806.
An 1875 atlas of the county boasts sketches of stately homes that had been
built along Court Street, owned by generals and judges and other early wealthy
residents. The First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Court and Washington
streets dates back to 1809, but went through two renovations and then was
replaced with the current structure in 1902. The First National Bank, now
the site of Bank One, opened in 1863.
Recalling his lifetime home, Tad Grover, BSAGR '50, can walk a Court Street
shuffle in his mind that's entirely different from the popular current-day
shuffle of Uptown bars.
Grover, retired president of Bank One and now a university trustee, can
recite just about every Court Street building's history over the past 50
years.
Some of the standouts: the Buckeye Cafeteria, in the left side of the Worstell
Building, now home to Buffalo Wings and Rings. "It was a very popular
place in its day," Grover says of the Buckeye. The Hotel Berry, opened
in 1893, stood grandly on the site of the Secure Parking Lot; in the early
1970s, the hotel was used as an OU residence hall and housed the university's
film program. The hotel was demolished in the mid-1970s. In recent years,
that lot has become the site for the senior class' annual Springfest.
Across the street is 5ive on Court, a mini-mall that now houses an enlarged
Kinko's, food, clothing and computer stores, and the city's third textbook
shop. The building has a history as a department store, first Altman's and
then Marting's. The Kinko's at the corner of Union and Court streets has
been replaced by Perk's, a gourmet coffee house complete with couches and
chess games.
There was a time when four movie theaters peppered the Uptown landscape;
now, only the three-screen Athena survives, revived after a fire in the
late 1980s. Across the street, the old Varsity Cinema's marquee now reads
"Taco Bell." Cornwell Jewelers, dating back to the 1800s, still
stands at 10 S. Court St. Another Uptown regular, Carsey's barbershop, long
housed next to the Greenery, just recently uprooted and moved across the
street.
Drug stores, dress and hat shops, family restaurants, utility company offices,
hardware stores, grocers who delivered, furniture stores and even car dealerships
were among the businesses along both sides of Court Street at one time.
Grover attributes Court Street's evolution largely to the growth of Ohio
University. "As the university grew, the needs and demands of the students
changed," he says. "At one time, you saw a real cross-section
of the county on Court Street: farmers, doctors, lawyers - they were all
Downtown. Most professional people have left the street now, and most residents
tend to shop elsewhere."
Sleight-Brennan, who left Athens and returned in 1977, believes Court Street
looks more prosperous now than ever, and notes that the 1980s "Dresden
look" resulting from the burned-out buildings is a thing of the past.
The street continues to serve as the site for the annual Halloween gathering,
which has evolved from a mid-1970s street takeover into an event organized
by the Athens Clean and Safe Halloween Committee, complete with bands, food
buggies and officially blocked-off city streets.
After watching Court Street change for almost 20 years, Sleight-Brennan
says it's "not the melting pot it used to be. But that's not to say
it doesn't have the same charm. It's just not quite as small a town as it
used to be."
Emily Caldwell, BSJ '88, is assistant editor of periodicals in the Office of University News Services and Periodicals.
