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Homecomings of the past
Team Xtreme in Kettering
Arcade impresses Urban Nights visitors
During a festive night on the town, hundreds line up to tour the 1904 building that's been closed since 1991.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Droves of Miami Valley residents flocked downtown Friday to Dayton's Arcade building to glimpse the past. The historic building was opened to the public for the first time in more than a decade as part of the Downtown Dayton Partnership's Urban Nights, a twice-yearly event showcasing businesses, artists and neighborhoods.
Many of Friday's festivities were anchored at Courthouse Square. But two hours into the evening, more than 500 people had lined up to tour the Arcade.
Extras
"We originally were planning four tours an hour but we're now doing like 20 tours an hour," said Kathleen Lauri, an Arcade tour guide.
With its grand rotunda featuring a 90-foot-high glass ceiling, the Arcade opened for business in 1904. The more than 250,000-square-foot building housed a farmers market, restaurants, retail and apartments before most of it closed for good in 1991. Civic activists are searching for developers to revitalize the building that occupies much of the block bounded by Third, Main, Fourth and Ludlow streets. The rotunda was glowing for Friday's event.
"This is something unique to Dayton that they really need to keep around," said Jackie Brown, a self-described architecture enthusiast from Bloomington, Ind.
Brown and her friend and tour companion Courtney Kyles from Memphis recently moved to the area to practice law. Both, like several other Arcade visitors, said the building's beauty lived up to the hype.
The Urban Nights event in May attracted more than 15,000. Urban Nights feature art, food, music and tours in the Wright-Dunbar Business Village, the Oregon District and The Cannery. The next Urban Nights event will be May 16.
