This year, The Blade’s interns explored a variety of Toledo's neighborhoods. The following ongoing series highlights those communities.
When Kaitlin Tucker moved to the Old West End 11 years ago, she knew she would never leave.
That is why when she and her boyfriend decided to upgrade from their apartment to a house, they moved only five minutes away from their current residence.
“I just love it here, It’s been super fun, and I’ve met some amazing people,” Mrs. Tucker said.
Many residents like Mrs. Tucker are lifelong residents of the Old West End, and it is easy to see why.
1. Named to National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
2. Named a local historic district by City of Toledo in 1980.
3. I-75 divided the neighborhood in the 1960s.
4. The Toledo Museum of Art moved to the Old West End in 1912.
5. The Scottwood Community Garden has served the community for over 20 years.
Bounded by Monroe Street to Collins and Central, and from Glenwood Avenue to Collingwood Boulevard, the Old West End is home to many historic local institutions such as the Toledo Museum of Art and the Collingwood Arts Center. Community events are consistently happening such as local concerts and the Old West End festival. But arguably the most important component of the Old West End is the architecture.
“I just never get tired of looking at the houses around here,” Mrs. Tucker said as she stood on the sidewalk of W. Delaware Ave. “I mean, you can find something new with a house just looking at it from a different perspective because they’re all unique and different.”
The preservation of the Victorian-style houses are what helped earn the community’s place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Seven years later, the neighborhood was declared a local historic district by the City of Toledo.
“In the 1960s, they started building I-75, and the neighborhood kind of got cut off, and the people who lived there … really started working towards developing the neighborhood and protecting it,” Tedd Long, a local historian, said.
Before the interstate, the neighborhood, then called the West End, was in a secluded, wealthy corner of Toledo that had a different, suburban feeling than the city-vibe of the downtown buildings.
‘[The Toledo Museum of Art] was surrounded by all these houses and neighborhoods, and kids would just come, and they could walk there or take the streetcars there,” Julie McMaster, an archivist at the art museum, said. “Then the expressway just cut part of the neighborhood away from the Old West End.”
But even though the interstate divided the neighborhood, the community has only grown stronger, and Mrs. Tucker and her friend Jen Robertson are a case example of that.
Mrs. Robertson has lived in her Old West End house for 19 years. Mrs. Tucker was her neighbor at her previous apartment, but despite Mrs. Tucker’s move, the two have remained close friends. They both said fostering community is a personal passion for them, which is why they run the Scottwood Community Garden together.
“It’s really special because gardening has always been therapeutic for me, and community is really important to me,” Mrs. Robertson said. “It’s why I live in the Old West End because it’s such a welcoming, diverse community of people, and we like to do things together.”
The Scottwood Community Garden, located on the corner of West Delaware Avenue and Scottwood Avenue provides a space for residents of the Old West End to grow fresh food and flowers, meet other neighbors, and give back to their community. Any of the produce grown in the garden can be placed in a box for neighbors to take from.
“It’s a gem, in my opinion, in our community because it not only provides beauty, but it provides this really nice space for people to learn and grow,” Mrs. Robertson said.
Since its start in the early 2000s, the garden has also grown with 21 regular gardeners, and the community has grown with it.
“One thing that's been fascinating to me is the eclectic nature of the people living there,” Mr. Long said. “You’ve got rich, you’ve got poor, you have professionals, you have blue collar, and it’s that makeup that makes the Old West End what it is.”
First Published December 13, 2023, 12:00 p.m.
