On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
frosty
As you can see from the first picture, this bank is undergoing restoration. It has been through several owners: the original bank, a trust company, a butcher shop, a jewelry store, and most recently an ice cream parlor. Each tenant modified the interior, usually badly. In 2013 the building was donated to the Licking County Foundation, which undertook several rounds of fundraising to restore the building. The basement and substructure was completed in 2016, the exterior facades in 2021, including removing a corner door and rebuilding the corner. The interior is being worked on now, expected to be complete in 2025.
This was Sullivan’s seventh and next-to-last bank commission. The exterior color scheme differs from his other banks, covered in gray-green terra cotta instead of red-brown brick. The ornamentation is similar however, and includes the same griffin from the Sidney Ohio bank.
View of the bank with other buildings on the street
Side view
When restoration is complete the building will be the home of Explore Licking County, which has embraced its history by renaming it the Louis Sullivan Building and putting this quote of his on one of the windows.
Side view
Ornament on the lower side
Ornament on the building nameplate
Upper left corner ornament
Griffin
Mosaic artwork on the front of the building
Mosaic detail, including the name of the architect, which wasn’t shown on the other two buildings I saw.
Lapassionara
Wow. Your photos are wonderful, and thank you for the knowledgeable commentary.
Ohio Mom
Newark, Ohio has a few other architectural wonders: several sets of earthworks, constructed by the long-gone Hopewell Indians, and the now abandoned giant basket building that was the headquarters of the defunct Longaberger basket company.
The arc of the Longaberger company was something like Tulip mania. The baskets, which were well-made but unimaginative, were all the rage of a subset of dumpy midwestern older women, who flocked to the basket factory as if it was Mecca. The overpriced baskets were touted as future heirlooms, which of course they weren’t.
Sometimes I think of the locals who got jobs making the baskets — talk about an untransferable job skill.
We drove by the basket building once, on our way from Cincinnati to I forget where. It’s cute. We stopped for lunch somewhere near the Longaberger factory campus, and that is where I saw all those women pilgrims and their bored husbands.
We didn’t know about the Sullivan building, else we probably would have gone downtown and taken a look. I can imagine Newark’s preservation effort is an attempt to recapture the lost Longaberger tourism dollars.
jame
I enjoyed your architectural photo journey.
Not to be picayunish, but that figure is not a griffin.
A griffin is “a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle with its talons on the front legs”.
A winged lion, which is what is pictured here, is a symbol of St. Mark, and also associated with the city of Venice.
delphinium
Lovely series-all the bank buildings inside and out are just stunning! Glad they are restoring this one.
Trivia Man
@Ohio Mom: that was certainly unique. Seems a shame not to use the building for something – artists workshops, maker space, hippie commune… it is an eye catcher.
My old town had a similar niche fan club on a smaller scale. There was a popular PBS show on sewing and once a year people flooded town to have workshops from Nancy. im sure many if them created things of use or beauty, instead if an heirloom basket collectible.
Ohio Mom
@Trivia Man: I have a vague memory of Nancy and her sewing show. Nowadays, she’d have a YouTube channel.
Ohio Mom
@Trivia Man: There have been several attempts to turn the basket building into something else (one of the ideas was a hotel) but they’ve all fallen through. I think the problem is, it’s not near anything except a sleepy town with a Sullivan building and some Indian mounds, and there are lots of other Indian mounds around this region.
It’s nearish to Columbus but not near enough.
Trivia Man
@Ohio Mom: Hippie commune! Or trying to catch the current wave, a kind of We Work space for short term Influencers. With the right marketing it can be a destination for them. But ill let YOU convince the locals that a ravenous horde of influencers flooding their their is a GOOD thing.
I guess back to HIPPIE COMMUNE as first choice.
Ken
You’re not foreseeing “Explore Licking County” creating a tourist boom?
All right, sex tourists, and smirking novelty sex tourists at that, but their money spends as well as anyone’s.
pieceofpeace
Thank you for this bank series. I loved the pictures and intricate work put into the structures, also your commentary alongside was most helpful to round out the life of these images.
frosty
@Ohio Mom: I can’t believe I missed the Basket Building! I need to improve my sightseeing game – Fodor’s didn’t cover that.
In my neck of the woods we have the Haines Shoe House.
frosty
@jame: You learn something new every day! Some of the references I was using called it a griffin. Oops.
Lynn Dee
I love this series of the bank buildings in (mostly?) Midwestern/Ohio towns.
frosty, have you (or anybody) seen the movie Columbus by the Korean-born writer/director Kogonada? (He also did After Yang.) It’s a lovely movie set in Columbus, Indiana, with the architecture of a number of its public buildings as a startlingly wonderful backdrop — including at least one bank! Since the characters include the son of a Korean architect who was lecturing at a local college when he had a stroke that left him comatose, and a young woman who grew up in Columbus and has an interest in architecture, the subject of the city’s various, mostly modernist gems comes up often.
Here’s a quote from Kogonada at the imdb web site for the movie:
Ohio Mom
@frosty: I will put the Haines Shoe House on my list for the next time we drive to New York.
For points of interest, I reccomend the Narrow Larry website. You’ll find everything from Sullivan buildings to outsider art environments on his maps. I’m sure he includes the basket building.
Ohio Mom
Finally, Jane Ware wrote two books on Ohio At hitectore, one for the cities and another for small towns. https://www.amazon.com/Building-Ohio-Travelers-Guide-Architecture/dp/1882203828
narya
frosty, thanks for these photos! I love well-made old buildings . . .
Xavier
What is the significance of “The Old Home”?
frosty
@Xavier: The Old Home was the commonly used name for the bank company: Home Building Association. I don’t know why.
KRK
Thanks, frosty. Another great set of photos.
scribbler
Sorry to comment so late-hope you see this, frosty! This bank series has been wonderful. Thanks so much for the photos and commentary. If you ever get to any more of these banks please post again in the future!
frosty
@scribbler: Will do! I’m looking at future trips now and trying to see if we can get to a few more.