HIGHLAND HEIGHTS and WILDER
June 2006
PART 1
Highland Heights, KY! My original hometown!
And Wilder too!
This was a Roads Scholaring outing where quantity, not quality, of photos mattered, as a lot of the pictures in this 2-part set are attempts to show things that can be seen with the naked eye but seem to magically disappear in the photos. But, as I like to say, read 'em and peep. (Sort of like that Barry Manilow song.)
I hate to start this batch with such an unsavory sight, but anyway this is the end of Veterans Drive in Highland Heights. Veterans Drive used to be the northernmost section of Main Avenue, but it was cut off here by I-275 around 1974. You can see I-275 in the background: It's the pair of parallel gray strips just above the center of the picture. Highland Heights is bizarre in that most dead end streets that don't have a house at the end have a trash pile instead. Veterans Drive, however, just has that bulldozer. The bulldozer has probably been sitting there since I-275 was built, but to be on the safe side, I'm assuming it's new and that it signifies that this scene (for what it's worth) is endangered. Veterans Drive ends just behind the bulldozer; it used to continue downhill to the part of Main south of the freeway.
I want to reshoot this scene if I have a chance. This is Sunset Drive approaching University Drive. In person, it provides one of the better views in the area: I could clearly see the retaining wall for Lehman Road in Cincinnati, 7 miles away. I don't think you can see it in this photo (though the horizon is still 7 miles from here), though it may be the almost imperceptible horizontal line just below the horizon, one-third of the way across the picture.
This is about where University Drive becomes Three Mile Road. I'd guess that the building you see near the horizon on the left side is Cincinnati Bible College, which is 7 miles away. Lehman Road would probably be just to the right of the streetlight that juts above the horizon.
This is from about the same spot as the previous pic. What I assume to be Cincinnati Bible College has moved to the right-hand side of the pic; the high rise along Matson Place in Price Hill (also 7 miles away) is now visible near the left side of the horizon. Three Mile Road, meanwhile, is about to descend a steep hill. You see I-275 passing over Three Mile.
Now we're past I-275 on Three Mile, right after entering Wilder. I consider the entire road from I-275 onward endangered. Backcountry roads this close to Highland Heights just don't last very long these days without being spoiled by development, so I had to take several photos before it was too late. Though it looks like a minor road, this is a state route - KY 2238.
Some background: Three Mile was split by construction of the I-275/471 interchange that commenced around 1974. A full mile of this road was lost for good. That saddens me. The other section of Three Mile is way up by Veterans Drive. I did go down there on this trip, but that road just trailed off into gravel, and there was probably an Allowed Cloud against continuing further.
A bit further on Three Mile, approaching a one-lane bridge and Gibson Lane.
Gibson Lane. I deem this just as endangered as Three Mile.