Previous Aerial ** Index ** Next Aerial
Third Street Viaduct Construction
Part 1 - Looking West
1959
| 1. | PRR Spruce Street Yard |
| 2. | Fly Town – Urban renewal and the construction of the Goodale Expressway
(and later I-610) will level most of this area in preparation for redevelopment. |
| 3. | The NYC (Big Four) main line skirting the north edge of the Spruce Street Yard. |
| 4. | Columbus Union Station |
| 5. | Once the Adams Express building later renamed Railway Express Agency. |
| 6. | The NYC (Big Four) freight house. |
| 7. | The double track PRR freight train bypass around the south side of CUS.
A freight train is strung out along the bypass track. |
| 8. | Track entrance to the B&O freight house |
| 9. | PRR yard leading to the PRR freight house |
| 10. | NYC East Yard |
| 11. | The Smith Brothers Hardware on Fourth Street. |
Background – In 1959 there was no interstate highway in Columbus. To drive to or from Clintonville and Worthington to downtown there were two choices. The congested very slow High Street or the one-way paired streets of Summit and Fourth Streets. The one-way streets ran from Hudson Street to E. Goodale Street at which point drivers had only one bridge over the Columbus Union Station rail complex – the Fourth Street Bridge.
The construction of the Third Street Viaduct and Goodale Expressway seen in this photo started a journey that would include the destruction of the CUS and most of the railroad tracks seen here. Interstate 670 would use the railroad’s right of way. Interstate 71 to the east would relieve High Street and the Summit/Fourth Streets.
The new Third Street viaduct would carry the Goodale Expressway and Summit Street traffic into downtown Columbus.
At about the same time the Fly Town community came under urban renewal and most of it was levelled. The new construction in the Fly Town area west of Neil Avenue included a high rise apartment building and many low level apartment buildings.
High Street through this area is now the trendy “Short North”. The early Twentieth-Century arches over High Street have been returned. The only thing missing is the High Street streetcar line.
