Our feature OKI Wanna Know digs into our local history, uncovering answers that sometimes have been long forgotten. This week, we look at a neighborhood name.
Bryan Evenson says as long as he's lived in Forest Park, he's noticed references to something called "Parkdale."
"This has always annoyed me," he says. "And I didn't know where it came from. This summer, when I was in the Forest Park Library, I saw a plaque near the front that said 'Parkdale Branch.' So my question is, what is the origin of Parkdale for the Forest Park area?"
Simply put, the name is a portmanteau of Springdale and Forest Park. How it came to be is a little more complicated.
Greg Hand runs the Cincinnati Curiosities blog. Years ago, he was a reporter.
"I worked for a newspaper that is now defunct, called The Valley North Press. I was assigned out in the Springdale, Glendale, Forest Park — that sort of area."
This was in the 1970s. Hand says he doesn't recall anyone referring to a Parkdale neighborhood.
"In fact, the communities were rather new. Forest Park was kind of an extension of Greenhills. Greenhills was this planned community that was developed in the '30s by the federal government as one of their green belt projects."
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Hand says these new communities didn't always sit well with the folks who already lived in the area. He says there was a rivalry with the newcomers and residents in the established communities of Springdale and Glendale.
"These newcomers, these par venue communities developed along I-275, and grew so quickly that they needed services," Hand says. "It was imperative to provide these services, and so what they did was take them away from the older communities."
And there was some competition for those services. Shaun Davidson is the manager of the local library branch.
"When it became known that a branch was going to be located here in the northern part of Hamilton County, the Forest Park Women's Club took it upon themselves to spearhead a campaign to get the new branch located in Forest Park," he says. "They didn't want it to be built in Springdale, or anywhere else."
Davidson says members started a letter-writing campaign, attended meetings, and got the support of the mayor and other local officials.
"When this building opened in 1969, it was called the Parkdale Branch Library," Davidson says.
Hand says the library wasn't the only thing up for grabs. He says Greenhills wasn't happy to lose its post office to Forest Park. He says these nascent neighborhoods did have issues of their own.
"Because they were new communities they were not as defined as the older established communities," he says. "And so when you're there on the borderlands between Springdale and Forest Park, and somebody says 'Where do you live?' instead of saying 'I'm kind of near the boundary of Forest Park and Springdale,' Parkdale — because of the post office — becomes a convenient locator for you."
Hand says Parkdale isn't the only place like this in the area. He says in eastern Hamilton County, there's Cherry Grove. On the west side, there's Covedale.
"There are a bunch of these. One is Bridgetown. Everybody who lives there knows they live in Bridgetown, but try to get them to draw the boundaries, nobody knows where it is."
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As for the Parkdale Library, Davidson says it was renamed in 2001. "I think just to reflect the actual geographic location. As people started to get more connected online, they kind of weren't sure where the Parkdale Branch was. I think renaming it to Forest Park reflected more where it's actually located," he says.
Davidson says a new Forest Park library branch is expected to open in 2024.
"And just as in 1969 when the current building opened — then it was the largest branch in the county — the new Forest Park Branch will again be the largest branch in the county at over 26,000-square feet."
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