Columbus can change police culture only by creating a new department
Fate of Clintonville landmark unclear
Responding to James Wynn’s Tuesday column “Rapid change needed in police culture”, absolutely nothing will happen to improve the situation unless and until the people’s representatives – elected city leaders – are able to claw back the powers they have unwisely ceded to the police union over the years.
The city of Columbus needs to create a whole new police department to parallel the existing one, and staff it with all new recruits and transfers from the old department who are willing and able to really protect and serve all the city’s inhabitants, citizens, and visitors. Assign the leftover arrogant, ignorant and racist cops to desk duty until they all just wither away.
Mike Howard, Westerville
When Tee Jaye’s Country Place took over the property at the corner of Morse Road and North High Street in Clintonville in 1992, the central Ohio restaurant chain considered removing a massive illuminated sign in its parking lot.
The neighborhood’s reaction, Tee Jaye’s President Dayna Sandsten said, was swift and unambiguous.
“People in Clintonville had a fit,” she said. “They were not going to let us take that sign down.”
The pair of parcels at 4910 N. High St. in the north Columbus neighborhood known for its opinionated residents has been home to a drive-up restaurant, a fried chicken place and now a Tee Jaye’s, but the gigantic sign endured through all of them. The neon sign features a curved arrow pointed squarely at the restaurant and is visible for several blocks. The marker is often incorporated into directions that neighborhood residents give to out-of-towners.
“Most of the time when people are coming in from out of town or out of state, (Clintonville residents) would tell them to come down High Street, or Morse Road, and turn when you get to the big, illuminated sign,” said Jim Garrison, a member of the Clintonville Area Commission.
Over time it became part of the neighborhood’s character, he said.
“When I’ve seen different shirts championing Clintonville from time to time, they’ll have the sign on it,” said Bill Owens, who runs the Clintonvillebeechwold Community Resource Center.
Neighborhood hopes sign will stay, even if Chick-fil-a moves in
When the property owner, a trust controlled by a California man, told Tee Jaye’s it would not renew the restaurant chain’s lease earlier this month, Clintonville residents bemoaned the loss of a neighborhood staple, but said they hope the sign will remain.
“I think we would really experience a hole in our neighborhood” if the sign was torn down, Owens said. “Quite a few people in Columbus have some affection for that sign. It’s a sign that tells me ‘I’m home.’”
The trust filed documents with the Columbus Department of Building and Zoning Services last week detailing plans to demolish the Tee Jaye’s building and replace it with a Chick-fil-a. Plans for the sign are unclear, and the man who controls the trust could not be reached for comment.
The sign no longer conforms with Columbus sign rules, but the marker was grandfathered in, according to building department Deputy Director Anthony Celebrezze. If the sign were torn down, any replacement would need to be significantly smaller to comply with city code.
Icon of the ’50s and ’60s drive-in scene
The marker first advertised the Jerry’s Drive-in restaurant, which opened in 1961, said Mary Rodgers, president of the Clintonville Historical Society.
“Before that, this would have been farmland and a big farmhouse would have sat on that property,” she said.
Jerry’s was a popular hang-out for local high schoolers, Rodgers said.
“It was a place to come and bring your car and sit and be seen,” she said.
Customers would pull into a parking space and waitresses called “carhops” would zip out to their cars on roller skates to take orders and deliver food. The eatery also offered sit-down service inside the building. The brand of restaurant was emblematic of the 1950s and 1960s.
Carol Ross, 76, remembers teenagers crowding into the parking lot after high school football games hoping to make a good impression with friends and students from neighboring schools. She compared the experience to a drive-in restaurant depicted in the classic television series “Happy Days.”
“You never knew what new cute boy or girl you might meet,” said Ross, who lived on the South Side of Columbus but had family in Clintonville. “It was a social life thrill.”
Nostalgia still reigns supreme
Sister's Chicken and Biscuits took
over the property in 1986. The eatery was an offshoot of Wendy's, which decided to keep the sign.
The sign's appeal stems from its uniqueness – the Las Vegas-style neon marker has few peers in central Ohio – and the memory of a simpler time, said John Defourny, a Clintonville real estate agent who once helped sell the property.
“It's about the nostalgia of going to Jerry's,” he said.
Defourny hopes the property owners at least keep the sign.
“It's a one-of-a-kind sign now,” Defourny said. “Whoever goes in there, it gives them an opportunity to be special.”
An effort to designate the sign as a historic landmark in the ‘90s was unsuccessful, Rodgers said.
Typically, an entire property receives that designation, not individual buildings or structures, said Mark Dravillas, planning division administrator for the city of Columbus.
Entire neighborhoods, such as German Village, also can be designated as historic.
“I'm not aware offhand of there being protection for a sign,” Dravillas said. “It's usually for a building or a site.” pcooley@dispatch.com @Patrickacooley