Downtown business pick up pieces
‘Everybody’s getting back to normal as quickly as possible.’
Downtown businesses and residents wasted no time cleaning up, working as early as Sunday morning after the protests Saturday to pick up the pieces, sweeping up broken glass and boarding windows and doors.
Chris Riegel, owner of Stratacache Tower downtown, said two of the tower’s structures were tagged with graffiti; all of that was cleaned up by noon Sunday, he said.
“Police showed just incredible restraint around it,” Riegel said. “But there were clearly large groups of agitators. They weren’t near the peaceful protesters. They were here to cause destruction, no question.”
The tower at Second and Main streets, downtown Dayton’s tallest, had a heavy security presence Saturday.
“What we saw is that having a heavy security presence at your building, even though there were problems, we were able to react quickly,” said Riegel, who is founder and chief executive of international digital signage business Stratacache.
“If you have security there and you make yourself visible, you can at least defend your property.”
“Everybody’s getting back to normal as quickly as possible,” he added.
But even as businesses were cleaning up, other downtown institutions were preparing for further protests. Sinclair Community College advised employees to leave the downtown area by 3:30 p.m. Monday in anticipation of continued protests and the blocking of streets by city and police vehicles.
“It has been my personal experience on both Saturday and Sunday that it is very difficult to find a route out, and to drive away from downtown, when most of the streets are physically blocked by heavy trucks and construction equipment,” Sinclair President Steve Johnson said in a tweet.
Sandy Gudorf, president of the Downtown Dayton Partnership, said that by about 2 p.m. Sunday, much of downtown was cleaned up, thanks to cadres of volunteers, many of whom showed up without prompting or organizing.
“I think overall the mood is good,” Gudorf said. “There’s some disappointment out there because of what happened. Like on so many other days, Dayton just picks itself back up and moves forward.”
Partnership ambassadors were cleaning up and removing graffiti tags Sunday, of which there were a “substantial number,” Gudorf said.
“We wanted downtown to look good for the start of the business week,” she said.
“Random” people on the street Sunday often stopped and asked if they could help with the cleanup work. “We said, ‘Sure.’ We gave them a graffiti removal kit and let them go to work.”
Gudorf doesn’t believe the protests were “specifically directed” at Dayton, but she said work on race relations needs to continue. “Our community is committed to building strong race relations,” she said.
“The city of Dayton and the Downtown Dayton Partnership did a tremendous job restoring the business core of our community,” said Chris Kershner, executive vice president of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. “It was a beautiful morning and downtown was safe, clean and secure.”
On Monday, some signs of damage remained. Others had boarded up windows or doors before protests began.
Graffiti was obvious at the federal building; doors and windows were boarded up at MJ’s bar on Jefferson Street, as were doors and windows in the nearby Fire Blocks district, along East Third Street. The Old Courthouse at Courthouse Square had a boarded window pane.
Teri Macaulay, Marge Etson and Jeanne Keffer on Monday attended to large planters on North Ludlow Street.
“We’re with the Four Seasons Garden Club,” Macaulay said. “There are volunteers from the Downtown Dayton Partnership, too. We’re just planting planters and trying to bring some beauty downtown.”
“It was all planned, actually,” Etson said. “We were coming here on Monday. It’s not in response to the” protests.
Matt Webster stood outside Don’s Pawn Shop, 107 E. Third St., smoking a cigarette Monday morning. He said shop managers decided to close and lock up early Saturday.
“We’re fine,” said Webster, who works at the pawn shop. “We have these big pull-down gates that come down, that we pull down every night. We didn’t get any damage.”