German Village’s Remarkable Balance
Today, German Village is a model of urban neighborhood preservation and revitalization –
a nationally recognized success story. Established as a historic district in the National Register
of Historic Places in 1976, German Village was locally designated under a city ordinance in
1963. Once a solid 19th-century working-class neighborhood, the Village deteriorated into a
20th-century example of urban decline. Now revitalized by the determination and hard work of its residents, the Village enjoys a new life – a special way of life we intend to preserve. This brief overview presents the barest highlights of its history.

A Healthy, Happy Neighborhood
Initially platted in 1814 in Columbus’s South End, the German Village area primarily developed between 1840 and 1914. Spearheading this development were German immigrants who arrived between 1830 and 1870. German immigrants who arrived in the South End in the 1850s immediately felt at home: people spoke German in the stores, schools, and churches; their homes were solid yet unpretentious. After work, bakers, stonecutters, storekeepers, carpenters, tanners, bricklayers, and brewery workers relaxed in nearby bier gartens. Most belonged to gymnastic and singing societies. This simple, yet distinctive working-class neighborhood was a little bit of Germany.

These South Enders had little time or money for extras. As the local newspaper, Der Westbote, described in 1855: “The people who live in these small houses work very hard. You will not find silver on the doors, but you will find many little gardens which produce vegetables for the city’s market. You will not find silk or other very expensive things; but the houses are very clean, the people work hard, and are very healthy, and they are very happy.”
Early residents built their homes and businesses in the north and west sides of the Village, in
the vicinity of City Park, Third Street, and Livingston Avenue. By 1856, few had settled east of Third Street. Still waiting to be developed was the area below Kossuth Street, the city’s southern boundary. By 1872, area development forced Columbus to extend that boundary.
The city turned Stewart’s Grove into a City Park surrounded by empty building lots in 1865. When
it was renamed Schiller Park in 1891, those lots were not so empty. Settlement in the area north of Whittier and west of Mohawk was becoming fairly dense. The majority of the Village’s existing buildings date from the last quarter of the 19th century.
German Village grew and developed before anyone thought of zoning regulations. As a result, businesses were scattered throughout the neighborhood, though few blocks had more than
one or two commercial buildings. This allowed the Village to retain its predominantly residential character. Typically, a business owner set up shop on the first floor and lived above the store.

A Declining, Deteriorating Neighborhood
Under Columbus’s first zoning ordinance in 1923, the South End was zoned for manufacturing and commercial use. Such zoning permitted virtually any land use and ended the original residential quality of the neighborhood. This zoning classification accurately reflected changes
in the area that began during World War I and would continue through the 1950s.
Social and political changes combined to send the neighborhood into decline: As Germans became Americanized, they depended less on the traditional German community. Perhaps most devastating was the onset of World War I, which stirred strong anti-German sentiment in Columbus’ largely American-born population. German books were burned, German newspapers closed; speaking German was also verboten. Officials renamed Schiller, Germania, Kaiser, and Bismarck streets as Whittier, Stewart, Lear, and Lansing Streets. Schiller Park became Washington Park.
When Prohibition (1920-33) closed the doors of South End breweries, the German workers were forced to find work elsewhere. They also found homes elsewhere as a trickle of South Enders began moving to newly developed suburbs. After World War II, that trickle had become a flood, accelerating the neighborhood’s decline.

A Vibrant, Rejuvenated Neighborhood
Urban renewal’s bulldoze-and-rebuild philosophy hit Columbus’ South End in the early 1950s. Using federal Urban Renewal Program funds, the City of Columbus leveled large areas, including the northern third of the old South End between Main Street and Livingston Avenue.
The remainder of the South End was seriously deteriorated and a prime candidate for leveling. But then neighborhood activism intervened, embodied by Frank Fetch, the founder of the German Village movement. Fetch purchased his first property in the South End in 1949 in the belief that the area could be restored to an attractive, livable neighborhood. Energized by Fetch’s spirit, activists formed the German Village Society in 1960 to promote the preservation and rehabilitation of the neighborhood.
At the time, Fetch’s dream of reversing urban blight through preservation and rehabilitation was
a radical approach. Ironically, the same characteristics that urban renewal studies of Columbus used to describe “blight” are the very attributes that give German Village its unique and app-reciated character today-small lots, narrow streets, and the absence of new development. Those attributes brought working-class people armed with dreams and elbow grease back to German Village. Significantly, this Village revitalization has been privately funded without the aid of government programs or subsidies of any kind.
The City of Columbus officially recognized historic preservation activities in its South End in July
of 1960 by renaming the area German Village. The City also established the German Village Commission as an advisory body to study neighborhood needs and recommend legislation to further the area’s preservation.
In the early 1960s, the German Village Society worked to have the entire area rezoned. It changed from manufacturing and commercial to AR-1, high density residential. This classification eliminated industrial uses and limited commercial uses.
Working together, the Society and the Commission made a positive impact on the Village in a very short time. According to building permit records, in 1962 owners and investors made over $1 million in improvements. At this time, some buildings had price tags under $5,000.
In 1963, the Columbus City Council passed Chapter 3325 of the Columbus Zoning Code, creating the German Village Historic District. (See Appendix D.) This ordinance also gave the German Village Commission design review authority. Thus, the Village became one of the nation’s few historic districts with an architectural review board to preserve its character.
To protect the residential quality of the neighborhood, in 1972, the Society pushed re-zoning of
the Village, except the commercial area along Livingston Avenue. The current R-2F classification limits residential development to single and two-family units. It permits a few other uses: only schools, churches, public parks and playgrounds, public libraries, and public museums.
Today, German Village residents are a diverse group; like Frank Fetch, they all have dreams. Some of those dreams involve living in a distinctive, historic neighborhood where property values are still going up. They involve being part of a vibrant community that retains a sense of the past. And, they involve taking special care to ensure preservation of the Village’s visual qualities and unique beauty.