Growing up, I spent a lot of time in my family’s funeral home on Dayton’s West side, H. H. Roberts Funeral Home, doing normal things like watching Arthur and opening a pop that I could never finish.
Former Dayton Daily News Building. Credit: DDN
Nearly ever other day, after getting picked up from my school, then located in the Oregon District, we would head over to the Dayton Daily News building on the corner of Fourth and Ludlow Streets in downtown.
Reflecting a simpler, less technology-centered time period in our lives, Each and every single obituary and photo of the deceased had to be taken downtown to the building and handed to the obituary staff.
Now it’s done by simply via e-mail. I feel old, quite old.
The original building was constructed between 1908 and 1910.
The building saw expansions in the 1920s, 1950s and the 1970s. It was then given a facelift in the late 1980s, after being added to the National Register of Historic places in the 1970s.
In 2007, newspaper staff relocated to the current Cox Media Group Ohio headquarters, a former NCR building on South Main Street.
Only two months ago, the Schwind Building, completed in 1913, the year of Dayton’s Great flood, was demolished. 
A piece of Dayton and it’s news media’s history, and an integral part of the Dayton Daily News’ history is opening the gates for Dayton and its downtown’s future.
A five-story building with 200 student apartments will sit in this historic space, which will now provide housing for Sinclair Community College’s students.
Local downtown business owners and residents speculate that this will spark more revitalization in the downtown core.
The demolition on August 17th marked the first time explosives were used to demolish a building since the Lazarus Building was imploded to create space for the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in 1999.
The original Dayton Daily News building will remain standing alongside the new construction of 200-apartments for students.
The original Dayton Daily News building, modeled after the Knickerbocker Trust building in New York will remain standing even once the apartments are constructed.
Who says we can’t keep a piece of history?
Opinion
It’s oftentimes saddening to see something so historic disappear from the downtown scenery. However, it is heartwarming, exciting, and a beautiful thing to see the great progress in the Gem City. Housing for students could prompt other businesses including stores and restaurant to move downtown as a new market is created. So many voices were heard in the walls of the Schwind Building and even more voices were heard in the newspaper hundreds of employees worked to produce each and every day before the time of the Internet, smartphones, and Facebook. It’s inspiring to know how many journalists felt the same thrills that I did in this building during a completely time in media’s history. Here’s to the future.
– Hal David Roberts
Hal David Roberts is the creator, host, writer and producer of VOICES, he is a student at the E.W. Scripps Journalism School in Athens, OH, a former WHIO-TV intern, a former ESPN intern and TV host with more than 3 years of experience. I will be graduating from Ohio University in December 2013 with a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism with a specialization in English and Sociology.
Voices: Dayton 