The Banana Peel was a small, local, and community -based sandwich and desert restaurant in small town New Concord, Ohio. It was built in the early 2000’s and had been serving loyal community members and visitors of the area until it was closed down in October of 2015 due to a heartbreaking lack of business.

The Banana Peel gave me my first job. I was just 16 years old coming into a new reality of working for myself and my high-maintenance lifestyle. I was offered a position as a server nearly immediately. We served lunch, dinner, and a full-blown Velvet ice cream selection. Our unique little restaurant had just 8 black tables and an 8 seat bar. The floors were a diner inspired black and white tile. The walls were painted a calming cream and covered in college pendants from around Ohio, John Glenn school artifacts such as old jerseys and helmets, and Ohio State memorabilia. It is safe to say that my beloved bosses truly appreciated and honored our community, while implementing it into their restaurant.

The Banana Peel is worth saving because it is where our community came together. It was the only eat-in restaurant in New Concord. Just in my short time serving there I met members of my community that I became so extremely close with. For instance, The Banana Peel proudly served Ron Vessles, a highly respected New Concord resident of nearly 80 years, on a regular basis. Mr. Vessles and I acquired a once-in-a-lifetime relationship. Being a cheerleader for John Glenn for many years gave me a responsibility of doing a senior athlete scrapbook for every season. While I enjoyed doing this for my peers as they moved on to the next stage in their life, it became a quit time consuming task. Mr. Vessles helped me with that! He would personally bring in newspaper articles from all of the surrounding newspapers into the high school office in a Ziploc bag with my name on it every Wednesday. He knew who my assigned athlete was and would cut out the articles that would fit appropriately. That’s just one example of the community we have in New Concord. I also met so many other respected community members through my serving job at The Banana Peel.

Funding The Banana Peel would be easy with proper advertisement and communication throughout the area due to New Concord’s high support within the community. A highly influential factor in The Banana Peel closing was its location. It was just a mile off the interstate on Route 93. If travelers knew about the relaxing restaurant, chances are they would stop for a quick lunch and desert. If The Banana Peel could raise money for a spot on the closest billboard, I am positive that business would have been booming. To raise money for a billboard, I would suggest a Buffalo Wild Wings or Chipotle fundraisers where 25%-50% of sales goes towards to the organization. A spot on a billboard through Barnes Advertising ranges from $190-$300. That’s only 150 sales! Also for funding, I would suggest reaching out to community members for donations and offering a spot for their family name or business on a sign inside the restaurant. Our community is really heavy in supporting by means of donation. For instance, our basketball and cheerleading Disney tournament trip was completely funded by our community… within less than a week! If efforts like these mentioned were made sooner, I’m positive The Banana Peel would still be living in New Concord.

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This Old Victorian style home is located in Lancaster Oh and should be saved by the historical society to ensure its preservation. This building is located at 632 North Broad Street and is currently a multi-family house that is vacant.

This building was built in 1900 and was originally used as the first hospital of Lancaster. Even though the amount of time this building was a hospital is uncertain,  it is safe to say that it was during the early 1900’s that this was a hospital. There was an addition added to this house in the late 1900’s but that addition is located in the back and is small in proportion to the original building. The architecture of this building can be described as Victorian with the structure built using brick.

This building should be preserved just because of the fact that it was the first hospital in Lancaster. Members of the community would feel great satisfaction knowing that this building was used as a hospital to possibly their ancestors. This building has major issues including chipped brick and old paint that should be taken care of to make the building more aesthetically pleasing.

The funding for this building should come from an historical tax credit so that it can be preserved by the historical society. Getting this historical tax credit should not be a problem because of the history of the building and the rehabilitation would not be that expensive compared to other buildings.

The Michigan Central Station-Kailyn Gullatt

(Fig 1)

Michigan Central Station is located in Detroit,Michigan. When Detroit was still known as Motor City ,and bankruptcy was far from concern, the train station functioned to bring thousands through cross city transport. As the desire to live in Detroit and the desire to use trains declined, the Michigan Central Station’s necessity declined. The building has been abandoned since 1988,but has served as a landmark for Detroit in various films and its architecture,(see Fig 2), has remained astounding

This Detroit Landmark should be saved because it’s still generating revenue in its decrepit state and maybe because of it.This means the building is unlikely to be torn down by the owners ,but vacant buildings are often a source for crime. With Detroit’s notoriously high crime rate leaving the building open is not an appealing option for the city. Michigan Central Station is an emblem for Detroit’s peak as the motor city and should be preserved as a piece of history.

(Fig 2)

The main issue with this Detroit building is that a full restoration  is expected to cost around a hundred million dollars. There have been multiple plans to restore this structure ,but due to lack of funding or commitment the building has not found new utilization. The Moroun family that owns the building replaced the windows in 2015 and since then no plans to progress have been released.

With the whole building costing so much to rebuild, the best option would be to do something that would not require a total restoration to generate money. If some of the bottom floor was restored it could be turned into an market for artists and farmers. This would leave an option to temporarily close when enough money is generated to cover a fuller restoration. At that point there would be an option to turn the space into a multi-floor shopping mall,apartment/retail, ,or even a wedding venue. Funding could be provided by potential vendors and communities of farmer markets. The Detroit Community Markets or even Detroit’s Urban Craft Fair may be able to assist in restoration in return for the space.