Downtown Dayton Ohio 1970

8mm film shot in 1970 of downtown Dayton Ohio as part of a film project during my Junior year at Chaminade High School. Filmed by Joseph Slonaker, Gus Miklos and Steve Murphy. I remember we showed it in the auditorium set to the music of "Classical Gas". We wanted it to be "quick cuts" just like the famous film shown on the Smothers Brothers show of art work set to the same music. Of course we had no editing equipment, so we had to shoot it that way in the camera. It took weeks of walking around in our spare time to get this 8 1/2 minutes of film. Looks pretty cheesy now, but at the time everyone thought it was pretty far out and groovy, man! You can make out some of the old buildings of Dayton that are since long gone.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Dayton
• Ohio
• 1970
• Downtown
• Chaminade
• Gus Miklos
• Steve Murphy

[ocby2k]

Excellent! Joe, I just learned about this since uploading "Try For The Sun" which Gus put together and I adapted to video. You should check it out since a lot of it consists of your photos. Hope you are doing well; I'm back in Dayton now. Peter

[pakojoe]

@ocby2k Thanks, Peter, good to hear from you.

[Issicra]

I find this video fascinating. Just think.. a few high school kids made this almost 40 years ago with just a camera and rudimentary editing equipment. No Photoshop, no Vegas... or whatever. Nothing that kids can get their hands on today.

Great job

[pakojoe]

@Issicra Thanks for kind words.

[LizBizToo]

Truely 'groovy, man'! Much appreciation for posting this :)

[pakojoe]

@LizBizToo Thanks!

[themeaningoflife38]

looks like dayton was a filthy hell hole back then too

[johninloveindaytona]

I grew up on Rubgy Rd. just off Salem Av. I was 2 years old when you made this film. Thanks.

[ztwntyn8]

1968 Biscayne @ 1:13 my first car was a 68 Impala. same but with 3 tail lights on each side instead of the 2.

[shawnscottp]

Boy, I would love to see this in slow motion.

[nicms2]

So glad I stumbled on this. I went to CJ and am now a filmmaker (who also teaches film). I'm amazed that they let you screen this on campus. I got in huge trouble just for having the "F" word written on my shoe - some of the graffiti and images you included are more extreme. It's really interesting that many of the projects I see from young filmmakers in Dayton have a lot of similarities in theme, tone and imagery. Thanks for sharing!

[thelovelyrita65]

excellent job ..you can tell this took alot of work..and love love love the music..it was so the times

[kalib09]

Looks just as trashy today as it did back then

[paulj0557]

@Zeratul723 I'd say probably the kid's bank tellers on the poorer side of town? You can always pause a shot and take your time looking at it.

[john17175]

Gentlemen - this is awesome to see - I have been able to recognize almost all the clips - This is great context to compare the downtown of today with the downtown of 1970. It has taken decades to repair much of the damage and blight inflicted on the great place. Thank you for posting this - visit john17175 - may be using dome of the stills that you have in this for a future Dayton vid. John '71

[killjoy75ful]

Epic!! That is all

[badflamenco]

Thank you for posting this. It has been noted and appreciated by the members of the "Dayton Memories Blog" at "Dayton History Books Online". By all means join us and share. Views of Dayton in that era are a tad rare, and we would like to have your memories become part of the semi-official history of dayton and the Miami Valley. Everyone at DHBO thinks your work is excellent (if a tad dark). CONGRATS!