The Side of Portsmouth, Ohio That You Rarely See

Close to the intersection of Front & Court Sts is this dilapitated area of old run-down buildings and vacant, overgrown lots. One would think that the city would want to rid the area of places like this, and revamp them with newer housing, or perhaps develop the property for commercial land use, such as a hotel or restaurant to bring customers & tourists to the area.

The area in the video is immediately adjacent to the flood wall murals, and you cannot help but notice this lot as you stoll along Front St and glance at the murals.

The white wall at the beginning of the video is believed to be the wall to a food warehousing & distribution company. I start out walking down an abandoned alleyway between this building and the adjacent vacant lot, which looks like an overgrown jungle more than anything.

Next I came upon an interesting sight: an old railroad rail being used as a pole to help prevent vehicles from hitting the corner of a nearby garage.

At 1:18 I passed an old plastic garbage can filled with junk and old stagnant water, which itself was full of mosquito larvae. I found myself standing in the back of a couple old tenement buildings which 100 years ago may have been used as housing for families in the Boneyfiddle area of Portsmouth. Sadly, what was once the back yards of these buildings has now become the wastelands of these old buildings, full of trash, old bricks, wood pallets, and even a wooden staircase.

I continued on my trek, and had apparently discovered the corner "home" of a homeless man, complete with an old discarded mattress. The yard area surrounding the mattress had obviously been mowed quite recently, and it actually looked decent.

At 2:32, I found a glass blocked window, with one glass block broken. Inside this single broken block, a bird had made a nest. At 3:24, you can see just how close I am to the floodwall murals on Front St.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Portsmouth
• Oh
• Ohio
• Front
• St
• murals
• flood
• wall
• floodwall
• decay
• abandoned
• buildings
• decrepit
• old
• abandon
• poor

[MissStarStruck1]

I've lived here my entire life. I've watched it go down the drain. But raising our children here doesn't mean they will fail in life. Its not the town that will make you fail. It's the parenting an how you raise your child!!!! A child can fail even if you live in the best place on earth!! This town used to be beautiful. It's full of history and landmarks. An now welfare and druggies! Yes it's a crappy place but the people that don't live here, realize that not the whole town is that way! The

[CincinnatiGifts]

@MissStarStruck1- I know not the entire town is crappy. I lived there for 9 years. I didn't want to record the prostitutes and crack houses. Rather, I concentrated on one tiny section that people would likely never see, even if they'd lived in Portsmouth their entire lives.

[jakebarnes28]

Wow. Portsmouth is an interesting looking town.  Physically it has the raw material available for some interesting projects. It appears its people are holding it back (or some of them).

The videographer should probably agitate for enforcement of any city ordinances compelling property owners to maintain their property. If no such ordinance exists, lobby for one.

Don't tear down - learn from others' mistakes -- creatively REUSE.

Historic Districts WORK.

[CincinnatiGifts]

The videographer doesn't live in Portsmouth.

[bandito07]

how about instead of using time and energy videotaping and posting on youtube and complaining you use that energy to get some ppl together and clean the place up

[CincinnatiGifts]

The first step in fixing a problem is acknowledging that one exists. That's what I've done with my video. I live two hours from Portsmouth, so getting together a clean-up gang is not at all practical.

How about you get some people together and clean the place up, instead of wasting time on YouTube looking at other peoples' videos?

[robbins1980]

The city of Portsmouth shouldnt look like this

[geomarler]

Portsmouth is dying fast. The local govt is about as corrupt as it can get. Hookers roam the streets unchecked. Pillheads everywhere. Rampant unemployment. Crime is sky high and the police turn a blind eye to it all. It's sad really.

[THEXxPtOwN6xX]

He filmed like the worst part of portsmouth, there are nicer and cleaner areas, alot acually.

[NascarGuru88]

This is my hometown. It was in bad shape when I was four, five years old, but it's in horrible shape now. I live in Ashland, Kentucky now and am going to Shawnee State for the fall. Almost all of my family is from here and have lived here during the good times and bad times. I've wanted to help clean up Portsmouth for a while now, and while it's going to take much more than community service to clean the town up, I'm looking into doing some community service with the University to clean it up.

[KellyCreep]

I'm set to go to school there in the fall, and i recognize that the townies don't keep up with their shit. That's why I want to go to campus and learn about what I can do to prevent and maybe even improve the state of affairs this town is in. I'm ready to go balls to the wall. What this town needs is someone who will stand up for rightiousness, and who will not tolerate murder. Anything else I say would be seen as trolling, so I'm going to digress and leave it all for my campaign. See ya ;)

[twiztidjuggalo061]

@MrLongtimegone this is so true..im thank full that i just got out of there and moved to florida.i sitll have a lot of familt frinds and my daughter and son there but my kids r gona be with me and out of that shit hole verry soon..wooop wooop to p-town.but i think it will alway be trashy..and full of scum...there r now jobs,nothing..

[twiztidjuggalo061]

woooop woooop..to my home town..ps.their aint no cleanin up p-town its the shityest town in ohio nothing but drugs and muders..and poverty...

[xenophon10k]

@Chrispisz12 Though that area has potential (for a serious developer and architect), I would hardly say it is one of the nicer parts. Though after nearly fifteen years away from there, I don't know what IS one of the nicer parts.

[Annie4Bandit]

Choosing to raise children here should be considered child abuse.

By doing so you're setting them up for failure and stacking the odds against them.