herr2ck: Columbus - Short North - High Street from 1st Avenue to Goodale Street

February 2026.

The Short North Arts District, colloquially the Short North, is a prime example of a gentrified neighborhood in Columbus. Much of the neighborhood is a long commercial strip on High Street from about 5th Avenue to I-670. Aside from the occasional date or parent visit, I never went there much in school, but it was a popular party spot for upperclassmen and rich students at Ohio State.

The Short North Arts District is located on the near north side of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by Smith Place and the University District to the north (I know most sources put the boundary at 5th, but the first arch is at Smith, and it’s where the urban fabric of the Short North begins), I-670 and downtown to the south, Pearl Street and Italian Village to the east, and Park Street, Wall Street, and Victorian Village to the west.

History

I’m omitting the history, which is covered in part 1.

Photos

As usual for these “dump posts,” this post covers a greater distance in less depth. Other places I have covered in more detail in this area include the Short North Historic District, Greystone Court, and Yukon Building. For the most part, this post will fill in the gaps between the historic districts (since I only put the contributing buildings in those).

Jane Quinn Building (861-867 North High Street)

A more unique building compared to the Commercial and more contemporary architecture we’ve seen thus far, this one is Arts & Crafts in style with its tile roof and subtle brick details. It was built circa 1920 and was apparently renamed in 1972.

854-858 North High Street

Although the first floor has been heavily modernized, the stories above have simple Commercial-style brickwork and corbelling. Here is one of the window bays:

Cornice corbelling:

The Dakota (845 North High Street)

Maybe I was too harsh on Wood Co…this 2006 building is just horrifically ugly. It has the classic overly simplified ornamental details of bad Postmodern architecture and has a general air of cheapness.

842-850 North High Street

Much of the brick facade is pretty bare here, but a shallow pediment, cornice, and some mosaic tile applied here would categorize this one as Renaissance Revival.

The smaller panel above:

800 North High Street

This was one of the few times I could get a properly angled and framed shot of one of the tall Contemporary buildings on the street, largely due to Hubbard Street running right towards the center of this building. 800 N High was built in 2018 and houses various offices, a hotel, and most notably the TownHall restaurant. Aside from its odd, dog whistle-y anti-GMO, anti-seed oil stance and only cooking with beef tallow, its owner Bobby George pled guilty to strangling his girlfriend.

Hubbard Grille/Winders Motor Sales Company (783-793 North High Street)

For whatever reason, this lovely hunk of terra-cotta lacks any historic designation whatsoever. This is unfortunate, because it is one of my favorite buildings in the Short North. I’d say overall it is a Commercial-style building, though it has certain Stripped Classical elements such as the ornamentation and twin portals. Additionally, the white exterior evokes the marble materiality of ancient Greek temples.

The horizontality and low stature of this building is so extreme that this photo almost looks squashed:

Based on the hierarchy that the exterior established, I bet this central area was once the main offices of the dealership:

One of the two entrances:

The sign on the parapet is also pretty neat.

Detail of the corbel ornament and the varying sizes of the masonry on the parapet:

I thought this picture of the sign was passable, but I wished I had came back at night with my camera to take one of it glowing bright red.

Luckily, I was there late at night with my phone, and had no shame in holding my group up to get this picture:

Just look at the way the neon makes the terra-cotta glow!

North facade of the former dealership:

This neon sign was on a building nearby further down Hubbard:

Short North Pint House (780 North High Street)

Pint House is the only Short North bar I’ve been to on multiple occasions, and it was always packed wall-to-wall with people. The building it occupies is a Commercial design built circa 1920.

One of the ornamental panels along the roofline:

Sign:

Axis Nightclub (775 North High Street)

I didn’t get a picture of the actual Axis building on Wall Street, which is an old brick industrial building painted gray, but I figured I could drop a bit of lore with this one. I went there exactly once, during the last couple months of my freshman year, with some of my friends and a (now ex-) girlfriend. Having essentially been straight out of the private Catholic military all-boys high school that I was forced to attend, it was very new to be at a drag show with my friends. I did enjoy the show itself, but I found the music to be extremely loud, and I felt very out of place. None of us got drinks (Axis has a reputation for people fiddling with them) except for one of my friends, and she immediately got sick and had to sit in the parking lot outside for a good while.

I never got an opportunity to go back again, but since I’m an introvert, I tend to struggle with more lively venues unless I’m very drunk. This was also the case with The GoGo, a gay bar in Italian Village.

Ohio Auto Sales Company Building (772 North High Street)

A photo of the building shortly after completion in 1915. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

This Commercial-style building has copious windows across the facade, original glass prisms above the storefronts, and some limestone ornamentation along the parapet. It was built between October 1913 and May 1914 for brothers Charles Zimmerman, O. S. Zimmerman, and W. B. Zimmerman, who founded the Ohio Auto Sales Company in 1909. Although they sold Dodge, Ford, and Regal cars, the company went out of business by 1921.

Detail of the glass prisms:

The second floor also has transom windows:

Central stone relief:

One of the smaller stone reliefs to the left and right of it:

Russell Street Baptist Church (27-29 East Russell Street)

Not every day you see a Commercial-style church, but it has the characteristics of the style such as the brick exterior and parapet shape. It could also be labeled as Craftsman, too. The facade is dotted with some stained-glass windows, but they are rectangular in shape and lack any Gothic or Romanesque flair as would be expected on a church of this vintage.

I like the rough glazed brick that the exterior uses, too.

The Cap at Union Station (569-600 North High Street)

Not sure WTF my camera autofocused on here…lol

I-670 (the Innerbelt), which connects I-70, I-270, OH-315, and US-62 and was built on the former Union Station railway yards, had begun construction in the 1970s, but it was left incomplete due to budget issues. However, construction on the highway resumed in the 1990s, and the section between OH-315 to the west and US-23 (3rd & 4th Street) to the east was completed and dedicated in October 2004. A section of High Street which bridges the expressway, known as “The Cap,” is lined by two buildings designed by Meleca Architecture (David Meleca, now part of Moody Nolan) to imitate the Union Station arcade.

The plaster exterior doesn’t hold a candle to Daniel Burnham’s beautiful stonework, though.

The little roof lantern above the entrance was not on Union Station and was of Meleca’s invention. I feel like this whole thing looks straight out of Las Vegas or some cheugy strip mall in Florida.

The illusion of the continuous streetscape kind of vanishes once you go west down Goodale Street, though, since the giant trench of I-670 is visible there: