restaurant in Columbus and Wendy’s was on its way; as of March 2011, the chain had over 6,500 locations, making it the world’s third largest hamburger fast food chain, behind McDonald’s and Burger King. Thomas named the restaurant after his fourth child, Melinda Lou “Wendy” Thomas. Photographs of her and other Wendy’s memorabilia were on display in this building until the restaurant closed on March 2, 2007, because of declining sales. The building was subsequently renovated to house the Catholic Foundation, and all traces of the original Wendy’s have been erased. In 1921, State Auto Mutual Insurance Company’s first office opened on this site in a two-story house that had been owned by Henry Plimpton; the company remained there until 1925. The Tivoli nightclub opened here in 1938.
10. 269 East Broad Street—Baseball Hall of Famer Larry MacPhail ran Ohio Motors, a Willys-Knight and Overland Whippet dealer, here in the mid- to late 1920s. He became president of the Medical Science Building Company in 1929, before he purchased an interest in the Columbus Red Birds, the St. Louis Cardinals minor league affiliate.
11. 280 East Broad Street—This building was designed by Frank L. Packard and opened as Memorial Hall in 1905. For a while, it held the second-largest auditorium in the United States; only New York’s Madison Square Garden was larger. The main room, 140 by 155 feet, seated five thousand. The stage measured 81 by 37 feet. Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, Will Rogers, Warren G. Harding, Billy Sunday, Sarah Bernhardt, Charles Evans Hughes, and Enrico Caruso are among the notables who appeared here. The building hosted concerts, graduation ceremonies, political rallies, auto shows, religious revivals, home shows, and nearly every other imaginable event for almost sixty years. By the 1950s, the building had fallen into disrepair, and no consensus could be reached on what to do about it. In 1962, county commissioners voted to restore and remodel the building into a museum, which became the Center of Science and Industry in 1964. When COSI moved to its current location at 333 West Broad Street in 1999, the façade was removed and the building returned to its original appearance.
13. Southeast corner of Broad and Sixth Streets—The city’s only high school moved here from State Street, later the site of Sullivant School, in 1862. The city purchased the lot from Trinity Church, which owned the property and had installed a foundation for a church but later decided to build the church at Broad and Third, where it still stands. The new high school, which became Central when other schools were built, was constructed on the existing church foundation. The original building was 60 by 100 feet and was buttressed by an imposing 150-foot tower; a 100-foot addition to the south in 1866 doubled the school’s capacity. Artist George Bellows graduated from this school in 1901. The school’s name was changed to High School of Commerce in 1911, and it remained so until it closed in 1924, when a new Central High School on the west side of the Scioto River took its place. The former high school building was used for city offices until it was demolished in December 1928. The offices of the Columbus Mutual Life Insurance Company later rose on this site. Bricks from the old school building were used in the construction of the former Players’ Theatre building on Franklin Avenue.
14. Southwest corner of Broad Street and Grant Avenue—The Samuel Strasser Rickly House stood on the site of this parking lot until the building was razed in 1960. Rickly was a banker who bought what had been the city’s “circus lot” in the 1860s and built a two-story brick home. Rickly founded Heidelberg College, where Rickly Chapel is named for him. He became superintendent of Tiffin schools before moving to Columbus, where he was elected clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives. He founded a bank with his brother in 1857 and organized Capital City Bank in 1875. When the first bank failed during the Panic of 1873, he paid every depositor in full. In 1880, a customer demanded money for a worthless security; when Rickly refused to pay him, he pulled out a gun and shot out both of Rickly’s eyes. Rickly survived, though, and lived twenty-five more years. Rickly’s son, Ralph, succeeded him at the bank and lived in this house with his young wife, Ida Harrison. But Ralph died in 1919, only thirteen years after his father, and his young widow became associated with this spot among later generations of Columbus residents. Ida Rickly married Walter Beebe Sr., and after he died, she married Sage Valentine. But the house became known for Ida, “the tulip lady across from the Seneca [Hotel].” Every spring, she planted massive, gorgeous beds of tulips that drew crowds of onlookers. She supposedly gave away all of the bulbs each year. Ida died in 1960, and sadly, her will stipulated that the beautiful house be razed. The spot has been vacant ever since.
16. Southeast corner of Broad Street and Grant Avenue—This twelve-story red brick structure with white terra-cotta was designed by Frank L. Packard and opened in 1917 as the Seneca Hotel. A four-story addition was constructed on the east side, fronting on Broad Street in 1924. This luxury hotel, which catered to long-term residents, had ninety-one suites, lavish ballrooms, and a rooftop garden. In May 1959, shortly after Fidel Castro toppled the Cuban regime of Fulgencio Batista, Castro’s sister and mother checked in at the Seneca and stayed until September, apparently because the new dictator wanted to keep them safe from his enemies. Front desk clerk Beatrice Rhodebeck told Dispatch columnist Mike Harden that Castro’s mother “always wore a complete black outfit, black veil, shawl, gloves; they went to Mass every morning.” She also said that Castro’s sister was spending money like water and “when Raul [Fidel’s brother] came to pick them up and saw the bill, he about had a heart attack. He jumped all over me and I jumped back.” She said that after the trio reached Port Columbus, Raul telephoned her and said “I have never had a woman talk to me like that, and one of these days I’m going to come back and take care of you.” Raul, who became the Cuban president in 2006 because of his brother’s illness, never did. For years, Woody Hayes’s Ohio State football teams stayed here on the night of home games. Woody sometimes paced the hallways to enforce the curfew. The hotel was once the home of the University Club, and after the Seneca closed the building was converted to office space for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. It stood empty for years after the Ohio EPA moved out in 1987 and was close to demolition a couple of times but has now been remodeled into luxury apartments.
17. Northeast corner of Broad Street and Cleveland Avenue—William
