Taylor Park / New Albany by John Fraim
The Bitter Withy
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We moved back to New Albany from Palm Desert, California in 2015 and have seen incredible growth in New Albany during this time. At the same time, I’ve seen much towards preservation of the old in New Albany. Things like this are important to me as I was a member of the Palm Desert Historical Society and joined the historical society in New Albany. They operated out of a famous settler’s home in New Albany. One of the first homes in our town. There was also something called the Taylor Farm I heard about from the historical society back here.
I was born in LA and have been bouncing between California and Ohio all my life. So, it was wonderful to settle in a town I felt I wanted to stay in. I began exploring New Albany with my camera and writing and posted a blog about the old farmhouse along Dublin-Granville Road called The Abandoned Farm. I stopped one day and pulled up beside the old brick house with the sheds in the backyard. I took photos of Taylor Farm and the sheds and posted them to my site and to our local post NextDoor Neighbor. The post had many responses to it on NextDoor Neighbor.
Years passed and New Albany has become ground zero for a transformative technology in the heart of Ohio. The greatest investment in the history of Ohio has been in New Albany. The major players of technology today are all in New Albany. Intel. Google. META. Amazon. The list goes on and on. All of this is happening just miles from our home in New Albany.
There is the motto of Ohio as “The Heart of it all.” New Albany seems to me, the true heart of a new Ohio.
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What is happening in Licking County now, just ten miles from the Northeast part of the 270 outerbelt going around Columbus, just east of New Albany and including towns in Licking county. The county about to see perhaps one of the greatest transformations that any county in America has ever seen. This Ohio farmland transformed into a key technology center of America.
It could be one of the key things that makes Ohio become the greatest state in the nation. A beacon for the rest of the states. Yet it is so un-Ohio to promote itself. The exact opposite of my home state of California.
So I don’t think people hear enough about the incredible potential for Ohio with all the current investment. Mainly in the NE section of Columbus and Licking County.
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Among all the growth in New Albany, there is the admirable by the city to preserve some of the old parts of New Albany. Taylor Farm has been perhaps the City of New Albany’s largest preservation project of something historic. Not only preservation of the original home, but also a large park area east of the Taylor Farm home that has walking paths and a large play area for children.
Tonight, much of the work is completed and the high weed area around the old structures are all gone and a beautiful little zen like park has replaced all of this. A couple pushing a baby carriage walks through the area tonight. My compliments to the landscape artist on this but then, not surprising for New Albany.
And, I’m out here, just a hundred yards or so from the old Taylor Farm house, getting a few photos in what photographers call”The Magic Hour” – right after sunrise and right before sunset. When the sun is most direct towards objects in the world.
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Taylor Park is Part of the New Albany Community
It’s around eight in the evening of a month like no other I’ve ever experienced. So many things of earth-shattering importance happening all at once, it is hard for the mind to process all of it. The world so angry. The two parties in total opposition in every way.
So, it was good to be out here at Taylor Park this evening to see the golden light of a fading day in Ohio. For me, always a sign of hope even at difficult times.