Aerial Photo of Worthington, Beechwold and Graceland Shopping Center

This black-and-white, aerial photo shows a view of Worthington and was likely taken circa 1954-1960. The photograph is oriented with east at the top. 

In the far left, upper quadrant of the photo is the Colonial Hills neighborhood; directly below it is Davis Estates and Walnut Grove Cemetery. High Street runs left to right across the center of the photo on a slight diagonal. Meadowlark Lane is visible as a wavy street to the right (south) of Colonial Hills; across High Street (west), the area that will become Broadmeadows Boulevard is undeveloped. Further right (south), the Chaseland/Sharon Heights neighborhood borders the Ohio State School for the Blind, with its distinctive circular drive. Just to the right/top (southeast) is the Ohio School for the Deaf. Morse Road runs from the top to the bottom of the photo, with the Beechwold neighborhood visible to the far right (south) of the photo. 

In the lower right corner (southwest) of the photo is the Olentangy River; just above it is Graceland Shopping Center, which was constructed in 1954. It appears as a series of long buildings with gray roofs to the south of a parking lot. Homes throughout the photo appear as tiny white and darker dots. The photograph is darkest in the lower left and fades as the landscape retreats into the distance at the top. 

The photograph was taken by A.V. Shirk when he was a child, riding in his father's airplane. He writes: 

"In the 1950s, my father, Al Shirk, owned a small airplane, a two-person Ercoupe...in which he would take my mother, my brother, my sister or me flying all over central Ohio. On some of these occasions, I took my Speed Graphic press camera and took pictures. When I wanted to take a photo, I would pull down the window of the cockpit, and Dad would then turn and bank, to give me a good view. I suppose holding a large camera, with a leather bellows, that close to the slipstream would strike some people as chancy, but nothing untoward ever happened. We lived, at that time, at 525 Meadoway Park, in Colonial Hills."