Overview:
Editor's note: Signal Akron will be profiling each of the city's 24 neighborhoods. We're starting this week with Goodyear Heights and Kenmore.
The oldest-traveled road in Akron, now known as Manchester Road, tracks along the edge of the Kenmore neighborhood. The road follows the Portage Path, said to have been made by the hooves of buffaloes that roamed the area before it was used by Indigenous tribes.
Between 1910 and 1920, Kenmore rapidly developed into a self-sufficient residential area before being annexed by the City of Akron in 1929. Once a town of salt miners and rubber workers, the neighborhood is known today for its local music scene and the businesses along the historic Kenmore Boulevard strip. In 2019, Kenmore Boulevard was added to the National Register of Historic Places, the first Akron neighborhood business district with such a recognition.
“We’re really hard-working people, man,” Sean Blake said. “The people that live here, man, I wouldn’t trade them for anything else.”
Blake, who works for the City of Akron Water Distribution Division, is a fourth-generation Kenmore resident and holds fond memories of festivals and live music events when he was growing up in the neighborhood. Events such as the Kenmore Community Days Festival, which was held on Memorial Day, and a Halloween march from Shadyside Park to the high school, where children could win prizes for their costumes.
“I remember getting a dollar at one of those,” Blake said. “I was a traffic light, and it was a costume we made out of boxes and flashlights.”
Blake, now 29, said he came back to Kenmore not only because he loves living in the neighborhood but also because he wants to see the neighborhood get its spark back and see these events come back to life. “I’m trying to figure out what the magic question is: how to get young people to Kenmore.”
Charlee Harris’s family was forced to move their business, So Fresh Used Auto, to the Kenmore neighborhood in 2018 after losing their original space in East Akron.
The business operates as a car dealership and also sells new and used tires. In the same building is the East Ave Market & Gallery, where Harris serves as the creative director. She co-founded the neighborhood art spot with her sister, Louise Bane, and mother, Jacqueline Harris.
“I think there’s quite a bit of people who still don’t understand who we are and what we’re doing,” Charlee Harris said. “And it takes a minute for people to kind of walk by and be like, ‘Well, what’s going on here? I see art one day; I see tires another day.”
People such as Harris and Blake are working to bring back a stronger sense of place in Kenmore.
“The people and the neighbors and the sense of pride of just living here, that’s what makes Kenmore, Kenmore,” Blake said.
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Known for:
The Rialto Theatre, Live Music Now, Kenmore Komics & Games, The Dragon’s Mantle, Lay’s Guitar Shop, The Guitar Department
More about Kenmore:
A historic detour through Kenmore’s salt mines, buffalo trails and lost fire trucks
A Brief History of Kenmore on Around Akron with Blue Green
Early History of Kenmore By Vesta Heminger Ritzman
Kenmore by the numbers
Ward: 9
City Council member: Mike Freeman – Tina Boyes will become the new council member in January.
Borders these neighborhoods: West Akron, Sherbondy Hill, Summit Lake, Firestone Park
Area: 3.825 square miles
Residents*: 20,042
Avg. age*: Males, 40.1 years; Females, 40.6 years
Housing*: Average estimated value of detached houses in 2021 (79.4% of all units): Kenmore: $84,260 Ohio: $228,722;
Schools: Public: Pfeiffer Elementary, Innes Community Learning Center, Sam Salem CLC, Eagle Elementary of Akron, Garfield CLC
Read more: https://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Kenmore-Akron-OH.html
* Data from City of Akron neighborhood profiles.
