In 1834, Ohio became a pioneer in providing services to people with disabilities by opening the Ohio Institution for the Deaf and Dumb on East Town Street. Starting with only 1 student, the school instructed more than 3,000 children by the late 1890s. In 1904, the name was changed to the Ohio State School for the Deaf.
The three-story brick school building had an eclectic design combining French, Gothic, Dutch and Jacobethan elements. The 2 main entrances on the east side featured buff-colored stone, floral decorated basket handle arches over the doorway and an inner band of grotesque human heads. Panels above contained inspiring quotations, and the shields flanking them bore back-to-back D’s reflecting the schools original name.
A larger brick residential and administration building dating from 1869 took up the north central area of today’s public park. Built in the French Second Empire style, it was designed by George Bellows Sr., father of the well-known artist.
By 1941, the school’s East Town Street buildings were severely dilapidated and the Ohio legislature authorized the purchase of 235 acres in northeast Columbus to relocate the school with the Ohio State School for the Blind. Due to World War II, construction was delayed and the Ohio State School for the Deaf did not open in its new location on Morse Road until 1953.
After the school left, the building was used for state offices, but the once thriving neighborhood went into decline. By the 1970s, the once grand school buildings were vacant and in disrepair. Plans to redevelop the main building into housing for the elderly were stopped by a suspicious fire that left all but one building demolished. The surviving building still stands next to the beautiful downtown Topiary Garden and Old Deaf School Park. It was recently restored and re-opened in 2013 as a new school, Christo Rey, which supports low income students with a college preparatory curriculum and mentoring internships to ensure their success in college. In 2017, the school graduated its first full class, with 98% of students being accepted into college.