What was Columbus like during the late 1900s?

Here is a photograph of the downtown area taken during the late 20th century.  Do you think it looks different from downtown today?  What do you notice most of all?

       There was a lot of change going on in Columbus during the late 1900s.  The population grew from about 539,000 in the 1970s to 711,470 in 2000.  The physical size of Columbus grew as well.  With the development of highways and the interstate system, people began moving out to the suburbs.  As a result, the city of Columbus began annexing, or taking control of, more land.  Look at the series of maps below.  Notice the big changes between the first map and the last map.

The Ohio Penitentiary, just before its demolition.

        With so many people moving to the outer edges of the city or into the suburbs like Westerville, Gahanna, and Hilliard, people in Columbus started worrying about how to attract people to stay in the city.  A period of revitalization began, with construction of new buildings and the demolition of old or unwanted buildings.  Union Station, the Christopher Inn, the Ohio Penitentiary, the Neil House Hotel, and Hotel Virginia were just some of the buildings that were demolished during this time.

          In an effort to draw people back to the downtown area and to attract visitors to the city, the Convention Center, Nationwide Plaza, City Center, and a new COSI were all built.  Additionally, new skyskrapers, like the Rhodes Office Tower, were constructed to appeal to companies who might want to remain in or move to the downtown area.
          There were a lot of exciting events happening during this time period as well.  A baseball team, the Columbus Clippers, began calling Columbus home.  The Columbus Crew, a professional soccer team, came to Columbus, bringing business, fans, and a new stadium.  The first Red, White, and Boom was held downtown, as well as the first Columbus Marathon.  There was a big celebration with the 500th anniversary of the voyage of Christopher Columbus.

      Due to the growing size and population of the city, as well as the ever-increasing number of visitors to the city, some accommodations needed to made during this time.  An outer-belt, a highway circling the city, was built to make to make traveling through and around the city easier.  Port Columbus, the major airport which had opened in 1929 and then moved, enlarged, and reopened in 1958, underwent massive renovations and runway additions several more times during the 1980s and 1990s.