urbanpioneer

I went to several concerts at the Black Dome!!! I can't remember its exact location, but it was near the NE corner of Taft and Vine before University Plaza was built. During one intermission, it was so hot inside that some staffer came out and sprayed the crowd with a hose to cool us off! That may have been an MC5 concert. I also saw Alice Cooper there. Neither the Black Dome nor Ludlow Garage had seats -- we all just sat on the floor. There was another primitive and fleeting venue located downtown, maybe called The Renaissance, and all I can remember about its location is that it was somewhere between 4th and 5th Streets and Race and Plum. Sorry, but my memories of that period are a bit hazy IYKWIM, plus, so much has changed in the general area of the Convention Center since those days.

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/arts/2014/01/02/director-aaron-betsky-leaving-art-museum/

He STILL doesn't get it. Costs outweigh benefits? Where on earth did he come up with that? The guy seems to be pulling stuff out of his a$$ instead of doing actual research. Aren't there studies that refute his claim? First he stepped in it and now he's tracking it all over the rug. Sheesh.

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics/2013/12/30/smitherman-calls-uc-trustee-a-communist/

^I seem to recall seeing his name on both Cranley's and Qualls' donor lists this time around. Some people like to hedge their bets. IMO the loophole pointed out in the Beacon article isn't effectively much different than when a wealthy donor uses several family members' names as donors to get around campaign contribution limits. I've seen this a lot, going back many years.

Coincidentally, Aaron Betsky recently bemoaned the size of the Cincinnati Art Museum's endowment compared to the Indianapolis Museum of Art's in explaining why they got an Ai Weiwei exhibit and we didn't, while hinting that tax support could solve CAM's problem. Was he hoping to get some of the re-appropriated streetcar money that Cranley promised voters?

Sheer, shameless demagoguery and willful ignorance.

Tom Luken's rants about Cranley were absolutely stunning. His demagoguery has no bounds, and he was off the charts this time. I'm sure a lot of conservatives who contributed to the Cranley campaign, maybe partly on the recommendation of one of their favorite kinds of Democrat (Luken), are royally pi$$ed that Cranley didn't deliver. So Luken was probably taking care of Luken when he railed against Cranley. I wonder if Charlie's decision not to run for judge of probate court has anything to do with the uproar? The streetcar issue has brought out the hidden Shakespeare in some of the opponents. King Lear, Richard III, and Thersites come quickly to mind.

Funny you posted that old postcard link -- my grandparents' residence was likely one of those in the foreground, on Dorsey Street. I've seen the postcard before. Kramer, the publisher of the card, is a good resource for getting the feel of old Cincinnati. The Ohio Bookstore on Main Street published Kramer's Pictorial Cincinnati many years ago. I used to lend it to people but unfortunately someone failed to return it (can't remember who, dammit). There were great photos of long-gone institutional buildings, mansions, landmarks, etc., including photos of Lincoln Park in the West End during its genteel period, which are particularly evocative.

^ I love those Ohio Memory Project photos. OMP was a WPA program whose mission was to pictorially catalogue potential [urban] renewal sites. At one point my Italian grandparents lived near this one in Mt. Auburn: http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p267401coll34/id/4415/rv/singleitem/rec/1

Ditto. Not a comprehensive account. I guess the NYT didn't want to devote very much space to the story. At least it identified two of the [sore] losers, Cranley and Smitherman.

Not sure if it's true or if you've discussed this earlier, but someone recently told me that Cranley's divinity degree is just an honorary one -- something bestowed on him for some extra-curricular activity he performed in school or maybe as a favor done for being a pet. Anyway, I was told it's not really uncommon for Harvard to do this kind of thing to help a grad pad his curriculum-vitae.

I try to be a bit more circumspect when making comments using my FB account, but I howled when I read this comment yesterday on cincinnati.com in reply to its editorial, http://news.cincinnati.com/comments/article/20131219/EDIT01/312200027/EDITORIAL-Streetcar-saga-gets-its-happy-ending : "Mayor John Cranley gets credit for consistency and expressing legitimate concerns. He inherited a mess not of his making....." Sorry Enquirer. Cranley inherited a project that was ahead of schedule, and on budget. That is not a mess. The only mess is his continued grandstanding instead of leading. The guy will go down as the worst Cincinnati mayor in over a century. You can't lead by being an abrasive dick. Few people like this man, and many more are just flat out scared of him. When Santa Ono and our Fortune 500 executives won't go on the record about the streetcar you know this is a guy that just won't get things done. Luckily for him, his wife makes all the big bucks owning Gold Star Chili. I think being mayor is just a game to Cranley, something for him to do to get out of the house. Let's not make the same mistake again. PG for mayor in 2017.

The NYT is nationally distributed and it may be of national interest that a [local] Democrat pandered to the Tea Party and got elected and almost delivered the goods with dispatch. As far as some recent comments go, FWIW I think it may be a bit naive and idealistic to expect purity of process and flawless execution from council members. I for one am happy with yesterday's results and don't want to dwell too much on the details of sausage-making. Council did the right thing in the end and that's what matters most to me.

Um, he may have told Keven Flynn to vote his conscience as he claimed yesterday but I wouldn't be surprised if he added that he'd do everything he could to make the guy's life miserable if he did. Mr. Flynn, who is after all a newly-elected first term council member, performed the job that the mayor should've in seeking and securing the help of the private sector in light of John Deatrick's and KPMGs predicted costs to cancel. And never forget the ELEVEN ordinances he pushed through to prevent a referendum. In hindsight, we can now see that it could be the case that Flynn and Mann, coupled with their lack of information about the streetcar, may have been indulging a new mayor during his "honeymoon" period when they voted yes on those. I'll have more respect for the mayor if and when he demonstrates a sense of fair play and serves Cincinnati instead of his political ambitions.

It's too bad that Ryan Messer was out of the country and couldn't be in council chambers yesterday during the vote. He deserves a huge thank you for not only his organizational skills but his ability to influence The Enquirer's editorial board at a critical time. Even WLW'S BC called him a "reasonable guy" when he was a guest on his radio show. We're really really lucky he came on the scene when he did.

Smitherman has benefited from the constant exposure he gets on talk radio and public access TV channels. I guess we'll find out before long just what kind of mischief he intends to cause. It's hard for sane people to get inside of the mind of someone who's so irrational and willing to perpetuate the ignorance of low-information voters of all races. There's no denying that politics in this town have a peculiar mix of strange bedfellows.

A lullaby for Mr. Streetcar:

December 2013 - John Cranley's Mensis Horribilis Hopefully the mayor will stop using the Luken Playbook. Times have changed.

Well, one can always dream!

If Cranley succeeds in killing the streetcar, I'd bet good money he'll challenge Wenstrup in 2014 while his political "victory" is still fresh in peoples' minds. Plus, it's in his interest to get out of Dodge before the cancellation bills come due.

I told y'all it was wrong to write off Murray. She looked very discouraged that she was dismissed so quickly by people during the first week on council. I may not agree with her on ANYTHING...but ultimately this is a vote on fiscal responsibility and it's becoming clear to just about everybody how fiscally irresponsible it would be to cancel the project. Amy Murray was visibly rattled immediately after John Deatrick's presentation to council re: cancellation costs a few weeks ago, saying she didn't believe them. Now KPMG has basically confirmed Deatrick's scenario, except they predict lower operating costs! Is she rattled yet again? Will she do the fiscally responsible thing and vote to continue construction? I certainly hope so, but I'm not optimistic since she supposedly said recently on talk radio that "the streetcar will be a rolling homeless shelter".

The lede should be Job Killer John vs Ironworkers. Tragic.

Seems there's been a pro-streetcar speaker regaling socialism. A plant???

Cranley talked about 3CDC's ROI in his presser. Omitted was one big reason it's good: because they've enjoyed a virtual monopoly on OTR redevelopment which has kept rents high. It was interesting to read a couple of weeks ago that one of their tenants on Vine Street has to move because he can no longer afford the rent. That's what this is all about. The guy who came up with the Hop-On-Cincinnati idea also is a big real estate developer. Bottom line: the big guys don't want the competition that the streetcar will spur.