Ram23

^^ Maybe she works at the Shell, in which case the only thing unbelievable about her post is that she hasn't seen worse. Aside from vacations and what not, that's the only place I get gas. I only need gas about once a month or so, but every time I'm there something bizarre is going on. The giant metal fence around it and seemingly permanent police presence has helped a bit recently, though, but that in and of itself could be seen as bizarre.

She doesn't sound dumb at all, it just sounds like you don't believe her, and I'm not sure why. Her post sounds pretty believable to me, especially the parts about cat calls and open air drug dealing (there are several places in OTR where this is somehow still commonplace). I've also overheard some pretty vulgar stuff shouted down the street at women, typically crossing a line into what even I'd consider threatening. When I lived on the corner of Walnut and Liberty, both the cat calls and drug dealing were daily occurrences. My wife (girlfriend at the time) would get hollered at almost every time she was on the street alone. There were a few times very late at night that I had the more industrious drug dealers actually approach me to try and make a sale, like I was the odd one out for being there for some reason other than that. Granted, this was years ago and that corner has cleaned up a bit since (at least on the south side of Liberty). It sounds like the woman above is a recent transplant to Cincinnati. If you're someone who moved here recently, you probably wouldn't know OTR used to be one of the worst neighborhoods in the country. It gets mostly good press now and especially great word of mouth. I have no doubts in my mind many people who end up working, living, or even visiting the neighborhood have a mistaken idea in their heads of what it's like, and are justifiably peeved when they get their rude awakening that it's got all the urban problems a gentrifying neighborhood comes with. Most of us here are immune to that because we've been around long enough to remember when it was way, way worse.

Meanwhile, the City of Cincinnati throws a collective tantrum at the mere idea of the streetcar crossing through Taste of Cincinnati. Folks in rural Indiana seemed to do just fine with hundreds - perhaps even thousands of cars speeding through their festival, yet Cincinnatians can't be expected to move a few feet out of the way once ever 15 minutes when a large train comes through at 2MPH? We should get the festivals back up to Fountain Square and use this town as a precedent.

^ Hopefully Cincinnati holds out as long as possible. There are probably 50 places in town currently to get a better burger, but they don't have the hype. Without the mystique of Madison Square Park, Shake Shack is just an expensive fast food burger. I had one out on Long Island once shortly after they decided to become a chain and remember regretting having not gone to a Five Guys or something. It gets talked up like In-N-Out, but it's not as good and has double the price point.

^ I think the monthly spaces available at The Banks garages have limited hours. You have to be out by a certain time when the Reds have home games, if it's a day game there's no reentry after noon, etc. If you lived there, you could live with that, but it's not ideal. The garage could seemingly offer residents a non-restricted parking pass for a higher monthly price, but I'd bet there's some sort of red tape in place preventing that.

Now 4 murders in 5 days, all within a few blocks of one another: http://local12.com/news/local/police-investigate-a-homicide-in-over-the-rhine I feel like it's been a few years since there's been a killing spree like this.

^ 3 homicides in 4 days in OTR. There were murders Wednesday night on Green Street and Friday night on East Clifton, as well. 15th Street surprises me, because as you mentioned Mecca brings pretty big crowds out there now. The other two locations aren't all that surprising.

I came across a book called "The Authentic History of Cincinnati Chilli" at the library a couple years ago, it's a pretty quick easy read but gets into a lot of the nitty gritty details if that's what you're into.

I had no idea the "hot mett" was an unknown outside of this area. I always call any type of spicy hot dog type sausage a "mett." I distinctly remember calling them that when I had a place in Queens with a little back yard and a grill - people must have assumed I was making some sort of weird baseball joke.

It's just spicy fried chicken. I don't get the hype. I had Joella's once and I'll take Richie's spicy chicken over that any day. The "Nashville" style spicy chicken is too sweet for my liking - it always tastes like it has too much brown sugar. It reminds me of chicken and waffles, but there's no waffle. Aside from the slightly sweet breading I don't think there's anything unique about the dish, as opposed to regional dishes like Cincinnati Chili, Poutine, and the Rochester Garbage Plate - all of which are rather unique creations, not just a recipe tweak.

^ I wonder how Google determines that. For "Cincinnati" it looks like they're inexplicably using 21C. New York City is more logical - it's City Hall.

For that portion where there are two Clifton Avenue's parallel to one another, the one that's on the west side is just signed as "Clifton Avenue" and the one that's east of that is "West Clifton Avenue." That had me confused once - if you didn't know any better, you'd be scratching your had as to why West Clifton Avenue was east of Clifton Avenue. The inconsistent signage like that seems to be the norm for any street outside of the basin, though - the West/East seems to be included on signs randomly. Also, the West/East divider is Vine Street, but for some reason last year about half way up the hill on Clifton west of Vine (right by the old incline pier), the city put up giant street signs that say "Begin West Clifton," even though it should have began back at Vine. Someone made an active decision to put those signs there recently and I'm not sure what the point was.

This has come up a few times before - Cincy and Cleveland feel more dense because the neighborhoods themselves likely are, but each city has more land taken up by things like undeveloped hillsides, flood plains, and industry than Columbus does, so the overall average density is much lower. Looking at a map of Cincinnati's city limits - nearly 1/3 of the land is either undeveloped hillsides or in the Ohio/Little Miami flood plain. The Mill Creek Valley is entirely industrial from St. Bernard to the Ohio River. The rail yards alone in Queensgate/Camp Washington are larger than all of Over-the-Rhine. That's a ton of acreage with 0 people per square mile.

While Tower Place mall was always dead, right up until the point it was closed for good and converted into a parking garage, the basement food court was always pretty popular. If you wanted a mall-like structure with some retail as a convention center component, you could use the interior of the block for that purpose. The food court in Tower Place was a completely standard mall food court, it was almost bizarre in context. A newer version could be modernized a bit, see Revival Food Hall in Chicago, for example.

MSP seems to me like the capital of the upper Midwest in the same way that Atlanta is the capital of the south. States like Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and even states as far away as Wyoming and Montana don't really have a "big city," so MSP serves that role. It's probably got the biggest catchment area of any major American city (Denver is similar in this regard).

^ I was in the same situation a few weeks back - I noticed a few months in a row of $1 or $2 more on my bill and gave them a call. I bought my router a few years ago but got one capable of higher speeds to they were able to flip a switch and give me 100 Mbps for about the same price I had been paying for 15 Mbps for the last 3 or 4 years. I suppose they don't automatically switch people over to the new rates/speeds because of hardware compatibility but you think they'd at least send out a letter or email or something to point this out.

The fact that the RFP calls for several individual security checkpoint buildings leads me to believe that it will be built like a fortress. I picture it set back from the street, surrounded by no cut/no climb fencing.

^^ You can also Google the exact text of the headline and look at the cached version.

Cincinnati's only semblance of a Chinatown is in Sharonville/Evendale. Sichuan Chili mentioned above, Imperial Inn, House of Sun, and 99 Restaurant are my favorites. There are also a lot of the typical take-out places that have "other menus." We go to China Food in CUF quite a bit and order off the authentic menu and it's good. I like their Fuqi Feipian. Also, so far as downtown goes, check out Yum Yum some time. The dining room reminds me of something out of a David Lynch movie.

Somebody botched this pretty badly... I know the revenue here should grow over time, but this estimate was way off: Original projections for the VTICA budget line for FY 2018 was $400,000... For FY 2018, the revised projection, based on actual Auditor values and VTICA invoices, totals $36,000 resulting in a $364,000 shortfall to the Streetcar budget.

It always amazes me when people try to sell houses worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars without paying someone with a decent camera and an eye to take photos. It puts you out a couple hundred bucks at the most. For example, here's a listing in North Avondale just shy of $900,000 and the photos look like they were taken with somebody's flip phone: https://www.coldwellbankerhomes.com/oh/cincinnati/961-avondale-avenue/pid_22836482/

Axe throwing seems, on the surface, a lot more dangerous yet less entertaining than a shooting range. Maybe OTR could use one of those - it could even be in a brewery tunnel, perhaps prohibition themed.

^ On a somewhat related note, 2 blocks south of that intersection, Central Parkway southbound has been limited from three to one travel lane due to construction. The road has been barricaded nonstop with large concrete barricades, for at least 3 weeks now. I drive that route into downtown almost every day during morning rush hour and this hasn't caused even the slightest delay or congestion. Central Parkway could also use a big road diet - by this measure it has 3 lanes but functions just fine with 1.

I just bought some chicken here last weekend: Feds: Busch's Country Corner owners committed millions in food stamp fraud https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/cincinnati/over-the-rhine/feds-tape-off-area-near-buschs-country-corner-at-findlay-market CINCINNATI -- The owners of a Findlay Market butcher shop committed millions of dollars in food stamp fraud over the course of eight years, according to the federal search warrant that led to a raid on the business Thursday morning. Authorities taped off Busch's Country Corner at about 11 a.m. to take photos and videos of the vendor's food and collect evidence, which the search warrant said included financial records, security camera recordings and electronic communications.

This probably won't take long: Groups prepared to sue Cincinnati over bump stock ban https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/05/10/groups-prepared-sue-cincinnati-over-bump-stock-ban/598772002/ Two Second Amendment advocacy groups have told Cincinnati they could sue over the bump stock ban passed by City Council Wednesday. Ohioans for Concealed Carry (OFCC) and the Buckeye Firearms Association have both sent letters to the city suggesting it could face expensive litigation. According to one of the articles, the law went into effect immediately, so anyone in Cincinnati who owned a bump stock at the time was instantaneously in violation of the law.