Ram23

Call him what you will, but he is manning an artisanal Popsicle cart.

Normcore is even harder to define than hipster fashion. I think it requires a bit of grunge and an active attempt to look normal. You can accidentally look like a hipster, for instance if you’re an actual lumberjack. You can’t accidentally be normcore, because then you’re just normal. One’s active participation is required to be normcore. You have to be aware of fashion trends, and actively avoid them at all costs. If you avoid fashion trends because you and all your friends get your clothes at Meijer, you can’t be normcore.

MPMF has released the schedule (with a few more spots still to be filled): http://cincymusic.com/news/2014/08/mpmf-14-schedule-released

So you want to replace the property tax levies with a regressive sales tax? The problem is that cultural assets in general provide a benefit to the entire region. Making property owners in Hamilton County carry the entire burden is not ideal. A sales tax at least spreads around the burden of funding to people who live throughout the region. Ideally, there would be a metro-area property tax but the people in butler county who believe their world would exist without Cincinnati carrying most of the region's burdens would never go for such a thing.

I walked by today and spotted trucks on site from Otis (elevators), and electrical/telecom contractor, and a surveyor. The interior of the shops/storefronts had paper up over the windows and lights on inside, there appears to be some work going on in there as well. I also spotted some people up in the 8th floor windows, which serve the main lobby of the hotel. I wonder why this hasn’t made an appearance in the Courier or Enquirer??

Could the convention center just market other hotels in town instead of the Millennium? I know it has the advantage of being connected (though I imagine it’d be possible to eliminate the skywalk between them), but if group rates, deals, etc. were simply set up with other hotels unless the Millennium agreed to renovate that could light a fire under their butts.

If you look at the auditor info for the parcels, the mailing address for tax purposes is often the mailing address of the owner (even if the owner is an LLC and has an agent listed as point of contact). If you look up the mailing address, you get the owner.

They are not. This is the second bathroom and it's on the top floor of the house, which I basically never use. It serves two bedrooms up there, 1 of which is an office I never use and the other is a guest bedroom. The master bath is actually on the lowest floor, which opens up to the back yard because of the way the lot slopes. It works perfectly fine and actually has some nice fixtures (was redone in 2002) but it is hideous. I don't even want to show it here. I'll probably get around to replacing the vanity, tile, paint, etc. this winter. The floor in the master is actually heated, so I may end up keeping it.

I find it interesting that Japp’s isn’t going to be a venue anymore. I assume they figure they’ll make more money by serving the crowd that comes to OTR but isn’t into indie music. I think it’s a telltale sign of how much that small area has changed over just the course of a few years. I wonder why Grammer’s isn’t going to host this year? That place is a potential gold mine, it’s such a shame it’s still shuttered. It could be very popular if run well. As for Moerlein, I have no problem with the outdoor stage there but the interior is awful for acoustics.

^ Agreed, I don't think city council would vote to take their own power away and give it over to the mayor, even if a majority happen to be politically aligned with him (sometimes). Though if it did end up on a ballot, it would depend on the expected turnout and how it gets marketed.

^^I only had to re-do plumbing in certain spots where the pipes had frozen and burst (in exterior walls). The rest were in good shape, and luckily the water heater, mechanical, and electrical had all been upgraded around 2002 and worked perfectly. I poked around the house a lot prior to purchasing it and figured I wouldn't need to go the route of the renovation loan because I didn't need/want to do that much work to it. If it had needed electrical or mechanical repairs I would have definitely gone that route, though. I just did the standard HomePath loan. The no PMI on these loans is great. ^ Thanks, the bathroom and kitchen were almost all from Ikea, which made it super cheap. It's cheaper than the standard Home Depot cabinets, which look way too traditional for me. If you’ve ever done an Ikea kitchen, literally EVERYTHING comes flat pack and in 1000 pieces. It took days of crawling around with a drill and Allen wrench to build just the base cabinets. I guess that’s why it’s cheaper than the other big box choices.

You weren't referring to me but I'm going to post some pictures anyway since I think this might be a catch-all thread for home renovations? I, too, bought a Fannie Mae home. The first thing I did was put in a kitchen because whatever had been there previously was almost entirely ripped out. I lucked out and the stove and microwave worked perfectly after a bit of cleaning. Fannie Mae was also nice enough to have left me a brand new stainless steel dishwasher, still unopened in the box. Appliance-wise, all I needed was a fridge, so I was able to do the kitchen for under $4000: I had to re-do a lot of the plumbing because the pipes froze at some point, I also took the chance to get rid of this awful bathroom: The view from the back deck was one of the deciding factors in buying the place: I also had to deal with this structural issue that had somehow been holding up the only entrance to the house from the street: The house had been re-done in the 1970's and basically every original detail was removed. I did like that the entire main living floor was one open space, though.

I think there were people in Cincinnati in 1950 saying very similar things about Italianate architecture. Luckily Cincinnati had enough of that around that they couldn’t destroy it all. There’s not a whole lot of mid-century modern around, hopefully we can manage to keep it for future generations who might value it more than some do today. As for furniture, many would say the mid-century modern style produced some of the greatest designs in history. I don’t think many people have to force themselves to like it; they’re the antiques of our generation.

I was going to say something similar the other day, and I think on Vine Street that's probably a fair statement. However, the building is so massive along 6th street you can't help but notice how completely blank and despotic it is. Opening those second floor windows would help, but the first floor is so squat to begin with that its presence is crushed by the mass looming above it. I doubt there's a solution that will satisfy everyone. I think single biggest flaw on 6th street is the valet/pull in area. Those are awful everywhere they exist in the city, but this one is one of the worst because of the way the rest of the building meets the sidewalk. Get rid of that, and establish some sort of retail or lobby use on the entirety of the first floor and that block would be much, much different no matter what is going on on floors 2-8.

The original version was almost all glass storefront on the first floor (think window displays like Bloomingdale's in NYC) and must have had an interesting street presence. The valet area needs to be removed and the storefront should be restored there to create a hotel lobby (on-street valet like 21C has should be fine here as well). The huge expanse of brick is classy, and people calling for it to be removed, punctured for windows, etc. will be our generation's version of the people who tore down Italianate buildings all over the city because they looked dated.

Sadly, I think we’re going to start seeing even more EIFS in the next couple of decades. Energy codes are starting to favor continuous insulation even more so than they do already, and the easiest/cheapest way to get sufficient continuous insulation is to cover your entire building in Styrofoam, and roll on some fake stucco. As we’ve now seen with GE, even wealthy companies have lost almost all appreciation for architecture. That said, luckily downtown seems to be pretty free of EIFS currently, and hopefully it will stay that way. It doesn’t work quite as efficiently when you have lots of windows or want a curtain wall.

Could you open up any interior walls to make the kitchen feel bigger? That would be much cheaper. I have a small house (also bought a Fannie Mae home last year), but my first floor has no interior partitions and feels much larger than it is. I put in a small kitchen on the one end for less than $4000 (got cabinets from Ikea and did all the work myself, appliances on sale at various stores).

^^^ It is 1508 Race, not 1408. It is a prime example of how much work needs to be done to repair some of the typical buildings in OTR. While it could be renovated into 8 one bedrooms, or 4 or 6 huge apartments, the money for the up front costs just isn’t there. Luckily though, OTR is probably the only neighborhood where a building like this could still generate income for the owner because the rent prices are some of the highest in the region.

^ I figured the plan was to have the bike lanes jog in around the bus stop islands, but it just seems odd that they're outbound of the parking everywhere else. The bike lanes are going to be weaving around for that entire stretch of Central Parkway. Maybe the guys doing the striping just messed up, but as of now the bike lane is striped directly into the side of the island.

I think the physical length of the streetcar would make it impossible for a streetcar stop to be possible where these have been built, anyways. Given a route up Vine, the streetcar would either have to stop on the hill south of McMillan, or somewhere north of Calhoun, but not between. There are also some of these on Jefferson that could be used in theory, but that alignment is far from finalized. I imagine the idea would be to build a raised platform in what is currently the bus lane, since the streetcar will be stopping in traffic anyway as it wouldn’t be plausible to have a pull-off lane like the buses currently do. On a related note, there appear to be some sort of bus stop islands that have been built in Central Parkway along with the bike lane. The problem is they are directly in the bike lane, and the bike lanes have been paved directly into the ramps that lead up to the islands. I’ll try and get a photo the next time I bike by it. If you stay in the bike lane, you grab a few inches of air.

I think it’s funny that the topic of form based codes has come up in the historic preservation discussion. One of my peeves with FBC is that we are told we need it in order to get desirable density, walkability, urban form, etc. I think it’s ridiculous, and demonstrably so by a quick at the most historic and desirable neighborhoods in Cincinnati. The original historic fabric was built in the absence of such codes, and the current revitalization is taking place without them. All FBC will get us is sterile, The Banks-esque infill. While there are some nuggets we should bite off and add into our current zoning codes, replacing it with FBC will lead to the ultimate vanillazation of Cincinnati.

I've noticed on that south side that there appears to be a "slit" of sorts in the concrete cladding that might mean glazing will extend straight up there to break up the facade a bit. That could look pretty interesting. I'm rarely a fan of expressing the horizontality of a tall building, but at least it will seemingly be complimented by some vertical elements.

There is actually a sign in Washington Park prohibiting adults who are not accompanied by children from entering the playground area. I imagine that same sign might make an appearance in Smale. I have a photo of it because I found it pretty funny; I also took a few photos with a telephoto lens that line up a few of the dozens of security cameras in that park. It almost makes it look like a modern art piece.

I think Whinewright was just making excuses for his crappy performance. He has a perpetual habit of whining, complaining, and making excuses. Saying he did it on purpose is an excuse for throwing a crappy inning, and is more in-line with his character than actually grooving a pitch.

I grew up in Loveland, a nice clean suburb of Cincinnati. When I was a kid, my neighbor's ex husband led a high speed chase to her house that ended in a shootout in the streets. He shot a cop, and a few dozen cops returned fire. Bullets went flying everywhere. That's the closest I've ever come to being shot, even after living in OTR and Clifton for 10 years. This kind of thing can happen anywhere. Unless you're directly involved with someone stupid enough to think shooting someone is a good idea, you have some pretty slim chances of ever being randomly shot.