Ram23

I took a break from work to walk up to the park. I grabbed this picture as the speeches were going on, the place was packed, especially considering the heat. Shortly after the brief speech, the lawn cleared out and everyone retreated to the shade and fountains.

These groups are notorious for being anti-urban redevelopment. They view any incursion into troubled neighborhoods as gentrification, and protest it. For instance, Buddy Gray protested the national historic district designation of Over-the-Rhine, and held it up for a few years. Basically, most of the volunteer organizations in Cincy that align with the legacy of Buddy Gray want money spent on “low-income” housing and neighborhoods, not mixed-income. In my opinion, they’re holding on to observably disproved notions from the 1960’s of how to treat urban poor.

^ He's gotta keep up his position as Cincinnati's IRL troll. I'm just glad he's nowhere near as manipulative as Buddy Gray was. I doubt his protest will put a dent in the festivities.

There are a lot of organizations operating in OTR that exist to help those in need. Some truly want what is best, and some are dedicated to maintaining the status quo. It's not always easy to tell which is which, but those who think the renovation of Washington Park is a bad thing can be placed on one side rather easily. There aren't more than a handful of people in positions of power who fight to stop revitalization of OTR.

These people are behind the times. I rarely see hipsters in OTR these days, they've all migrated elsewhere. OTR is almost full blown yuppie and frat boy at this point.

I’ve been a supporter of Chabot and I’ve met and spoke with him a few times (though I doubt he remembers it). I wrote him a short but concise and to the point letter about this and I hope to hear something logical back. I’m interested to see how he responds to one of his supporters; he usually writes responses and they aren’t just canned by some intern. I tried to touch on most of the points people have brought up here and left off with a semi-open ended question about bipartisan support for rail projects in the future. I’ll let it be known if I get a response.

^ Why is there a 2 page article discussing plans and renderings that never shows the plans and renderings?

I really like the off hour parking idea, although i suppose that could be a headache during Reds or Bengals games. It's curious that Third Street has just as many lanes and yet it feels way safer to cross. Third Street has parking on both sides. Aside from that, I think it has a stronger street wall because the buildings along it are varied and interesting. Second Street has a monotonous facade and sterile feel, and it isn't helped by the fact that it is the north face so it's almost always dark and shaded. Parking on Second during Reds games might be a headache, but those spots would fill up way before game time, and they'd probably be some of the first to leave. It would definitely slow traffic just enough after the game.

^ Maybe the streetcar turnaround being on 2nd will help to slow traffic a bit. I can't really see narrowing it, because all the lanes split up and feed three different expressways heading out of downtown. Allowing parking on both sides of 2nd off hour would be a good start to calming traffic, though, and have the same effect as narrowing it. Parked cars along the sidewalk also provide a safety buffer between it and fast moving traffic.

^There are always green arrows directing traffic onto Second during every phase of the signaling, so they eliminated the crosswalk there. It makes sense after Reds games or maybe during rush hour when hundreds of cars are exiting The Banks garage onto Walnut, and other garages downtown and making the turn onto second, but otherwise it just seems odd. They could stripe if as a crosswalk and use signage to say no crossing during certain hours, but that would probably confuse people.

The reason they don't age well is that they're always painted different colors, so when the newest coat chips off, you can see the rainbow of colors beneath it. They were dark red originally, then tan, and now black.

Most built work that we gripe with are designed by Cincinnati firms. While BHDP did design the glass garage structures in WP, fountain square and smale were given to design firms outside of the state. Better talent pool? Better budgets? Or better clients? BHDP also did Fountain Square. Washington Park is a local architect (BHDP) and landscape architect (Human Nature). Smale is being designed by Sasaki Associates, which is a world renown landscape architecture firm. The City of Cincinnati and 3CDC (to some degree) have good track records of not value engineering good design away, but most for-profit developers strip down designs to get as much profit out of projects as they can.

I think the plan is to have a larger stage that is temporary, for big events, like the one at Fountain Square (although that has become semi-permanent).

Yep, I’ve been looking for a small building that would be able to be a 2 or 3 bedroom single family home for a couple years, and they can only be found for a reasonable price (ie affordable after a $100k to $150k~ renovation) north of Liberty. Way, way north of Liberty. As a single, middle class person, I’m priced out of the neighborhood.

The Reds made their own mistakes on the lake while visiting the infamous Mistake on the Lake, but they are still in first by 2.5 games. I still don't believe in Pittsburgh, and the wheels have fallen off St. Louis, things are looking good.

Is this common in other towns? Over at the Business Courier they also say Duke will want to be able to shut down the streetcar operations when they need to work too close. Is that common policy? http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/blog/2012/06/duke-energy-floats-streetcar-solution.html How do they recover costs for relocating/extending utilities for suburban or road related projects? Mass transit construction fees should come from the same pot.

I ate brunch when I lived in NYC fairly regularly, and places there had it figured out. They'd be as nice as or nicer than Senate, but for $12 you'd get the food, coffee, and 2 mimosas/bloody marys. Somehow that is profitable in Manhattan, but not Cincinnati. A decent yet appropriately priced brunch is tough to come by here.

Is this the Enquirer article people are complaining about? Maybe I’m optimistic but I thought it was really just a follow up to the article about the shooting, which they had put up earlier. This article seemed to be about development in OTR and how drive-by shootings on busy streets (with “no witnesses”) are going to become a thing of the past sooner or later. The article pointed out that the bustling gateway quarter doesn’t see the type of behavior that is seen north of Liberty, and that development will come there eventually.

^Regarding this, and on topic with the topic of this thread, the days when you can be shot on a busy corner in OTR, surrounded by a group of 10-15 people who all happened to be "looking the other way" are numbered.

It's interesting to me that most every other category of crime has since fallen to pre-riot levels, except for murders. There's got to be a connection somewhere between the police "backing off" a bit after the riots, since returning to stricter enforcement, and criminals still thinking they can get away with murder, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Nice week for the Reds, sweeping the team from Cleveland. I was on a business trip down south in Mississippi so only got to watch highlights, although MLB Network showed a big chunk of the Thursday game after spending 20 minutes talking about the Dusty Baker/Lowe incident. The 9 point lead in the fifth inning was a pleasant surprise during lunch.

It's Palm Springs, but if you click on "Cincinnati" in that Yahoo Travel post above it is labeled as Cincy for some reason, along with a slew of other strange and random photos.

That has to be the highest grossing McD's in Cincinnati, if not an even larger area, they'll never risk taking it. See the Hopple Street drawings for an example; that White Castle makes a ton of money and they managed to get onramps designed encircling it rather than tearing it down. It wouldn't surprise me if they build a transit stop directly in front of it, Cincinnati seems to love their fast food sales tax revenue.

I get why some people constantly use city population, as it's the easiest stat to type into Google and get, but I didn't read that article much past the point where the NYT referred to Louisville as Cincinnati's bigger neighbor.

ENQUIRER EXCLUSIVE: Mahogany's troubles no secret Consultant suggested officials find someone else for Banks project http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120530/NEWS/305300117