Jeffery

The former Wympee at Third & Wayne is being turned into "Olive, An Urban Dive". Apparently the city is giving them a hard time about that "Wympee" signage, that they need to have taken it down, or get a variance to keep it. There some discussion of this at the "Olive" Facebook page and at the Esrati blog.

Very nice card, Rob. Merry Christmas to you and everyone else here at UO @@@@ Too much round the house to nosh on, not to mention the big Xmas dinner....so yes, I can relate. Ill need to be more aggresive in Jnauary with diet/exercise to lose the lbs I gained.. .

Starting off a thread header on what could be a long thread: The DDN reports: It's Official, Ohio to Lose Two US House Seats It’s official: Ohio will lose two seats in the U.S. House, reducing the House delegation from 18 to 16 members, according to 2010 U.S. Census data released Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Ohio and New York are the only states losing two seats. The states losing seats were mostly in the northeast and Midwest. As a result of the November election, Republicans will control Ohio’s U.S. House delegation next year, 13-5. I guess this will be an opportunity for to get rid of Kucinich, which I am sure will thrill certain posters at this forum (and not just the conservative or Republican ones).

Driving across the old auto lanes was a right-of-passage for Louisville area drivers, as the lanes were rather narrow and there was no proper modern guardrail. So you could look directly out of your side window down into the river, with the singing of the iron grates from your tires. Even more fun if there was a train on the bridge at the same time you were. If you were afraid of heights it would have been tough... There was minimal money invested in the bridge. The bridge approaches still had their 1920s- or 1930s- era illuminated signs reading "BRIDGE TO INDIANA" or "BRIDGE TO KENTUCKY" and old toll booths. @@@ There was a railroad associated with the bridge, the Kentucky & Indiana Terminal Railroad, or K&IT. They had their own engines (as late as the 1960s) and yards, and operated as a switching and belt line around the city, similar (perhaps) to the way the Indiana Harbor Belt and Belt Railway of Chicago operate. The K&IT also fostered industrial development in Louisville's West End, offering on-line industrial sites. One of their sites became, later, part of the WWII -era synthetic petrochemical complex known as Rubbertown. The railroad also had a branch into downtown Louisville, including an elevated line along the riverfront (connecting to the L&N lines coming in from the east). They initially ran a steam dummy passenger service on this route from downtown New Albany over the K&I bridge to the Louisville wharf, but this was converted to electric operations, making this an early electric-powered rapid transit line, partially elevated along the Louisville wharf (with stations on the trestle, too). Later this passenger service was moved to streetcar tracks and the riverfront line was limited mostly to freight.

Adding the other big cities, for vacancy: Dayton: 18.86% Youngstown: 17.45% Toledo: 11.61% Akron: 11.22% ......................The integrated list (vacancies): Dayton: 18.86% Cincy: 18.2% Cleveland: 17.5% Youngstown: 17.45% Columbus: 12.75% Toledo: 11.61% Akron: 11.22% ....again, Akron is appearing as a place that is bucking the trend toward an increasing emptying out of urban Ohio. Perhaps the suprise here is Cincinnati appearing so high on the list. Maybe not if one is familiar how empty OTR and nearby areas are, partially due to 3CDC buying up stuff and holding blocks of empty buildings, partly due to things really being bad with abandoned or vacant housing elsewhere in the city. I didn't think the situation was at the same crisis level as Dayton, though.

Yeah, I've seen this elsewhere. Places that used to be 'generic' change due to how they are used/inhabited and who's using them. Good comment about Grandview, too. The place was a surprise when I drove through there by accident a while back. @@@@ As for other Cols neighborhoods and "the gays".... Old Towne East & the Columbus gay communities role in gentrification has recieved national attention via that 'Flag Wars' documentary, & it wasn't a postive thing toward the gays.

Short North was the first place in Ohio where I saw gay men holding hands, in public, walking down the sidewalk, where it wasn’t a gay pride parade thing (though it was pride weekend. This was during some sort of gallery hop being held the weekend of the parade and Comfest (back when Comfest and the parade where on the same weekend). This was on, I think, the Friday before the parade. So, it was like, “wow, guys are holding hands and it’s not a big deal here!” In the past most gay people coming to Columbus came from elsewhere in the state. That was the word in the 1990s, that Cols was the place to go for a more tolerant and open environment if you llived in a smaller or more conservative Ohio place but didn’t want to leave the state. And Cols had a good economy vis a vis the rest of Ohio. So maybe there is some self-selection within the statewide GLBT community to where you are going to get more “out” gay people coming to Columbus, where their gay self-indentification and wanting to live openly is important enough to make them relocate. I don’t really “get” Lady Gaga. I see her more in the Madonna context, as the younger generations’ Madonna, playing with that fashion/performance/music/celebrity persona nexus, but I liked Madonna’s music more. So what's the area between the cap and the railroad overpass, where North Market is? I used to think that was sort of "Short North", but not really the Arena District? That's an interesting neighborhood, which used to be sort of generic low density stuff and fragmented streetscape on High, but has really changed over the years. Yeah, maybe also more of an OSU student thing, too? I think that Mambo club I went to earlier in the year was near this ONC area, though I think it was south of Lane. I can see that place (Mambo) having that alt/indy thing going on, muscially and culturally...

Do they still have metrosexuals? Seems like with the recession there are going to be new lifestyle types out there. Having been in New England now, I can attest to the "Yankneck" thing. Redneck Yankees.

It seems like LaHood has already made a decision to re-allocate to places that politically and fiscally support rail transit.

^ ...because I should have known I couldnt see Toronto from Buffalo (and that the TO skyline would have been more impressive). I sort of wonder if Buffalo was like Cincinnati in that it was sort of entre-port & staging area into the Midwest...in Buffalos case the upper Midwest. It got big fast in the pre-Civil War era, sort of like Cincy did, so is a fairly "old' place in terms of some of the housing stock. Another interesting historical factoid is that both Buffalo and Rochester where founded in the early 1800s, while Cincy and Dayton were founded in the late 1700s. So these areas were settled around the same time. Yet SW Ohio as a frontier was over 100 miles to the west from upstate NY. Which measn that the frontier sort of was staggered in place as well as time.

I used to post under the hanlde "Jeff". Appropriatly enough, my first post was in the Introductions thread April 29th 2004 ...what a long strange trip its been. On edit this would be a good place for a last post. It has been a long strange trip, and UO has become a virtual home for me. Maybe too much of one. But times and people change. So I am going to be departing for the foreseable futre, to do more "nature" things, and to do a lot of woodshedding. Never say never so I'm not going to say this my last post ever... ....anyway, hope you found my stuff of some interest. I certainly found this forum an education and an inspiration. Best of wishes, Jeff/Jeffery/Jeffery

This had to be what I saw! I'm such a doof. Drove through Buffalo again, on my way back from Syracuse. Upstate NY is....different.....

New York was....well....too, too much for my very brief visit (with a somewhat invalid host who wasn't moving very fast)... We did the 3 hour circle line tour, whcih I'd recommend to tourists as you'd see parts of the city that you might not on a usual tourist itinerary (and my boat had this old guy who was a great narrator). For food, we stopped by chance at this little rissoto place on Bleeker Street. Great waitress and the price was right for the quality. Good food. But I guess competition here is fierce

The Dayton Most Metro website has a good pro-con op-ed on the issue, with a LOT of comments (For them). The local libertarians are out in force (the con part was written by a prolific libertarian web presence) The Second Death of High Speed Rail in Ohio I commented that the money should be redirected to North Carolina or Illinois. But some good counter-arguments are needed on this thread.

Greetings from Syracuse, NY, where people talk sort of northern. I am on the tail-end of an extensive road trip that included stays in Scranton and about five days based in Hartford, Conn (but including road trips as far afield as NYC and North Adams Mass and Bennington, VT...but mostly in Connecticut) I can say that Hartford actually has almost a "northern" accident instead of the stereotypical New England accent (or the NYC one). It's actually closer to the Pbgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo accents, or maybe not that severe but between the "Great Lakes" and the way people talk in Indy and Columbus. An interesting thing on "standard US english" pronunciation, it was based on Websters' Dictionary, and Noah Webster lived in Hartford and based his dictionary on the local dialect. So, something to consider when it comes to standard US english. @@@@ The Dayton drawl I put down to the applachian influence. Native non-Appalachian speakerrs from Dayton don't really have it. They sound more like Columbus people or maybe Indy people. There is a very slight drawl in Southern Indiana speakers, as far north as Richmond area, so there is something to that, but its different than the appalachian drawl.

But it was fun while it lasted!

My first [pix post was in 2004, January or February, & it was of the old part of Centerville. Funny thing is that I'm moving away from this urbanist stuff, losing interest in urban Dayton, and becoming , instead, "nature boy", going out on hikes instead of city walks. I rarely spend any time within the city...any city...anymore (except for that recent road-trip to Cleveland & Buffalo).

It was sometime in 2004. I was posting here during that year, before I decided to become a serious "content provider" with a digital camera to document Dayton a bit...and that got out of hand with all those powerpoint things and marked up scans and maps.... But it was in 2004. I remember that this used to be Cincinnati UpRise, piggybacking on the old Skyscraper Page elevation drawings....

The Germans are aghast at "Quantitative Easing" (and our economic policy of weakening the dollar): Results of Stimulus Could be Horrendous Germany is not impressed. One day after the United States Federal Reserve announced that it would pump $600 billion (€423 billion) into America's banking system over the next eight months, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble sharply criticized the decision. "I don't think they are going to solve their problems that way," Schäuble told German public broadcaster ZDF in a Thursday evening interview. "They have already pumped an endless amount of money into the economy via taking on extremely high public debt and through a Fed policy that has already pumped a lot of money into the economy.

The article was quoting D'Nesh Disouza. Here's the context: " Indeed, the United States of 2010 is a hate-filled country. D'Souza says that Obama's father was an anti-colonialist and that he dreamed of his native Kenya liberating itself from its British colonial rulers. His son Barack has the same dream, says D'Souza. He wants to put America, the neo-colonial power of the 21st century, in its place. "The most powerful country in the world is being governed according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s," D'Souza writes. "America today is governed by a ghost." .....D'Souza himself thinks he knows why so many people believe that Obama was not born in the United States and is a Muslim. People can't identify with him, says D'Souza, because he doesn't believe in the American dream. This is the climate in the country leading up to the Congressional elections on Nov. 2. It isn't shaped by logic or an interest in rational debate."

^ He should visit Dayton.

Der Spiegel has an excellent, and long, 6-part set of articles on the US economic debacle... Superpower in Decline (they are talking about economic decline, not military decline).

Agree! The Toledo region is doing suprisingly good for the Democrats. Sounds like my kind of town. Time for a road trip to Maumee Dearest (a buddy who is a BGSU alum wants to return to the site of student debauchery, so maybe Bowling Green plus Toledo). Was wondering about Bowling Greene (Wood County?)....could that gay rights ordnance helped turnout for Strickland?

Looks like things are back to normal in Ohio. "Normal" being that the Democratic Donkey is back in his stable and the GOP is back running the show...both the state legislature and the governors mansion. I guess the courts, too. I think during my 20 some years living here, there was a Democratic governor when I first moved here in 1988/1989 (Celeste?), then the Republicans ran things until Strickland took over after the problems with Taft. That was..when....2006 or 2007? So now its back to the usual with the GOP in control.

Well, I liked my visit up there. You can tell there is a more left/liberal (or at least Democratic) political culture in that region.