Fabienne

Go Toledo!

I'm all for recycling, and I was proud to twit my in-laws from California when they visited and we had a better, more comprehensive one than they did (haw haw haw). BUT I have to say that it's funny to think that the trashiest people are going to get rewarded. I am looking forward to getting a mammoth recycling bin and using the hell out of it. Are we going to be paying more for the bins, though? If we do, we do but I would like to know up front.

I just wanted to say that I live in Cincinnati and I love the place BUT I also love Cleveland (your art museum is great great great). <3

It is Guivaudan and here is a link to the article abastract about what goes on in there:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/23/091123fa_fact_khatchadourianhttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/23/091123fa_fact_khatchadourian

I am getting too fond of this thing.

My favorite story is my next door neighbor was working in her living room and saw a pair of well heeled people and their expensive dog in her front yard. The dog was pooping and one of the couple bagged it and dropped the bag back in my neighbor's front yard! My neighbor ran out of her house, picked up the bag and went running after the hipster couple yelling,"Hey, you dropped something. It belongs to you!" They tried to deny it but ended up taking their bag with them. Good for her.

I really want to go back to NOLA. Went to Tulane for a year and flunked out because I had too much fun. Now, I would love to own a house in New Orleans and in Cincinnati. Go back and forth during the year. That is a very silly idea, owning two houses but you can do it in your imagination.

Wow,thanks for that. I was wondering what it was about East End that I loved and it's the grit I think. There is something wonderful about it all that the scrubbed and perfect parts of the city lack, any city. I was thinking about taking out my good camera and doing a bit of shooting of the grit parts of East End and now I definately will. I have also thought about going down to Mt. Lookout square once a year and shooting the storefronts and comparing them after a while. I wish I had done that when I was a kid and had those pictures now to look at.

Thanks for telling us your story. You gave us something extra there, finding delight in so many small and wonderful places in Cincinnati. It is such a catecomb here, or like a place to explore with thousands of little doors to walk through, or like an advent calendar. If you get to have that kind of a series of little thrills with the love of your life, that makes me feel like doing the same with my love of my life, too. Not waste time or postpone the experience. I have used that expression that Cincinnati is the Paris of the Midwest. I think it's more special than that, though. Paris is grand and has huge historical swaths of things which it presents to you and you are stunned by their gravity. Cincinnati, on the other hand, has an almost limitless supply of tiny jewel-like circumstances and objects to unfold to you, each one more pleasing than the last in an intensely personal way. Almost like your best friend decided to give you something you would just always keep and love, and do it every day for the rest of your life. It's not Grand like the tomb of Napoleon, it's tiny like a locket with your name on it and your lover's picture inside.

Aroma+fish=ammonia *snicker* I don't think they would get many people to dine there if they called it "Ammonia".

Actually, we in Cincinnati don't need any help from anyone else in belittling our team. We don't have to kick them when they are down, and when they attempt to kick themselves they miss so no one is hurt. Good times.

Wow, thanks for talking about all these things. Even if it's topic drift off the strictly speaking East End header, I am enthralled and I think some of you are as well. First, thanks for posting that article about Brighton. I do indeed remember Brighton and it hasn't died at all! I remember Pat Renick who taught me at UC and she was a real perfectionist who loved Brighton and was proud of living there. I decided to go home this evening by way of Eastern Ave because we have all been talking about it and I am going to be moving around there soon with my business. I went past the Carnegie Building and bypassed the route into my new digs on Airport Road just to follow Eastern to it's conclusions and such. It ends in the road to Mariemont but before it gets there it goes through some great twists and turns in many directions. Old tired Xmas decor littered over built up front lawns, knots of young men in pulled down pants and hoodies gathering after work around their cars to laugh at jokes and plot the evening's amusements, an old Confederate flag sags in the 30 deg weather, and more houses with dirty tinsel or fallen over Santas. Up ahead there is the Terry's Turf Club and Bella Luna open areas. Wine Cellar Innovations takes up an entire side of the street looking like a prison but with paintings on the outside. Little old houses down by the river and more of them and then finally there is the road to Mariemont. It really is a wonderful drive,especially at this time of year. There is something cozy about this way past Xmas display and the many small houses there. Some are in great shape and some need repairs. The odd part of a swanky restaurant or two or three popping up and not going away right in the heart of this wilting neighborhood which won't wilt ultimately. I can hardly wait for spring and the reality to set in. I love the thought of going up to Alms Park and smelling that smell of grass and dandelions in May, in taking your long time love to the park for a picnic and telling him for the millionth time how you love him and smelling the thick yellow air when you do. Sometimes it's hard not to love a place like Cincinnati when there are so many disparate displays calling your name and so much time traveling you can do all at once.

Heck, I can't even get a straight answer about where I live, let alone where the boundries of downtown begin and end. Try asking where The West Side starts and stops. (Answer: it's in a pit where no one goes which is filled with railroad tracks, hobos, and noxious gases and it's under the viaduct...somewhere, but no one has seen it. It's like the source of the Nile circa 1702...mysterious and steeped in speculation).

Oh how I pine for the days of Top Hat Beer. :)

There always seems to be such a cycle with the arts in Cincinnati. Maybe every city feels it, and it's logical that it happens in recessions. I was in the visual arts community for several years and they are really on their knees now. However, for a musically inclined city, Cincinnati has a brimming painters' and sculptors' community which seems to get up every time it's knocked down and finds a clever way to carry on. I have been at The Pendleton Arts Center since 2000 and have seen the attendance go on a rollercoaster ride during my time there: from 300/Final Friday to 1500+/Final Friday to 400/Final Friday over 10 years. I guess that Main Street and other places downtown are attracting people away from The Pendleton on Final Fridays now like they never did before. But, the Pendleton is going to get on the ball and do some renovations (like a "village within the Pendlton" called Artisans' Alley). The casinos are thought to be a boost for downtown and the arts in general, but some are of two minds as to how it will ultimately effect the arts. By the way, I heard some sad news: Base Art Gallery closed recently. It was the oldest co-op gallery in Cincinnati. RIP. Times change as do the arts. On a good note, I heard that Marta Hewitt is going to open a big gallery in The Pendleton where a framing shop used to be. Way to go! Marta was a great "big time" gallery owner (think Art in America) and her presence and resurrection is a very good sign of the times. I hope that things go back to the way they were before the 1990's in the arts community.

The Empire of Latte. When I first moved to Mt. Lookout it was anything but chic. It was supposed to be "the elephants' graveyard" where retired P&G-ers would live before moving to the old folks' home. The square had more stores for prosthetic devices than fancy restaurants, and a funeral home (which is still there). Then things changed in the '80's as young people moved in to have families. The area was less expensive than Hyde Park but it rubbed shoulders with HP. Ault Park was a mess in 1982. Taken over by gangs, it was filled with broken bits and overgrown gardens. That was taken back by the locals by presence and lots of events to clean it up. I remember a small knot of rueful looking toughs sitting on their car hoods smoking cigarettes and glaring at a set of young well heeled mothers pushing their prams past. The police station at the bottom of the hill lent a good deal of courage to the neighbors, too. So, all that probably has to do with the rise of Mt. Lookout. There does seem to be an ebb and flow among the neighborhoods. I was really amazed that what East End has been attracting, though. Actually, I never thought that there was that much activity going on down there, even though it is in my back yard. Finding a new office in the area has made me want to explore more and I am willing to imagine that East End is the new Oakley (hey, red is the new black, you know). BTW, when I moved to Cincinnati in 1979 I was informed on several occasions that the West Side was the heart and soul and best representation of the essence of Cincinnati, and that Norwood was its foothold on the East. People were very serious about that. We were considered somewhat "odd" for moving to Mt. Lookout (you aren't old enough to move there). And if you wanted anything at all entertaining, there was little of it on the East Side. I still am amazed at the number of restaurants which have sprouted up in Mt. Lookout. Heh, imagine...a restaurant which serves raw fish! It'll never fly, right?

Wow, that is hilarious. Reminds me of when I was in graduate school and we did a case on Kroger. The FIRST thing that was said about Cincinnati was that it was a city of neighborhoods. Fierce neighborhoods. First, you establish which side of town you come from, that is the first stick in the sand. Then you declare exactly which neighborhood your spring from. This tells the audience what kind of a person you are with pinpoint accuracy. Hyde Parker? Where's your latte? Price Hill? Lower, East, or West (it makes a difference, you know). OK, I know that Jim Borgman did it better, but honestly that map reminds me of the map of the Soviet Union before it broke up! So, Bella Luna and Terry's are in Linwoodastan. Hmmm. I am going to have to scout down an even more detailed map of the neighborhoods just for fun. Some folks are sitting on the line. I live on Principio Avenue, and there have been people who have solemnly informed me that I live in Hyde Park, and others who are equally sincere who tell me that I am indeed a resident of Mt. Lookout. I feel like a "man without a country" until I decide which one I dwell in. http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/Ohio/Cincinnati-heat_map/ Here is a pretty accurate map from the real estate people. It is a "heat map" which shows what house prices are going for but it also shows exactly what streets are the boundaries of each neighborhood. If you get down to the closest magnification, the heat map overlay goes away and you can see the streets clearly. Turns out I live in Mt. Lookout and work in East End, and had lunch in Linwood.

Thanks for the info! My husband and I were walking by Wine Cellar Innovations and he commented that he thought it used to be a prison! Well, it certainly is a big complex. I know one of the artists they use for the high end custom jobs where people want things painted on their cellars to their own specs. Another guy who is big in East End is Jim Verdin, the bell maker and my current landlord's dad. He has a wildly interesting plant on Eastern Ave where he makes bells and even invented a mobile casting and machining rig to make small bells around Ohio! I am going to miss them, they were excellent landlords and just plain old interesting and talented people. I am moving out of the Pendleton mainly because I want to be in my own neighborhood. I got caught in that November traffic jam on I-71 where we all stood still for 2 hrs and I am afraid that is what put the lid on downtown for me. It certainly has its charms, though, but it's time for me to explore the territory around my home (Mt. Lookout is where I live).

Hmmm, by East End I am meaning all things pretty much past downtown near the river and on and around Eastern Avenue (aka Riverside Drive) up to Columbia Parkway or there abouts. This does indeed include Lunken and it's vicinity. Living above Bella Luna would be perfect. Lucky her. Also, you can get just about anywhere very quickly.

I have lived in Cincinnati for 30 years. The place has gone through some very strange times but seems to be getting better and better and better. I started off by working in Evendale for GE. Can't say that was picturesque. Then I went back to school in Clifton (nice but for the drunken students on weekends---or maybe the occasional bitter UC art teacher {I could have been *hic* in Art in Amercia...}). Then, I had a studio downtown at the Pendleton which had it's painfully urban chic moments. Finally I have decided to go local...it's the thing to do and far be it from me to buck the trend. I pulled up stakes and got a place almost immediately on Airport Road for my fledgling and thriving little business. I am in love. What a neat place East End is! It seems to be the environment where there are thousands of little businesses (some in manufacturing) and huge layers of streets behind tiny little streets where tinier little streets jut off. At this point, EastEnd has been found out. The Dew Drop Inn is now a chicer place, Yuppie condos sprout where there once were modest river houses, and old manufacturing plants are home to custom wine cellar specialists, neighbors to wildly popular restaurants, and junk yards are close to really old farmer's markets (with really old farmers selling vegetables), abandoned water works buildings and newly discovered Carnegie edifices. It's quite a mix and it has been left alone for so long, it's almost as if it were vacuum packed. Maybe I should just have shut up about EastEnd. I don't want it to be ruined (a la Dew Drop Inn becoming Mirabelle's or a name which was stolen from a Sloan Ranger's birth certificate) but I find I just can't help myself. I am really going to enjoy discovering the nooks around my new office and the businesses about. It was Terry's Turf Club today, and more to come later. If anyone has any good suggestions for places to visit in the EastEnd, please say something. I can recommend Bella Luna and Terry's Turf Club both around the 4600 block of Eastern Avenue on the North side of the street.