LincolnKennedy

^Then Berding is in. Who knows, even Ghiz may jump on board if it looks like this thing is going to go forward. The key thing is that Mallory is really pushing it, as this article posted above shows: What I've highlighted is 1) the "out" he has given to those council members who signed Qualls' motion, and 2) Mallory's implicit threat that this is important to him and he is expecting support. It's great, and a tremendous change for Cincinnati that a Mayor who truly believes in transit-oriented development is in charge and is pushing for it with all he's got.

I enjoyed this statement. I wasn't there, but my suspicion is that the vote will break down this way: In Favor: Bortz Thomas Cole Crowley Qualls Against: Cranley Monzel Ghiz Unknown: Berding Crowley is not eligible for re-election and has no further ambitions, but the mayor will probably be able to cajole him into voting with him (payback for being name vice-mayor). Plus, he may end up wanting it as well. Qualls is eligible for re-election and has ambitions, so she'll end up having to vote in favor. Otherwise a large portion of her supporters will end up being severely disappointed. Berding may still end up voting in favor, since his position as a leader on council has plummeted since the city manager hearings, the first big fight Mallory had with Council. For a West Side Democrat, Berding gets far less consideration than Portune, Driehaus or Cranley, not to mention anyone with the surname of Luken, so he might be thinking that siding with the Mayor would do more to help his ambition than battling him would. Cole will end up voting for it because the mayor wants it. The fact that she was texting throughout the meeting and displayed absolutely no interest is actually a positive for the streetcar people, because she clearly doesn't care about it one way or the other, not even enough to pretend like she does. It will be more difficult for her to explain a lone vote against the Mayor and Thomas than it would be to simply go along with them.

Cramer, I am truly impressed by your dedication. Nice job. Kick Cranley in the balls for me on your way out.

Saying "strike me as being absurd and self-involved" means exactly what it says- my opinion is that it is absurd and self-involved. "Me" is the direct object, "strike" is the action, and "as" is a word that compares the subject, in this case the opinions of certain people, to something similar, which, in our example, is absurdity and self-involvement. There was nothing prescriptive in the statement, nothing that "made" those opinions absurd or self-involved. I'm pretty sure that sentence is in passive construction, which is encouraged to defuse confrontation and deplored in college essays. And since neither "absurd" nor "self-involved" are swear words, or at least aren't commonly regarded as such, there is nothing unmannerly about them. Your choice to take them offensively or to ascribe them to your notions is something you are welcome to do, and which my words shall not effect (nor shall they effect your opinions), unless you choose that they do so. And now I've got to get back on my high horse and go print some shit out.

What's the "T" word?

^Doesn't the large increase in downtown residents in the past 10 years sort of contradict this statement? People on this forum who say that "Cincinnati doesn't know how to market itself" or "Residents and people who were born here are always so negative about the City" strike me as being absurd and self-involved. This hasn't been my experience in the slightest. A man who lives in Pleasant Ridge with a wife and two kids who doesn't care about the streetcar or believe in all importance of catering to young professionals or the so-called creative class isn't by definition anti-city, particularly when he's paying full property taxes and the payroll tax. I understand this isn't necessarily what you, Jimmy_James, are talking about, but this attitude seems representative of some of the forumers here, and it strikes me as more than a little silly and clouded.

I think we need to remember that the Streetcar project, the one that is right in front of us, the one that is being reviewed and debated currently, is designed to increase housing opportunities in and maintain the position of largest employment zone of the area in which it is designed to operate, Dowtown-OTR-UC-Clifton. This goal is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, no matter what may or may not come afterward. We are doing two things- 1)reinvesting in an area that has not gathered much investment in the past 30 years (OTR in particular, but really the entire area in terms of housing) and 2) addressing the changed circumstances of employment versus housing as it exist today. When you have Blue Ash or Mason or West Chester as both a large employment zone and a large large residential zone, it becomes imperative that our large employment zone have ready and immediate access to a residential area. This is about competition with other local employment zones, and it is designed to address and reflect the current 'reverse commute' reality of today. I pretty much took everything in that post above from Boss Cox's Cincinnati. I think that people in other neighborhoods are willing to admit that revitalizing those older, denser, historic neighborhoods in line with their 19th century layout is a proper goal for the City to address now. It is the job of responsible politicians to explain to people why these things need to be addressed, and how it effects their neighborhoods as well. I also think you assume that parochial neighborhood interests are stronger than general sentiment for the City. I don't think they are necessarily in opposition to each other.

^The Grant Memorial is probably my favorite in the entire city, and typically overlooked.

I don't think this is a fair or accurate statement, particularly in comparison to other cities. What's interesting is that the old streetcar system, around the turn of the 20th century was owned by CG&E (possibly still called the Cincinnati Gas & Coke Company, you can see their old headquarters at the SW corner of 4th and Plum). The president of the company, Andrew Hickenlooper, fiercely defended the company's monopoly versus attempts by the Edison Company from making inroads into the market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_hickenlooper

I don't underestimate her. I estimate her.

I didn't say it was going to work.

She's after prominence. She's consideration by the public that she is the most qualified and responsible politician in the City. She's after the mayorship in 2013.

But does it ultimately give a guarantee to Uptown? If she gets a guarantee then does that hurt the streetcar? No. Does it help Qualls? Yes. It could be a win win. I don't understand where you are getting at. I don't believe the city can afford to build the streetcar from the Banks to the Zoo, or to Short Vine Kroger, or even just up to the Mad Frog. Mallory intends to see that the streetcar make it up there, in the second Phase. Qualls isn't going to get a "guarantee" to get the streetcar uptown, it's already planned to do so. I think we're all looking for a win-win-win resolution to this conflict.

^How old are you?

I don't think Qualls is as smart as she thinks she is. My suspicions are that she sees an opportunity to be the reigning council member, and to prove herself as such she needs to thumb her nose at Mallory. I don't think it will be successful. Berding tried to do this earlier in his first term during the city manager hearings and he got burned. An immediate connection to Clifton is a red herring, but it won't be powerful enough to derail the project. Also, let's realize that the thing hasn't been killed yet. I suspect that Mallory and the streetcar supporters on council will keep this going in the direction we expect.

I think it is a real mistake to take it off the Main/Walnut and Elm/Race alignments.

It was sailing. The Cleveland events were the furthest events from Cincinnati. Between Dayton, Columbus, Lexington, Louisville and Indianapolis, everything else was well within a two hour drive. Jmeck's right about the Olympics. The Atlanta Olympics were spread out further than Cincinnati's would have been. Sydney's recent Olympics also were spread out, and they weren't centrally located (Olympic Stadium I believe was in Homebush Bay, downtown Sydney isn't very close.) Do you really think that all those Olympic events are going to be within easy reach of each other in Beijing? I find it hard to believe that it would be easier for the average person to get around northeastern China than the American Midwest. The thing that I believe hurt Cincinnati's bid the most was the lack of hotel space compared with the other cities it was bidding against. While Barcelona's Olympic facilities do look chintzy today, and as far as I can tell they are just sitting there, gathering dust, having the Olympics was a major catalyst to making that City as prominent as it is now.

^Thanks a lot. This was what I was most curious about, the origin of the gables, that unique slope of the roof.

So, do you know if the style of this house above is native solely to New England (and its settlers on Long Island), or does it imitate the style of East Anglia as well?

Very nice. Do you have any pictures of those old houses in the West End, near the Art Museum?

All these maps are great. However, the Plain Dealer's description of Southwestern Ohio is absurd: "Southern accents and attitudes flavor this conservative region just across the Ohio River from Kentucky. Although hurt by a stagnant economy, people here remain the state's most loyal Republicans." I've been working in the South for nearly five years now, and the accents down here versus those from Southwestern Ohio aren't close to a match. While the state's most loyal Republicans may be from SW Ohio, its most effective ones (at least regarding the nation political stage) are those Reagan and Bush Democrats who vote in the Northeast. They are the ones who end up giving the White House to the GOP every time they win. The description of of Northeastern Ohio is also ridiculous: "Unions, ethnic politics and black activism created Ohio's only liberal political tradition." I guess Ohio was founded in 1932, not 1803. Have the editors of The Plain Dealer never heard of the Civil War? Salmon P. Chase and U.S. Grant accomplished more for liberal politics than most people in history, let alone Ohio (and to ignore consideration of the accomplishments of Canton's William McKinley in favor of some more recently active greasy Cleveland Democrats is also shameful).

^There should be another one of these old bathhouses on Sycamore across from Orchard Street, right near Nicola's.

^Yeah, actually it was Saddam. Everything Spielberg has done after Schindler's List has sucked. And Schindler's List was about the tritest Holocaust movie ever made. Greatest person ever to come from Ohio? I'm inclined to go with U.S. Grant. Greatest thing to ever come out of Ohio? One word: America.

I just looked at the picture of that pixelated window, and it looks awful. What an uninspired design. Two far better examples of non-representative stained glass windows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nasirolmolk.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Paris_S_Denis_Fleur_de_Lys_window_1986_crypt_1353_a_a.JPG I guess I understand the desire to make the windows abstract, but I don't see the point of making them non-narrative. Here are some other great modern stained glass windows from the Rockefeller family church in Pocantico Hills, New York (though clearly not everyone can commission Henri Matisse or Marc Chagall): http://www.hudsonvalley.org/content/view/80/145/

^If anyone finds out about an official group that is taking donations for restoration, please post it on this thread. An aside about lighting- recently Mayor Bloomberg brought over the guy who is in charge of lighting all the public buildings in Paris to do a total revue of the landscape lighting for New York City.