LincolnKennedy

I think that the new design of the Freedom Tower is better than Liebskind's. It's simple, attractive and has the potential to be iconic, yet still nods toward the old towers by looking massive and weighty, which was about the only thing impressive about the old ones. Towers 2, 3 & 4, in my opinion, are progressively less interesting. Tower 2 looks kind of cool, and Tower 3 has the slight possibility of being charming, but Tower 4 looks like it was designed by someone in the late 60's/early 70's who was stuck in a Mies van der Rohe rut. I suppose in a way that would make it more of an homage to the original WTC than the other buildings, but there's a reason why no one really paid much attention to these buildings until after they were attacked. Prior to '93 and '01 I'd never known anyone who considered them emblematic of NYC.

Another reason to hate The Enquirer: they stole the above headline from a Vatican encyclical published 5 months ago! Plagiarizing heretics!

That skeet shooter guy? He's probably everyone who posts on this blog. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyway, I think the Cincinnati sports Hall of Fame is really good idea, let's hope someone pursues it as a possibiity. I think that these people should be focusing more on the residential potential and let the storefronts take care of themselves. With the exception of perhaps a hotel or jmeck's sports museum, I don't see how a large anchor store like IKEA will meld with the site. It would be better if they looked to Michigan Avenue in Chicago as a model for the potential of retail combined with residential/office space. In closing: I like Atlantic Station. I've shopped there on at least three seperate occasions, and I've seen a movie there as well. I've even been to that IKEA down the road from it (and found it very amusing that all their products have proper names. I particularly liked the chair named "David"). But I don't see how anyone who has actually walked through either site can say, that with the exception of building everything on top of a massive parking garage, that they are similar. Doing the Banks right is much more important to Cincinnati than doing Atlantic Station well was for Atlanta.

This was originally a quote from Shah Jahan, yelling at the architect of the Taj Mahal. Or am I confusing it with the Honorable Richard J. Daley yelling at the guy who built Cabrini Green? Anyway... f it, that was sarcastic enough.

I really hope these guys don't make a carbon-copy of Atlantic Station. That site is not really like the Banks site at all. About the only thing worth taking from that place is how to best build public spaces and streetscapes on top of a parking garage. But the thing that everyone constantly touts as being the biggest asset of the Banks, it's riverfront location, has nothing in common with Atlantic Station. Also, the Banks is right next to the old downtown/central business district of Cincinnati, whereas Atlantic Station is not, and Atlanta doesn't have a central business district a la Lower Manhattan, the Chicago Loop, or even 4th Street. The architecture must speak to these neighbors, whereas Atlantic Station has essentially no significant next-door neighborhoods or architecture. I don't quite know how these developers go about their projects. I suspect that they come up with a certain design (outdoor mall anchored by __ number of big box stores, indoor mall anchored by __ number of big box stores, etc.) and then retweak it as often as they can. I hope, though I'm highly skeptical, that they'll take some design inspiration from the riverfront of Cincinnati in the 19th century, and that they build with the smaller retailer in mind. Also, does anyone know if the highways are ever going to get capped?

And the lack of priests have done the same thing to schools like St. Xavier. Now that priests-in-training (or scholastics, as my father, a St. X grad, called them) are few and far between, they have to pay their teachers. There's also the fact that schools, as you pointed out, simply have more stuff than they used to. Every field of human endeavor is a legitimate venue for education, therefore, in the U.S., every educational institution generally requires that a student be able to pursue any given activity there. Competition for students between elite private schools is still the beating drum that sets the pace for education in the U.S. What Harvard offers, competitors must (or at least aim to). This might be a good thing, or a bad thing, or neither. But justifying paying $8,000- $10,000 a year for high school, and then $30K+ a year for college seems more difficult than ever in my eyes.

Personal Anecdote: After getting the basics of driving down in Ault Park, my dad had me drive downtown to learn how to parallel park. We found an empty space between two cars, and he told me how to approach the situation and correctly pull in. Then I pulled out, went around the block, and did it again. We repeated this for about twenty times, then found a similar situation on the other side of the street at which to learn parallel parking the other way. When I eventually took my driver's test, however, they didn't even test me on parallel parking. A crying shame really. You're not a real driver if you can't parallel park. That's why I hate NASCAR.

This statement is also specious. The meat-packing center of the U.S. consistently shifted westward as the population did. From Cincinnati to Chicago, and from Chicago thence to Kansas City. Anyone actually interested in reading the history of this sort of thing would do no better than to read William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis, conveniently referenced below: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393308731/sr=1-1/qid=1156265123/ref=sr_1_1/103-0338394-8479870?ie=UTF8&s=books I've mentioned this before on other threads when this myth has come up, but the reason Chicago is the largest and most prominent Midwestern City is because it lies at what is perhaps the most geographically significant point in the entire United States. It is the closest and easiest transportation path between the two great river systems on the eastern half of the continent, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. Picture to follow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NorthAmericaDivides.gif So the reasons why the railroads were built to and from Chicago was on account of the natural access to water transportation facilities, not dumb luck or political foresight. If someone could just choose a spot, why not St. Louis or Kansas City, a much more geographically centralized spot, with a pre-existing community (at least in the case of St. Louis)? Also, let's not forget that Cincinnati is the only city in the country to build and own it's own railroad (from Cinti to Chattanooga), the rents of which make the city something like $93 million per year. That's real political foresight. The way to create value is to make good investments, not mindlessly cut taxes. Great. Now that's settled, let's seriously toss out ways we can help move this Cincinnati streetcar proposal along.

While the Maker's Mark Lounge would be kind of cool, I hope the powers that be will make the effort to insure that enough local establishments exist alongside the chains. Those familiar chains can help attract people there, but we don't want them to crowd out the local charm. I remember years ago being halfway through a club sandwich at Rock Bottom Brewery and only then realizing that I was eating the same indifferent meal I had when I was in Bethesda, Maryland.

The idea that empty buses traveling on little used routes are a significant factor in the current gasoline price increase is ridiculous, no matter what your political affiliation is. This is the same fallacy in thinking that the shirking worker or welfare mother has an important and nefarious impact on the economy. This notion, which still gets a surprising amount of play, is a holdover from our pre-industrial/modern economy. Prices aren't increasing because of the misallocation of resources, they are increasing because more people want more of something that is finite. Think about one of, if not the greatest misallocation of resources man can make- war. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) caused great destruction to Germany, which didn't recover for nearly 100 years. During the Second World War, which lasted about six years, Germany got pounded and millions of people died, yet only 10-15 years later Germany's economy was not only thriving and producing more than it's prewar economy had, it was the largest economy in Europe. KJP's right- The Shell exec's comments are totally disingenous. I don't know if he truly knows better or not (I don't think they teach economics at business school, just PowerPoint and how to remember people's names if they aren't wearing a name tag), but he should. Why is gas so expensive? Because there's less of it and so many people want it and need it. These types of shortages have occurred over the course of the history of the petroleum industry, though they were usually dealt with through a combination of technological improvement, government regulation and the discovery of new sources. Now it seems that people with a whole lot more knowledge than me on this subject seem to be saying we're running out of new sources. So prices are increasing because demand is outstripping supply. People always talk about how this Middle East b.s. is driving up prices, but we'd probably see gas prices drop quicker if we allowed those silly bastards to keep running after each other in the desert and just nuked the chow mein out of China. Of course, then we'd have to pay more for shower curtains at Wal-Mart. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Hey Schneider, you seem well informed. Can you answer me this? Blue Ash is going to give pay Cincinnati $37.5 million over the next 30 years for the airport (if the deal is approved). So how much money could that money leverage in bonds, to pay for the streetcar line you suggested below? Help me and others out. Minds who don't read The Enquirer want to know.

Would somebody with an English lit degree please expound upon the symbolism of which direction the fountain faces? When they first put it in, it faced east, I suppose in dialogue with both the original American homeland of the Eastern Seabord and also the "Old Countries" of the large immigrant populations in town. When they changed the square from an esplanade to a, well, square, they faced the statue west, perhaps in a sense of self-satisfaction with the dominance of the U.S. in world affairs or the rise of the western states, Goldwater, Reagan and all that. Now, in century 21, it shall face South. Is it because we are in competition with the "New South" as we may have felt we were competing with those previous areas? Or does it perhaps mean we finally recognize the South as the new locus for our new "Old Country" and see (let's hope) immigration as a source for our renewed greatness? Or may they'll simply be more space on the southern end of the Square now, and they figure more folks will view it from that place? I don't know. I'm still going to miss seeing the old girl as I drive down 5th Street.

Here's a nice map of what I'm talking about. You can see how the St. Lawrence/Great Lakes drainage and the Mississippi drainage come closest to each other in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NorthAmericaDivides.gif

I think we're ignoring some basic geographical realities. Chicago is a hinge point for the U.S. in a way that Cincinnati isn't. It is the southwestern-most point on the Great Lakes that is only about 3 miles from the Des Plaines River which feeds into the Mississippi via the Illinois River. So basically the two greatest natural transportation systems in the Eastern United States, the natural highways that connect the interior of the continent with both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico come closest to each other at Chicago. So it becomes natural that Eastern financiers would finance the construction of unnatural transportation networks that could best take advantage of these pre-existing natural ones. The only other cities in the U.S. of comparable geograhpic importance are New York and New Orleans, obviously the two great ports at the ends of those two respective systems. It's no surprise that after the Revolutionary War, the leading cities of Philadelphia and Boston fell behind New York, and that Charleston was soon eclipsed by New Orleans as the leading city in the South. As with those great cities, there was a sort of geographic inevitability to Chicago eclipsing Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, etc. in terms of population and as a destination for immigrants.

No offense, but I used to attend Urbanist meetings for a few years right after the turn of the century, and I can't say they did much of anything. They threw some pretty nice lectures with some pretty choice wine and cheese (even better than The Mercantile Library) but after a while I felt like I was just at a singles bar for people who don't like going to singles bars. As for Terry Grundy, while he is a charming guy to talk to, I could never figure out what he was doing. He had a remarkable ability to let everyone feel like they said their piece while at the end of the meeting basically what he wanted was agreed upon. But then, nothing further happened except more meetings were scheduled. What's the point of having the kevorka if you don't use it? For a guy who teaches urban lobbying or whatever, he doesn't seem to do much about it. A couple of plugs for Nick Spencer during his initial Council campaign was about all I ever saw in terms of lobbying. What seemed to hold so much promise quickly proved tedious, which ironically is the perfect description of my brief relationship with some Indian chick I left one of those lectures with. I remember that meeting had particularly good cheese.

How is that? Without hands? :) Without any respect for public decency. For me, it's very erotic.

Looks like that napkin dispenser would be in Paul Brown Stadium from the angle of the rendering. That's definitely the view from Paul Brown Stadium. The conspicuously shorter red-brick building is so much shorter than the others in the designs because the Bengals have some sort of veto rights over the height of the buildings in that block. Another reason they could take it slow and start developing from East to West, to show Mike Brown that 6-8 story (sp?) building is not a threat to his golden egg nest next door. Monte, I completely agree with you about the looks for the Banks. Those designs were what was sold to the public, they should be the course to be followed, at least stylistically. I think that if you're going to use paper napkins at your restaurant, you have to have napkin dispensers on each table. Look at Frisch's for example. You order a Big Boy and Fries and they give you one napkin, and the only way to get another one is if you order a hot fudge cake for desert. Now do you think that just two paper napkins are going to be able to handle the combined power of all those gooey sauces (tartar, ketchup and hot fudge)? Not bloody likely. Certainly not if you eat them the way I do.

It's amazing how people keep bringing up Atlantic Station in Atlanta (not necessarily on this site) as something we should follow for downtown development. As the map clearly indicates, the Atlantic Station development is across the highway from Midtown Atlanta, not Downtown Atlanta, thereby placing it somewhere to the equivalent of UC (the closest MARTA station isn't even the Midtown Station. It's Arts Center, one station north. The map is being slightly generous with what Atlantans would consider Midtown). On top of that, it's across the highway (I-75/I-85) from all those places I just described. So, to put it in Cincinnati terms, the Atlantic Station development would be located somewhere in Camp Washington. Which is funny since the Atlantic Station development is on what were once old industrial sites. I think we are capable of making the Banks more interesting ourselves than by copying a nice and relatively successful Atlanta development that occupies a completely different site. Everyone moans about how the site currently makes little use of "great riverfront property". A big box IKEA wouldn't be the answer.

Coach: "Little Cramer, I've never know you to back down from a challenge." Cramer: "Put me in Coach!" ^What happened to that guy?

Please tell us more! I did hear that the Sibcy Cline office is relocating to bigger digs. So come on, spill the beans! What can we expect and when? I have no idea when it might happen. Their could still be street and first level offices as their is now at a 'Edwards Terrace' type building at the spot, with residential on top. I just hear rumors from a man on the inside that _____ Sibcy owns one of the penthouses in the Michigan Terrace building, and when all of those are sold and the storefronts are up and running, that they'd do the same with their building. Since all but two of the units are sold (and if they had been on schedule one guy wouldn't have backed out) and for such prices, those guys are making money hand over fist. If it worked once, why not do it again? It will probably work again. I hope it does. I always thought a good place for a streetcar would be from the theoretcal Wasson Light Rail Line near Rookwood Commons, through Hyde Park and Mt. Lookout Squares, down to the new Columbia Square development, terminating in the projected Oasis Rail Line. Maybe get a few more people out of their cars.

I'm pretty sure all those restaurants were at the same location, which for whatever reason can not seem to keep a tenant. What appeals to a small child is not going to appeal to the average adult. Yeah, it kind of sucks that Hyde Park Square no longer has two drugstores, a barber shop, Zino's, Drew's Bookstore, etc. I also don't shop at high end women's clothing stores and art galleries. But saying that Hyde Park is a shell of its former self would be like saying, oh, I don't know, maybe that you are a shell of your former self, since you don't do the same things at 28 that you did at 12. Are you really that bereft over the dissapearance of Eagle Savings and Loan, or the Tennis Pro Shop? I pulled out my snarky tone to check you melodramatic angst. Scissors cuts paper. I agree with you, Hyde Park Square is quite boring. It's usually overpriced as well. In fact, that perfectly describes the club sandwich at The Echo, boring and overpriced. And what could be more Hyde Park Square than that? But let's be honest, just because you don't like a place means it's dead, or bad per se. So until Shake It Records and Sitwell's moved into the storefront of Michigan Terrace, let's shed no tears for Hyde Park Square.

I thought the music was perfect. It's like, "Middle East meets Midwest- via Queens".

^There's no problem with expensive condos on the Square. As you said, that's what one would expect. Unlike say, the Banks, this is a project where a private developer is almost guaranteed to make good money converting an old commercial parcel into residential/mixed use space without the need for the government's involvement. My snarky tone was in response to PRidgeFlyer's throwaway, "breathe new life into the Square comment". I thought that was pretty clear.

Aside from the master himself.

Dude. Give it up. Don't go all Spencer on us. I "Heart" NY might be the quintessential example of modern branding, but that doesn't mean this Fountain Squaring the Circle of shopping, music-listening and fountaining is going to compete for the title.