LincolnKennedy

Atlantic Station is nice, and I bought some good and relatively inexpensive clothes there (I think that mostly had to do with the fact it was after Christmas) but I don't think it would fall into most people's idea of what is walkable with regard to the available public transit opportunities in Atlanta. To get to the MARTA you have to walk across I-75/I-85, then down Peachtree Road to Arts Center Station, which is one station north of Midtown Station. I then took the southbound train to Five Points, transferred to the Eastbound Train, road two stops to King Memorial Station, then walked almost exactly a mile, crossing I-20, to house where I was staying. All the time relatively encumbered with shopping bags. There are those of us who don't mind such a commute, but most aren't interested in such a journey. I say this not to rag on public transit, just to give a better perspective on the Atlanta and the Atlantic Station development. It's still focused on the car.

I can't figure out what the City or the County wants at the Banks. I don't understand the need for a master developer, particularly if said developer isn't going to use their own money for the project and simply rely on TIF financing. I feel that the project should progress in this order: 1) Finish the parking garages and gain a revenue stream from them; 2) Build some sort of Streetcar connecting the Riverfront to Pill Hill, going through Downtown and OTR; 3) Begin topside development, beginning with the block between the Reds stadium and the Museum, then the block to the west of the museum, and finally the block west of that next to the Bengals stadium. These projects can be undertaken by the same or seperate entities, whatever arrangement garners the development the most state and federal funds. The problem with the Banks project is that it never really made it past the point of an artist's rendering that existed to sell the stadia development. Let's admit this crucial point, stop trying to complete a project that was never seriously thought about in the first place, and instead begin anew, realizing what an opportunity we have here now.

I'm a little late to this discussion, but to what extent is the Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern Railroad Tunnel available for future use? I'm looking toward Mecklenborg for an answer.

While I'm sure it could be more attractive, I am just happy it will soon be built and finally the last of the massive downtown public venues will be complete. They should merge whoever runs the convention center with whoever runs the NKY one on the Covington riverfront, and maybe throw in the Coliseum if that is still publicly owned. Then they need to book those things to full capacity, with whomever they can. In short, get back the cash we put into it and then some. But unlike with the Reds or the Bengals (both of which are simply about civic pride) really make the effort with this thing. I'm skeptical that tax cuts actually increase investment, but there is one place where I think they might, and that is with the hotel tax. Since we aren't going after conventions that are looking at Vegas, NYC, Atlanta, LA or Chicago anyway, we should figure out the real venues we compete with and then say this- "Look, if you go to Pittsburgh (St. Louis, Charlotte, Louisville, Nashville, etc.) your average attendee will be paying this much. Same convention in Cincinnati will only cost the average attendee, this much, which is 20% less. You can do the same things here you can do in any of those cities. So we got a deal?" Any other incentives strike me as being ridiculous, since the point of the convention is to make money for the city through rentals or secondary tax revenue (sales tax, etc.), and call me, pretentious, but bidding on these things doesn't conform with my sense of civic dignity either.

I don't think it's fair to call this gentrification when people are refurbishing abandoned buildings or building on empty lots. No one calls the restoration of an old farmhouse or building a subdivision on farmland"gentrification" even though it's clear that wealthier people are moving into the area. It's very important to remember that Over-the-Rhine is a very underpopulated neighborhood. Anything that can be done to increase the population is a good thing. People who move to Over-the-Rhine because they want to is even better. The primary reason why people don't build affordable housing for inner-city poor people is because of building regulations and safety codes. Basically the attempt to end the tenement priced those people out of the city. Only in places where you have large immigrant populations (like New York, L.A., Chicago) do you still have areas that seem to recall the old 19th century tenements. Poor people in rural areas generally live in trailers and don't own the land they live on. They pay no taxes (but they also don't get any equity) and the cost of living is so low there that they are generally able to afford it. Besides food, clothing and cable, they don't really have that many expenses anyway. But Locustus raises a good question, where will these people live if the neighborhood that was created to contain them (through Section 8 housing as well as Public housing projects) disappears? Places like Chicago are essentially pricing the poor out by tearing down their old housing projects and rebuilding them with much nicer single family row houses. These people are being pushed out of Chicago and into South Side inner ring suburbs like Calumet City, Gary, and others, cities that are much less able to deal with the associated problems of the urban poor. I don't think most people really care.

I can't say I much care for Sam Adams. Big Moerlein fan though. Sam Adams is not merely brewed here. As most people probably know, the founder of the company, Jim Koch, is a Cincinnati native who moved to Boston to attend Harvard. According to him Sam Adams is from an old family recipe. Not many Germans immigrated to the Boston area during the height of German and Irish immigration in the 19th century, which is why I assume they don't have many prominent local brews up there. One of the prime reasons so many Irish immigrated to Boston was because the British government would subsidize fares to Canada. Since the Irish had little money, and the jobs were far more plentiful in the U.S., a lot of Irish would come via our northern neighbor. New England has also been a recipient of immigration from Quebec as well. Strange that neither the French-Canadians, nor the Irish, both of whom have strong traditions of enjoying and socializing with alcohol, would have founded no famous breweries or labels. At least I'm not aware of any.

"Warsh" is widespread. Cincinnati, Toledo, Baltimore, all over the South. My experience with "please" is that you don't notice it until someone points it out. With regard to jmecklenborg's post on "black accents" I would make this comment. I think you graduated St. X in 1996. I graduated Walnut Hills in 1996, and had a group of guys from X I would hang out with on occasion. I distinctly remember being "called out" for what I assume your fellows considered a "black accent", which was nothing more than youth lingo. Specifically I recall the word "mack", as in, "I was macking on this girl" (man, that sounds incredibly dated now that I read it) was a source of derision. What a man for others would call out as a "black accent" was commonly used and understood phrases in public schools and later in the popular media. To characterize hip hop phrases as being "black" is a gross exaggeration. None of my black teachers used those words, phrases or speech patterns. I can't help but think that if we had graduated high school in 1956, you'd have beeb arguing that words associated with bebop as being "black speech". The moral of the story is that by the end of high school those pasty white X boys were down. On the subject of cultural phenomena (like hip hop or jazz) changing speech patterns or bringing certain words and phrases to the rhetorical fore, does anyone of sufficient age remember when the Midwest was invaded by valley girl speech? It was in the mid to late 80's. Though "gag me with a spoon" has fallen by the wayside, you don't think about it anymore now because, like, it's been, you know, incorporated into normal discourse or something.

I know I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I must say I don't see how this plan improves upon the Square we've already got. Both strike me as a jumbled versions of other successful squares. Here are my questions: Why move the Fountain? Reasons to keep it where it is: 1) history, 2) the view down Fifth Street, 3) as a counterbalance to the short building on the northern side of the Square. If they are trying to get restaurants to be ground floor tenants in that north building, why would you move the noisy & wet fountain closer to an outdoor dining area? I perceive no benefits from placing the fountain in the center of the Square. Why an extra Fountain? Locating another fountain for children to play immediately next to the intersection of two streets is retarded. Also, people already play in and around the real Fountain. If the guys from 3CDC actually looked at it they'd see that play is one of the benefits of water depicted in the sculptures. Why all the trees? Do they realize that by removing the barrier on the southern (Fifth Street) side they are also removing the largest single area of bench space on the Square, as well as the bench space closest to the Fountain? As for the city giving away yet another of its resources to finance yet another "magic bullet" project, that I have no comment. Why not do this: Fix the parking garage and while doing so bring the entire square as close to street level as possible. Keep the square as level as possible. Rehab the north building and get together a group of pushcart vendors as part of a "Fountain Square Corporation" similar to the Findlay Market Corporation?