TroyEros

Why would I make up a story? You think I have some secret agenda? I love otr and was trying to have my mother and father experience it as well. It was going great up until deciding to stray away from the vine Street crowd Again the street with half cut, lacheys, and gomez are relatively safe because of all the street traffic. But the street that interests the abandoned Columbia building and old saint Mary has no bars or street traffic. You can ask anyoe about the crowd that hangs by the Columbia building I'm just trying to tell you guys be safe. Be with a group and try to stay in well lit areas. Nothing bad happened to us, but all I'm saying is the level of actively you will see on vine is sort of absent elsewhere

So I had an unfortunate negative event yesterday in OTR. Was with my family and went to the Taft Ale House. Afterwards I thought it would be a good idea to have them try some Macrons and the Macron Bar on Main Street. The time was around 8pm, sun was down obviously at that time. OTR was sort of dead for Saturday. Not sure if it was because of the cold weather or everyone had there own Halloween thing going. Anyways, walking from 16 bit to The Columbia building on Walnut is super sketchy. There are always a group of black men hanging on that corner. And we were offered week and coke. They got angry when we ignoring them, and trying to cross the street. Afterwards, a black man began to follow us, took off his shirt and began to yell at us, saying we are gonna get shot. He showed us the gun shot wound on his stomach. My family began to panic. We made it to main, but it didn't help. There were crowds of more homeless people, and more sketchy black folk who began to talk shit to us. We were dressed nicely, and they made fun of us for this. We finally made it to the Macron Bar, but none the less they almost had a heart attack. OTR was pretty dead, and the path way from Vine to Main was just scary. I guess the point of this post is OTR still confuses me. This is technically supposed to be the "safe" part of OTR. South of liberty, but the residents that are still there seem to like to continue to harass the visitors or sell drugs to them.

The Millennials/The Hipsters that already frequent OTR on a daily basis or who live there will be what makes the street car work and carry the torch long enough till we can see actual praticality for it like connecting the street car up to clifton.

I love toronto. That said there high rise condo/office towers are some of the most generic buildings I've seen. They dominate so much of the skyline, yet are so stale and boring to look at. Just very uninspired. That's the only thing I don't like about Toronto..And enjoy montreal in a respects a bit more. The architecture there is beautiful, and doesn't feel dominated by tall bland high rises.

My father has worked in downtown Cincinnati his entire adult life, since the early 80's. While I don't live in the Cincinnati area now, whenever I visit I try to get downtown or OTR as much as I can to check out new development and entertainment options. When I occasionally bring up doing something in OTR as a family, he says he would NEVER visit any new establishment in OTR, because he doesn't believe in the Cincinnati Streetcar and doesn't want to have anything to do with its potential success. I was totally flabbergasted by this revelation; he's logged over 60,000 hours of his life in downtown Cincinnati, so I thought for sure he would appreciate the success and investment that downtown and OTR have seen recently after decades of neglect. At the very least, I thought maybe he would be totally indifferent to what is happening, since the type of entertainment options that have been popping up in OTR aren't necessarily for everyone. He was actually hostile to the idea of spending any time or money in OTR, and it sounded like it had almost everything to do with the streetcar. He's a devout Catholic Republican that has spent his entire life in the Northern Kentucky suburbs, so take that for what you will. These are the types of people we are up against, and I'm not sure if any amount of success will turn their opinion on the matter. It's going to take many years until the region fully embraces the Cincinnati Streetcar and rail's future in the region, but I think Cincinnati's off to a great start. Thanks for the story. But again, WHY is he so angry? Did he have to pay for it? If not, then why does it matter for him? That's what I really don't get. Okay you have no use for the streetcar. Fine, I get that. But what the hell makes people so irritated about the street car? People literally act as if the street car was built from a portion of there paycheck. You don't live in Cincinnati. You live in the suburbs. Yet people get angry, and I just don't understand why. My friends who live in Blue Ash acknowledge that they will probably never use it. But are happy for people who live in OTR/Banks, or poorer residents who live in the northern stretches of OTR and can use it as a main way of transportation to get groceries at the Vine street kroger. They see the practicality of it, even if it's not for them. But the people who didn't spend a dime for the streetcar, who live in the suburbs, who work in the suburbs, who go to downtown maybe twice a month for drinks at OTR, they are up in arms! BAGHHHH!! Seriously? I'm embarrassed quite frankly.

Yeah but what I don't understand is where does the fear stem from? And why isn't there more excitement for our city to grow

Jesus the messages on Cincinnati.com article to the street car is scary. Like these people are seriously legit pissed that this thing exsists. They proclaim how they will be able to walk faster and how it will die within the year. They are just livid this exists. I just don't understand why people are so angry? If you don't have a use for it then fine, but why can't you be happy for people who will use it on a daily basis? Why does it affect them.. Especially if they live in there suburbs and will get to keep there Toyotas anyway

Almost here.

Just watched that documentary. I guess the general gist of it is that it's all GM's fault. They wanted to capitalize on there on the automobile, and developed metro buses as a main weapon to get rid of them. Then world war 2 was over, subsidized federal loans were handed out to built suburban homes, then all of a sudden almost everyone had a car. So basically screw GM?

CITY COUNCIL 10/28: Approved an 8-year Community Reinvestment Area tax exemption agreement with Hagen Properties, LLC for the $106,000 rehabilitation of 1833 Vine St in Over-the-Rhine into seven market-rate apartments and commercial space. The City estimates that it will result in a net revenue gain of nearly $12,000 over the life of the agreement.

I saw this on the Street Car facebook page We used to have some of the greatest architecture assets in all of America, and we used to have 300 miles of streetcar rails, plus a subway tunnel waiting to be built. I need to know guys, what the hell happened? I know this isn't the place for it, but if someone can give me a short and simple answer that would be appreciated. It blows my mind. How did our economy decline so badly while other cities (like say chicago) managed to flourish?

Random thought..But over/under for how long it will take for those new pleasant street condos (the one's that were built 5 years ago or so), to be demolished for more a more "luxurious" deluxe condo that they can turn over for 600-700K. Because with the distance it is to music hall and it being in the epicenter of OTR, I can imagine if those were rebuilt to look more "luxurious" I could see those type of condo's be worth close to a million 10 years down the road or so (assuming the area continues to improve like it currently has)

Im sort of the same way. I'd rather it be a public space/alley...kind of agree with the otr community chamber

What exactly do they want to do with that alley space? Build new construction to cover that gap? I'm sort of confused...

I know this would be a bad thing if it happens, but right now it seems this way..If OTR becomes the Indian Hill neighborhood of Urban Cincinnati, what exactly does this do for the City of Cincinnati and it's tax revenue? This will pretty much guarantee that Cincinnati is always in a surplus correct?

There's rich young professionals aplenty who live in Cincinnati. Who woulda thunk?

What's crazy about all of that was that they wanted to demolish the historic building because they couldn't afford the 3.4 million price tag to renovate. I understand if a building is about to collapse and cause immediate harm, then sure, go ahead and demolish. But simply because you can't afford the price tag to rehab the building? Wtf?

Yeah I thought the official date was November 16th for the Dead Pull.

Does anyone know at what time exactly the street car is intended to start the test phase on the OTR loop? I know it's going to be at night, but I'm normally there on the weekend for drinking with friends. Will it be possible to see it go around the loop then?

Just a random thought...So I noticed that with the new wave of construction thats happening in OTR your getting a wide range of developers, and architects. Doesn't this kind of benefit OTR? Your essentially creating a collection of diverse modern interpretations that is similar to what you would see in OTR already (in terms of diverse architecture, and not a row of buildings see a mass production of likeness like we see today). Don't get me wrong, clearly, with bigger plot sizes, you'll still see "same-ness", but with these smaller plot sizes, and more diverse portfolio of architects and developers coming on board nowadays you sort of start creating a more "authentic" modern OTR in the process.

It didn't appear to be in the OTR boundaries. It's in the historic packet for October though, look there :)

I don't know what you expect. It's a bar, you can't exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to bars..

The new Historic Board Packet came out. Interesting note is that there are more new construction, this one in particular in Mulberry street. Looks very traditional Italianate. Nice cornices and trimmings as well. The other developement is more interesting. On republic street, a developer is interested in taking that 1 story warehouse (that sits adjacent to the Trinity flats, and Low spark)..The developer wants to turn this space into a resturaunt/bar, and create a rooftop dining space. The building will also have a mural painted on it (I guess the place will be called The crown and Key?) If approved, construction will start this fall and be open by early 2016. I also thought it was interesting that this space wasn't considered a "contributing" piece of OTR, yet was built in 1920, and will soon be a 100 years old....wonder why it's considered non contribuiting in that case..?

Any official word on how late the streetcar will operate till? You would hope at the very till 2am on say Friday and Saturday, and till 12am on Weekdays. I could see many people taking advantage of the streetcar on bar hop adventures down in OTR on the weekends

Low Spark finally opens in OTR on Saturday! http://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/nightlife/bars-and-clubs/2015/10/23/new-otr-bar-low-spark-opens-saturday/74471356/