Eigth and State

I have been paying attention to these lights and found that sometimes they are on in the morning and sometimes they are not. The tower is located around Fairview Heights. Not that this is important or anything but just interesting. :?

^---- Don't laugh too soon! Chances are that everything you need gets there by truck.

Ink - Sorry, I don't have the address, but if you walk north on Elm from High it's about 3 blocks down on the right. There is no mistaking it. Yes, I do think the bay window is wierd. It looks as if the architect copied some elements from various old buildings with no regard for how they fit together.

This is the real deal: 100% load-bearing brick masonry. <img src="http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a50/robinsonnate/UpOx/100_8076.jpg"> What's wrong with this picture? <img src="http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a50/robinsonnate/UpOx/100_8069.jpg> It's brick, but the architect got the details wrong. The columns are too skinny, and the bays are too wide. Also, the windows are positioned over the columns. There's got to be steel in there, or the upper floor would collapse. Now I have nothing against steel as a building material, but if you're going to use brick, why not make it load-bearing? Furthermore, I can't locate the front door in that deep, dark space, and the lettering does not stand out well. Too bad. Is Oxford trying too hard to look historic? Photo request: the "Nightmare on Elm Street," aka the Swiss Cheese house. Take Elm north from High. I also miss the water tower.

Driving to work this morning a vertical row of flashing white lights popped out at me. Did Cincinnati get a new tower, or perhaps new lights on an existing one? It appeared to be in the area of Clifton Heights. On the other hand maybe I'm crazy. I don't remember seeing them before.

^---- Well, technically, "planning" relates to a plan, or overhead view. Other views are elevation, profile, cross-section, etc. "Planning" a parking lot can mean laying one out on paper. (You guys crack me up sometimes, as if a real town planner would never recommend a parking lot.) :-D I agree with X. In addition, if you have a drawing of your area, start by laying off 9'x20' spaces with 24' wide aisles in a rectangular grid, making sure not to have any dead-end aisles that drivers will have to back out of. That should get you started. Garages are much more complicated because you will need space for stairs, elevators, ramps, columns, etc. To get a rough idea, do the same thing with your space and then multiply by the number of levels you want. That will give you an upper limit. Some codes require stormwater detention, landscaped islands, setbacks, etc. If you expect larger vehicles such as busses you will obviously need more room for them. Google "parking lot design" for more.

Those folding shopping carts are still seen on buses in Cincinnati, especially during mid-day. I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but it's the only place I've ever seen them.

Oh, and some of the furnishings at Music Hall such as mirrors were salvaged from the Burnet House, which stood 5 stories tall at 3rd and Vine from 1850 to 1926, site of the present Central Trust Annex. The Cincinnati culture at Music Hall runs deep.

I read in the paper that the long term trend shows that attendance is down, and at one point they were considering reducing the number of seats. The last time I was there I was attending a meeting in the ballroom that seated over 1000 people, and it was full. The ballroom also had a wood floor. I have a book, "Cincinnati's Music Hall," 1978. About half of the book is about the building, and about half is about the culture, up to that time. (The 1978 fashions are amusing.) There are some architectural drawings, maps, old photos, behind the scenes photos, etc. The book also has a section on Cincinnati history in general and the neighborhood west of Music Hall in particular. Music Hall was originally part of a larger complex that made up the Industrial Exposition of 1879. The other buildings, including one built over the canal, are gone. Some hidden history of the Industrial Exposition shows up in the present building in the form of architectural detailing: A bird, sunflower, musical instruments, machinery, and architect's tools. Eventually the performing arts crowded out all the other uses. Although it's convenient, I don't really care for the parking structure across Central Parkway. The front door is really on the Elm Street side.

^--- Did you notice the ladder?

^----"if the retail price of beer was doubled or even tripled,..." Then the beer makers would be making more money. It has been said that all money is connected. If I am on a steady income and the price of beer, or gasoline, or anything else goes up, then yes, I will consume less of it. But chances are that my income will not be steady. If I happen to be the beer maker, then my income will go up, and we are back where we started. Someone is going to have a good day if the price of beer doubled. Sorry for confusing the issue. My point was that on the surface, it appears that a government tax on gasoline will encourage people to use less gasoline. It's more complicated than that. A government tax does not increase or decrease the supply or demand of oil. A government tax takes money away from someone and gives it to someone else. Gasoline taxes have only gone up, and so has oil consumption. If Portland people live happier lives because they have a more comfortable community, then great! Reducing the number of cars in the built environment has its benefits. I should stop now. :drunk:

KJP, I see where you're coming from, but I think you're missing the point. You see, the money falls out of the equation. Think of money as an accounting device that determines who gets what. It doesn't change the amount of oil that is extracted. As a counter to you example, I agree that if the gasoline tax is raised, drivers will use less gasoline. But what happens to that money collected by the government? The government spends it! Supposedly they will build transit, do research, etc., but all of those activities use oil also. If nothing else, the researchers will take home their paychecks and buy SUV's. Or, maybe try this one. You are camping in the wilderness with 3 other buddies. You have $10 in cash, and your buddies have $50, $100, and $1. You are there for a week, and you together you brought a case of beer. At the end of the week, all of the beer will be gone, and the $161 did not disappear. Does it matter who ends up with the money, or who drank the beer? You can trade money for beer all you want, but as long as someone is drinking, by the end of the week, the beer will be gone. That's the alarming simplicity of Hubbert's theory: neither price nor fuel efficiency figure into the equation. We are consuming oil as fast as it can be extracted out of the ground, and I'm sorry to tell you that there's nothing we can do about it. Governments meddling with prices, charging taxes, or mandating fuel efficiency standards only shift the oil consumption to someone else, or change the kinds or number of vehicles we drive. (Sorry - been spending too much time on the oil forums.)

^----"Since it's cheaper to save energy than it is to buy it, becoming more energy efficient won't bankrupt the economy, it will save it a hell of a lot of money." Suppose I drive an SUV because it makes me feel better about myself. An environmental activist comes along and convinces me to sell the SUV and take yoga classes instead. So, I take him up on it, sell the SUV, and with all the money I save I take yoga classes. Then the yoga instructor buys an SUV with her extra profits. Sorry for the repetition, but this is the dilemma we are in. Our economy is not simple. If we all drive less to "save" gasoline, then gasoline becomes cheaper and easier for someone else to buy. Get it? The question isn't how much oil we as humans will use. The question is WHO will use it. Will I use it, or my neighbor? Will the U.S. use it, or China? In any case, SOMEONE is burning oil, virtually as fast as it can be extracted from the ground. That doesn't mean we should do our best to be comfortable. Traditional villages are more comfortable than sprawl areas, for example.

^--- It has been proven that there is a smokestack hidden within the top of the Central Trust Tower. Nice work.

Diagonally across from the beautiful building in photo no. 12 was an abandoned Kroger grocery store for many years. (Anyone know if it's still abandoned?) The empty parking lot, at College Hill's most important intersection, gives the neighborhood a disproportional feeling of emptyness. The kicker was that apparently Kroger was worried that a competitor would move into the building, so they made it difficult to re-use. College Hill, like Clifton, still retains many gaslights, which certainly adds to the charm. You can pick some out in the photos. Will College Hill become like Clifton?

mrnyc - talk of opening one of the inclines, particularly the Mt. Adams incline, pops up every couple of years. The right of way is still there on all 5. The Fairview and Main Street rights of way have been converted to hillside steps. The other three have reverted back to forest. Some may be blocked by new buildings at the top. The Mt. Adams incline wouldn't be very useful anymore as it is cut off from downtown by freeways. None of the 5 would be economically viable, as there is little potential for traffic. You have to remember that people used the inclines as part of a longer route, and when the inclines were built there simply wasn't a better way. The hills were too steep for horse drawn vehicles, and the steam engine was the only power available. When electric streetcars and then automobiles were invented, and better roads were built, there just wasn't a need for inclines. Also, the inclines were very slow, taking about 2 minutes per ride. The Mt. Adams incline lasted long enough to become an attraction, but even then it didn't have the traffic to support the operation. Would it pay off today? Probably not. Yes, Pittsburgh still has inclines, and Chattanooga has a very steep cable car line, but Cincinnati is relatively tame compared to those.

"I've heard several people speculate that the walling-off caused by I-71 and I-75 is what has kept downtown Cincinnati intact, kept the core tight with walkable distances between destinations..." I agree with that, and furthermore, it was deliberately planned that way. See the 1948 Metropolitan Master Plan. The highways also allowed people to drive right to the heart of downtown Cincinnati. Compare to Columbus, etc. In the same way that development has grown up around highway interchanges, development has grown up around the ramps downtown. Note that in Blue Ash, Sharonville, Fairfield, etc., skyscrapers with parking garages have grown around the highway interchanges.

^---- I have heard it said that high gasoline prices will not keep Americans from driving, but rather that Americans will stop driving when the government stops maintaining the roads.

^--- That was a stunning pair of photos but to be fair transit is not the only issue. Cincinnati's riverfront was in decline long before the interstates were built, due to the decline of riverboat traffic and due to flood hazards.

Cincinnati had 5 inclines, not to be confused with an additional 3 cable car routes. (Goes to bookshelf; picks up "Cincinnati Streetcars No. 2 The Inclines, Wagner and Wright".) The Mt. Auburn or Main Street incline opened in 1872 with fixed coaches. In 1878 the cabs were rebuilt to haul horsecars. In 1889 the incline began hauling electric cars. The Mount Auburn incline operated until 1898. The Price Hill incline opened in 1874. Two planes were built side by side. The first side was constructed in 1874 and had two cars to carry passengers. The freight side was built in 1876 and had two open platforms that could carry three or four heavily loaded wagons with teams. The Price Hill incline operated until 1942 but never carried streetcars. The Bellevue incline opened in 1876. At first it carried only foot passengers but in 1890 it was rebuilt to carry vehicles and streetcars. It operated until 1927. The Mt. Adams incline opened in 1876. In 1880 a platform was added to carry horsecars. In 1920 the platforms were lengthened to cary dougle-truck streetcars. The car line was abandoned in 1947 but the incline continued to haul buses until 1948. The Fairview Incline was built in 1892 to carry streetcars. In 1921 stationary car bodies were mounted on the platforms to carry foot passengers. It operated until 1923. So there you go. (Puts book back on bookshelf.)

^----"Why can't these former ROW's be used?" They could be, if you don't mind taking a whole 2 minutes to ride up or down the hill. That's about what it took when the inclines were in operation. The ROW's for all five Cincinnati inclines are mostly intact.

That's the first photo of Robert Moses that I've ever seen and he's not what I imagined. He looks like he could be a nice guy. :-)

Aside from the technical issue of having to stop traffic for toll booths, congestion pricing does, in fact, reduce congestion. I'm not sure why the grants are needed, though. As long as the toll revenue exceeds the cost to collect the tolls, states should be able to come up with the money to get it started.

^----- Sawatdee krap means "hello" in Thai. If you saw my Thailand photos in the world photos section, you know that I got a chance to travel to Chaing Mai, Thailand. I passed through Bangkok on the way, and took day trips to Chaing Dao and Doi Suthep. While I did the tourist things (elephant riding, rockclimbing, etc,) I also spent a lot of time just wandering around the city. Chiang Mai is a city of 300,000. What I saw mostly confirmed what I suspected about cities. Visiting Chiang Mai was like stepping into a time warp. Thailand has a functioning passenger rail system, a functioning inter-city bus system, and a functioning city public transportation system. On the other hand, automobile sales are growing at about 10% a year - like the United States had in 1960. You could actually see it in the number of new cars. While the urban core is still very much intact, I could see the sprawl creeping in. Chaing Mai has only a few interchanges or overpasses - similar to Ohio cities around 1940 before the Interstates came out in force. Single family homes are being built on the periphery, but at this point perhaps 10% of families live in the suburbs. There are some new skyscrapers, surrounded by parking. Many of them are outside of the urban core. Some of them are near the center. I can only imagine how much urban fabric was removed to make way for the skyscrapers. The markets were like nothing I ever saw before. I estimate that there was an average of one street vendor per 100 feet of street or better. I ate almost exclusively from street vendors. Thai people live in the street: they cook in the street, eat in the street, work in the street, and socialize in the street. This was quite a bit of culture shock at first, but I enjoyed it. When I got home I realized how much trouble it is to drive to a grocery store. In Chiang Mai, I walked 200 feet from my room and bought a pound of fresh pineapple from a street vendor every day for lunch. Yet, the grocery stores and malls are moving in. You can tell by the new buildings. Out on the "superhighway" are the "Mega stores" There was one surprise. Despite being very dense, Chiang Mai was not all that walkable. The reason was lack of sidewalks and traffic that does not stop. Chiang Mai is a motorbike city. They park on the side of the road and walk 10 feet to their destination. All of those parked motorbikes make it difficult to walk. I noticed that most walkers were foreigners. Here on urbanohio we lament the loss of our old urban areas. Look at some of the topics: passenger rail back in the day; the death of railroad transportation; the death of Summit Street; proposal to revitalize this or that neighborhood. There is no need to revitalize anything in Chiang Mai. Practically all of the storefronts are occupied. Whenever something is torn down, something bigger is built in it's place. I did manage to find a handful of vacant buildings but there is no widespread abandonement. Yet, in Chiang Mai I could see it coming. It was a bit sad to see teenagers playing video games in the mall. A big billboard sign in the city advertises a new single family home development on the fringe. Car sales are increasing. The natives generally agree that Chaing Mai is much better than it was before. They see progress. Thailand is not rich by American standards, but it is richer than all of the countries around it. It has a steady stream of immigrants. This helps keep the core populated as richer folk move out. It also affects wage rates. I rode an intercity bus that had a crew of 3: a driver, conductor, and doorman. Ohio streetcars generally switched to one man operation by the 1930's. The intracity buses hold about 10 people and come on a frequency of more than one per minute. Compare to Ohio city buses that hold 90 and come once a hour. The ratio of operators to passengers is the difference. There are still a lot of rickshaws, or passenger tricycles, in Chiang Mai, but they are invariably driven by skinney old guys. I didn't see a single young rickshaw driver. In fact, as a general rule, the younger people were taller, heavier, and looked more healthy than the older folks. The change was fast enough to see in the faces. And, by the way, Thailand expects to extract more oil this year than they did last year. Conclusions: Chaing Mai is following the same patterns as Ohio cities. Judging from old photos and my (limited) knowledge of cities, Chiang Mai in 2007 resembles Ohio cities anywhere from 1940 to 1960. Cities are complicated beings, made up of buildings, vehicles, people, streets, utilities, and a whole host of economic activities. As much as we like to blame transportation engineers, LeCorbusier planners, Robert Moses types, etc., the patterns of industry and commerce have occured everywhere around the world. It is conceivable that in 40 years that Thailand people will be lamenting the loss of the way things used to be. Affluent people have always moved out to the periphery of Ohio cities, right from the beginning. Up until about 1950, they were replaced by 1. immigrants and 2. younger people. Now that we have very few immigrants and a low birth rate, we are still expanding geographically while the core declines. This is no one's fault in particular. "Times change, and we change with them." - William Henry Harrison

"You'd also need parking for the staff." Oh, the irony. I am in favor of streetcars or light rail as much as the next guy, but gee, what kind of message does it convey when the streetcar drivers and mechanics have to drive to work? :|