neilworms

Your completely forgetting Maine with a similarly rugged coastline to the ones you showed from Lake Superior...

No, we should focus on bringing these assets to light as they highlight how unique Cincinnati is among its peers. The emery is an important asset and should be treated as such, not allowed to remain mothballed due to dumb political reasons.

There are several other good angles of Chicago's impressive skyline - for instance when you approach it via the Kennedy Expressway from the northwest. Ohioans sadly miss out on this incredible view a lot as they approach Chicago from probably its ugliest angle from the southeast: Farther out: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5297/5501177650_ce16b060f3_b.jpg Closer in: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Kennedy_Expressway_and_Metra.jpeg Jump to about 3:30 (sorry about the annoying effects I couldn't find a good video on a clear day of what this drive is like): Its also pretty awesome from Lake Shore Drive (esp southbound): http://www.trbimg.com/img-563d38ad/turbine/ct-lake-shore-drive-repaving-met-1107-20151106

Cincinnati should really emphasize just how German the city is. It was the 2nd most German city in the United States after Hoboken New Jersey where the German's literally got off the boat. There are already plenty of events to showcase this, but no unifying theme to tie them together and getting that theme is stupid easy and part of the reason why I make such snide comments about Cincinnati's ability to market itself. A city that has 4 or 5 German festivals a year and a strong beer culture that is built on the ashes of deep beer history that you can even seen underground. This stuff writes itself! Take a look at SW Wisconsin for instance, its a heavily Swiss German region that attracts some regional day trip tourism from Chicago building upon its unique German heritage - and these are just a series of well manicured small towns, its nothing compared to Over the Rhine but they are at least trying (unlike Cincinnati) and they have some success (it helps that there is an excellent brewery in the area too): http://www.greencounty.org/ There are volumes and volumes of historic stories from Annie Oakley to James Brown all of which can be capitalized upon as they are genuinely interesting and not every Midwestern town has these kinds of stories. There are unique sites like churches with German inscriptions and beer tunnels as well as a rich brewing heritage as the Urbanophile said its an embarrassment of riches (and I'd argue its an embarrassment of riches that Cincinnati is embarrassed to share with the rest of the world). The country music district IMO isn't good for Cincinnati, when it comes to pop music, really Cincinnati should do everything it can to play up King Records and its legacy. One of the few things I genuinely liked from the parks plan IMO was making the old site into a memorial/museum.

But they had the theater for like 20 years and didn't so anything at all with it. I didn't even know it existed in the years I lived in Cincinnati! I'm skeptical, it seems like the whole thing is a money making plan for the university and they don't care about anything else but that. As usual Cincinnatians don't give two @#4@% to actually promote an underutilized asset.

Had a feeling this is how it would turn out. Wonder how long this hidden gem will remain hidden :/

Around Christmas time I've seen people taking the southbank shuttle from Fountain Square to the banks. I'm pretty sure people will use the streetcar in a similar way...

This weirdness may be a leftover from when Santa Monica's really wide median hosted redcar trains - wishire was always streetcar free so maybe that's part of the reason for this...

Does anyone know what's going to happen here?

I don't know the full story, but there were very strict sign laws passed sometime between the 1970s and 1990s. Can someone fill in more details? Cincinnati actually used to be one of the most sign heavy cities in the US it makes old shots of OTR even at the beginning of its serious decline look amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_Street,_Cincinnati#/media/File:Cincinnati_Vine_Street_in_1973.jpg

OTR is the new clifton, lets make half of Cincy OTR ;)

I hope this is redeveloped, this will take pressure off tearing down more historic fabric for student housing.

The Emery was a mindblowing venue. I love how "Gardens & Villia" said they felt like they were General Grant when they were at Memorial Hall.

However I did feel that MPMF didn't grow as much last year as I think it has potential to grow. I would like this festival to take its strengths but then leverage them to make themselves stand out a bit more and give Cincinnati more exposure nationally - I don't think they were at that point just yet.

Not sure what to make of this... Mcabe had a good ear to the ground on what was going on with music plus If they get rid of the multivenue format I'm out. I loved how it highlighted the growth of otr and would have been a fantastic demo of the streetcar.

I think people under estimate the Cincinnati region. Take siteselection recent report where we rank 4th in NA for development. We rank fairly high in multiple categories. If we can bring all this development closer to the urban core the possibilities are endless. Reference: http://siteselection.com/cc/wmcc/2015/ I agree completely, and it really highlights how most growth in Cincy is concentrated in the suburbs and the main things that hold the city (and the region) back aren't economic fundamentals but cultural conservatism.

You should be a tour guide Jake ;)

My biggest concern is the open area being against the taller building. It would work way better if the building was against its taller neighbor and the open area be on the other side (which I'm assuming is the red bike barn right?) Would fit in a lot better that way.

It's also why the near downtown neighborhoods are more interesting

What are covington's requirements vs Cincinnati? Part of the transit problem is cultural

Weirdly though a lot of people are in denial about this ever happening. OTR MUST be in a bubble because its value has gone up and value never goes up like that :P. Real world works very differently and Cincinnati through an artificial stimulus via 3CDC is getting a dose of the real world.

You can have the cows reproduce get a few calfs and viola you eventually have meat - neighborhoods grow. Economic pressure on OTR is too great and if like minded people want to start businesses with lower entry points in these other areas its going to be easier. There is an entire mixed used development in the west end for instance which as far as I know just has cellphone stores, yet you can easily walk there from OTR. That's a good opportunity for someone who wants to take a risk to capture some overflow from OTRs marketplace with lower entry fees. Seeing commerical areas in pendleton starting to get filled in is an example of this as is East Walnut Hills. I'm not even going to get started on the massive amounts of empty storefronts in Covington and architectural quality down there....

I'm totally appreciating what Jake is getting at - an idea that is obvious in a lot of other places. It seems like a lot of Cincinnatians just complain about OTR being expensive without taking any effort to find nearby decent areas that are undervalued. Areas in a lot of cases they can walk, bike or bus to without too much issue... Taestell is also right about the valuation too in OTR - people want to live there its expensive. A combination of the two thoughts reveals how gentrification works - it starts one place and spreads outwards when people finally figure out that other nearby areas are undervalued. Cincinnatians can be thick headed and aren't quite getting it, though I'd think economic pressure is going to be strong enough that it will change - so buy now in some of these areas you could be too late in a few years.

Half of Cincinnati is Clifton

There are plenty of underground tours in Cincinnati that go into crypts and lagering cellars already. I agree it would be cool to open up the subway tunnels to regular tours, but it doesn't seem worth the risk to the city to allow dozens of people down there every weekend. It's not going to provide a noticeable boost in tourism to Cincinnati by opening the tunnels. First of all: they are much more of a local interest. Second: The tunnels themselves don't look that interesting. As a local I'm dying to go down there, but I wouldn't travel to Cincinnati to see those tunnels. They are nothing like the MTA City Hall Station. It's not like they are elaborate stations like DC but abandoned. They would mostly get locals to come down and some tourists who were already going to Cincinnati. Frankly the Seattle underground doesn't look that interesting either, (the lagering tunnels are still cooler) but it generates for Seattle both positive buzz making the city more visable and I'm sure generates a lot of revenue for that region. If your city wants to be taken seriously as a place people want to visit you need to have a lot of stuff available for people to check out. The more cool things you have like converted churches into breweries, historic neighborhoods like OTR and East Walnut hills, lagering tunnels the more likely people are going to want to take the time/money/effort to visit your city. Cincinnati should have way more heritage tourism than it should given what it has, but its done not enough to exploit what it has. The Seattle underground is a local interest thing, but if you notice its also captured national interest. People like unique things, Cincinnati has an abundance of unique things that it likes to bury or take out of sight >:( Case in point from a national perspective (and yes it gets facts wrong about the subway): http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cincinnati-built-a-subway-system-100-years-ago-but-never-used-it