neilworms

Even though I'm probably not moving back, this echos how exactly how I feel. I think that's why Qualls lost, she didn't reach out enough to the working class AA community. Mallory had that community by default due to his race.

Not sure if you'll see as much of me on these boards, Cincy is going back to the dark ages again :(.

To add insult to injury, the last time I walked by there I noticed that they were remodeling a 1950s brick box. An f-ing 1950s brick box when they destroyed half a block of Queen Anne townhouses!

I could be wrong, but the way I saw the story is that it really sucks for Joseph Williams, because it is a cool store, and it sucks to be priced out of your place. But at the same time, could it mean that the demand is increasing enough that 3CDC is raising the rent to reflect that? This kind of begs the question then, when are smallish national retailers going to invade OTR/Downtown on a bigger scale. I mean its inevitable and I've wondered when its going to start taking hold... This. Completely this. Cincinnati has way too many cool hidden assets (not only is there OTR itself, but the beer tunnels underneath, a growing scene of breweries clustered together in the brewery district - for instance rhiengeist doesn't sell special beer particularly for those who've traveled to the west coast, but I'd be hard pressed to find a cooler space for a brewery anywhere ;) ). Open up the damn subway to more than just a yearly trip and continue offering tours of the old beer tunnels. These are assets Cincinnatians should be bragging about and its criminal that until recently they were just lying fallow. The zoo (a really good one for a city Cincy's size) and Kings Island (which attracts people from all over the country btw - I know people in Chicago who went there) as well as the Aquarium in Newport (one of the best I've been to and I've been to a lot of different places) are plenty of other options for people who aren't enamored of the architectural heritage. Cincinnati should stop being sheepish and really get aggressive about promoting its assets. When ever I'm in San Fran I can't help but think of this idea for Cincinnati.

I'm glad to see that shopping center get updated, the whole place screamed 1990, all it needed was something in hot pink ;) I hope there will be residential there too, as long as the market can bear it.

^-No more groups of *insert youth culture* hanging out in front of that parking lot. It was listed on tourist guides for that :) However, the replacement is wonderful, its fantastic to see such density in such an intense and transit friendly district bravo! :) There's those staggered windows again.

This is pretty awesome to see all the way around: http://m.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2013/10/01/columbus-developer-to-build-apartments.html Also nice to see Columbus developers starting to invade, as I think Columbus is one of the most forward thinking cities in the Midwest (they have better than expected infill projects too). --- I just noticed they had offices in Santa Barbara too, man that town is gorgeous :)

^-I also noticed that on lesser stops they even had signs for what number routes were on that stop, highly visible nice looking signs. Even though they didn't have maps of the routes of them, it makes at least knowing what routes stop near you a lot easier to figure out.

Since I was in town for MPMF, I decided to ride the Metro*Plus - Its wonderful, and I hope that there is much expansion of it in the near future. In a way its better than what LA has because Cincinnati is physically a small city, I rode it out to Pleasant ridge and back and was very pleased with the frequency (every 15 mins during the day) and the speed. Weekend service would make it wonderful as well as more routes. Also this: http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20130929/NEWS010802/309290053/TANK-looking-increase-funding-upgrade-service?odyssey=mod|newswell|img|FRONTPAGE|p

The garage looks pretty good at least... does a good job of hiding itself as a garage.

I think its very much a contemporary trend in architecture. See: http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/51ee85fdf92ea16e4a010502/Tower%20of%20Pizza2COVER.jpg Or: http://blog.chicagoarchitecture.info/2013/04/17/new-1333-south-wabash-plan-is-bigger-smaller-wider-less-shiny/ Those buildings in the WCPO article rendering are scaled right but feel off in OTR.

For those of us who have been to spain it makes us croak. Tapas are normally $1-3 snacks you eat in bars. Anything more than that seems yuppie and pretentious.

I'm placing bets on a Jamba Juice entering the Cincinnati market, though probably downtown before OTR. One thing I noticed last time I was down about a month ago was an iPad billboard downtown off of I-71 - I've never seen Apple advertise in Cincinnati before, only in large cities with high concentrations of affluent young populations and nationally hip urban neighborhoods.

Chicago machine politics is alive and well. Daley Jr made some changes but patronage is the name of the game, these days through TIF bribery to alderman who step out of line. Rahm is less machine but still a political strongman who if you don't show loyalty to him you get out. Obama was generally viewed as an outsider, the Chicago Tribune repeatedly stated that the national media on the conservative side constantly calling him a symbol of Chicago style politics was flat out wrong. Obama would broker deals with the machine to oftentimes go against their interest and was known for being quite skilled at it on the local level. -Person living in Chicago (I think the way the right is pushing this narrative drives me nuts) :shoot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RORm1z90-Bs :-D

^-There at least needs to be a reasonable development plan in place though, seeing it sit as another empty lot will be depressing.

I'm surprised that more of the neighborhood isn't mobilized to stop the demo of this building - OTR seems to have its act together a bit more than other parts of the city in regards to preservation. Sadly last time I looked at it my thoughts were this place doesn't have much longer to stand :( Wasn't it an active furniture store until around 2003? I seem to remember it being open when I was in college.

Wasn't this where the old "Paramount Vodka" building was, what a waste! :x

^-In more open cities though introverts don't really have to try, there is a scene and they pretty much get swept into the scene as opposed to trying to knock loudly with difficulty to get into a clique. I'll agree that a lot depends on personal experience though, maybe a model that's similar to nurture-vs-nature in psychology would work here - Inclusiveness vs Outgoingness perhaps? I wish there was more intermingling, high schools are not important in the real world. Even Chicago suffers from that problem to a degree (though just like Columbus there are so many transplants that its kind of overridden unless you live in one of the pseudo suburban cop/firefighter/metra conductor neighborhoods) but no where near as bad as it was in Cincy.

Wish all this stuff was there when I was in school, we were always bitching and moaning about not having late night hangouts - now students actually have a few places!

Actually I'm a big fan of that system, it helps give minor parties a bigger voice (I feel something like this should exist on the national level), while this year Cincinnati didn't have any credible 3rd party candidates, if there were it would level the playing field quite a bit for them to have a chance at winning while protecting the city from getting a fringe candidate in that a majority would not want (see the Le Pen incident in France a few years back). Its a much more fair system than 1st past the post.

Biggest thing I've wanted to see there is wider sidewalks, so that wide sidewalk cafes can be put in ala Division Street in Wicker Park/Ukrainian village - https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-87.671423!3d41.903277!2m2!1f309.35!2f84.96!4f30.57!2m4!1e1!2m2!1sXCAQKBVIkGYRrItfXKgLHQ!2e0&fid=5 (wish there were good pics, there are even more of them now).

Why is the Cincinnati public schools attacking this? They do have a terrible track record with historic preservation, the whole thing is really stinky. Why can't people in Cincy ever work together for the greater good on things like this - this theater is a national treasure. (I feel like Indiana jones yelling out it belongs in a museum!)

^-That article btw is the only time I'll ever say this: Look at the enquirer comment section! ;) Seriously about half the people there are refraining one line - Use the Cincinnati Transit Center.

If the brown line wasn't already slow enough through that part of town :P Though I do see why they'd consider it...