Gordon Bombay

Photographs of the numerous abandoned buildings in crumbling Detroit have become somewhat of a novelty these days. Nevertheless, I had to go and see it for myself. I set out with Sherman Cahal and Ram23 to meet up with some friends and take these pictures on day 1. I'll spare you the details, but if you wanna read the full story check out Queen City Discovery's latest update: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2009/09/summer-vacation-in-detroit-part-1.html The pictures: For the record, I don't hate Detroit. It's a great town with great hockey and great history. This post isn't meant to show how "OMG DETROIT IS A WAR ZONE," Detroit has some vibrant areas too. See the full update for all that as well. The first stop was Michigan Central Station: As we left, this band was hanging out below the station: We then hit up the Detroit farmers market (photo by ilDuce) before we went to church. We made a run to the police station: Then to the neighborhood by the City Airport: Packard was in the process of being scrapped, but some photos can be found on the blog. After exploring abandoned buildings we explored downtown: - Ram23 on the People Mover. - Rosa Parks Transit Center The officer chuckled and said: "You came all the way from Cincinnati to photograph abandoned buildings in Detroit?" "Yeah!" I exclaimed. To read about how we ran into the law and the full details of our trip to Detroit, check out Queen City Discovery: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2009/09/summer-vacation-in-detroit-part-1.html Thanks for checking these out!

Glad to see WLWT is focusing on hard hitting journalism.

^Love it!

^John, it's working fine for me on multiple computers and multiple browsers. If anyone else is also experiencing trouble I will try to re-upload and fix it later.

New post at Queen City Discovery today: The Cincinnati Streetcar Virtual Tour! "See the route, see the potential!" http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2009/09/cincinnati-streetcar-virtual-tour.html

Gives me a reason to actually go to the Freedom Center now.

Agreed, I too would rather see it allowed anywhere in the state, not just in certain areas per the amendment. I like this plan much better than last years Wilmington plan though. Edale, I'd laugh if what you said if it didn't sound so true. Knowing Cincinnati we'd probably get ready to build a casino then a small special interest group would come in with a misleading charter amendment and con the city out of getting one. :p

From 700 WLW's twitter just a second ago: "700wlw: We're being fair! Someone that actually thinks the Cinti Streetcar is a good idea! No kidding. Willie at 1:06pm." I'd skip art class to call in just in case Willy pull's his usual crap and wants me to go to OTR at midnight again, but I can't miss another day of class. Someone should be prepared to call in just in case Miller or Gloyd show up on the air calling it a "coal powered trolley" again. I find it funny that Willy spends so much time dogging Chris Smitherman yet when Smitherman teams up with COASTers he seems to forget how useless Smitherman is.

The problem is the WHOLE thing is a gray area. There are no specifics. No details. No provisions. It's a joke. This is not a real piece of legislation. The Cincinnati Enquirer right when they called it "Weasel Wording."

For some reason, the link changed: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090915/NEWS0106/909160341/-1/advertmock/Streetcar+ballot+could+affect+zoo+train If you go by Tairy Greene's assessment, it seems that the charter amendment would in fact affect the zoo train. All you have to do is read the ballot language: http://caast-usa.blogspot.com/2009/09/would-issue-9-affect-childrens-train-at.html

Stand up for Cincinnati, say No on 9! http://caast-usa.blogspot.com/2009/09/stand-up-for-cincinnati-say-no-on-9.html

I explained it more on the website and we realized our vantage point sucked, but we just felt the whole thing was kind of short and judging from what others said it was really scaled back and toned down from past years. I think next year I'm gonna need to find a much better place to photograph them from.

Visited a friend who lives at Parker Flats on 4th St. and Central to check out the Bengals game: Public Transportation for the win: Went to Riverfest for the first time. Usually get stuck working this day and as a kid my parents always said it was too crowded to go down to it. So I went this year: The crowd wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but these Redneck Gargoyles had picked out their spots well before anyone else: To actually watch the fireworks we went to everyone's favorite abandoned brewery: Had a nice view: But... ...This is about all we could see. Every now and then we got a good one: Overall the fireworks were pretty disappointing, I understand the event is usually much bigger and better than it was this year. Oh well, heres to next year. For more photographs from Riverfest and the fireworks check out the latest update at www.queencitydisco.com

Obviously Mark Miller never uses public transit. I've seen plenty of people ranging from homeless folks scraping change together to ride the bus to professionals on a lunch break. I still don't get why COAST is trying to turn this into a race issue, but then again Chris Smitherman is partnering with them and this is his favorite tactic.

Neat photos. When I was going to school at OU last year I used to go to Columbus a lot. The stadium always looked impressive as they were building it, even more so now that it's done. That Dispatch newspaper sign on top of the scoreboard looks stupid though. The one saying "Clippers rejoice..."

Coast caught confused and contradicting their own amendment: http://caast-usa.blogspot.com/2009/09/coast-caught-confused-and-contradicting.html Lesli Ghiz seemed very concerned!

Ha. I guess that works better than: The Adventures of Asian Guy and Overweight Reds Fan.

Went out for some fun with Sherman Cahal the other night. Abandoned railroad overpasses make for some interesting night shots: Just a small update I did for the site. All the images from the update were posted here so you don't have to go to the main site to see "the rest," but if you're interested in seeing other examples of my Cincinnati photography and the adventures of Jackie Chan and Chris Farley, you can always check out www.queencitydisco.com P.S. The weather here has been great, it's almost time for OKtoberfest!

Great shots Sherman. We've had some beautiful evenings this week so far. I personally am enjoying the cool weather.

Mark Miller is treasurer Chris Finney is Chief Counsel Jason Gloyd is Cahairman I think Mr Miller has been the spokesperson because he is the only one who lives in Cincinnati. They probably don't share information with one another because they are terrified of being captured and tortured by ~shudder~ liberals..... My apologies on that. Where do the others live then, doesn't Chris Finney live in Blue Ash and where the heck is Tom Luken coming from?

^That's in stark contrast to what COAST chairman Mark Miller said on the COAST blog the other day, he claimed federal dollars wouldn't be affected by the charter amendment. How bad is it when your group's own chairman doesn't understand your charter amendment? John, great points today at council by the way.

What else is new? Did he smack his hand to his butt at people again like previous times? Or curse them out again? Ha, no, but he did have to be asked to lower his voice a few times and at the end of the session Tom Luken kept raising his hand trying to speak and had to be told that he was out of order. He had been reminded multiple times earlier that if he wanted to speak all he had to do was fill out the card.

I love the use of the poster at Findlay I agree, it seems local media is finally catching on and covering the issue the right way.

Great video from WLWT: http://www.wlwt.com/politics/20552638/detail.html

Addressing Common Streetcar Questions and Concerns If you like straight, quick answers with not a lot of reading and lots of great pictures, I suggest you check that out.