Gordon Bombay

Great photographs. I'm glad the snow covered up the U.S. Bank Arena's disgusting roof.

Until Spring 2008 it had been seven years since I last visited Columbus. I do a lot of exploring around Cincinnati, but have never really seen much around the state's capital: My friend asked me to take her to Columbus to go buy a ferret at a pet store. I agreed to do so, so long as she bought me Chipotle in the arena district: - 1 - Arena District Spring 2008 - 2 - Spring 2008 The next time I went to Columbus was over this previous summer with my dad. - 3 - Statehouse :: Summer 2008 - 4 - Capital Rotunda :: Summer 2008 - 5 - Lima Company tribute within the capital building :: Summer 2008 - 6 - Summer 2008 - 7 - Summer 2008 Yesterday I photographed the Salvation Army food pantry on E. Main St. Since it didn't take as long as I expected, I decided to have a look around downtown and go see the Rhodes Tower observation level. - 8 - - 9 - Up to the 40th floor... - 10 - - 11 - Brutalist beauty. - 12 - - 13 - A falcon at the top of the Rhodes Tower. - 14 - - 15 - Arena District - 16 - - 17 - - 18 - - 19 - Does this tower have an observation deck open to the public? Absolutely gorgeous architecture! - 20 - - 21 - Anyone know if this place is abandoned for sure? :wink: I wanted to try out some local place for lunch but only had 3 minutes left on the meter and no change left, so I headed out back on 33 towards Athens/school and stopped in Canal Winchester for Skyline Chili.....a great day! Thanks for checking out the photographs!

Glad you guys liked them, very interesting moment in history.

If we had been the capitol can you imagine how bad traffic would've been on Monday? Sheesh! :p

Back during the election my professor (who is now Obama's official White House Photographer) thought it be a good idea to cancel class and have us go out and document the city of Athens, Ohio on election day. A unique idea, but let's be honest.....there is not much that ever goes on in Athens, Ohio. The assignment sucked and trying to find something other than college kids outside of a polling place with Obama t shirts was hard. With Inauguration day coming up, my new professor had a similar idea....cancel class and have us go out and document Athens on Inauguration Day. Well, given the dismal results of the election day assignment, most students figured they'd go somewhere else. Many went to DC, I went to Cincinnati: The day before there was a march from the Freedom Center to Fountain Square to Music Hall, celebrating MLK: -Marching up Vine. -Dr. Land speaking at FSQ. -Roy Johnson, a Chipotle Employee, takes a break to photograph the march. -Officer Vogepohl of the Cincinnati Police Department holds traffic at the corner of 6th and Vine street during the march. -A man named Eric Binford. The next day there were public viewings at the Freedom Center, Fountain Square and the Museum Center. I chose the Museum Center: -As Obama swore in. I made my way out of the Museum Center parking lot and over to Central Ave. to stop at "Ollie's Trolley." Ever since the Democratic Primary Campaign's started last year, I noticed that "Ollie's" had been decked out in Obama campaign posters and paraphernalia. I wanted to stop by to see how those inside were celebrating the Inauguration. The owner, who has posters of him and Obama posing together pasted all over his building, was actually in D.C. for the Inauguration. Meanwhile, his daughter stayed home to man the Trolley and watch it live on tv. P.S. Ollie's has AMAZING burgers. Thanks for viewing the photographs. If you want to see more photographs or read about the event in more detail, check out www.queencitydisco.com

A lot of research and reading the news. A lot of the times we just drive/bike/walk around too. Currently Sherman's been working on following old rail lines and documenting those, a lot of times we find abandoned things along the lines. Really, it's all kind of random unless we've been researching a place for awhile. As far as getting hurt, I don't know about Sherman, but I've never been physically hurt. I'm typically pretty cautious. I have ripped my jeans on many occasions, though.

Part Two! Hit this place up with Seicer for our first exploration of 2009. Closed and abandoned since 1987, this brewery once made the most popular beer in the city: :: 1 :: :: 2 :: :: 3 :: :: 4 :: :: 5 :: :: 6 :: ::7:: ::8:: :: 9 :: :: 10 :: :: 11 :: :: 12 :: Have a Happy Hudey, Flavor's on the Way! If you want to see more photographs, read about the history of the brewery and our "tour," check out www.queencitydisco.com

I did my best to see if this was posted anywhere else, sorry if it was... Being from Cincy, I'm always pulling for and keeping an eye on Cincy's light rail plans, but since I'm in Athens at the moment for school, I get Columbus local news: From NC4i.com: http://www.nbc4i.com/cmh/news/local/local_govtpolitics/article/coleman_asks_obama_for_200m_for_light-rail_system/11593/ Think it will happen?

If you're selling those pictures or prifiting from your site, you do technically need a model release if someone is prominent in the picture. I would need a model release if I was selling the photographs for commercial use such as stock photographs, however for editorial use and since he was in public view, I do not need a model release.

Thanks for the compliments and comments guys, glad you liked the photographs! Not sure on exact numbers but it was a pretty good crowd. I saw that guy too, but that wasn't me, some other guy. I didn't have a tripod.

I hate New Years. As far back as I can remember, New Years eve has always sucked for me. When I was younger my parents always had lame parties, when I was in high school there were those awkward parties where I wondered if should drink or not and this year it just blows not having anyone special to share the night with anymore.....the feeling of losing your girlfriend sucks even more when you spend the entire ride home debating who would win in a fight between the Starship Enterprise E and a Star Destroyer from Star Wars. Despite my bad mood, I got to have a great time with two old friends and got to enjoy myself downtown. (Star Trek Universe so totally wins that battle btw ;) ) While New Years at Fountain Square is no New Years at Times Square, it was a good time. One bad thing: At 11:58 PM they cut the video feed of Dick Clark on ABC to a live feed at Fountain Square. There was no countdown, no music, just nothing. People checked their cell phones and started shouting. THen some random fireworks went off. At 12:03 AM a countdown appeared on the screen, once that one ended people cheered again. About 4 minutes later some more fireworks went off and that display was impressive. Despite the technical glitch, people went nuts and there was a lot of good, safe, fun. Everyone downtown was nice except two people: -A panhandler who picked a fight with me and grabbed my arm. (Thanks CPD for giving him the boot.) -Some D-bag who tried to tell me I needed his permission to take his picture, when I informed him it was public property he said "he was a lawyer." I laughed, told him Happy New Year and went about the festivities. Here are a few of the favorite photographs from the night: A few more pictures can be seen in the latest update at www.queencitydisco.com Hope everyone had a safe and happy new year!

Thanks everyone for the compliments and response, we're trying for one more tunnel and a few other places in the coming weeks before I go back to school. This is a jaw-dropping photo. Thanks for these and one day Cincinnati will have light rail and streetcars. We just gotta keep on working. We'll get there. Rando, glad you love the photo and I agree, thanks to the tunnels and remnants of the CL&N RR we may one day just see light rail. P.S. EXCELLENT post on Urban Cincy today about the opposition to the streetcars, I will post a link to you to try and help bolster some more support. Well, I would have loved to have turned them in, there was just one slight problem.....we weren't really supposed to be there either. A lot of the stuff we explore is "technically'' owned by someone else and ''technically trespassing.'' It would have been an awkward call with the police. Gordon: "Yes officer, there is someone stealing scrap at such and such address in the back." Officer: "Ok, do you own the property?" Gordon: "Uh, well, no, I was just trespassing to take photographs." :)

Photographs from a recent adventure to finally find the CL&N RR tunnel and determine if it was used to film a scene from the film "Ghostbusters 2." Just about a month ago we spent nearly an hour trying to find the tunnel bordering I-71 that is 1/3 of a mile long: Only to find: This very short tunnel instead. AHA! -Boots are needed. After visiting the tunnel I am even more enthusiastic about hopefully light rail coming to Cincinnati. Thanks to Seicer, who has shown me the unused CL&N line, it has become apparent just how easily Cincinnati could have light rail. -An abandoned overpass the rail line once used that is above Victory Parkway. So did they film Ghostbusters here? You'll have to read the full article at www.queencitydisco.com to find out. The rest of the day was spent walking into abandoned buildings, finding scrap thieves, running away from them, and playing under the Big Mac Bridge: Thanks for checking them out and don't forget to visit www.queencitydisco.com']Queen City Discovery[/url]. For those of you celebrating Christmas enjoy the rest of Christmas Eve and have a great Christmas Day. For those of you currently celebrating Chanukah - have a good one! And for anyone else: May you have a pleasant day during whatever holiday you observe. -Some caller on 700 WLW today.

http://www.700wlw.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=119585&article=4770178

This past Saturday there was a light snow. In some areas it seemed to cause quite a bit of traffic havoc. As I ran my sister to her soccer game in the suburbs I noticed people freaking out as if this was some big storm. People seem to over react and forget how to drive in incliment weather. My Corolla does just fine and I didn't find the conditions too bad, combined with being in a bad mood I thought the only good thing to do was to run down to Sawyer Point and take a few photographs: -Serpentine Wall -Big Mac Bridge and Ohio River -Serpentine and Taylor-Southgate Bridge -Piers -Undisturbed Snow -Serpentine and Ascent -Snow -Wall and bridges -From the Public Landing approaching the wall. - I took this photo as I was leaving. I parked at the Public Landing and came back after taking photos to find my car surrounded by the red, white and blue flags. The Showboat Majestic puts those up to mark reserved parking for the boat on the landing. My question is: Never before have i seen them take up so much reserved space, I tried to park here later for the Cyclones game and there were hardly any cars parked there for the Showboat. -Taylor-Southgate and the River. -Thanks for checking out the photos! Go Cyclones (even though they blew it)! www.queencitydisco.com

Indeed, I am a senior at Miami. Haven't been out that way in awhile, almost went there and used to practice with a band out past Oxford in Talawanda. Any idea what the status is of that unused Nike missile base out there?

I'm about |-----| <----that close to just getting the monorail from Jungle Jims, building track along 275 to 71, then down to cincy myself and having my own damn transit line. Anyone free to help build some stuff this weekend?

Great photos, do you reside in Oxford Ink?

In a Cincinnati neighborhood known as Avondale there lies two abandoned retirement homes: Parkside and Oakside who combined forces to create the ultimate mediocre/sub-par nursing community known as Hillside. Assumed to have last operated in 1999, copper thieves and people dumping trash have left this once beautiful residence to rot: A quote from my recent article: Full article available here: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2008/12/adventures-in-avondale-in-search-of.html - One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten - Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen Cincinnati Public Schools recently embarked on a multi-billion dollar renovation plan, East Fairmount school is slated for re-use as something else, but for the time being sits quiet. We stopped by to admire this architectural beauty: - 14 Many of you may be familiar with the CL&N RR tunnel if you read JMecklenborg's excellent Cincinnati Transit website, for those of you who aren't it basically used to be a tunnel that once served the Cincinnati Lebanon and Northern rail line and was used until the late 80's. It was kept around to maybe one day be used for a light rail right-of-way. Having been inspired by JMecklenborg's pictures and other Queen City explorers we set out on a quest to find it! So through the mud, brush, and thorns we trecked along next to I-71 to the tunnel ahead Turns out, it's split into two sections, this is the small flooded section, not the long, awesome tunnel seen on Cincinnati Transit. Tired, covered in mud and thorns, we sat by the highway taking night shots to end the day: More to come soon, we just might find the tunnel ;) To read the history of these places and more about our adventures, check out the latest post here: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2008/12/adventures-in-avondale-in-search-of.html

Yeah it seems the skywalk is kind of 'abandoned.' Hmmm....Seicer? Adventure soon!

Yeah, he posted it in his 3rd party images folder. I wonder if they asked him for it? NO, they didn't ask me for it! The local media around here doesn't seem to hesitate to pull an image without permission. While never having to deal with that particular site, I recently just got done having to deal with a similar problem. A company used six of my images without permission. I'd send soap box media a bill and a screen shot of the page.

Redesign looks great! So glad to see light rail slowly becoming a reality in Cincinnati. Just with that regional map extended to Fairfield. :D

Ah ok, thanks Ink. Think I'll stop by it some time and see what the deal is.

I have tons upon tons of Lionel 027 gauge model trains. Don't have the space for them currently, but one day Cincinnati will get it's streetcars, whether they're big enough for real people or not...

The Cincinnati North Hotel used to be a Sheraton, then it was a Ramada I think. Today it's known as the Cincinnati North Hotel. Located off of the I-275 Springdale exit across from Showcase Cinema's. When I was six years old and it was still a Sheraton my family was having dinner in the restaurant there, I was climbing on one of the booths and fell and got knocked unconscious, splitting my head, waking up in ambulance. Random story, but I got one more: In 2003 when it was a Ramada I went to a guitar "convention" there. I pulled into the parking lot and thought I was in the wrong place because the parking lot was full of weeds and I thought the place was abandoned. The hotels website: www.cincinnatinorthhotel.com says "copyright 2007-2008" but all the info on it is pretty well dated with links to the "Cincinnati Mighty Ducks" (they exist no more and haven't for some time) and such. Here is a recent image of the place: I pass by it all the time both day and night on my commute to and from work and hardly ever see lights on there. Was just wondering if anyone ever visits the restaurants or night club there, has had family matters stay there recently, or possibly stayed there themselves. Just curious, anyone know anything?