RiverViewer

Where is the building?

http://urbanohio.com/SWOhio/Cincinnati/Skyline/Night15.JPG

Ouch! Crackin' the whip! LOL...

I'd really love to be able to abandon the car and take a train for a trip, but with prices pretty equivalent to airplanes and driving, and with such incredibly longer travel times, it just doesn't make sense. Daily service would definitely be a step in the right direction, but higher speed is just vital. Even the same mph but fewer layovers and delays would work. If I could abandon the car and spend an extra hour or two to get to DC, that's in the realm of competitive. If I could abandon the car and save an hour or two to get to DC? That I'd pay even more for.

I live in a 1922 Arts & Crafts bungalow (not a true bungalow, since there's a full 2nd floor). Lots of simple woodwork, hardwood floors, and all the lovely creaks of an old house. No floor is flat, no corner is square...the previous owners re-fi'd a land contract in 1987, so the furnace, A/C and kitchen are all late-80's, and it shows. Wet basement and wet garage, but lots of character, and since it sits on a hill, lots of extremely interesting views. We're right near Eden Park, so we have a short walk to great river views...we're wildly in love with our place, even when our cars are broken into, even after our house was robbed, even though the retaining walls are failing, and the driveway blows ass...

Right now Rail is just not a viable option for recreational travel. I was looking at taking a long weekend in DC or Chicago with my wife - take two days off work, spend Thursday and Sunday in transit from Union Terminal in downtown Cincinnati, then have two full days in the city. So, Amtrak.com, itinerary, and lo, I begin the Great Bend Over...I get to choose whether to leave at 5am on Wednesday, Friday or Sunday. OK, so how about Friday and Monday in transit? No, return trip is at 1pm Wednesday, Friday or Sunday. OK, so we take three days off, fine. So you leave Cincinnati at 5am and arrive in DC at 7:45pm...ouch. Return trip leaves Sunday at 1pm, arrives at 3am (super ouch). Total transit time, assuming everything runs on time (which it absolutely will not) - 29 hours. Two adult tickets for the round trip? $234.00. Alternative - rent an economy car from Wednesday thru Monday (the handiest location to my office doesn't keep Sunday hours) and drive there. We leave anytime we want, we spend 16 total hours in transit, the car costs $164.08, 1,040 miles / 31 mpg = 31.5 gallons of gas * $2/gallon = $63. Total cost for driving? $227.11. Now I still have to park the car in DC for three or four full days. But if worst came to worst I could just park in the economy lot at National Airport, $9/day, and catch a free hotel shuttle to town. Anyway, there is just no way I can choose rail for this weekend - it costs me an extra day of work, probably two extra days by the time we get in Sunday night...it costs me 13 extra hours in transit...and the only money it could possibly save me is when I spend less at my destination because I'm not freakin' there. Meanwhile the travel itself is definitely a big step above a bus, but it still isn't comfortable - I can't sleep on a train, and my wife can't read - too much rocking and jerking.

Mine is just my cat being curious, with my wife's hide-a-cat skittering away in the background...

Here's the Enquirer's story. Most shocking line to me: Who in the fuck is this guy? I'm like a broken record now, but the city pays THIRTY EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS to SORTA every year, the county pays $500K for a couple special projects, but the county appoints 5 of the 9 board members. That is completely screwed up, and leads to this kind of nonsense - like Heimlich saying Council ought not audit SORTA - excuse me, sir, but I think THIRTY EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS gives you the right to audit the colonic cavity of every last janitor if you want to. And Taylor saying "We're not going to negotiate" - excuse me? You just told your number one funding source to fuck off? I really wish these people spent a little time in the real world now and then...

That's about 4 times too cute for words......

Aaargh...no, it does NOT "beg other questions"...begging the question is a specifically defined logical fallacy that means you are assuming your conclusion in your premise...it does not mean, "that leads to the question", or what Diane Rehm always says, "the question becomes..."

Cincinnati already has wedding central up in Reading - folks come from hundreds of miles around to shop there, from what I'm told...

He shoots he scores...thanks grasscat! Makes sense now...

It was already kinda small - I tried the "upload" thing as well, and no go...here's the picture I thought I'd start with: Avatars change as the wind, so I figured I could get sarcastic or sardonic with it later...

I've tried to add an avatar on my profile, but whenever I click the "I have my own pic:" button, put in a URL and save, it comes back with the same screen, no "I have my own pic:" option button, and no avatar...why do I suck?

Very nice use of the river...I'm a sucker for rivers! Very nicely done...

The short answer is: good location, good stores, good restaurants...

I guess I'm not sure what exactly "blaming the precedence of individual good over public interest" means. If it means the city ought to have stepped up to the plate, then I think we're completely on the same page. If it means individuals ought to forego their own good for the sake of public interest, then I could just rephrase what I said: Then the city has got to step up to the plate. The alternative is telling an individual to shoulder the entire responsibility. Do that and individuals become insolvent, and they won't be able to shoulder the responsibility anyway.

Then the city has got to step up to the plate. The alternative is telling a business to shoulder the entire responsibility. Do that and businesses go out of business, and they won't be able to shoulder the responsibility anyway. I agree it was a treasure, and a heartbreaking one to lose. This is my neighborhood, and I'm poorer for losing it too. But blaming business is just off the mark in this particular situation.

dglenn - There's only so much money to go around. When you can't pay for decent snow removal or police or human services, it's hard to justify spending money on historical preservation. I may disagree with where we place our priorities - but I'm not up for election every two years. So we have to rely in large part on limited federal grants, or else private funding. In the case of the Walnut Hills Presbyterian Church (scroll down), it was just a really sad situation - the funeral home owned it, I believe, and desperately needed parking space. It was willing to work with preservationists to sell the building and buy other space for parking, but funds kept being promised and not delivered. At one point, after trying for years to find a solution that saved both their livelihood and the building, they finally had to shit or get off the pot. And they certainly did shit...everything but the tower was torn down. Now the efforts are to preserve at least the tower. It's truly heartbreaking. If I have my facts wrong there, please correct me - I did a quick search on this forum for something on it and didn't see anything, but don't have time to google the full facts up...I could be wrong on the players and motivations...

Well, Barbara Ehrenreich is pretty damn leftist...but Nickel and Dimed is a really funny read, if nothing else...

Fudruckers had been there for years, since before the new Rookwood section had opened up.

Reading and Evendale aren't the sprawlburbs, and this improvement ends at the Butler county line. I don't know enough to say if it's the best solution or not, but this does seem much more along the lines of preserving what we have like you mentioned - I mean, the alternative is to move residents and businesses out of Reading and Evendale.

It's not this band, is it?

Rob, your images and such all broke recently - did you restructure your hosting?

X - perhaps - that's a debateable point. But even granting that, nonetheless you've got 1900 buildings in a potentially very valuable area that can be written off, left to suffer potentially devastating flood damage, or else put in a position to be rather safe from flooding (caused not only by the placement of the houses, but also by the channelization and land use decisions made by the authorities). We can map cost to value here pretty directly, with immediate amelioration of the costs in the form of property values and taxes, for residents, businesses and industry, in addition to the long term benefits for growth in the area. Let's try getting that same return from highway expenditures!