RiverViewer

Yes, California is the city of Cincinnati...I guess I should have said neighborhood...I was using suburb in the same sense I call Walnut Hills a first-ring suburb...maybe I'm incorrect when doing that as well! Here's a CAGIS map with zipcode background for the California area...the maroon on the left is definitely 45228 - not sure if the green is a different zipcode, or what the story is there...

If you can't keep yourself busy and amused in Cincinnati, then you're just not trying. I guess if you can't go out and meet people and try things, if you're just looking for "Cincinnati" to come to your door and take you dancing, then maybe you should be in NYC or something, I guess, but I've never had trouble finding things to do. My trouble is fitting in everything I want to do!

Woodward, do you have a link to the story? This site, which C-Dawg posted in the zipcode thread, doesn't list 45228 at all, although the county auditor's site lists some California addresses (California is a suburb of Cincinnati - we also have a suburb named Wyoming!) as 45228. But yeah, they sure don't seem like mansions to me...they're $80K houses in the flood plain without river views...something's awry...

Wow...those are gorgeous! I don't know what the hell I'd do with one, but it would be beautiful. What other kinds of woodwork does he do?

Got an email from the Cincinnati Park Board: Central Riverfront Park is Gaining Momentum There is a lot of interest in the news about a major new park on the central riverfront in downtown Cincinnati, so we want to take this opportunity to share with you the current proposal for Central Riverfront Park. This park is intended to be the new front yard of Cincinnati and the region, reconnecting downtown to the river. It will tie into the chain of existing riverfront parks to the east of the site, forming an almost three mile long corridor of public spaces along the river. It will also be the new public setting for the Freedom Center and Stadia, and provide a green setting for the future restaurants, stores and residents of The Banks. The Site & Design: Situated along the Ohio River between Broadway and Central Avenue, the park will be the front yard of The Banks mixed-use development. The bulk of the park will sit between the two stadia. Ultimately the park will stretch west to the Brent Spence Bridge and include a deck over Fort Washington Way. Two world-renowned landscape architecture firms designed the park. Hargreaves Associates created the master plan and Sasaki Associates is creating the final design and construction plans. Exciting Park Features: Visitors will enjoy over 40 acres of parkland including playgrounds, boat docks, performance/event lawn, a carousel, gardens, bike trail, walkways, tree groves, river edge promenade, decorative water features such as a major reflecting pool and waterfall, artworks, restaurants and cafes. There will be dramatic views from the upper levels of the park along Ted Berry Way and close-up river views from the lower level of the park along Mehring Way. Estimated cost and proposed funding sources: The early phases of the park are expected to cost $33 million. Ultimately the park will cost twice this amount. The Federal government is expected to pick up a large part of this cost over the coming years. Congress has already authorized the design of the park, based on the Park Board’s 1999 master plan for the park, and appropriated $3 million to date. Parks has also received $3 million in capital funds from the City and State. It has also received the first $1 million of private funding for the park and significantly more private funding is expected. Additional City and State capital funding will also be sought. If the will of the people, the political processes and the financing can be aligned, soon Cincinnati Parks — Everybody's Backyard, will have a new front yard along the central riverfront!

Anyone have anything on Palmer? I haven't seen any updates that weren't rumors, but I haven't been paying very close attention...

This called to mind a bleat from Lileks from a while back about the movie, which actually addresses your exact point, after mocking 70's cinema, which is always worthwhile: ***************** About “The Towering Inferno.” Michele took me to task for speaking poorly of the movie, and while I admit it’s the best of the disaster movies, that’s not exactly a field crowded with overachievers. It has its pleasures; William Holden spends the entire movie in a crimson smoking jacket, which has to count for something. (He has his big thick black-rimmed glasses blown off at the end when the water bursts through the ceiling, but manages to have them on his face again at the end, 137 floors below.) Richard Chamberlain has a satisfyingly weasely death, although his character is such an ur-70s male – wafer-thin, ferret-chested, bird-boned – he could have probably opened up his tux and sailed down to earth. It was a pleasure to watch it wide-screen in HD – made it more enjoyable than a crimped & cut-up pan-and-scan that shows up on late-night TV. But it still ends with two segments of typical stupidity. Newman, the architect, is sitting at the foot of the ruined structure with Faye Dunaway. “Maybe they should just leave it as it, as a monument to all the bullshit in the world.” That, friends, was the 70s. One bad guy cuts corners on construction and orders substandard electrical work, a building catches on fire, and somehow this is not only an apt symbol of “all the bullshit” that stalks the globe, but the building should be left as a 137-story indictment whose empty, charred hulk dominates the San Francisco skyline. Have a nice day! The second moment comes immediately afterwards, when Steve McQueen upbraids Newman for building something too tall. “And until you ask us how to build ‘em, we’ll keep eatin’ smoke and pulling the bodies out”, or words to that effect. Whereupon Newman promises to consult with the firemen on his next project. Which presumably will be three stories tall with a hook-and-ladder crew in the basement. And a catapult on the roof to throw people off should the need arise. I think the main problem with the buiding in the Towering Inferno was not the towering part but the inferno segment, which was assisted by a malfunctioning sprinkler system. Just a guess. But it was typical of the era: You and your hoobris, man! You’re bringin’ us all down! If this attitude had been common in 1929, the headlines would have read “Empire State Building announced; 128 expected to die in construction.” *****************

As long as that's actually true, I'm not going to be worked up about methods - the big part of this subject - the overarching, indispensible, hugely vitally important part of this subject - is low income home ownership. It transforms a family and transforms a neighborhood, and anything to encourage it is good. I suspect the free market does a better job of that, so a looser national code? I'm not all that worried about it. Stricter state-by-state codes? If low-income lending is truly about equal there, then I'm not all that worried about it. I guess in theory this seems like it should be a state regulated industry, so I guess I'd rather see the bill fail, but I certainly don't feel strongly about it either way...

Er...yeah. So why haven't I heard of the eighteen blocks of OTR that Chrysler invested in back in the 1960's, and that are now worth millions and millions of dollars? And I'm sorry, but it didn't work all that brilliantly, because except for individual redevelopers going into neighborhoods and making them desirable, the areas that supposedly went to hell during White Flight haven't gone from pennies on the dollar to boomtowns, and the properties that are worth so much money right in the central business districts never dropped to "basically nothing," at least as far as I know of. And who exactly was it that did this planning? Because if whoever planned it didn't subsequently personally invest in inner city property, then this reduces to some conglomerate white conspiracy, which is yet more absurd. And further, the concept isn't genius, because we're talking about a conspiracy that's lasted since the 1950's...so how much do you expect to make doing this "shove out the black folk so we can buy cheap real estate and sit on it while it increases in value"? You gonna double your money? Maybe buy places for $20K and sell them for $100K? $200K? $400K? If that's their plan, they're stupid. Invest the same money in the Dow Jones in the 50's and your $20K in 1950 would be worth $1.2MM today. Damnit, I should have followed KJP's advice...

...which is stupid...St. Louis, at least the times I've been there, has been a kick-ass city...lots of room for improvement, just like anywhere else, but when you've got a river and that arch and that huge park (with that fantastic art museum) and that history, you've got a lot to be proud of...

...I need to shed some 1990's chub myself...

That sounds great to me. Educating consumers and expanding the sub-prime market are the keys to driving price-gougers and the unscrupulous out of the business, while continuing to give higher-risk borrowers with opportunities they couldn't have dreamed of in years past...the hotline is a great idea, especially if it becomes widely known about...

The great thing about the observation deck is that you don't have to see Rhodes. - Midwesterner From a while back - was just hunting through this old ColDay thread looking for something, and came across it...as Grasscat observed, "That's the best thing I've read all week!"

McMicken Circle, they probably do...I mean, if "they" is U.C. - not sure if I misunderstood you... -------- "A gunman fired about a dozen shots at the two, identified as Jahmon Borders, 19, and Whitney Morrissette, 21. The gunman got into his car, drove about 50 feet and fired another dozen times." Damn...

I'm not sure exactly how wide 71 actually is - I just played with some Google satellite images, counting pixels and doing a little trigonometry, and at least at the spot I checked (a little north of Edwards), it looks like the entire roadbed is about 140' wide. That would give room for a 10-foot shoulder on each side and 5 lanes of 12' each way, without any divider between lanes. So figure 8' shoulders and 4' dividing north from south, with still comfortable-feeling lanes. Then in tight spots, you could just drop the shoulder entirely for the 50' or so it would take. So yeah, you're right, there probably would be room. Of course, there's still the left-hand merges at 562/Ridge to worry about...driving past those, I don't see room to handle the 562 to 71N lanes by going overhead...of course, my judgement of such things is completely amature, so I stand to be corrected! If that couldn't be solved, the HOV lanes could just start north of Ridge like CincyBearcat suggests...there are still some narrow spots (looks like 71 by Montgomery is even a bit narrower than in Norwood), but maybe those could be handled...

Dude, you rock! Thank you thank you!

I don't think there would be room for another two lanes on I-71...I counted as I drove south on 71 yesterday, and there are probably 20+ situations like the following between downtown and 275 - here's 71S as it crosses under Robertson (just north of Smith/Edwards): ...and here's just south of that at, I believe, the Trimble underpass: ...lots of spots with tight squeezes and bridge abutments between the northbound and southbound lanes. If you got rid of the berms entirely, it might be possible, but that would lead to a ton more headaches when someone broke down. There are some goodly stretches between exits on 71...hell, it's about three miles between Dana and Taft...

Oh, I've got a bad case of Berea... (it does sound like a disease, doesn't it?) Does Dr. Cherry still teach at BW? I think the building you work is in is the one I took piano lessons from him in...and my brother and his family live on Fillier, so I'm in Berea fairly often when I get up north...very nice suburb...

You know, I've heard great things about the Brewhouse, right at Park and McMillan, but I've never been in there...that's just about next door to these places...anyone ever been?

A shot of the Academy of World Languages site - another crappy shot, but you can see rubble!

Here's a couple crappy pictures from about 20 minutes ago... The Verona: The Conner building, I believe - there was a work crew out there this morning:

Yeah, but anything that pumps new life-blood into Peebles Corner is a Godsend! Hell, call it West Hyde Park Luxuryville if you want...the Verona is two blocks from Gilbert and McMillan - if they can really get those units to move at upwards of $300K, that's just WONDERFUL!!!

...just up the street from me - I'll definitely get pictures here shortly...

Er...is there another kind of death?

Here's a link to the google map of this area. What if they added a Ridge to I-71S entrance ramp north of the Ridge Road bridge over I-71 (to eliminate that left-side entrance), and then had the 562 entrance fly over the highway and enter on the right (since the Ridge Road entrance ramp would no longer be in the way)? A is the new Ridge to 71S ramp, B is the new 562 to 71N ramp: I don't know if there would be space after the other bridges to get the new 562 to 71N lanes up high enough, and traffic is already super-congested on Ridge - adding another light with loads of folks needing to turn left onto it is probably a bad idea...but I thought I'd toss it out there...