Probably Ohio's most architecturally-rich neighborhood to be endangered...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An SUV slammed into the corner of this recently rehabbed building, causing the corner to collapse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soon to be demolished with Moving Ohio Forward funds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks so much for taking and sharing these photos, Ink! The West End, like so many Cincinnati neighborhoods, has all the potential in the world.  It's encouraging to see a good number of rehabs in these photos, but there is still so much to be done.  I don't think we're going to see any 3CDC type of push in the West End, so it's revitalization will have to follow the route of Liberty Hill where individual property owners slowly rehab buildings one at a time.

Easily one of my favorite neighborhoods in the state.

It's encouraging to see a good number of rehabs in these photos, but there is still so much to be done.  I don't think we're going to see any 3CDC type of push in the West End, so it's revitalization will have to follow the route of Liberty Hill where individual property owners slowly rehab buildings one at a time.

 

Besides some of the large mansions on Dayton, there is not much market-rate activity in the neighborhood. I worry about attracting investment and residents to the neighborhood because there is not much beyond the architecture to offer. No quality retail, parks, or job centers are within walking distance.

I worry about West End as well.  There's a lot of potential in Brighton and Dayton St but the areas south and west are rough. They were making some efforts, but it seems that the latest heroine epidemic hit those streets hard. I agree that 3CDC will never cross Central Parkeay,  but with enough wrath concentrated in OTR, I could see some private funds revitalizing West from Findlay Market.

^You are forgetting that the West End is mostly single-family homes, or small multi-families like CUF.  Much more restorable ala Northside than OTR. 

Camp Washington would also fall into this category.

 

IMO Camp Washington has a very bright future. West End is iffy, in that something needs to get started before all those historic buildings come tumbling down. I believe part of the urgency of the streetcar is to get OTR done so development starts spilling across the Parkway (whether 3CDC or private).

 

This photo set is excellent, BTW, ink.

 

Edit: I do worry about the Crosley building in CW, which really needs the American Can treatment, and soon.

South Fairmount and Camp Washington are starting to make a comeback. The new Western Hills Viaduct and Lick Run Development have the potential to spur more growth. If Fairview can tackle its prostitution problem (which they're aggressively persuing) and the hipsters add a few more galleries and shops to Brighton, there's a good chance at some synergy. It's a race against time for West End.  Development there is going to have to be spillover from other neighborhoods. Central Parkway is a big dividing line which has me worried. 

 

One other solution I've dreamed about is having a Chinatown in West End. There's a HUGE Chinese population in this city, but they're all off in the burbs. There's no reason to forcibly move that population, but if they're looking to build a neighborhood to create some community and sell some goods, West End is PERFECT!

will require some kind of unique german village-hipster summit of understanding to push gentrification foward.

 

 

I would imagine a lot of people from CityLink will find the area attractive & will wind up investing in the area.

:-)

Northside is apparently getting pricier. If the artists and hipsters start getting pushed out of there, I could imagine Brighton and Camp Washington becoming destinations. Brighton (for you non-Cincinnatians, this is a part of the West End) is already a micro-artist/hipster-mecca. So it would be a natural place, as the seed is already planted.

 

Semi-related...I'm still bitter the Mockbee got shut down as a venue. I'm sure it was a major fire hazard, though. I went to several cool events there in the early aughties. Really a special space.

Northside is apparently getting pricier. If the artists and hipsters start getting pushed out of there, I could imagine Brighton and Camp Washington becoming destinations. Brighton (for you non-Cincinnatians, this is a part of the West End) is already a micro-artist/hipster-mecca. So it would be a natural place, as the seed is already planted.

 

Semi-related...I'm still bitter the Mockbee got shut down as a venue. I'm sure it was a major fire hazard, though. I went to several cool events there in the early aughties. Really a special space.

Commuting past the Mockbee complex on McMicken over the years, I have lost track of the number of fires in that building.

With OTR pricing going up, hopefully these areas between OTR & Northside see more investment.

I meant more that the Mockbee would be somewhere that, should a fire occur during an event, people would be trapped in there. Due to the design/layout of the place, it can't be very safe as a venue. IANAArchitect, but it seems like the means of egress are obviously substandard. It's a goddamn maze in there.

 

I suspect its history with fires which you mention is due to squatters setting fires for heat, unrelated to its functionality as an arts venue.

It appears to be several buildings globbed together. Do you know if you can actually walk through from Central Parkway to McMicken? I'm assuming you can.

One of the fires was when it was a used office furniture store/warehouse.

I believe there was a restaurant in there somewhere in the 60s/70s.

There are still apartments in the building.  I went to a party in one of them about two years ago, a memorable night since I gut mugged later in front of the Mad Frog.  It's the apartment with the window that opens out onto this roof:

 

Northside is apparently getting pricier. If the artists and hipsters start getting pushed out of there, I could imagine Brighton and Camp Washington becoming destinations. Brighton (for you non-Cincinnatians, this is a part of the West End) is already a micro-artist/hipster-mecca. So it would be a natural place, as the seed is already planted.

 

Semi-related...I'm still bitter the Mockbee got shut down as a venue. I'm sure it was a major fire hazard, though. I went to several cool events there in the early aughties. Really a special space.

 

thx thats exactly what i was thinking and i was wondering how northside was doing. higher prices there would help this area for sure. its also going to take more people than that of course. maybe cinci can catch the next wave of government sponsered crisis immigration? that could happen quickly and would help. sadly, it looks like it might be egyptians at the moment. hate to gain from pain, but its a hard reality and a 'little egypt' neighborhood would be cool. shisha cafe anyone?

 

Do you know if you can actually walk through from Central Parkway to McMicken?

 

I don't know. I wasn't there enough to really case the joint. Plus my internal navigation system is not very good, which probably helped amplify my sense of disorientation when I was there.

 

They were using lagering tunnels with one narrow stairway to enter/exit as stage spaces. Basically funneling hundreds of people into dead-ends of the maze that is the Mockbee. There are several such spaces, so it was ideal for something like a rave, or any multi-stage event. Plus the zigzagging, random floor-shifting hallways would host paintings and such. The obviously present danger only added to the underground, avant-garde aesthetic. It's at once expansive and borderline claustrophobia-inducing.

 

Northside is apparently getting pricier. If the artists and hipsters start getting pushed out of there, I could imagine Brighton and Camp Washington becoming destinations. Brighton (for you non-Cincinnatians, this is a part of the West End) is already a micro-artist/hipster-mecca. So it would be a natural place, as the seed is already planted.

 

Semi-related...I'm still bitter the Mockbee got shut down as a venue. I'm sure it was a major fire hazard, though. I went to several cool events there in the early aughties. Really a special space.

thx thats exactly what i was thinking and i was wondering how northside was doing. higher prices there would help this area for sure.

 

It's still got a ways to go, but demand for renovated units is outstripping supply, and units (like those in the recently renovated American Can Factory) are commanding much higher rents than were in the neighborhood a few years ago. The Enquirer is finally acknowledging the neighborhood as up-and-coming, even though I'd argue the trajectory started in the '80s, and momentum was clear by the early '00s. Still, there are many lower-income residents who are able to find housing. (Which IMO is good for the neighborhood, but not so good for neighborhoods awaiting spillover.)

 

Developers in Cincy seem to be so damn conservative and risk-averse. They could be flipping places left and right in Northside and OTR/CBD, but Northside's revitalization is still almost 100% fueled by individual owners, and OTR's is still largely fueled by public-private partnership (3CDC). The CBD, meanwhile, is being developed in large part by out-of-town developers, notably more than a couple from Indy. Cincy developers seem largely focused on tearing down historic buildings in the university area and putting up cheap and ugly mixed-use buildings.

^Oooh, I like that idea, mrnyc! I wonder how many of the available housing stock in the West End is move in ready, though? Cincinnati (the city itself, not the burbs) could really benefit from an infusion of ethnic populations.  Having little ethnoburbs would really help with neighborhood branding, and create a more interesting urban landscape. 

 

Ink, where is the building located that had the corner fall due to the SUV running into it? That looks like a 3CDC type of project, and if I saw that photo without the context of this thread, I would have thought it was in OTR for sure.

^The damaged building is at York and Freeman in the West End. It was rehabbed as part of a scattered site project by Model Group.

A place I usually drive through fast on my way to Findlay Market.....looks like ink got out of the car and explored on foot taking pix....

 

@@@@

 

I wonder if the wood duplex is an example of the original or earliest housing in the neighborhood.....

 

^According to the Auditor's site 1012 York was built in 1890.

Developers in Cincy seem to be so damn conservative and risk-averse. They could be flipping places left and right in Northside and OTR/CBD, but Northside's revitalization is still almost 100% fueled by individual owners, and OTR's is still largely fueled by public-private partnership (3CDC). The CBD, meanwhile, is being developed in large part by out-of-town developers, notably more than a couple from Indy. Cincy developers seem largely focused on tearing down historic buildings in the university area and putting up cheap and ugly mixed-use buildings.

 

Its kind of sad, and IMO kind of speaks to the very insular mentality of developers in Cincy.  I wonder how many of them actually travel to places like New York or Chicago.  (Though the ones that do I'd think would be like well that's different ;) ).  Its a shame that there is so little bottom up redevelopment, and what does happen happens at a snails pace, however, I do feel that  Cincinnati as a whole is on the verge of the mass gentrification seen in other cities whose economies aren't completely in the gutter.  OTR might be enough of a catalyst to encourage developers to get a bit riskier as they can now see that urban redevelopment is a good investment in their own town.

 

^According to the Auditor's site 1012 York was built in 1890.

 

I've heard that the Auditor's site tends to be less accurate for older buildings, though this one is so mangled that its hard to tell what it was originally - Italianate or Federal.

Does it look 1890?  The place looks a lot different in scale and material and form than the ones around it?

Does it look 1890?  The place looks a lot different in scale and material and form than the ones around it?

 

I was thinking about it, and the only way it could be 1890 is if its a converted italianate double that someone decided to put vinyl over within the last 20 years.  You can almost see where the crease would be in the middle.

 

Along the lines of things that don't make sense in Cincy due to conservatism/myopia:

 

1) Skyline Chilli next to the "Gateway Quarter OTR" keeping bankers hours despite the neighborhood changing around it

2) Only one tour a year of the subway in spite of it selling out well in advance of it happening!

3) Majority of Gateway quarter places closed on Sunday, even on bengal's game days!

4) Findlay Market keeping weekday hours as if everyone still had a wife who stayed at home and shopped during the day!

 

I mean in each one of these cases they are instances of people doing things because that's the way it's always been instead of that's what would maximize profits/take advantage of high demand, its downright absurd.  Most restaurants these days close down on Monday/Tuesday as weekends = a lot more business.  I see the developer's mentality as a part of this same illness.

 

It's still got a ways to go, but demand for renovated units is outstripping supply, and units (like those in the recently renovated American Can Factory) are commanding much higher rents than were in the neighborhood a few years ago. The Enquirer is finally acknowledging the neighborhood as up-and-coming, even though I'd argue the trajectory started in the '80s, and momentum was clear by the early '00s. Still, there are many lower-income residents who are able to find housing. (Which IMO is good for the neighborhood, but not so good for neighborhoods awaiting spillover.)

 

Northside's likely to stay an economically mixed neighborhood - the housing stock is really all over the map from large three story foursquare houses to tiny little four-room houses.  Plus the industrial/warehouse bits closer towards the Mill Creek put a damper on just how bougie the neighborhood can get, I think... However, Northside will definitely kick into a new phase of its revitalization when that mixed-use project in the former Myron Johnson Lumberyard at Blue Rock & Hamilton gets built, which may need to happen before that first block of Hamilton really flowers.

 

Developers in Cincy seem to be so damn conservative and risk-averse. They could be flipping places left and right in Northside and OTR/CBD, but Northside's revitalization is still almost 100% fueled by individual owners, and OTR's is still largely fueled by public-private partnership (3CDC). The CBD, meanwhile, is being developed in large part by out-of-town developers, notably more than a couple from Indy. Cincy developers seem largely focused on tearing down historic buildings in the university area and putting up cheap and ugly mixed-use buildings.

 

Well, the American Can Lofts and the forthcoming Kirby School project are kind of a big deal, though they wouldn't have happened without all of the individual renovation in Northside in the past few decades.

 

Anyway, West End. Maybe some architecture tours would get some more people interested in buying and renovating? and Brighton really is a start, apparently it's not too dissimilar from OTR in the late 80s / early 90s in terms of artists congregating because of cheap rent. Too bad that it's at the northern extreme of the neighborhood, so any growth from Brighton will take a while to affect the West End as a whole.