Now, no one is proposing this as far as I know..this is just my own brain fart.

 

Since we all know OTR is a very special neighborhood, I was thinking it could deserve its own musuem.

 

The model i was thinking about is the Lower East Side Tenement Musuem, in NYC.  The idea here is to take a tenement house and use it to show the lives of the working class folks who lived in it, as a way of interpreting the experience of life on the Lower East Side and in a tenement. 

 

Something like this could be done with one of the old tenements in Over The Rhine.  Different apartments could be used to show the lives and changes in the neighborhood..the old Germans who lived there, maybe the later Appalachians and African Americans, and also changes in living standards through time, as well as the development and life of the neighborhood.

 

Another example of this is the Dom Robitnika, or Worker's Cottage, which is part of the South Bend history museum complex.  This example is where the historical society took a small workers cottage and restored/furnished it as it would have been in the 1930s, when it was occupied by factory workers. 

 

Another example I am familiar with is the Points in Timeexhibit at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.  This is not really just a house or tenement, but an interpretation through time of living in Pbgh via exhibits of homes.  Maybe more "museum".

 

Finally, as a regional precedent for a neighborhood museum, there is the Portland Museum, which interprets the history of the Portland neighborhood in Louisville, and for a house museum that deals with housing, there is the Betts House Research Center, close to downtown Cincy in what's left of the West End.

 

So it could be a good shot in the arm for the neighborhood for a museum of this type, maybe more like the tenement museum for history of material culture, but incoprorating neighborhood history like the Portland Museum and housing history like the Betts House.

 

Where to put this?  Maybe the area around the Findlay Market as there is parking in the area already due to the market, and the place does get a lot of visitors already from outside the neighborhood due to the Market.  Or maybe one of the streets south of Liberty, in the old core of OTR.

 

Anyway, just a thought as one way of celebrating the history of Over The Rhine, from a more of a populist perspective.

 

 

 

 

I would love to help make something like this happen.  Talk it up and see if others get interested. 

 

I've heard the tenement museum in NYC is pretty good.

Wow, that sounds like a fascinating idea! Save a building, promote the neighborhood, give a history lesson, all at once!

 

If you make up some of the apartments to look like they did years ago, you could end with one renovated similar to the modern living apartments and condos that are being developed in Cincinnati today, as a way to promote living in OTR and show the place isn't just a bunch of rundown shacks for drug dealers today. Then you establish a fund to bring every SW Ohio high school there for a field trip.

I would love to help make something like this happen.  Talk it up and see if others get interested.

 

I second that!  Sounds great, and I would be more than willing to make it happen...keep us posted should this 'brain fart' coming closer to fruition.

Great idea!

Someone might want to shut down this thread -- wouldn't want Northern Kentucky to steal this idea...

Someone might want to shut down this thread -- wouldn't want Northern Kentucky to steal this idea...

 

:laugh:  So true!

 

I wonder what it would take to do something like this?  I would be willing to volunteer my time to help set this up.

The Tenement Museum in LES is amazing. I've had the same thought about having the same thing in OTR. The Historical Society Library is the place to go for the research.

 

 

This would have to come from people within the neighborhood getting together to develop and advocate for the idea, I think.

 

One could contact or visit the Portland Museum in Louisville to discuss how they got their museum off the ground, and sutained, as this would most likely be the best local model. 

 

The Tenement Museum would, too, as an exhibit concept, but their funding base and patron base is considerably larger, and also involves the National Trust (who I think owns the property).

 

The South Bend example is operated by the local historical society, so perhaps if there is a historic society in Cincinnati (perhaps the people who run the historic museum at Union Termninal) who might want to get invovled or be a sponsor.

 

Funding is going to be the big issue here, of course. Given the budget problems the city and state are having I am thinking funding will have to come from local philanthropy in large part.

 

 

Well the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed Over-the-Rhine as endangered, maybe that would be one route to pursue for support.  A museum celebrating the neighborhood would help call attention to it, thus increasing the likelihood that it will be preserved.

^ I was going to say that as well.

 

With the National Trust listing OTR as one of the 11 most endangered places, I think they could be part of the discussion.  But this also needs City of Cincinnati support as well groups like the Cincinnati Historical Society, Cincinnati Preservation Association, and other neighborhood groups like OTR Foundation and anyone with huge sums of cash :) 

 

I would write and tell everyone you know, and don't know, about the idea - city officals, etc. to plant teh seed!