Posted February 22, 200817 yr Hey All I've been a lurker for quite some time. I've been taking pictures and mapping the steps of Cincinnati off and on for the past year. Here is the site => http://www.communitywalk.com/cincinnatisteps Hope you enjoy. Any and all feed back is appreciated!
February 22, 200817 yr Hey Joe! I remember you were telling me about this at Miltons. Well done! I will forward this on to some of my urban hiking buddies. Leslie Ghiz and Cecil Thomas should see their great contribution to our city, Ghiz even bragged about closing down the collins ave steps on her election website. Cheers
February 22, 200817 yr Awesome and welcome! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
February 22, 200817 yr I've been a lurker for quite some time. I've been taking pictures and mapping the steps of Cincinnati off and on for the past year. There are 3 steps on Mulberry that you are missing. 2 are easy to find, you have to do some digging for the 3rd. Frintz street steps next to 103 Mulberry that runs from Frintz to Mulberry and the 29 Mulberry Steps that runs from Peete to Mulberry. The 3rd steps are abandoned steps that run from Mulberry up to Jackson Hill Park and is on the north side of Mulberry next to 84 Mulberry (I believe) and you have to poke your head into the woods but they are there. There is one more set of steps that is on Seitz that are closed but run from Seitz to Goethe.
February 22, 200817 yr Great work! I did notice that you do not have the Fort View Steps in Mt. Adams listed, they go from Fort View St. down to the base of Hill St. where it hits Martin Drive. I have some pics posted on this site somewhere you are welcome to use or I can send them to you as well. The steps were beautifully reconstructed this summer BTW. EDIT: Here you go! Quote from: The_Cincinnati_Kid on May 23, 2007, 08:42:02 PM Here is a pic of the finished Fort View steps (in Mt. Adams from Hill St. to Fort View). It was a massive reconstruction, all done by hand. I wish I had a before picture, because the difference is night and day. The steps were crooked, sloped, too long, too short. The handrails were too close and too far, and the retaining walls had crumbled in many places, plus the vegetation was way overgrown. I hope the rest of the steps in the City get this treatment.
February 22, 200817 yr very very cool. maybe my ignorance has got the best of me, but this is what makes Cincinnati so magical. I don't/can't think of any other city with as much "weird" artifacts as Cincinnati. 100's of hidden wonders all over the city. It's kind of like going through an old attic and finding all kinds of mysterious objects with some kind of story attached to them. Awesome.
February 22, 200817 yr I saw one that wasn't listed. My first stairway memory were the ones by my Grandmas house in the 70's, it went from Harrison Ave to Knox st in Fairmount. I was told that there used to be a set of stairs near the end of Walker st down to Sycamore. It was a used by the residents of Walker and josephine/Bigelow to walk to Findlay Market. I heard that it was torn down in the 1940's or earlier. Also The Klotter st steps were closed in the early 90's. If your interested in doing something similar with the alleys of OTR, Prospect Hill, let me know. So much to see in this great old city!!
February 22, 200817 yr Thanks for all the info everyone. It is a far from complete project. I currently have only about 35% of the steps on that map so there is a pretty ridiculous amount left to go. Hopefully I'll be doing alot of them in the coming weeks. It takes a while for the snow and ice to melt off them so we'll see.
February 22, 200817 yr If you let me know when you will be doing the one's on Mulberry, I will point them out to you.
February 23, 200817 yr Speaking of steps...I drove down Columbia Pkwy last weekend for the first time, and notice that there are a number of steps built into the parkway. They're easily seen, on the north side of the road, and I think they're East of the Alms Park bend (or whatever it's supposed to be called.) I'm wondering what they're there for because they're spaced about every 20-30 feet and at irregular intervals as though there used to be houses above them. But I can't imaging walking out a front door onto a busy highway like that. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and/or could shed some light on it.
February 25, 200817 yr I'm wondering what they're there for because they're spaced about every 20-30 feet and at irregular intervals as though there used to be houses above them. But I can't imaging walking out a front door onto a busy highway like that. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and/or could shed some light on it. Those steps used to go up to houses that are no longer there. The steps were built into the wall and the wall is needed to hold the hillside up (many landslides in that area). The roadway was not as busy in the time that those steps were built. Probably built in 1938 as part of the New Deal Program when Columbia Parkway was constructed.
February 26, 200817 yr If some of you have never seen this before, this is the city stairway report. It gives staus of stairways and current conditions. http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/transeng/downloads/transeng_pdf14150.pdf
March 1, 200817 yr Just got the steps in the following neighborhoods finished and online: Hartwell, Roselawn, Kennedy Heights, Hyde Park, Linwood and parts of the East End. Hopefully the nice weather this weekend will facilitate some more exploring of steps.
March 9, 200817 yr Nice work! It's great that you include pictures of the stairs to make it easier to identify them. A couple of suggestions. Can you make the box at the lower left-hand corner bigger? Also, I like the option to "view locations on separate page" because it is easier to read, but it would be nice to see the info as on the main page (i.e. name of neighborhood and open/closed/missing indicator). Thanks!
March 10, 200817 yr I'm wondering what they're there for because they're spaced about every 20-30 feet and at irregular intervals as though there used to be houses above them. But I can't imaging walking out a front door onto a busy highway like that. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and/or could shed some light on it. Those steps used to go up to houses that are no longer there. The steps were built into the wall and the wall is needed to hold the hillside up (many landslides in that area). The roadway was not as busy in the time that those steps were built. Probably built in 1938 as part of the New Deal Program when Columbia Parkway was constructed. I think the city is about to go and close all those steps off...it involves constructing a wall in line with the existing wall and backfilling the old steps to grade.
March 11, 200817 yr I'm wondering what they're there for because they're spaced about every 20-30 feet and at irregular intervals as though there used to be houses above them. But I can't imaging walking out a front door onto a busy highway like that. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and/or could shed some light on it. Those steps used to go up to houses that are no longer there. The steps were built into the wall and the wall is needed to hold the hillside up (many landslides in that area). The roadway was not as busy in the time that those steps were built. Probably built in 1938 as part of the New Deal Program when Columbia Parkway was constructed. I think the city is about to go and close all those steps off...it involves constructing a wall in line with the existing wall and backfilling the old steps to grade. Easy there, not everybody understands our M.T.R./engineering lingo.
April 14, 200817 yr Well I've been busy lately but have managed to get alot of neighborhoods done. East, West and Lower Price Hill are all finished as is Walnut Hills, North Fairmount and probably some other things I can't think of right now. Hopefully I'll be finished with everything else shortly.
April 16, 200817 yr Stairs Being Closed Along Columbia Parkway Permanently http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=af0cb235-2f78-4286-804e-917ee2719c1d Last Update: 4/15 6:52 pm Reported by: Jenell Walton Web produced by: Ian Preuth People driving along Columbia Parkway may have noticed work crews out there recently. The crews are permanently closing off a majority of the stairs and wall opening along the busy corridor. The city of Cincinnati said the changes are for the public's safety. The area used to have a parking lane, but now that is gone so pedestrians should not be in that section. The Ohio Department of Transportation is expected to have the work completed by November.
April 16, 200817 yr ^ I've always wondered why there were steps on Columbia Parkway. It certainly isn't walkable. I always assumed it was for an old bus route or streetcar line that doesn't exist anymore. I never thought about parking. It's sad to see the old stairs closed, but these really weren't going to be useful ever again and most of them have been covered with brush and debris for years. Hopefully they'll close these up in an attractive way.
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