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East End Cincinnati

Guest Fabienne
Guest Fabienne
in City Discussion

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I have lived in Cincinnati for 30 years. The place has gone through some very strange times but seems to be getting better and better and better.

 

I started off by working in Evendale for GE. Can't say that was picturesque. Then I went back to school in Clifton (nice but for the drunken students on weekends---or maybe the occasional bitter UC art teacher {I could have been *hic* in Art in Amercia...}). Then, I had a studio downtown at the Pendleton which had it's painfully urban chic moments. Finally I have decided to go local...it's the thing to do and far be it from me to buck the trend.

 

I pulled up stakes and got a place almost immediately on Airport Road for my fledgling and thriving little business. I am in love. What a neat place East End is! It seems to be the environment where there are thousands of little businesses (some in manufacturing) and huge layers of streets behind tiny little streets where tinier little streets jut off.

 

At this point, EastEnd has been found out. The Dew Drop Inn is now a chicer place, Yuppie condos sprout where there once were modest river houses, and old manufacturing plants are home to custom wine cellar specialists, neighbors to wildly popular restaurants, and junk yards are close to really old farmer's markets (with really old farmers selling vegetables), abandoned water works buildings and newly discovered Carnegie edifices. It's quite a mix and it has been left alone for so long, it's almost as if it were vacuum packed.

 

Maybe I should just have shut up about EastEnd. I don't want it to be ruined (a la Dew Drop Inn becoming Mirabelle's or a name which was stolen from a Sloan Ranger's birth certificate) but I find I just can't help myself. I am really going to enjoy discovering the nooks around my new office and the businesses about. It was Terry's Turf Club today, and more to come later.

 

If anyone has any good suggestions for places to visit in the EastEnd, please say something. I can recommend Bella Luna and Terry's Turf Club both around the 4600 block of Eastern Avenue on the North side of the street.

Im trying to figure out where the East End is?  Airport Road suggests someplace by Lunken?

Hmmm, by East End I am meaning all things pretty much past downtown near the river and on and around Eastern Avenue (aka Riverside Drive) up to Columbia Parkway or there abouts. This does indeed include Lunken and it's vicinity.

 

Living above Bella Luna would be perfect. Lucky her. Also, you can get just about anywhere very quickly.

 

  Been there recently. Got a big infrastructure project there.

 

    There is a sign spray-painted on the sidewalk that says "Keep out of the East End."  The East End is basicly Eastern Avenue between Delta and Beechmont.

 

  The east end is a time-warp. It has not changed in many years. Eastern Avenue used to be a main road, with streetcars, but most of the traffic takes Columbia Parkway now. Houses, which are generally very small, date from the 1880's, with a handful from the 1840's.

 

  Wine Cellar Innovations occupies a former industrial building that is a conglomeration of several older buildings with a new facade built in the 1920's. The facade is 500 feet long. They employ 180.

 

 

Thanks for the info! My husband and I were walking by Wine Cellar Innovations and he commented that he thought it used to be a prison! Well, it certainly is a big complex. I know one of the artists they use for the high end custom jobs where people want things painted on their cellars to their own specs.

 

Another guy who is big in East End is Jim Verdin, the bell maker and my current landlord's dad. He has a wildly interesting plant on Eastern Ave where he makes bells and even invented a mobile casting and machining rig to make small bells around Ohio!

 

I am going to miss them, they were excellent landlords and just plain old interesting and talented people. I am moving out of the Pendleton mainly because I want to be in my own neighborhood. I got caught in that November traffic jam on I-71 where we all stood still for 2 hrs and I am afraid that is what put the lid on downtown for me. It certainly has its charms, though, but it's time for me to explore the territory around my home (Mt. Lookout is where I live).

Bella Luna and Terry's Turf club are located in Linwood.  Both are excellent places.

Wow, that is hilarious. Reminds me of when I was in graduate school and we did a case on Kroger. The FIRST thing that was said about Cincinnati was that it was a city of neighborhoods. Fierce neighborhoods. First, you establish which side of town you come from, that is the first stick in the sand. Then you declare exactly which neighborhood your spring from. This tells the audience what kind of a person you are with pinpoint accuracy. Hyde Parker? Where's your latte? Price Hill? Lower, East, or West (it makes a difference, you know). OK, I know that Jim Borgman did it better, but honestly that map reminds me of the map of the Soviet Union before it broke up! So, Bella Luna and Terry's are in Linwoodastan. Hmmm. I am going to have to scout down an even more detailed map of the neighborhoods just for fun. Some folks are sitting on the line. I live on Principio Avenue, and there have been people who have solemnly informed me that I live in Hyde Park, and others who are equally sincere who tell me that I am indeed a resident of Mt. Lookout. I feel like a "man without a country" until I decide which one I dwell in.

 

http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/Ohio/Cincinnati-heat_map/ Here is a pretty accurate map from the real estate people. It is a "heat map" which shows what house prices are going for but it also shows exactly what streets are the boundaries of each neighborhood. If you get down to the closest magnification, the heat map overlay goes away and you can see the streets clearly. Turns out I live in Mt. Lookout and work in East End, and had lunch in Linwood.

Don't forget that Cincinnati's neighborhoods get imperialistic over time. The high value one's tend to expand, esp. Hyde Park and Mt. Lookout, while low value one's shrink. Also you have to account for depopulation of certain neighborhoods which over time lose their identities and become swallowed by more vibrant 'hoods. The whole flood prone sector of the east side has shrunk dramatically over the last 75 years (shoot the last 20 years). There has been a lot of new investment as folks got priced out of the hilltop but it remains that East End and Linwood are far smaller than they once were.

The Empire of Latte.

 

When I first moved to Mt. Lookout it was anything but chic. It was supposed to be "the elephants' graveyard" where retired P&G-ers would live before moving to the old folks' home. The square had more stores for prosthetic devices than fancy restaurants, and a funeral home (which is still there). Then things changed in the '80's as young people moved in to have families. The area was less expensive than Hyde Park but it rubbed shoulders with HP. Ault Park was a mess in 1982. Taken over by gangs, it was filled with broken bits and overgrown gardens. That was taken back by the locals by presence and lots of events to clean it up. I remember a small knot of rueful looking toughs sitting on their car hoods smoking cigarettes and glaring at a set of young well heeled mothers pushing their prams past. The police station at the bottom of the hill lent a good deal of courage to the neighbors, too. So, all that probably has to do with the rise of Mt. Lookout.

 

There does seem to be an ebb and flow among the neighborhoods. I was really amazed that what East End has been attracting, though. Actually, I never thought that there was that much activity going on down there, even though it is in my back yard. Finding a new office in the area has made me want to explore more and I am willing to imagine that East End is the new Oakley (hey, red is the new black, you know).

 

BTW, when I moved to Cincinnati in 1979 I was informed on several occasions that the West Side was the heart and soul and best representation of the essence of Cincinnati, and that Norwood was its foothold on the East. People were very serious about that. We were considered somewhat "odd" for moving to Mt. Lookout (you aren't old enough to move there). And if you wanted anything at all entertaining, there was little of it on the East Side. I still am amazed at the number of restaurants which have sprouted up in Mt. Lookout. Heh, imagine...a restaurant which serves raw fish! It'll never fly, right?

I have memories of going to Alms Park in the early 80s and it was quite sketchy - the castle was sealed off for awhile. There are all kinds of interesting race and class issues that probably explain why the last thirty years has been kinder to parts of the East Side - the biggest being the emptying out of the West End public housing into the West Side and the changing nature of Cincinnati's economy.

The East end runs as a sliver from below Mt. Adams and widens around Kellogg/Delta and runs all the way to California and Mt. Washington.....

 

Here is a map....

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All-Neighborhoods-Cincinnati.jpg

 

 

The lines of separation between Downtown, Mt. Adams, and East End is quite confusing. I've heard the news refer to "The East End" when reporters are covering stories from the Montgomery Inn Boathouse but others refer to the restaurant as being downtown.

 

It's close to but separated from downtown by 471. It's at the base of Mt. Adams but separated from it by Columbia Parkway. And the East End is way too big in the first place.

 

Towne Properties has dubbed the area from the end of East Pete Rose Way/beginning of Riverside Drive down to Kemper Road/Railroad Bridge as "Adam's Landing". With basically everything along this stretch, including Friendship Park, recently built, I believe a new "neighborhood" should be created on that map.

 

Adam's Landing

 

"It's just fate, as usual, keeping its bargain and screwing us in the fine print..." - John Crichton

The lines of separation between Downtown, Mt. Adams, and East End is quite confusing. I've heard the news refer to "The East End" when reporters are covering stories from the Montgomery Inn Boathouse but others refer to the restaurant as being downtown.

 

"downtown" is an amorphous definition at best, everyone has their own idea.  I am sure we could start a 30 page thread on that alone.

Heck, I can't even get a straight answer about where I live, let alone where the boundries of downtown begin and end. Try asking where The West Side starts and stops. (Answer: it's in a pit where no one goes which is filled with railroad tracks, hobos, and noxious gases and it's under the viaduct...somewhere, but no one has seen it. It's like the source of the Nile circa 1702...mysterious and steeped in speculation).

"downtown" is an amorphous definition at best, everyone has their own idea.  I am sure we could start a 30 page thread on that alone.

 

The reason behind this is that "downtown" for most cities generally refers to the central business district area, but in Cincinnati's strong neighborhood's case it also represents one of the 52 city neighborhoods.  So by some people's standards "downtown" may be anything in the basin area including the Central Business District, OTR, West End, Pendleton, and parts of the East End.  But to others it simply stands for the Central Business District.

 

Downtown Cincinnati Inc. refers to the two as the 1) Central Business District (riverfront to Central Parkway, I-75 to I-71) and 2) Downtown which includes the CBD, OTR, Longworth-Betts, City West, and the eastern stretch along the river.  They have a formal map illustrating just this if you need further clarification.

Also you have to account for depopulation of certain neighborhoods which over time lose their identities and become swallowed by more vibrant 'hoods.

 

..is this what happened to Mohawk and Brighton, or are they still considered identifiable neighborhoods still. 

 

BTW, I think I drove through that East End area .  It has that church with the clocktower that riverboats used to set their time to.  I think there isn't much to that neighborhood in terms of width, but its a pretty long shoestring.  Linwood, I thought, was it's own place, as was Columbia.

 

 

 

  I've got a great-uncle who is 92 years old that talks about Brighton, but I haven't heard that name from anyone else.

Bring back Brighton!

Also you have to account for depopulation of certain neighborhoods which over time lose their identities and become swallowed by more vibrant 'hoods.

 

..is this what happened to Mohawk and Brighton, or are they still considered identifiable neighborhoods still. 

 

BTW, I think I drove through that East End area .  It has that church with the clocktower that riverboats used to set their time to.  I think there isn't much to that neighborhood in terms of width, but its a pretty long shoestring.  Linwood, I thought, was it's own place, as was Columbia.

 

 

 

I would say Mohawk and Brighton are both @ the edge of disappearing altogether. Other examples include: Kenyon-Barr -> now essentially Queensgate, the whole SE corner of what is now dt along Eggleston and 471 was once a real neighborhood -> Bucktown most famously, the riverfront was once its own neighborhood that was pretty eliminated by 1937 flood.

 

The East End is definitely linear neighborhood. There were once sub'hoods such as Brighton that became a part of the East End. The floods of the mid-90s eliminated a lot of what was left that was working class or lower in the flood plain all the way out to California.

It helps that some neighborhoods try to maintain their identity and even those of the sub-neighborhoods.  While the boundaries between neighborhoods seem to flow a lot, especially outside the city limits, I don't see that happen quite as much within Cincinnati, because the boundaries have always been very well established.  First off, they usually coincided with annexation boundaries, and since then they've been marked with signs and such.  However, this tends to happen in the better neighborhoods more than the downtrodden ones, as would be expected.

 

Of course there certainly are neighborhoods that have fluctuated, like Queensgate (which I believe used to all be part of the west end, and got its name from the actual urban "renewal" plan).  CUF is a mess, since Fairview and Clifton Heights get lumped into it, but CUF is sometimes unto itself as well.  Mohawk/Brighton seemed to mostly be sub-neighorhoods of the West End and OTR, though there actually used to be a Brighton train station over in what's now South Fairmount.  The Brighton Bank seems like just about the only thing that actually keeps the neighborhood name alive.  What's generally called Sayler Park is actually made up of Delhi, Sayler Park, and Fernbank.  O'Bryonville technically is all part of Evanston, though it abuts both East Walnut Hills and Hyde Park. 

 

Still, I think the East End has managed to maintain some identity, at least with some of the signs along Columbia Parkway (though they should be on Eastern Avenu...excuse me Riverside Drive as well).  There's Fulton, which stretched from Bains Street to St. Andrews, the old riverboat manufacturing neighborhood.  Pendleton was from St. Andrews to Delta, home to the Little Miami Railroad's original terminal and yards.  Columbia ran from Delta to about the old LeBlond plant, while the "Mt. Tusculum" subdivision, which was also within Columbia, was on the hill where Alms Park is.  The area around Lunken Airport and the Beechmont Levee was Turkey Bottoms.  Linwood, originally a railroad suburb, has been mostly obliterated unfortunately.  It started out like Columbia, with denser development on the flat river floodplain and bigger more spread out houses on the hillsides.  However, the expanding Undercliff railroad yard, construction and reconstruction and reconstruction again of the Columbia Parkway/Linwood/Beechmont/Wooster interchange in the 1930s, 50s, and 60s destroyed much of the lower part of the neighborhood.  The rest, such as Archer, Heekin, Russell, and Shattuc Avenues are generally considered part of Mt. Lookout, even though they technically aren't. 

^

fascinating!  I love the rich neighborhood history and geography of Cincinnati! :-)

 

....and a big thx to Rando for that link to Brighton.  Another place for my walks!  Now, about Mohawk....(maybe these placs get their own thread?

 

Anway, this sounds fascinating:

 

There's Fulton, which stretched from Bains Street to St. Andrews, the old riverboat manufacturing neighborhood.

 

Presumably there is some of this neighborhood still standing?

Eh, not a whole lot.  Fulton is where the Verdin factory is, and a few other old buildings and houses, but a lot of all the East End neighborhoods have been whittled away over time.

This stuff is really cool...where can I learn more about Cincinnati's 19th cent. neighborhoods?  Anyone have a good book recommendation?  I bought Vas You Ever In Zinzinnati at a bookfair but it was a little to intimate and specific for my knowledge level right now.  Where should I start reading?

If you can find it, The Bicentennial Guide to Greater Cincinnati has a lot of great history of all the neighborhoods and even many of the suburbs as well.  The coverage gets more and more broad the farther out you go, of course.  There's great walking/driving tours and info on most of the notable buildings along the way. 

Thanks, I'll get that from the library and then plumb the bibliography.

Wow, thanks for talking about all these things. Even if it's topic drift off the strictly speaking East End header, I am enthralled and I think some of you are as well. First, thanks for posting that article about Brighton. I do indeed remember Brighton and it hasn't died at all! I remember Pat Renick who taught me at UC and she was a real perfectionist who loved Brighton and was proud of living there.

 

I decided to go home this evening by way of Eastern Ave because we have all been talking about it and I am going to be moving around there soon with my business. I went past the Carnegie Building and bypassed the route into my new digs on Airport Road just to follow Eastern to it's conclusions and such. It ends in the road to Mariemont but before it gets there it goes through some great twists and turns in many directions. Old tired Xmas decor littered over built up front lawns, knots of young men in pulled down pants and hoodies gathering after work around their cars to laugh at jokes and plot the evening's amusements, an old Confederate flag sags in the 30 deg weather, and more houses with dirty tinsel or fallen over Santas. Up ahead there is the Terry's Turf Club and Bella Luna open areas. Wine Cellar Innovations takes up an entire side of the street looking like a prison but with paintings on the outside. Little old houses down by the river and more of them and then finally there is the road to Mariemont.

 

It really is a wonderful drive,especially at this time of year. There is something cozy about this way past Xmas display and the many small houses there. Some are in great shape and some need repairs. The odd part of a swanky restaurant or two or three popping up and not going away right in the heart of this wilting neighborhood which won't wilt ultimately.

 

I can hardly wait for spring and the reality to set in. I love the thought of going up to Alms Park and smelling that smell of grass and dandelions in  May, in taking your long time love to the park for a picnic and telling him for the millionth time how you love him and smelling the thick yellow air when you do. Sometimes it's hard not to love a place like Cincinnati when there are so many disparate displays calling your name and so much time traveling you can do all at once.

I just did some aerial mapping in the area and discovered how the streets all work and curve and connect.  I played soccer a lot at a park down by the river and never knew what it was until now.  It's LeBlond Park and it sits next to the Pendleton Heritage Center.

 

Here's some info on the PHC from the Appalachian Community Development Association (ACDA) website.

 

Pendleton Heritage Center Workers Build Sweat Equity

 

It's only a shell of a building on Eastern Avenue. Once passed unnoticed by hundreds of commuters each day. But the former railway depot turned recreation center houses the hopes and dreams of a committed group of East End residents intent on preserving their heritage, celebrating their diversity and promoting their future, especially as gentrification brings new residents into their midst.

 

In a neighborhood in great need of office and meeting space for residents and agencies serving residents, the Pendleton Heritage Center offers a great opportunity to coordinate services and improve offerings to citizens, while preserving and celebrating the East End's history and heritage.

 

"The Center is an effort to try to explain the cultural heritage to newcomers, and also symbolic of the long-time residents' ability to stay there," says Ariel Miller, Pendleton Heritage Center Treasurer.

 

A grant from ACDA provides an integral piece of the residents' dream - money to hire a professional foreman to oversee the work of volunteers as they tuck-point, hang storm windows and cabinets, landscape and more. Without the volunteers' "sweat equity," Pendleton Heritage Center could not be completed, as it is scheduled to be, this year. The volunteer effort is one way the Pendleton Heritage Center proves it practices what it preaches - reconciliation and respect. While some volunteers are from middle to upper-class churches, others come from the neighborhood community school and social service agencies.

 

"The idea is to get people from lots of different backgrounds together by having them work side by side, to show them that cultural and economic differences can be transcended," says Miller.

 

 

The above is looking west toward downtown in the distance with the PHC centered and LeBlond Park/soccer field to the right.

 

Below is an bird's eye map from bing. You can see the river, PHC, and LeBlond at top.  Bottom left is the terminus of William Howard Taft.

The area is in a red box.

So by some people's standards "downtown" may be anything in the basin area including the Central Business District, OTR, West End, Pendleton, and parts of the East End.

 

Even 7014 Vine St is considered Downtown!  :drunk:

 

CINCINNATI -- Cincinnati police are searching for four suspects they say broke into a downtown clothing shop.

 

This happened at the VIP Clothing store at 7014 Vine Street on Jan. 5.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/story/Police-Searching-For-Breaking-Entering-Suspects/TVe3tF6SOkCVucge-NkxoQ.cspx

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