Category: City Living

For the first time in my life I think I finally know why it’s called “(Fountain) Square”. With everything gone, the area wiped clean of the concrete and marble and stage and Skywalk bridge and, well, the fountain, that area – low-and-behold – is actually a town friggin’ square. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to go between the fence and tell the Dugan Meyer fellers it’s time to go home. We’re done. Thanks. Got it. We’ve got it from here. I’ll go grab some sod from Denny McKeown, lay it down and turn on the lawn sprinklers. We got ourselves a real, live civic center square. Woo-wee!

Out and about with my camera this morning, I snapped this shot of the renovation and (expected) revitalization of Fountain Square. Notice the fountain is, uh, not there. I understand it’s in Dan Hurley‘s basement, for safe keeping.

It’s hard not to be excited about what’s happening downtown. Looking across the square – minus the fountain and the concrete barriers – I can almost envision what it will look like when it’s done: a city-center thriving with people and commerce and entertainment and activity. That’s good stuff. And those of us who live and love downtown look on with eager hesitation about what’s taking place and imagine the possibilities. Can it really happen? Will people who abandoned this part of their city come back? I hope so. They’d be missing so much if they didn’t.

I stopped into a shop where I’d never been before. The proprietor tells me she’s been open there for decades and I ask her how business is going. I always ask the small-business owners downtown when I stop in. I want to know. I’m always afraid of their answer.

“Not good,” she said, shaking her head. “Just look around. Retail does not do well downtown anymore.”

I suggest that maybe the Square’s re-working will spread across to her a few blocks away and bring her more customers.

“They’ve been saying that (about downtown) for three years,” she said. Will she make it, I ask. “I don’t know,” she replies.

As I walk around downtown, just like I did this morning, I am reminded just again of the beauty of this place. Blah, blah. I know. Likely it’s been heard before. But if you look up as you walk along the sidewalk at the buildings, the light hitting the still-wet streets, or step into the Omni hotel, Dixie Terminal or the Carew Tower – the handsomeness of this town is evident no matter where eyes are cast.

I get wide-eyed with romanticized views of what it can be, especially when I read the very compelling pseudo-commentary written by John Schneider in the February 15, 2006 edition of CityBeat (though I would caution my beloved CityBeat, in my humble opinion, from printing pieces of analysis and commentary under the guise of a news story without labeling it as such until the very wee end of the article when we learn the true identity of the piece’s author). Cincinnati is no Portland, Ore. – but it could be. This article makes me think a few tweaks here, a few enlightened minds there and A.G. Lafley will be sitting next to me on the light rail train on our ways to work. Does anyone else think this? Or are we too consumed in our own race to the suburbs, the fear of being “caught in the cross-fire” in the city (as a few people have suggested; I’ve yet to be shot once), that buses will forever be for poor people and downtown, too? Will we re-configure into a doughnut-shaped city where everything happens on the perimeter, yet we say we are from Cincinnati but live out our lives on the rim? I hope not.

A person I know – not from here – poked fun, I think, mistakenly, in an online message that the slogan “Don’t Trash the ‘Nati” is actually a way for a billboard to remind citizens that this place isn’t so bad and we ought not talk badly about ourselves. Though the slogan was actually a possibly misguided attempt for the “Keep Cincinnati Beautiful” organization to discourage littering, it’s interesting that it was taken differently. Does an outsider see what some have suggested and many refuse to see? That we just don’t think we can change? We are who we are because, well, that’s what we are? As a native, someone who truly loves this place and sees potential just about everywhere I turn, I hope not.

After this evening’s mayoral debate – sponsored by Cincinnati Advance, the Society of Professional Journalists, National Association of Black Journalists and WAIF-FM – between Ohio Senator Mark Mallory and Cincinnati City Councilman David Pepper, I headed home. No big deal. I had work to do. Only problem: I couldn’t get there.
Just about a block south of where I live a man fired shots from an assault rifle and then reportedly ran into the Belmont Cafe on Race Street, a few doors south of 12th Street – and just about a block south of where I live.
Workers at the bar then barricaded the door and wouldn’t let police in to investigate – a direct violation of state law. This then, according to police spokesman Lt. Kurt Byrd, sparked an intense police intervention. The kind of intervention that, ya know, brings out the S.W.A.T. and keeps people from going about their business – like going home.
That intervention included a six-block area around the scene – including where my apartment is located – being draped with yellow “Police Line – Do Not Cross” tape. The S.W.A.T. team was called, and a mini-convention of local media outlets – each TV station and newspaper well represented – all gathered to take it all in. I just wanted to go home.
I, with nothing better to do and unable to get to the pad, called an editor at the Enquirer to see if I could maybe at least earn a few dollars covering the story. The editor had dispatched the evening’s cops’ reporter to the scene, but he said he might want some photographs if “shooting broke out.”
Okay, then. I grabbed my camera and positioned myself with the other media folks.
All us journos sat around with our cameras and our notebooks aimed directly a half-block away, right at the front entrance of the Belmont. The TV folks aimed their microwave remote dishes straight at their respective newsrooms and went live at 11.
The most impressive part of the whole evening was the group arrival of the off-duty S.W.A.T. team members around 11:45 p.m. Central Parkway was closed and then all at once sirens and a convoy of private-person cars, trucks (lots of big pick-up trucks with large tires) and large police vans, cars and a big, black tank-looking truck with the large, white “S.W.A.T.” blazoned across the side zoomed past. Each vehicle had one person – presumably a member of the S.W.A.T. team – in it and they filed past us and headed for their staging area along 12th street. You know, near my bedroom window (the one where the crack addicts usually indulge in…well, lots of stuff).
S.W.A.T. went in a little later and then we waited. Nothing happened.
We waited longer and still not much happened after then news-wise and that’s pretty much the way it ended, with Lt. Byrd stopping by, sharing details of what we just saw with cameras rolling, notebooks filling and all of us glad to be able to soon leave.
According to Lt. Byrd, apparently the person with the assault rifle was real – police found shell casings on the ground outside the bar. But nothing and no one was found. Night over. Time to go home.
The Sit-a-Round
Sitting around at stories with other journalists is often fun. These sort of sit-and-wait news events lend themselves to us hanging around and getting to know each other, chatting about the stuff we’ve covered in the past, the characters we’ve covered, our lives and whatever.
Learned a bit about some of my colleagues, especially one local TV reporter and anchor who four years ago ran for Cincinnati’s mayor against Charlie Luken. He and I had never met, but he’d heard of the radio show I did this past summer (he did one once himself) and we got talking about the state of the city. He’s got a passion for this town that is inspiring, a caring that runs deeper than most. I share this with him on many levels. It was neat to talk to him.
Ah, home sweet…what?
Soon after all the media left and I tried to go home. Couldn’t though. Police were planning to keep the area closed for a while longer and the cops guarding the perimeter where unaware of what was going on, uh, again, near my front door. So now I am now typing this little ditty from the WAIF studios – about the only place close enough that I knew I could go that I could get in. I’m tired. I’m concerned. I’m frustrated.
People think I’m crazy for living where I do. Sometimes I think they’re right. It seems lately I have been feeling that more and more. Despite that, I’m convinced Over-the-Rhine, or OTR, as many call it, is a special place. Maybe you’ve heard it before: the architecture, the old buildings – all preserved, but deteriorating. Ironically, the abject poverty that set in here starting 40 and more years ago is what has allowed this neighborhood to stay pretty much the same. No money, no way to tear things down and build new stuff.
The only thing missing is the spirit that built this place, that made it this magnificent masterpiece, full of character and promise. I often walk the streets and wonder what it would’ve been like to have been living here 50 years ago. Or eighty years ago, or maybe even a hundred. Bet it was neat. Community-minded people everywhere.
OTR might just not be that special place for me right now. I wonder what it would be like to move a little farther south, into the true downtown. The crime rate is lower and the activity is centered around good restaurants, good entertainment and business (though it admittedly struggles, too). OTR has so many good people wanting to make it better. In the time being, though, I could be a victim of something horrific.
I heard one of the candidates this evening say there are 2,500 residents living in the central business district – what most would call “downtown” – right now. He said he would aim to increase that number to 10,000 during his time as mayor. Getting people to live downtown would certainly change the make-up of the people who hang out down there. It would undoubtedly make it better.
Along those same lines, had lunch yesterday with a friend who owns a restaurant in Over-the-Rhine. She, like me, believes the neighborhood could be more. But it just isn’t. At times it seems to be back-sliding. Not far and not fast, but it’s slipping. She called it a mess. I don’t want to admit it, but I think she’s right. It needs people like she and I, we both agreed, but geez, in the time being…
That former mayoral candidate and TV anchor said in the nearly two decades that he has lived here he’s seen a change, too. He said the town doesn’t know how to have fun anymore. When he got here Cincinnati – downtown – was a fun place. He likened it now to a kid growing up and forgetting how to enjoy itself.
I remember what he is talking about. A friend and I used to ride the bus downtown and hang out downtown- see a movie on the Skywalk, play video games at the arcade and ate at McDonald’s. I dare you to find a movie theater, a video arcade or a McDonald’s downtown. Heck, I almost dare you to find the Skywalk. Downtown in the mid-80s was a different place. I used to come downtown to visit my Uncle Steve who lived at the 4th & Plum Apartments and was entranced by what I saw. Being a suburban kid, coming downtown seemed exotic and I guess really kind of was. My travels on the bus became a hot topic of discussion among my family and extended family at gatherings and dinner tables. I just loved it here – and I felt safe.
I’m not so sure that it’s just that the city lost it’s ability to have fun. I think too many people gave up too long ago and moved too far away to care that much about it anymore – even though we all point to downtown and Cincinnati when we talk about where we’re from. But I don’t see that magic anymore. I wonder what happened, why it happened. I miss it. And seeing the S.W.A.T. on my front doorstep as I wander home one evening after hearing two of the candidates for mayor is like buying a shiny new bike and then having it stolen upon taking it for its first spin. You wonder what’s the point.

It’s just not everyday you get to see a Cincinnati City Councilman dressed up in lederhosen. Come to think of it, that’s true unless you’re talking about Jim Tarbell. The Cincinnati City Councilman likes to dress up. I’ve also seen him in long tails and top hat. But the good thing is he’s always in the spirit of the occasion – a true showman. Sunday was no different when I spotted him at Cincinnati’s annual celebration of its German-influenced heritage known as Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati.

Living downtown lends itself to doing things downtown. It might be my favorite part of being down here. Of all the festivals that happen down here – and there are some neat ones – I like this one the best. Call me biased, but maybe my German heritage leads me to that conclusion. But during Oktoberfest weekend, everyone in the Greater Cincinnati area is a little German.

Gotta say, too, that I was a little bummed I didn’t get a chance to see Uncle Al and Captain Wendy. Doing the chicken dance with them all these years later (when they first taught me to throw my elbows back and twist, twist, twist at my waist) would have been a distinct honor. I am so happy – even though I missed it – that they agreed to come back to town to do this. I have such fond memories of watching their show as a child.

(By the way, I had noticed a while ago – and had planned to write about it, but an editor declined the story – to write about how WCPO was selling Uncle Al t-shirts and other items. But apparently Uncle Al asked the station to stop selling the stuff.)

And though I’m German (my father immigrated here in 1955 when he was 7 1/2 years old), I don’t own a pair of those…things. And I’ve been asked why a few times. See, my family – thank God in Heaven – is from the northwestern region (a county, for all intents) of Germany known as Emsland. There they don’t wear lederhosen. That’s a southern-Germany thing. And I will forever be grateful. But, hey, Tarbell looks good in ’em.