31 August 2009

Take the Cake Before After

Next to Cluxton Alley Coffee Roasters, is "Take the Cake". They were once located on Main Street in OTR.

I have a before picture of this building somewhere, but couldn't find it tonight. So I got the before picture from the Hamilton County Auditor site. It was just a concrete block facade. I'm not sure who did the design or paid for the new facade, but they did a great job:

Take-the-Cake Before:

After:

[where: 4035 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45223]

Tetherball and Chess at Wash Park

Cluxton Alley Coffee Roasters

Cluxton Alley Coffee Roasters is a hidden business in the rear of a building in the first block of Hamilton Avenue from Knowlton's corner, near Blue Rock. The owner, Jan is a long-time Northside resident who studied coffee roasting and established this business last year in the rear of her building. The coffee is excellent and it is becoming a daytime gathering spot. She sells roasted coffee beans and also has local artwork on display, notably that of Nicola Mason, the editor of the Cincinnati Review (an excellent publication, more on that later). Get your coffee beans here, you will return, I guarantee:

[where: 4037 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45223] in the rear alley

30 August 2009

Trolley discussion live now on 55KRC. Mark Miller from WeDemandAVote.com and "Progresser" Joe Sprenguard.

Jim Steps on Kid

 

29 August 2009

28 August 2009

Chic Lego Bikes

- buy this bike here

I don't ride bikes much. I used to. I used to ride all around running errands, and going to meetings. But my bike got stolen a few times, I never was good at repairing them, and then came kids... And with the kids it was lots more time consuming, and more equipment needed, kids seats, helmets, u-locks, baskets. It takes a lot of equipment to haul an adult and 2 kids around on a bike in the city, and I would just assume walk if I can.

But my wife has been very adventurous with the bikes, taking both kids out numerous times on pretty long treks through the city. Our 8 year old is pretty competent and seems to know how to ride safely around city streets. Next year our daughter will learn, and then maybe I'll start adventuring out again with the family.

But please check out Cycle Chic seems dedicated to snapping awsome photos of stylish young people on their bikes (style over speed, yeah). Their latest post notes that Lego now has a bike/skate shop.

ps: sorry I missed the Super-Bad Bike Show

Also enjoy my shaky video of a quick ride thru Washington Park in 2007. The lap after that short film, we crashed on top of each other, partially because I had a hand on a camera and not a brake. Bad dad.

27 August 2009

Karkadoulias

A few weeks ago, the Cincinnati Business Courier had an article highlighting the demolition by neglect that one property owner, Gale Smith has been conducting at the corner of Elm and Liberty. Here is a picture of 1703 Elm Street, one of his remaining buildings:



This got me thinking about the 1500 block of Elm, where I once lived. I used to see another a block south of this every day. It was vacant, but still a good quality building. I always liked it and always wondered why it was vacant. I heard that the owner was named Karkadoulias, and that he/she was the same person who had produced this sculpture that is now at Sawyer Point Park:


Anyway, the building I lived near was 1527 Elm. I later found out that the Karkadoulias' bought the building in 1979! Heck, Gale Smith only bought his six years ago.

So this is what that once beautiful building looks like after 30 years of neglect and vacancy:



The rear:


When I first noticed this building, it had windows with glass, and a good roof. The metal roof blew off last September, and has not been repaired yet:


Mercene Karkadoulias owns a few buildings in Over the Rhine (and in other neighborhoods), all bought decades ago for a pitance and most vacant and deteriorating. Here is another one, 1733 Vine:


The City of Cincinnati barricades these buildings and puts the expense on the tax bill:




And another one she owns, recently had a shooting on the doorstep.

I really don't mean to pick on this one owner, but unfortunately this kind of situation is all too common. From what I understand, Mercene Karkadoulias has some extenuating circumstances in her life. But when you look into all these cases of vacant buildings and slumlords, they all have extenuating circumstances of some kind. I met one man who owned several buildings who was quite paranoid and not mentally stable, but he was somehow able to buy some vacant buildings and drive them into the ground. Now he owns some vacant lots with tax liens. Some lack the technical skills or just have no idea where to start. But for whatever reason they don't want to sell. We, the community, should not allow this to happen.

Whatever the circumstances, there is no excuse on earth for owning a building for 30 years and letting it deteriorate to the point of collapse. Even if it was not a historic building in a significant historic district, would you want this building as your neighbor? Either fix it up or sell it to someone who can.

To top it all off, Ms. Karkadoulias recently put For Sale signs some buildings. The asking price for 1527 Elm? $95,000, firm. Mind-boggling.

26 August 2009

Pool Room Painted Sign





[where: 1733 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

25 August 2009

Sustainability and the Streetcar

Many times in the streetcar debate, I hear the comment that separated-grade light rail would be a better option for Cincinnati. "We need to connect downtown to Kenwood and the Airport, not the Riverfront to Clifton", for example. I disagree. My feeling is that in a city like Cincinnati, where freeway traffic is not really a choke point in development, it is more important to build up the close-in neighborhoods before trying to connect to the suburbs.

So I ran across a study done last year for the city of Vancouver, by the University of British Columbia School of Architecture, in which they analyzed the different transportation modes. Here is the summary in PDF format. They judge these transit options based on 3 sustainability principles:

1. Shorter trips are inherently better than longer trips.
2. Low carbon is better than high carbon.
3. Which is most affordable long term?

Note that in this study, they use the word "tram" to describe a modern streetcar.

In the first sustainability principle, streetcars and electric buses score similarly:


Determining the carbon footprint takes more levels of deduction. First, how much energy is used per passenger mile:


Then they analyse the carbon emissions based on various sources of electricity. After that they extrapolate to this graph showing emissions when electricity is generated from coal. (They also have graphs using hydro power, but that is not very relevant to Cincinnati):


Then they get into capacity of the vehicles, the capital costs, and the operational costs. After combining all that info, they conclude with these graphs showing Total Cost per passenger Mile:

and current and future energy costs:
 


The study summarizes as follows:

"...Based on the three sustainability criteria, reducing trip length, greenhouse gas reduction, and lifecycle costs, trams represent the best investment. This investment is entirely dependent, however, on a long term commitment to balancing jobs and housing and a gradual reduction in the per capita demand for daily transportation of any kind. If most trips in the region are short then the rationale for investment in trams is overwhelming. If all trips are long then the rationale for the very expensive Skytrain system may still hold sway. Currently our region is at a tipping point between the two. Decisions made now about which mode to invest in could precipitate very different land use consequences, consequences lasting for decades. These arguments apply to every North American metropolitan area..."

24 August 2009

Can Taco Trucks Defeat McDonalds

Gourmet street food is apparently a growing trend in other cities. Some are truly mobile and are at different locations, announcing their movements via networking sites, and some are permanently parked vehicles like those I photographed in Portland.

Here is an optimistic quote: "Yelp plus smart phones, and other similar applications, will tip the competitive balance away from chain restaurants and toward exceptional independent eateries, bars and coffee shops." -Conor Friedersdorf

Bad Food is Subsidized

When Time Magazine becomes a locavore advocate, you know the idea is mainstream. The question is will this become mainstream in practice, or just a different form of conspicuous consumption for people who have the time and resources?

So what's wrong with cheap food and cheap meat...? A lot. For one thing, not all food is equally inexpensive; fruits and vegetables don't receive the same price supports as grains. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of soda but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit. With the backing of the government, farmers are producing more calories — some 500 more per person per day since the 1970s — but too many are unhealthy calories. Given that, it's no surprise we're so fat; it simply costs too much to be thin.

....When (fertilizer) runoff from the fields of the Midwest reaches the Gulf of Mexico, it contributes to what's known as a dead zone, a seasonal, approximately 6,000-sq.-mi. area that has almost no oxygen and therefore almost no sea life. Because of the dead zone, the $2.8 billion Gulf of Mexico fishing industry loses 212,000 metric tons of seafood a year...

...So what will it take for sustainable food production to spread? It's clear that scaling up must begin with a sort of scaling down — a distributed system of many local or regional food producers as opposed to just a few massive ones...

....Farmers aren't the enemy — and they deserve real help. We've transformed the essential human profession — growing food — into an industry like any other. "We're hurting for job creation, and industrial food has pushed people off the farm," says Hahn Niman. "We need to make farming real employment, because if you do it right, it's enjoyable work." ...

Another Streetcar Article

Ran across an article in the Portland Observer which was ostensibly about how the streetcar extensions could lead to displacement because of increasing property values. The following were interesting quotes from that article:

...The economic development created over 3,000 residential units, 800 of which are considered affordable for people of average or modest incomes.

..."It's been fabulous for urban commercial development," she said of the streetcar. "It's been a very positive impact on the community and the city."

...streetcars create "nodes of activity" that will benefit small businesses in the long term.

John Miller, the executive director of HOST, an affordable housing non-profit, hopes that future streetcars will actually help people of more modest incomes because they won't have to rely on their cars as much....

George's Grocery, Ehrlich's Shoes, Rader Gallery

1986:
Today:


Close up of Ehrlich's shoes sign:

[Where: 1600 Main Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202] nec Liberty and Main UPDATE I originally made this blog post in August 2009. Over past few years I have been contacted by people who used to shop here, and by the Ehrlich family. Below is a great picture sent in by the family. In the photo is Emil and Otto Ehrlich in July 1943. The photo was sent in by Otto's son, Ron. Thanks Ron  

23 August 2009

Our Roads are Designed to Kill

... they asked, “This is where you live? This is your neighborhood? Your streets are designed to kill people.’’ They said that the thin painted white lines at the intersection could not be seen at dawn, nor was there a raised bump to or a narrowing of the road to demarcate the intersection and slow down traffic. They said the speed limit should be ... less if we wanted pedestrians to have much of a chance of surviving. They also said traffic lights increased the number of deaths because people often speed up when the light turns yellow...

... these deaths were not “accidents’’ but were predictable and preventable. And they set out to prove it.

...Most people think we are doing all that can be done to keep our roads safe. They are wrong. Road traffic injuries kill more than a million people a year worldwide, including 40,000 a year in the United States. ... we can change our roads so they help protect both drivers and pedestrians...
From here. More here.

Market Busy

I don't usually go to Findlay Market on Saturdays, but had to stop by yesterday, and I was surprised at how crowded it was:
 

22 August 2009

New American Dream: Renting

Article from Wall Street Journal requires a subscription to view in its entirety.

It's time to accept that home ownership is not a realistic goal for many people and to curtail the enormous government programs fueling this ambition. By Thomas J. Sugrue

...Surveys show that Americans buy into our gauzy platitudes about the character-building qualities of home ownership—at least those who still own them. A February Pew survey reported that nine out of 10 homeowners viewed their homes as a "comfort" in their lives. But for millions of Americans at risk of foreclosure, the home has become something else altogether: the source of panic and despair....

... One third of respondents don't believe that they will ever be able to own a home. And 42% of those who once purchased a home, but don't own one now, believe that they'll never own one again.

...In France, Germany, and Switzerland, renting is more common than purchasing. There, most people invest their earnings in the stock market or squirrel it away in savings accounts. In those countries, whether you are a renter or an owner, houses have use value, not exchange value.

... the story of how the dream became a reality is not one of independence, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurial pluck. It's not the story of the inexorable march of the free market. It's a different kind of American story, of government, financial regulation, and taxation.

We are a nation of homeowners and home-speculators because of Uncle Sam.

It wasn't until government stepped into the housing market, during that extraordinary moment of the Great Depression, that tenancy began its long downward spiral. Before the Crash, government played a minuscule role in housing Americans, other than building barracks and constructing temporary housing during wartime and, in a little noticed provision in the 1913 federal tax code, allowing for the deduction of home mortgage interest payments.

Until the early 20th century, holding a mortgage came with a stigma. You were a debtor, and chronic indebtedness was a problem to be avoided like too much drinking or gambling. The four words "keep out of debt" or "pay as you go" appeared in countless advice books. As the YMCA told its young charges, "If you can't pay, don't buy. Go without. Keep on going without." Because of that, many middle-class Americans—even those with a taste for single-family houses—rented. Home Sweet Home didn't lose its sweetness because someone else held the title.

In any case, mortgages were hard to come by. Lenders typically required 50% or more of the purchase price as a down payment. Interest rates were high and terms were short, usually just three to five years....

...Herbert Hoover signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act in 1932, laying the groundwork for massive federal intervention in the housing market. ...Frankin Roosevelt created the Home Owners' Loan Corporation... created the Federal Housing Administration, ...instituted 25- and 30-year mortgages, and cut interest rates...and created the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) which created the secondary market in mortgages...

Easy credit, underwritten by federal housing programs, boosted the rates of home ownership quickly. By 1950, 55% of Americans had a place they could call their own. By 1970, the figure had risen to 63%. It was now cheaper to buy than to rent. Federal intervention also unleashed vast amounts of capital that turned home construction and real estate into critical economic sectors. By the late 1950s, for the first time, the census bureau began collecting data on new housing starts—which became a leading indicator of the nation's economic vitality.

... Tens of millions of Americans owned their own homes because of government programs, but they had no reason to doubt that their home ownership was a result of their own virtue and hard work, their own grit and determination—not because they were the beneficiaries of one of the grandest government programs ever. The only housing programs prominently associated with Washington's policy makers were underfunded, unpopular public housing projects...

Federal housing policies changed the whole landscape of America, creating the sprawlscapes that we now call home, and in the process, gutting inner cities, whose residents, until the civil rights legislation of 1968, were largely excluded from federally backed mortgage programs. Of new housing today, 80% is built in suburbs—the direct legacy of federal policies that favored outlying areas rather than the rehabilitation of city centers. It seemed that segregation was just the natural working of the free market, the result of the sum of countless individual choices about where to live. But the houses were single—and their residents white—because of the invisible hand of government.

But by the 1960s and 1970s, those who had been excluded from the postwar housing boom demanded their own piece of the action—and slowly got it. The newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development expanded home ownership programs for excluded minorities...

During the wild late 1990s ...New tools, including the securitization of mortgages and subprime lending, made it possible for more Americans than ever to live the dream or to gamble that someone else would pay them more to make their own dream come true..

... If there's one lesson from the real-estate bust of the last few years, it might be time to downsize the dream, to make it a little more realistic. James Truslow Adams, the historian who coined the phrase "the American dream," one that he defined as "a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank" also offered a prescient commentary in the midst of the Great Depression. "That dream," he wrote in 1933, "has always meant more than the accumulation of material goods." Home should be a place to build a household and a life, a respite from the heartless world, not a pot of gold.


UPDATE: here are a few studies about the effect of apartments on nearby
housing values:

Apartments Have Positive Impact on Property Appreciation Rates

Effects of Mixed-Income, Multi-Family Rental Housing Developments on
Single-Family Housing Values


America's Working Communities and the Impact of Multifamily Housing

National Multi Housing Council has resources about "Apartment Myths":

21 August 2009

Pleasant Street Shaping Up

Zendik Revolution

 

Never heard of Zendik, had to google it.

20 August 2009

Alley Granite Stones

Baschang and Thurber Alleys:
 

[where: 222 West Fifteenth Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202] behind

this is an overgrown forgotten corner of OTR:

19 August 2009

Impromptu Fashion Show

Ran into a sidewalk fashion show last Friday. Not who or what was going on, but the activity created a buzz, which created a freindly crowd for about an hour at the corner of 13th and Sycamore:
 


Fashion Crowd Gathering:
 


A bit blurry;
 

48 Vacant Buildings in Detroit

Wow, interactive map of 48 prominent vacant buildings in downtown Detroit.
 

African Painted Door

This house was well-cared for until 2-3 years ago. Now it is vacant and has weeds taking over:
 

[where: 1610 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

18 August 2009

Buildings That Look Like Food

Urlesque.com

Jacob's Tin Man

Jacob's Sheet Metal Works:
 

[where: 1366 Hopple Street, Cincinnati, OH 45225] (Camp Washington)

Philadelphia Has 73 Public Pools

Or at least they did last year...
...Having followed the coverage in the Philadelphia media, I have lingering questions about how much of that incident was race and how much was social class. Urban working-class and suburban middle-class children often have quite different styles of play -- as I know from present observation as well as from my Syracuse youth, when I regularly biked to the public pool in Thornden Park. Kids of all races from downtown Syracuse neighborhoods were much rougher and tougher, and for self-preservation you had to stay out of their way! Otherwise, you'd get knocked to the concrete or dunked when they heedlessly jumped off the diving board onto our heads in the crowded pool.

In general, middle-class children today are more closely supervised at pools because the family can afford to have a non-working parent at home -- a luxury that working-class kids rarely have. What happened at the Valley Swim Club, whose safety infrastructure was evidently also overwhelmed by too many visiting kids who were non-swimmers, may have been a clash of classes rather than races. Were the mothers who pulled their kids out of the pool that day really reacting to skin color or what they, accurately or not, perceived to be an overcrowded, dangerous disorder? The incontrovertible offense in all this, which went unmentioned in the national media, was the closure for budgetary reasons by the city of Philadelphia this summer of 27 of its 73 public pools. There is no excuse for that kind of draconian curtailment of basic recreational facilities for working-class families, sweltering in the urban summer heat.

-Camile Paglia speculates about the Philadelphia swim case

I think that there is a big difference between local pools that kids can walk to unsupervised, and those that require a parent to drive the kids to the pool. If the pool requires driving, it almost guarantees that the kids will be better supervised. But that is not always the case. Sunday, we spent the day at Dunham Pool, which is the last CRC pool open this year. I noticed they had signs up saying something like " lifeguards are not babysitters...curb your kids!"

Dunham was packed on its last day. I estimate 3-400 swimmers Sunday.

17 August 2009

Time Lapse Baby's First Year

New Mural 13th and Race

Picture of Samuel Hannaford with blueprint looking out on Washington Park from balcony of building on which the mural is painted:

As usual, Visualingual beat me to the punch and has more close-ups.

Jerry's Disco Palace

Before and After:



[where: 1344 Vine Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

I'll have a lot more about this building as construction continues.

Quality Tire Repair

When I drove junky cars, I would find myself here often, getting a $5 plug or even a $15 used tire. Sometimes you just need a tire that will get you through a few paychecks:

[where: 1604 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

14 August 2009

Findlay Market Needs Streetcar

....parking is the big short-term issue facing the market. He said weekend crowds consistently fill the 723 spaces on surrounding streets and 155 spots in a city-owned lot north of the market....building a streetcar system that runs past the market would help...
...
Then, there’s the matter of more than 40 vacant buildings in the blocks surrounding Findlay Market. The buildings are owned by the city and the corporation, which has development rights but no money to spearhead a project. Three attempts to recruit developers have produced no results.

“We need a local residential population to secure the market’s future,” Pickford said. “If you look at it’s history, the market survived because it was surrounded by a densely populated neighborhood until 20 to 25 years ago.”

-Today's Cincinntati Business Courier


Things are changing in Over-the-Rine. Buildings are being rehabbed and crime is going down. But there continues to be the unsolved problem of access / parking. The neighborhood was built for walking. The vacant housing cannot be profitably rehabbed unless 2 out of every 3 buildings is demolished for the required parking. And then, once those are demolished, what kind of neighborhood do you have left? The 40 builidngs referred to above in the article are all 3-4 stories tall. They have 2-8 units of housing in each. Most of them have a first floor retail space. None of this is viable in a car-based business model.

And, much less can a thriving retail business district be built without better access. The Gateway Quarter can kinda make it because it is immediately adjacent to the Central Business District, but, Findlay is too isolated from the rest of the city to really thrive. It is 15 long blocks from Fountain Square, and it is separated from nearby Uptown by significant hills. It begs to be connected to the rest of the city. The proposed streetcar route wraps around Findlay Market specifically because the market has so much potential. The streetcar connects all the downtown parking garages, the downtown offices, the uptown students and all the residences in the basin to the market. Findlay market is in the middle of all this, and should be the hub of a streetcar system.

Support Findlay Market, build the streetcar.

Swimming in Lake

 

School starts back next week, and another too-short summer with our kids is ended. WE plan on getting as much summer into this last weekend as possible including maybe going to the Hamilton County Fair.

Nothing captures this time of year for a boy like Rick Bragg. Read the first paragraph of Prince of Frogtown here.

13 August 2009

Rural Childhood

 

Met this kid at a plastic playground inside a Burger King, which was attached to a gas station at a freeway exit in northern Tennessee.

He was alone and said he got to play here all day, and has no friends. His momma's boyfriend works at Burger King and his mom works at a different one across town. He can't see his dad, because daddy's girlfriend showed him some pills, and the police got involved. His momma says when he was little they knew he was tough becaue he would run into walls and not cry. He wants to grow up and be a cage fighter. And he has decided that he only wants to move one last time, after that, no more moving.

New Homes Shrinking

A CNN article:

The size of newly built homes fell in 2008 for the first time in almost 15 years. Is the McMansion era on the wane?

... "A new ethic is arising right now that will become commonplace -- as commonplace as is recycling today, when just a few decades ago it was rarely, if ever, done," said Sarah Susanka, author of the book, "The Not So Big House."

...She believes the current shrinking trend mimics one of 100 years ago, when simple bungalows supplanted elaborate Victorian homes as the design choice for many Americans...


Or maybe it is just the recession. We'll see what the numbers look like in a few years.

12 August 2009

The Place For Families

The Cincinnati Family Enrichment Center in Northside is hosting the following parenting workshops and classes next month. The Place for Families.

Raising Healthy Kids in a Super-Size-It World
...Juice Plus experts will share practical, every day simple solutions for a lifetime of improved health habits. Smoothies and healthy snacks will be served.
Sat., Sept. 12th @ 11:15 - 12:15, Free!

Baby Food: Made At Home, Made Simple
Sat., Sept. 26th @ 11:15-12:15, Free!

Mom-to-Mom
....support, encouragement, understanding, and answers to your “new mom” questions?
...Group meets Thursdays (Sept. 3rd-24th) @ 10:30 & Sept. 19th @ 11:30, Free!

Circle of Life - Belly Dancing
... Women at all stages of life welcomed
Saturdays (Sept. 12-26) 11:30-12:15pm. $50/5-class package or $13/class.


CLASSES/EVENTS FOR FAMILIES

Whale of a Tale , interactive story time
September Story Time Themes:
9/1 & 3: What Flower is Taller than You? Sunflowers!
9/8, 10 & 12: It’s Fall! Where are all the Birds Going?
9/14, 17 & 19: Mr. Bear Says all he wants to do is Sleep!
9/22, 24 & 26: Bubbles - not just Summer Time Fun!
9/29: Bzzzzzz!
Ages: Birth to 5 years @ 10:30am, Free!

Jammin' in our Jammies! musical play for families
Thursdays, Sept. 3-24 @ 6:00pm
Ages: families with children 1-3 years, $100 for 10-classes or $13/class.

Little Sprout Yogis baby & me yoga
Sundays, Sept. 12-27 @ 1:30, $100/10-class package or $13/class.

Family Fiesta Spanish for the whole family
Tuesdays,, Sept. 1-29 @ 9:30 & 10:30, $100 for a 10-class package or $13/class
Ages: 19 months - 12 years


CLASSES FOR KIDS - BIRTH TO 5 YEARS

TummyTime!
...facilitated open-play sessions you’ll discover creative ways to stimulate your infant’s senses, learn simple play activities to promote motor development, as well as practice infant massage and reflexology techniques which promote brain development, lessen colic symptoms, enhance sleep patterns, and promote infant bonding and attachment.
Thursdays, Sept. 3-24 @ 9:30, $100/10-class package or $13/class

Tiny Tunes musical play
9:30, 10:30 & 11:30, Birth to age 5 on Mondays, Sept. 7-28 or Wednesdays, Sept. 2-30
$100/10-class package or $13/class.

Head & Shoulder, Knees & Toes Brain Play
Our infant behavioral specialist will share specific techniques to promote your baby’s awareness and thinking skills, as well as activities to enhance sensory development and promote the brain-body connection, all through “play”!
Thursdays, Sept. 3-24 at 10:30, $100/10-class package or $13/class

Movers & Shakers, crawler-toddler developmental play
Tuesdays, beginning Aug. 11th @ 9:30, $100/10-class package or $13/class.

The Next Step
...let’s clap our hands, stomp our feet, and explore fun ways to fine-tune your child's motor skills and enhance their language development.
Tuesdays, Sept. 1-29 @ 10:30, $100/10-class package or $13/class

TOT (Time Out Together) - parent-Infant/toddler enrichment
...focus on increasing young children’s attention spans. Each class will include themed “learning times” during which we’ll engage in hands-on learning activies and practical life skills, focus on cognitive and motor skill development, and promote language and social skills. During our healthy snack time our facilitator will discuss topics like nutrition, discipline, sleeping issues, & preschool preparation.
Wednesdays, Sept. 2-30 @ 9:30, ages: 12-35 months
$250/10-class package or $30/class.

Signing Safari
Join your child in singing, signing, playing, & rhyming! ...Children can “talk” with their hands as early as 9 months. Why whine when you can sign?!
weekly @ 9:30 & 10:30am
ages 6 months to 5 years, on Mondays, Sept. 7-28 or Saturdays, Sept. 12-26
$115/10-class package or $13/class and includes a Signing Safari DVD.

Imagination Station , artistic play
...We’ll explore with a wide variety of mediums, such as paint, clay, sand, products from nature, and everyday recyclable items.
weekly @ 9:30 & 10:30am
ages 19 mo-12 yrs, Fridays, Sept. 4-25, Cost: $100/10-class package or $13/class.


CHILDREN’S CLASSES - 6 TO 12 YEARS:

A Signing Safari
...The ASL alphabet and number system will also be learned and reinforced through real-life role-play. Deaf culture awareness will be emphasized, as well.
Saturdays, Sept. 12-26 at 11:30am, 6-12 year olds, $100/10-class package or $13/class.

African Drumming
.. the drum beat is heard every day for communication, celebration and fun. We’ll even learn how to make our own drum. Let’s celebrate our global citizenship!
Tuesdays, Sept. 1-29 @ 4:30 & 5:30, 6-12 year olds, $100/10-classes or $13/class.

For all the classes: rsvp at website or call 513-591-2332.

11 August 2009

Guess This City



Park in center of town:




The back of a very strange civic building:


Lots of coffee shops in this town:


Segways:


Bar on Sidewalk:


Interesting Building:


hippies here are anti-cop:


across the street, the City Police Station: