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]

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.