QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise

• So Flo’s Plate Full of Soul (or whatever it was called) on Vine Street is already gone.
• Not sure if my fantasy football team is going to be any good.
• The President’s Grove at Eden Park is all messed up with the construction of new paths and re-arranged brick piers. My Rutherford B. Hayes tree better be planted this fall!
• UC football starts next Monday at Rutgers. And with it, the Cincinnati’s Monday Sports Manager blog posts begin again.
• There is still a section of Fountain Square that is under construction. What the freakin’ hell are they doing?! (I asked Fountain Square PR but no response.)
• This summer went fast. November elections will be upon us before you know it.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise

• The bands and musicians for the Mid-Point Music Festival have been announced. Check them out here.
• VisuaLingual tagged me on a list on Facebook but I think I’d rather answer with my 15 favorite books. “Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior & President” would be on it.
• To all the Southwestern Ohio College students who smoke in the Ruth Lyon’s alley: Put your cigarette butts in the ash trays provided and not on the ground!
• One day last week at lunchtime, Fountain Square had free Goetta dogs, ‘Cooking with Caitlin’, and a number of Cincinnati firemen passing out literature on layoffs.
• Brian Bennett, the ESPN Big East Blogger, has a good summary of how he sees the Big East stacking up against other conferences including the WAC and Mountain West. This all in light of no Big East teams appearing in the pre-season Top 25 coach’s poll.
• And speaking of Bearcat football, the first game is now less than a month away.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise

• My good friend Sherry Corbett was killed seven years ago today. Her killer was a person she knew but who was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity. She was sentenced to Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Columbus, OH. I do not know if she is still serving time there or not.
• The latest quarterly edition of the Cincinnati Preservation Association newsletter is available online. (Link to a PDF)
• Jim Tarbell – The Mural? Really?
• There is a new Arts blog on Cincinnati.com
  The Morning Glory Ride has been cancelled this year. That’s very sad.
• If people feel the need to hide behind anonymous comments, I will simply remove the comment section entirely. Thank you to Anonymous Commenter #2 though for I think trying to stick up for me.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise generally of news while I was on vacation.

• One should never (accidentally) wear your iPod in to the ocean. It is toast.
• The Enquirer continues to disappoint with an editorial against the streetcar. Look for a response in the next day or two . . .
• Emmy nominations came out while I was gone. Yeah for Top Chef, Project Runway, Kathy Griffin, Hope Davis, and Tina Fey (for SNL, not 30 Rock. I don’t watch that for some reason . . .)
• Rehoboth Beach was noticeably less crowded this year – at the beach and at the bars – and the crowd itself was generally older where I was hanging out. Many I talked to attributed this to the economy and that the younger folks in particular just were staying away.
• Even though it was less crowded, I still managed to have a great time. Maybe even more so than last year.
• There was one sort of sad event from vacation though. A person I met had a dog and it died on Friday morning.
• Before I left for vacation I became a Cincinnati Symphony Season subscriber.
• Utz Pretzels are fantastic. But I brought some bags home and I need to stop eating them.

Over the Rhine is NOT what they said.

Here is a press release issued by 3CDC and I completely agree with their take and not that of some AOL poll.

June 22, 2009

Statement from 3CDC in regard to the study by Location Inc, published today on AOL.com on the 25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods in America.

“The study released today regarding Over-the-Rhine (OTR) focuses on approximately 20 square blocks, some of them not even located in OTR and is based on data that is more than two and a half years old. In fact, reported crime through 2008 in the area of OTR south of Liberty Street, known as OTR Gateway, is down 37% since 2004.

“OTR is 110 square blocks and includes several neighborhood districts including OTR Gateway, centered at the corner of 12th and Vine streets. This area, and other OTR census tract areas, was not part of the study.

“It is unfortunate and intellectually dishonest that the entire neighborhood was labeled in such a negative way. The fact is, $84 million has been invested in OTR Gateway since 2004 and new home owners and business owners are investing in the neighborhood. This past Saturday, a 5K run and day-long Summer Celebration arts festival brought about 2,000 people to the corner of 12th and Vine to shop, eat and listen to music. The only problem was that some of our vendors didn’t anticipate such a large crowd and ran out of food.”

# # #

“The Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) is a private, non-profit corporation. Its mission is to revitalize Cincinnati's Center City as a regional center of high value employment and real estate by developing a diverse mix of housing, culture and entertainment. It was formed in July 2003 as part of the overall system to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of development activities in the City as recommended by The Cincinnati Economic Development Task Force. 3CDC is funded privately through business contributions, foundations and other philanthropic sources. For more information, visit www.3cdc.org.”

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• I hate overhearing uninformed people talk about the streetcar.
• I know it is only June but I’m kind of ready for football to start. And thankfully the NBA will be over soon.
• Stacked has touched on the exact two points I walked away from the Complete Streets lecture.
• A repeat of “The West Wing” the other week had a reference to Potter Stewart, Supreme Court Justice and namesake of the Federal Courthouse in Cincinnati.
• Summer television is already boring me. I’m watching reruns of “The West Wing” a lot.
• An interesting article in the USA Today about panhandlers and laws to restrict them . . .
• How did this city go from one of the most progressive cities of the 19th century to the reactionary city of today? Conservative isn’t even the right word for it, reactionary is.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• Ok, the article of me in CinWeekly is available online.
• Walking down the street last week I think I passed by Father Schnippel who writes the Called by Name blog.
• One of my favorite blogs is ESPN.com’s Big East Football Blog by Brian Bennett. He has been counting down the 30 best college football players in the Big East for like the last month. Finally through to No. 1, UC only has three players on the list: #23 Jeff Linkenbach, OT; #5: Mardy Gilyard, WR; and #2 Tony Pike, QB.
• The season finale of “My Boys” was pretty good.
• A nice article in the USA Today on building rail links from airports to downtowns across the United States. Don’t get me started on that idea here in Cincinnati . . .
• If this city can get its act together (and it really has been pissing me off the last few weeks), I think it should host the 2020 National Convention of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). 2020 would mark the Chapter’s 150th Anniversary. It is the 4th oldest AIA Chapter in the country. Maybe by then we will have a completed Banks, Riverfront Park, streetcar, and maybe even some light rail. Though I will say the convention may be too large for us to accommodate.

Juncta Juvant

'Strength through Union'

I had never noticed the City of Cincinnati's Seal in the gable of City Hall before!

Everyone in City Council and this city need to remember the words of our motto. I'm just saying.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced their 11 most endangered sites for 2009. Miami’s Marine Stadium is sweet looking. Over the Rhine was listed in 2006.
• Knowing my love of The Sound of Music, two different people have sent me this cool video. I say we pick a song and do something similar in the lobby of Union Terminal.
• May is National Mental Health Month. Man, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
• The American Institute of Architects (AIA) published their 2009 Honor Awards. For a modern church, I really liked the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland.
• I was at the Red’s game on Saturday. Good crowd with 40,000+ for Joey Votto Bobblehead night. Red’s attendance is actually up 2.2% over same time last year (according to the USA Today).

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• The 2009 Downtown Dash 5K at St. Xavier Church has been set for August 7. Check out their website for details.
• The story of Fast + Furious doesn’t interest me but the “scenery” does.
• Why does it bother me the Cincinnati Flower Show is in Symmes Township?
• I always say I am going to do my taxes early and I never do.
• Not to make light of the situation but what do the Somali pirates want exactly --the boat itself, ransom money, Keira Knightley?

Views & Vistas: The New Rothenberg?

Building Cincinnati posted a story about the renovations at Rothenberg Elementary School. What stuck me was the view of the Gymnasium addition from Main Street. This is the image from WA Architects Inc. and GBBN Architects re-posted from Building Cincinnati.
Now this is generally the same view of what used to be on that site – St. Peter’s United Protestant Evangelical Church.
Call me crazy but I think we are getting a bum deal. I understand there are economies to think about but there is hardly any gesture at all to the vista. They had an opportunity to do something at that important corner and apparently are not doing anything.

Historic image from Library’s Cincinnati Memory Project.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• Have you seen the Catholic Beer Review Blog? I found my way there via Called by Name, a local blog by Father Schnippel, which I found via The Catholic Telegraph Photography Project Blog. The Catholic Beer Review Blog is written in Wisconsin and averages about a post a month but two of his favorite movies are The Sound of Music and Sense & Sensibility so he has to be cool.
• An article on MSN had Cincinnati as No. 9 in the ten most “Unhappiest” cities. Whatever.
• I somehow missed the episode of The West Wing when Donna Moss comes to work for the Santos campaign.
• I was not aware that the University of Cincinnati men’s basketball team was involved in the longest game in NCAA basketball history: a 75-73 victory over Bradley in 1981.
• Janelle Gelfand at the Enquirer asks, “Why do you go to the symphony? Do you go for the music, the stars, the orchestra, or to enjoy an evening out? None or all of the above? Enquiring minds want to know!!”
• New episodes of My Boys starts March 31!

The Queen Speaks

Quotes from and about Cincinnati

"What we are experiencing is in part due to the real confusion that followed the Second Vatican Council (a series of reforms in the 1960s). We didn't explain the changes that were taking place, so people became very confused. Because of that confusion, a lot of our Catholics, you might say, threw the baby out with the bath water." – Coadjutor Archbishop Dennis Schnurr

As quoted in a March 2 article in the Cincinnati Enquirer when asked, “Why have some Catholics, especially young Catholics, drifted away from the church and from regularly attending Mass?”

I have to whole-heartedly disagree. I don’t think people drifted away because of Vatican II at all. There are much bigger issues than any “confusion” Vatican II may have caused. Spare me.

This article appeared days before the recent story that the new Archbishop Dennis Schnurr will live in a house in Anderson Township that the Catholic Church recently purchased for approximately $470,000. Father Joe at St. Louis Church is going to have the entire place to himself once the current Archbishop moves out.

Photo from the Archdiocese of Duluth

QCS Quips

25 Things About Me

5ch4r7z tagged me on his blog to post "25 random things, facts, habits, or goals" about me. I rarely talk about me on this blog but here we go . . .

1. I just got back from the Orange Bowl yesterday. Today I slept a lot.
2. I am not a fan of most fruits.
3. Clowns are creepy.
4. And I hate real animals that are animated to "talk" . . . like Babe the pig. They give me the willies.
5. I am the youngest of six children.
6. I know the Canadian National Anthem.
7. I once told someone, "I like buildings more than people."
8. I like country music but I came to it in my thirties.
9. I was never really in to music though like some people.
10. I always wanted to be a writer.
11. I won 5th Place in a local lego building contest when I was a kid.
12. I appreciate both Richardsonian Romanesque and Art Deco architecture. Not sure why.
13. I like early modernism but do not like how it evolved in to the crap of the 60's, 70's and 80's.
14. One of my biggest regrets is not trying out for football in high school.
15. I like watching UFC.
16. I would like a better camera.
17. I bite and pick the skin on my fingers. Nervous habit I guess.
18. I was born in Hamilton, Ohio.
19. In summers during college I worked at a wastewater treatment plant. I actually loved it.
20. I am unabashedly pro-urban and pro-Cincinnati.
21. The movie "Just Like Heaven" is underrated. I watch it over and over.
23. I like to cook.
24. I'd like to go to Austrian and southern Germany before I die.
25. Brian Urlacher is more my type than say Ben Affleck.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• It is supposed to be in the mid 70’s in Miami for the Orange Bowl.
• I loved the show "Due South". Well, it was good for two seasons. Nothing like the Mountie Benton Fraser . . .
• Somebody implied I was overweight over the holidays. I admit I haven’t been to the gym in a week and I am 15 pounds from my target but I am certainly not fatter than the person who implied I was.
• The Green Party is against the Streetcar? Investment in the city, including new infill projects and adaptive reuse of existing buildings, is about as green as it gets in my opinion. Idiots.
• I joined Facebook because apparently I'm nobody until somebody finds me on Facebook . . . and I wanted to write Steve a birthday haiku.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• My post on the Pfleger Residences has resulted in a few emails with details of the Pfleger family. I will do an update in the near future. Thanks to Anne and Bill for the information!
• Make sure to check out Kelly to the Max!’s posts on the classic, and I use that term loosely, "It’s a Wonderful Life".
• My favorite Christmas song I think is "Sleigh Ride". If it is not the favorite, it is way up there on the list.
• This past Saturday night I went on a bar hop that included a bus, ten bars, about six drag queens, and many beers. And no, I was NOT one of the drag queens.
• I saw a copy of a letter written by Bengal’s owner Mike Brown to someone who expressed concerns and frustrations over the state of the team. Mike Brown said, "I wanted to acknowledge your letter letting you know your criticism does go unheard." I am pretty sure it was a typo but a Freudian slip if ever there was one?
• Provided the Bear’s defense does not score like 40 fantasy points tonight, I should come in third in my fantasy football league.

The 2008 Image of the Year

"It’s Not My Time"

In March of 2008, the band 3 Doors Down filmed a video in Cincinnati for their song "It’s Not My Time". The video showcases sites around downtown and the quintessential image in my opinion is of lead singer, Brad Arnold, from atop the Bellevue Hill Park Pavilion. The video premiered on VH1 on April 22.

However, had that been the end of the story I do not think the image’s importance resonates.

In September, VH1 films "The Top 20 Countdown" with host Allison Becker in Cincinnati. Locations from and inspired by the video are shown to a nation wide audience on September 13. The coverage and comments were not but positive. And building on momentum created by Team Cincinnati on "Clash of the Choirs" in late 2007, the video and VH1 airing showed a Cincinnati as I see it. One that is hip and quirky, friendly and passionate, charming and beautiful.

So "It’s Not My Time" may be the image of 2008 but my challenge to you is to make the motto of 2009 "It’s Our Time". Help push Cincinnati out of its backward, behind-the-times image and assert yourself in to continuing Cincinnati’s renaissance and stand up to those who cannot see the bigger picture and the greatness we possess and yet strive for.

David Pepper posted a great comment in his blog the other day. It was in reference to the County budget and The Banks but I see it in a larger context.

"Bigger picture, the Banks is part of the solution to the budget problems--which is being driven largely by revenue paralysis. If we grow our economy through development such as the Banks, new housing, growing tourism, developments such as we're seeing in Kenwood, etc., then we grow our way out of the problem.

"On the other hand, if we shut down those growth opportunities simply to pay the costs of our basic operations, we trigger a downward economic spiral with no end in sight."

Here, here Mr. Pepper.

The Banks and a project like the Cincinnati Streetcar are economic catalysts for more than just the concrete and steel within those project boundaries. To not invest in those projects is to maintain the status quo. And to maintain the status quo is to set us even further back than the twenty years Mark Twain alluded to a century ago. Yes, these are tough economic times. But as cliched as it is, "It takes money to make money." The narrow-mindedness and short-sidedness that seem to pervade this city must be combated on all fronts. We have made a lot of progress but still have a way to go. The manta for 2009 has to be, "It’s our time" and get out of our way if you are not going to help us get there.

Yeah, I got all that from a photo.

Image taken from UrbanOhio

QCS Quips

Veteran’s Day thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• Cincinnati was named after the Society of Cincinnati, a Revolutionary War veteran’s group.
• Places like Fort Thomas, Fort Wright, Fort Mitchell, and Camp Dennison all have military pasts.
• When I was young I always thought it was odd that my father was stationed in Germany during the Korean Conflict and not in Korea.
• Fort Washington was used as a military base only from 1789 to 1803.
• Four ships have been named the USS Cincinnati. The last was a submarine decommissioned in 1996. There was an effort to bring all or part of it here but it was literally scrapped.

Gunfire

I just heard gunfire in rapid succession. Sounded like north on Walnut.

QCS Quips

Random thoughts . . . Cincinnati related and otherwise.

• With news that the Terrace Plaza has closed, check out my post on the place earlier in the year and the building and its architect.
• I love Javier’s for lunch but I went there for dinner over the weekend and while the food was good, service was not. Friends that went there too said the same thing. They better fix that and soon.
• While giving a tour and standing out in front of Music Hall recently, some guy walked by and mumbled under his breath but loud enough to hear something like "F***ing people moving in then taking up the sidewalk".
• Ran across a good national blog, City Parks Blog. Newest article on transit and the most used parks.
• Looking forward to seeing Australia and Daniel Craig in the new Bond film and in Defiance.