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THE NEXT HOT NEIGHBORHOODS From Northside to Madisonville, many of the city’s more historic sections are movin’ on up, with plenty of change in the works. Can’t keep all the redevelopment news straight? Want the data behind the buzz? Here’s the street-level intel you need to know. Plus: Where to eat, drink, caffeinate, and have some fun once you get there.
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Decades of disinvestment left vacant lots and shuttered buildings, but it did not crush the spirit of Walnut Hills. Now it’s charging ahead toward rebirth—with one serious caveat: The history, culture, and existing residents will not be shoved aside. Can it be done? BY A LYSSA KO N E R M A N N
VALLEY OF THE SUGAR PEOPLE P. 76
A “mutually beneficial arrangement” between a young college girl and an old rich dude was not exactly the guidance counselor’s plan for affording college. But thanks to Seeking Arrangement. com, that nebulous, icky, call girlesque path is the one hundreds of local students—or rather, sugar babies—have taken. BY AMY BROWNLEE
BANG! ZOOM! TO THE MOON! P. 80
Walk The Moon is officially hanging with the stars. They’ve shared a stage with the Rolling Stones and can now claim to be the biggest band to ever come out of the Queen City. How did four guys with a predilection for face paint get so huge? BY C H R I S VA R I A S
N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M 7
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NATIONAL ORIGIN For this issue, we talked with The National frontman and EL VY collaborator Matt Berninger about nostalgia, narcissism, and the comforts of home. Read more from that conversation on our Arts & Minds blog.
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BRITTANY CHRISTINE
W H E N L I N DA VACC A R I E L LO F I R ST C A M E TO WO R K FO R C I N C I N N AT I M AG A Z I N E over 29 years ago, the office was in the Executive Building on East Seventh Street. Laura Pulfer was the editor, they still pasted up the magazine each month, and IBM Selectrics were the communication device of choice for print journalists. That and a push-button phone connected to a landline. The magazine outgrew that office on East Seventh, has been through three editors since, and long ago made the shift to computers and digital production. But Linda remained steadfast through it all. Until now. You’re holding in your hands the last issue with Linda Vaccariello’s name in the executive editor slot on the masthead. It is by no means a happy occasion for anyone who has worked with her over the last three decades. Indeed, I’ve been in abjectly pathetic denial about her retirement for months. But the time has come. It’s hard to fully express how lucky the magazine has been to have Linda—and how personally indebted I feel to her. To me, Linda is and has been the archetype of what a great magazine editor should be: Brimming over with ideas; able to come up with headlines, decks, and captions with the requisite snap or gravitas at the drop of a hat; willing to work tirelessly with writers to mold, cajole, and (when required) literally knock their stories into shape; and a wonderful and gifted writer with an innate sense of how to unspool a narrative. She is an all-arounder, a true craftswoman, the Joe DiMaggio of our team. Very few journalists whom I have worked with possess that sacred trifecta of humanity, grace, and skill. Linda’s got it in spades. That said, she will not be spending her retirement selling Mr. Coffee. No. She and her husband will be staying as vigorous and active as ever, bicycling the backroads on their tandem, climbing ice walls on their annual winter trip to Ouray, Colorado, and moving into a townhouse in the Betts-Longworth district. And here’s how lucky we are: She’s agreed to continue writing for the magazine—though, understandably, not at the same breakneck pace and volume that she grew accustomed to over the last 29 years. That’s what retirement is for, after all.
JAY ST OWE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
twitter.com/JayStoweCM 1 4 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY L A R S L E E TA R U
Following in the footsteps of her artistic mother, Los Angeles resident Brittany Christine has focused on editorial illustrations since graduating from the Art Center College of Design. This month, she steps into the world of cartooning for the first time, illustrating the sugar baby culture of SeekingArrangement.com (page 76). “I have gained so much respect for cartoonists,” she says. Christine’s work has also appeared in Variety and GQ.
ALYSSA KONERMANN The term urban redevelopment stirs drab images of zoning laws, city ordinances, and construction permits. But in the course of her reporting for “Will Walnut Hills Rise Again?” (page 70), Associate Managing Editor Alyssa Konermann found that it’s also about people. Konermann got to know many Walnut Hills residents working to revive the neighborhood. “These people fiercely love the place,” she says. “I was struck by their uncompromising dedication.”
CHRIS VARIAS As co-owner of MOTR pub and Woodward Theater, Chris Varias has his indie music scene bona fides. Over the last 20 years, Varias has covered national acts (everyone from Linkin Park to Journey) and bands with Cincinnati roots, like Foxy Shazam and The National. In “Bang! Zoom! To the Moon!” he profiles Walk The Moon and frontman Nicholas Petricca (page 80), who Varias says has remained down to earth despite the group’s meteoric rise.
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ROOM FOR ONE MORE I just recently read Lisa Murtha’s story “Room at the Inn” (July 2015). I also lived at the Anna Louise Inn; it was a great place for us “country girls” to stay and be safe. In the basement we had a jukebox, and we invited guys from the L.B. Harrison Club over for a dance. I met my husband and we married six months later. I lived at the inn from 1962 to 1964, and I wish every young career girl could have had that experience. I worked at Cincinnati Bell at Seventh and Elm, and walked to work—even in the rain—in heels, and sometimes even gloves. Your article brought back fond memories. —ARLENE (BARR) DAY, Via e-mail
THE AD MAN COMETH Bob Woodiwiss’s July column, “Commercially Disappointing,” which detailed his (mis) adventures in advertising—and specifically, his difficulties with one particular client, Star 64—drew comments from readers who felt Woodiwiss was less than fair in his portrayal of the station’s general manager, Dave Smith. Jill Casagrande, half of the Phil and Jill Star64 backup singer duo, participated in the meetings described in the story, and weighed in at our website. While she remembers Woodiwiss’s “wonderfully creative ads,” most notably the Adventures of Tower Boy, and the “uncomfortable meetings,” she also felt confident she understood why Smith picked up the phone that fateful day: “Dave called because he was upset to read that the station’s creative partner undermined the hard work of Dave’s team and considerable advertising expenditure through thoughtless quotes in a newspaper article. Dave knew that article would be shoved under the nose of every one of our advertisers by our competitors. How could our partner understand so little about our business?”
BREAKING CAMP We knew Jene Galvin’s September story “We Camped Out to Get Our Kids Into Magnet Schools and All We Got Was This Lousy Headache” would get people talking, but we didn’t know that the CPS board would add to the conversation by ending the long-standing (and long-fretted-over) practice of allotting spaces in the district’s magnet schools on a first-come, first-served basis—which has led to what Galvin calls “modern-day Hoovervilles” on the campuses of Fairview German and Sands Montessori. It’s clear people are of two minds about the campouts. While @CrankyDoodle tweeted “Thank goodness for an end to the campouts,” Brendon Cull (@brendono)
chimed in with “Not feeling confident in my CPS board. This was done so poorly.” Kimberly Hamlin felt Galvin was “vilifying the parents” who choose to camp out. “Parents who camp out for magnet school admission do so simply because they want their children to be able to attend a quality public elementary school, of which there are far too few in Cincinnati,” she writes. “For example, Clifton, home to FairviewClifton German Language School, is the largest neighborhood in Cincinnati with no neighborhood public elementary school (Rockdale Academy has been assigned as the neighborhood elementary school for the past several years, but by test scores and other measures, it is considered a ‘failing’ school).” Barb Macke of Clifton thinks the heart of the matter lies elsewhere. “The only real solution to the problem is to make all schools in the district into excellent schools. I have often wondered if our school board has ever closely examined these desirable magnet schools to see exactly what they are doing right? And I don’t mean the second language instruction or the Montessori philosophy— there is a lot more that contributes to the success of these schools.”
MORE FEATS OF CLAY When Debbie Beasley saw October’s “Guide to Ceramics in the Queen City,” she quickly dropped a note to let us know about Medicine Bluff Studio’s holiday open house, November 21 from 1 to 4 pm. Find more information at medicinebluffstudio.com.
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POETRY IN MOTION
From fledgling sidewalk poets to literary dynamo, oh the places Chase Public will go. A LY SS A KO N E R M A N N
PHOTOGR APH BY EVAN SGOURIS
I
T STARTED WITH A FEW GUYS AT THE CORNER OF CHASE AND HAMILTON
Avenues in Northside. On a Friday night in 2010, they staked out the sidewalk, armed with a table, handmade sign, and typewriter, shouting at passersby to ask if they would like a poem. When that happens—even in Northside—“you have to say something back. You can’t just keep walking,” says Mike Fleisch, one of the then-poets and current board chair of Chase Public. “Almost everybody said yes. At least after more questions of, What?” The what was Short Order Poetry: the poet interviews the receiver, who then picks up a personalized poem about 15 minutes later. Back then, Chase Public was merely an intermittent gathering, rounding up people interested in art and open dialogue, but the group’s capacity was limited by other jobs and busy lives. Now, in a second floor space on that same corner, the nonprofit is gaining momentum through regular events that include poetry readings, film screenings, writing classes, experimental music and theater, and what they call the Response Project, in which six to eight people respond in their chosen medium to the same piece of art, such as Sappho’s poetry or “Chelsea Hotel #2” by Leonard Cohen. The pace picked up in 2013 when Fleisch and friends held Short Order Poetry at Collective Espresso in OTR, where Scott Holzman—now the executive director of Chase Public—was working at the time. Holzman, who had done some writing and readings of his own, liked what he saw, and the next time Fleisch stopped by, suggested they apply to do a box-truck installation at MidPoint Music Festival. In keeping with Chase’s why not? style, Fleisch said, “Yeah, you CONTINUED ON P. 20 N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M 1 9
ART
DISPATCH
IN PLAIN HINDSIGHT
want to help?” After submitting their application—the total amateurishness of which still amuses them—they got the gig. “Not really knowing what Mike did for a living, I did this absolutely hilarious, MS Paint stick-figure [mockup] of what the truck layout would look like,” says Holzman. Fleisch, whose day job involves visual modeling and collaborative design, adds: “But your impulse was solid and pure!” The result was a shipping container furnished like a mid-century living room, out of which they distributed roughly 350 poems—a huge scale-up from the group’s previous events. After that, Holzman hit the gas, putting any spare energy and time—outside of his two paying jobs—toward Chase Public, pushing it beyond the sporadic, casual stage it had been stuck in. He also connected a whole new community of artists and like-minded souls to the organization, people who have become a source of ideas for programming.“That was always our hope,” says Fleisch,“that if you make a space available and give people the right structure and invite them in, that they will be creative together.” Chase has since been commissioned for Short Order Poetry by big dogs of the local arts scene (the May Festival, Cincinnati Art Museum), collaborated with the public library and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and were the poetic wordsmiths behind Artist’s Exemption the CincyInk project. “The main litmus test Brian Sholis, curator of photogto what makes a good raphy at the Cincinnati Art MuChase Public program seum, came across Chase Public is [that it] appears to while getting to know Cincinnati’s have creative value and does not make DIY arts culture. “It’s important to sense to do at a bar have artist-led spaces and projects,” or traditional venue,” he says. “They come up with more says Holzman. “[It’s] creative things. Art museums and an opportunity for an other large institutions can learn artist to do something outside of that.” from that creativity. It’s an ecosystem.” One Sholis engages, too: he took part in the group’s September Response Project, giving the backstory of a photo in the museum’s Unknown Elements exhibition that participants then responded to. But as a small arts organization committed to a literary mission—what Holzman CONTINUED ON P. 22
SPEAK EASY
BETWEEN THE MOON AND DELHI X There’s a lot of Cincinnati in EL VY’s Return to the Moon (Oct. 30), the debut collaboration from The National’s Matt Berninger and fellow indie rocker Brent Knopf. We chatted with Berninger about his new sound and growing up on the west side. You have a very distinct singing voice, but the tempo of this record is punchier, more upbeat than The National. Was that a direction you wanted to go in? I didn’t want to make a record that sounded like The National, but I also didn’t want to avoid that, either. I was just excited by what would happen if I did my thing and Brent did his. I can’t play the guitar or piano; Brent even tried to get me to play tambourine. I was like, No, no, that’s not for me. I’m happy being the borderline alcoholic, selfobsessive narcissist singer. I love that role. (laughs). CONTINUED ON P. 22
they’re making art today,” says co-curator Steven Matijcio. While After the Moment considers Mapplethorpe’s larger body of work, it highlights the Midwestern reactions to the show that got Barrie indicted, along with ramifications for what artists can show today. It’s a debate that’s far from over, Matijcio points out; Andres Serrano, who has drawn the ire of religious conservatives for decades, still invokes their wrath when his controversial photos are exhibited. “We need to fight these good fights,” he says. “There are certain works that capture the zeitgeist and continue to resonate and arouse intensity on both sides. And that’s what good art should do.”
AFTER THE MOMENT: REFLECTIONS ON ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE, OPENS NOV 6 AT THE CAC, CONTEMPORARYARTSCENTER.ORG
“I HEAR BUTLER COUNTY’S GOT THE BEST TERROIR.”
BAR TALK
WHAT (WE ASSUME) PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT . —JA S O N CO H E N
t’s been 25 years since the Contemporary Arts Center ignited a national debate over artistic freedom and censorship with Robert Mapplethorpe’s The Perfect Moment. The artist’s works and influence, however, remain vital, as evidenced by a new anniversary exhibit, After the Moment: Reflections on Robert Mapplethorpe, which presents works by 35 contemporary artists, including some who witnessed the protests and obscenity charges brought against then– CAC director Dennis Barrie. “We were interested in how that exhibit lives inside people’s heads and hearts and starts to affect how
I
NOBODY
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(EXHALES FRAGRANT PLUME OF SMOKE) “OF COURSE I VOTED FOR ISSUE 2.” “ARE WE GROWING POT, OR GROWING THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT?” “ELECTION DAY?” AN APRIL 20 PHISH CONCERT
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MARK HARRIS, UNTITLED, 2015. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND THE CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER
Revisiting our most notorious artistic moment. — C E D R I C R O S E
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THE RUNDOWN
DISPATCH
calls “thinking of things in terms of empathy rather than dollars earned or hands shaken or asses in seats”—Chase Public may have reached a crossroads. It’s one that Sholis has seen before. “The challenge is how you get from barely keeping up, [with people] volunteering their time, to the point that one or two people can make it their full-time focus,” he says.“There’s a liftoff that’s very difficult to achieve, because it relies on a lot of sweat equity to make that transition. And it sounds like they’re [approaching] that point.” This summer, Chase Public started the process to become an official 501(c)(3): filing the paperwork, engaging a fundraiser, creating a board, and hiring Holzman full-time. But where do they go from there? “It’s a hard question. And I am happy to not know exactly what the answer is,” says Holzman. “It’s just taking the next step forward, which as far as I’m concerned is continuing what we’ve been doing but doing it to a more full capacity. Finding ways to interact with more communities and become a consistent organization. It’s up in the air, but not in a negative way.”
CORNERSHOT
POSSESSIVE TENDENCIES IN A TOWN REPUTED FOR ITS STANDOFFishness, it’s funny how Cincinnatians really like to own local businesses. Just ask Zack Snyder, who bought Luckman Coffee on Beechmont Avenue in Mt. Washington in 2014. “Cincinnatians love to make things possessive—Kroger’s, Busken’s, Meijer’s,” he says. To combat this tendency, Snyder recently posted a message on the billboard in front of his coffee shop poking fun at this longstanding custom. His message: It’s Luckman Coffee. Not Luckman’s. Luckman. “I grew up going to Servatti’s with my grandfather and always assumed that was the name. I never bothered to read the sign. I have customers who still don’t realize it’s Servatti,” he says. That’s right, people: Singular, no apostrophe-s. Quite a shock to your gigantic-pretzel-loving mind, no doubt. Originally from El Paso, Texas, Snyder has lived in Cincinnati for 20 years—which means he’s still enough of an outsider to notice this kind of thing. —A LYSS A B R A N DT
You’ve said this is the most autobiographical you’ve ever been on a record. I have a 6-yearold daughter, and I can see her personality forming. I’m fascinated by that. I think that’s why I wanted to dig into my Cincinnati roots and how I fell in love with music. There are a lot of specific Cincinnati references, including the Jockey Club. I actually never set foot in there, but my older cousin Peter would tell me about seeing the Ramones and Black Flag there. I really romanticized it. The place I went was Cooters on Short Vine— that’s how my identity formed. But Cooters didn’t sound as good to put into a song. Do you think of yourself as a nostalgic songwriter? Yeah, totally. Most of the stuff I’m writing about is not specific memories, but emotional nostalgia for things. “Return to the Moon,” the song, is sort of a naïve nostalgia. Cincinnati felt like the moon—it didn’t feel like I was connected to the rest of the world until I found music. I was nostalgic for how that happened, how a person becomes who they are. You’re from Delhi. How often do you get back to the west side? Several times a year. My parents are still there. They live down off of Wesselman Road. I wrote some of this record there. Does it feel like it’s changed? It doesn’t feel that different. It feels kind of like it did, and that’s a nice thing, a comforting thing. —J U ST I N W I L L I A M S Visit the Arts & Minds blog at cincinnatimaga zine.com to read more.
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OUT OF SIGHT
Mr. Dynamite, a new mural depicting James Brown at 1437 Main St. in Over-the-Rhine, was dedicated earlier this fall. We spoke to lead artist Jenny Ustick on how she got it on the good foot. — R J S M I T H
THE LOCATION
THE CANVAS
THE PROCESS
THE MAN
THE INSPIRATION
THE DETAILS
“It was a music street, and ArtWorks wanted something different than what had been done with the other murals—something more modern, more energetic.”
“It had been a while since I painted on a wall from the late 1800s. [It] had seen some better days. You’ve got all these bumps and lumps and gaps and holes.”
“It’s a bit like a glorified paint by number. Me and the 12 apprentices had it all mapped out—this area is in this color, fill it in and move on.”
“I looked at a few images of James Brown, particularly from the time he was recording for King Records in Cincinnati, and found one that showed him on fire.”
“There’s something difficult and a little funky about the colors, and I thought that’s absolutely perfect. He had amazing clarity of voice, but boy he could make it gritty.”
“Oh my goodness, those teeth were probably the biggest topic of discussion in the final weeks, to get them just right. The hair came together pretty easily.”
PHOTOGR APH BY EVAN SGOURIS
BRICK HOUSE
HEN ARTIST NATHAN SAWAYA WAS A 10-YEAR-OLD GROWING UP IN VENETA, OREGON, HIS PARENTS refused to let him get a puppy. “So I ended up building a life-sized LEGO dog,” says Sawaya from his Los Angeles art studio, which houses roughly 5 million LEGO bricks at any given time. That same childlike whimsy courses through his exhibition, The Art of the Brick, which has grown from a solo art show of less than two dozen pieces in 2007 to five different touring exhibits. The largest of those, featuring more than 110 pieces made entirely of LEGO bricks, is currently on display at the Cincinnati Museum Center. “I didn’t expect it to be at this level when I started,” says Sawaya. “People connected to the artwork really quickly.” Here’s a look into his most talked about creation. — A D A M F L A N G O
W
A mighty display of LEGO art comes to the Museum Center.
IT WAS ALL YELLOW Sawaya titled this sculpture Yellow, an intentionally vague name meant to allow viewers to derive their own meaning from the piece. “I thought if I said something like Innards of One’s Soul, that might influence someone a little bit.”
STUCK LIKE GLUE For each piece, Sawaya glues the bricks as he goes. The bricks that appear to be spilling out of the body, however? Well, those are loose. “I thought if I glued them, they’d lose that look,” says Sawaya.
BRICK BY BRICK Yellow is made of 11,014 LEGO bricks, which doesn’t even come close to the exhibit’s largest piece. Creations range from reasonable, like a 1,292-brick apple display, to gargantuan, like the 80,020-brick dinosaur skeleton.
MIX AND MATCH The Art of the Brick features more than 50 original creations, including Yellow, as well as LEGO interpretations of artistic classics such as Grant Wood’s American Gothic and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, along with replicas of architectural marvels such as the Parthenon.
SLOW AND STEADY While Sawaya can create a life-sized build—featuring upwards of 20,000 bricks—in two to three weeks, Yellow took a bit longer. The idea came to him two years before he started laying bricks, and after several stops and starts, took more than three months to complete.
COLOR ME BAD Sawaya uses only standard LEGO bricks and never paints or alters the color. He likes the challenge it provides, but more than that, he wants to facilitate creativity: “I want people to be able to get the same version that I use.”
MUSIC
ASS PONYS REUNITE! For two nights, at least. A (very) brief oral history. —JA S O N CO H E N
It’s been 14 years since the Ass Ponys released their final record, Lohio, and 11 since their last time on a stage together, at the BarrelHouse Brewing Co. (RIP). We asked the band, which reunites to play Woodward Theater on Nov. 6 and 7, Why now? DAVID MORRISON,
CHUCK CLEAVER,
JOHN ERHARDT, guitar:
CLEAVER:
RANDY CHEEK, bass:
drums: I guess it’s popular demand—someone asked. But I’ve been ready to play since we took the “hiatus.”
vocals/guitar: I got tired of all the beer-and-pizza offers, so I figured we might as well do it somewhat right.
[The Woodward’s] Dan McCabe had the idea and approached us, knowing the timing was right. Is right. I’m very excited about playing these shows.
I can’t say I’ve ever done this for fun, but it certainly can be. Pretty weird, but practices have been great. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
Why not?
2 4 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY THE ART OF THE BRICK
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HIGH PROFILE
JAB, JAB, PUNCH Four years ago, Katie Harrington picked up boxing on a whim. Now, the Madeira native, former dancer, and president of the University of Cincinnati’s boxing club aims to bring sanctioned collegiate matches to Camp Washington’s Cincinnati Fitness & Boxing—UC’s off-campus training base—for the first time. Oh, and there’s this U.S. Intercollegiate Boxing Association National Championship that needs defending. — G R A N T F R E K I N G I’VE TRIED A LITtle bit of everything. You name a sport, I’ve probably done it: swimming and diving, gymnastics, basketball, soccer, karate. THE SUMMER before my senior year of high school I was like, I don’t know if I want to dance anymore. I think I want to box. It was totally random. I didn’t see a boxing match. I think I just wanted to do something completely different from dance. ASIDE FROM MY brother, I had never, ever punched somebody. It was so weird when I first started. THE LAST FIGHT I had [in August], that was the biggest a-ha moment I’ve ever had. I’ve had bits and pieces where I’ve had that clarity, but the entire fight, I knew what I wanted to do. I knew what she was throwing. I could see her bad
habits. I thought, This is what boxing is. I’ve had pieces of it, but I never had it for an entire fight. It was the coolest thing. THE SANCTIONED fights will be a big deal for us. That’ll be a huge project because you have to apply for sanctioning and pay fees, so we’ll have to do fund-raising. I have all these tasks and I try to delegate from there. I do everything, but I delegate too. I GOT MY HAND raised after winning the national championship, and it’s the craziest feeling of relief and excitement— every awesome emotion washes over you. I’ve said it a million times, but all the hard work, the blood, sweat, and tears you put into training and everything else is worth it for the 10 seconds of that awesome feeling. And I got an awesome championship belt.
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PHOTOGR APH BY ANNET TE NAVARRO
NOVEMBER 07, 2015 TO JANUARY 24, 2016
HIGH STYLE
Twentieth-Century Masterworks from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection
High Style traces the evolution of fashion from 1900 through 1980 with garments and accessories by the most influential designers of the 20th century. The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Charles James (American, born Great Britain, 1906 -1978), “Tree” Evening Dress, Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., 1981 (2009.300.991) Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Free Admission cincinnatiartmuseum.org
Presented by
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Dr. Know is Jay Gilbert, weekday afternoon deejay on 92.5 FM The Fox. Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities at drknow@cincinnati magazine.com
DR. KNOW
Consider: The team played a total of only 18 games and lost 14 of them. Ten were shutouts, the last of them holding the record for worst regular season NFL shutout ever, 64–0. The only reason these stats aren’t even worse is because after that game, midway into their second season, the players were abruptly informed that they were now the St. Louis Gunners. Then there were the Cincinnati Bengals. The Doctor refers to the 1937 Bengals, who won two out of seven games, then bounced between independent and professional leagues before eventually folding. Paul Brown resurrected the Bengals name when he started our current franchise in 1968, apparently thinking somebody might be nostalgic for this horrid memory.
Q+ A
I live near a tornado siren. I’m used to dealing it with it every first Wednesday of the month, but is it blaring more often than usual? Maybe unnecessarily? Who exactly decides whether to push the button? And is it really just a button, like in Dr. Strangelove? —HOLDING MY EARS DEAR EARS:
In a past column, you stated that Cincinnati once had another baseball team along with the Reds. Did this ever happen again, and also, have there ever been any pro football teams besides the Bengals? —WHO DEYS?
DEAR DEYS:
The 1884 “Outlaw Reds” were the best of Cincinnati’s few other major league baseball teams, leaving a brief but respectable record. By contrast, our pro football history features a vast graveyard of humiliation. The worst stench comes from the corpse of an ancient NFL franchise bearing the name—hold your nose—“Cincinnati Reds.” Its principal owner, M. Scott Kearns, was also the Hamilton County Coroner, a clear warning. Whatever heartbreak you may carry thanks to today’s Reds and Bengals, be grateful that you never pinned a single hope on the NFL Reds.
2 8 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
You have triggered the Doctor’s TMQWOQ siren, the “Too Many Questions Within One Question” Emergency Alert System. Take shelter immediately; we shall try to provide all the answers before your supplies run out. Your annoyance is officially called the “outdoor warning siren,” and gets activated for a variety of reasons: tornado, high winds, hazardous material release, sudden streetcar plan revisions, etc. Contrary to your hunch, the Hamilton County Emergency Management Agency has actually reduced the instances of alerts. No longer do sirens announce a simple storm of heavy rain and lightning (though sustained winds are still on the menu). Agency Director Nick Crossley also says that because the sirens are divided into six separate zones, the horn near you howls only when it’s really, truly you they are tryILLUSTR ATIONS BY L A R S LEE TA RU
ing to warn. And yes, it’s a series of buttons. To button or not to button is a decision made by the person(s) on duty. Master control in South Fairmont is not nearly as elaborate as the War Room in Dr. Strangelove, but at least it’s in color.
Is it true that John Cleves Symmes, the man who owned almost all the land that became Cincinnati, was also a nutcase who preached that the Earth is hollow? —ECHO, ECHO
CINCINNATI CENTER FOR HORMONAL THERAPY DAVID M. BARRERE, M.D.
DEAR ECHO:
Poor Mr. Symmes—his memory eternally battles this false story. John Cleves Symmes was an 18th-century hybrid of Donald Trump and Warren Buffett, with a whiff of Bernie Madoff. He served as a colonel in the American Revolution, and later turned to land development, getting most of what became Hamilton, Butler, and Warren counties for the price of a LaRosa’s franchise. His legacy is proud—but compromised. Symmes’s brother Timothy screwed up the family tree by naming his own son John Cleves Symmes, Jr. This Freudian stunt perhaps explains the lad’s addled biography, which is often misattributed to his uncle. It was Symmes the Younger who proclaimed, “I declare the Earth is hollow, and habitable within.” The North and South Poles, you see, each had openings hundreds of miles wide, just waiting for civilization to install a future Costco. In 1818, no human had yet reached the poles (we’re using 1818’s whitemale definition of “human” here), so it was hard to challenge Symmes’s contention. He went on lecture tours and weathered considerable ridicule. Still, his work helped to prod Congress into funding the world’s first Arctic expedition. That mission never happened, but Symmes has earned a grudging historical nod for sparking interest in the region. He retired to Hamilton, where a rather bizarre monument to him features a concrete Earth seemingly pierced by a shotgun.
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2&3 CALENDAR CAGE MATCH
BY ALEX TALKS
CRAFTY SUPERMARKET HOLIDAY SHOW
REVEREND PEYTON’S BIG DAMN BAND
vs.
Music Hall, Nov 28
ON DISPLAY
Artisanal grunt-rock for those who know a mandolin from a National steel
Upcycling, handpainted pillows
CRAFT TRENDS TO WATCH
Do craft beers count?
80-plus vendors
HOW BIG?
Snowballing local craft expo gears up for the holidays
WIN
PUNK ART
1
Inspired by Black Flag’s 1981 song, Cincinnati native Todd Pavlisko presents Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie, a two-for-one exhibit examining the “art” of amassing stuff (pun intended) and the practice of collecting. It features sculptures and paintings from artists such as Antonio Adams (above) and private local collections. No Henry Rollins, but we can see how “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie / I need some more” resonates with Pavlisko’s concept. Starts Nov 20, Weston Art Gallery, cincinnatiarts.org/weston-art-gallery
»
Taft Theatre, Nov 28
Lots of blue hands from indigo-dying process
MARKS OF AUTHENTICITY
They forage for food and live in the woods
Washboards were for scrubbing NER!
RETURNING TO A TIME WHEN
. . . and for playing
7
4–6 SINGER-SONGWRITERS Check out Kinky Friedman, the self-proclaimed Governor of the Heart of Texas (he actually ran in 2006), in support of The Loneliest Man I Ever Met. Nov 9, The Southgate House Revival, southgatehouse.com
»
10
9
TO THE NINES
SEE THE FOREST Catch a sneak peek of Andrea Torrice’s Trees in Trouble, a documentary about America’s urban and community forests and the serious threats they face. Torrice, a local filmmaker, hopes the doc will educate viewers about efforts to protect forests and inspire action. Nov 5, 20th Century Theater, treesintrouble.com
»
The evolution of fashion from 1910 through 1980 is on display in High Style, featuring 20th century garments and accessories from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection. But please, swoon with your eyes—no dress-up allowed. Nov 7, Cincinnati Art Museum, cincinnatiart museum.org
»
Three-piece
Released in September, So There features Ben Folds and the yMusic ensemble performing chamber pop and a piano concerto. Intrigued? We figured. Nov 12, Taft Theatre, tafttheatre. org
»
You loved Once. We all did. Go feel feelings with Glen Hansard, who cowrote the music for the film and musical and is touring in support of his new album, Didn’t He Ramble. Nov 24, Taft Theatre
»
NO SHADE
You likely know the introspective indie folk singer Sufjan Stevens from his massive single “Chicago” off of 2005’s Illinois, or possibly his even earlier album named after his home state of Michigan. No odes to Ohio yet, but you can catch Stevens in support of his new release, Carrie & Lowell, and see for yourself what all the Pitchfork fuss is about. Nov 13, Aronoff Center, cincinnati arts.org
»
8 NOVEMBER BY THE NUMBERS »
John Ruthven Day, celebrating 91 years of the hunter and bird artist extraordinaire Nov 14, Cincinnati Nature Center, cincynature.org
12 Number of paintings Ruthven has made every year since the late 1940s
3 0 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
1,456,090 Number of times he’s been called a “modern day Audubon”
1 4
2 5
3
6
Species of vireos likely to be spotted at the Nature Center this fall
A SH B O RER ILLU S TR ATI O N BY DA N Z E T T WO C H
IMAGE S COURTE SY: (1) WE STON ART G ALLERY; ADAMS, ANTONIO, ART THING (AK A ANTONIO ADAMS) WITH PRINCE AND TODD PAVLISKO, 201 5 , ACRYLIC ON WO OD 16” X 20” / ( 7 ) ARTIST / (10) D R E S S P H OTO G R A P H S © T H E M E T R O P O L I TA N M U SEU M O F A R T, CO U R T E S Y C I N C I N N AT I A R T M U SEU M
THE LIST: NOVEMBER 2015
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STYLE COUNSEL
Andrew Salzbrun OCCUPATION: Managing Partner, Agar HIS STYLE:
Dapper, undone
On top of your job at Agar, you coown two bars in OTR, are the VP of the Pendleton Community Council, and serve on the board of the Taft Museum of Art. That’s a packed schedule. What clothes work as hard as you do? Levi’s for work. I’m constantly building things and am very hard on my denim. I know I can depend on them, and I’m not spending $250. Descendants of Thieves makes button downs that fit me without a lot of tailoring. The work/life line is blurred for most people today and “never not working” is a common phrase. This generation needs style that contributes to their workflow. What other staples make your working life easier? Cole Haan, Allen Edmonds, and Vans are a few. I love what Artfully Disheveled is doing—they’re not just ties, but are becoming more of lifestyle brand. I love my leather satchel from Wolf and Maiden in Cape Town, South Africa. The functionality is great. It can be a weekender or a briefcase. In August, you attended Agenda, a huge retail buyer’s show in Vegas. What caught your eye? Mr. Completely stood out, and Dickies has a high-density line coming up that is more high-end than farm and functionality. I also saw a lot of what I call the urban desperado look—wool ponchos and distressed leather hats. And big, gaudy, Mr. T–style gold chains seem to be back. What was your sartorial strategy while there? Everybody there tries to make a statement. I don’t go out of my way to do that. It’s not my style. I do more psychological prep and focus on my personal values. They’re more important than the shoes on my feet. — A L Y S S A B R A N D T 3 6 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
PHOTOGR APH BY ANNET TE NAVARRO
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STOREFRONT
WHAT THE PROS WEAR ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM, OR OUTFIT YOUR OWN. — J U S T I N W I L L I A M S
It’s become an unofficial mascot, the seven-foot mannequin in full Reds or Bengals uniform propping open the front door of Koch Sporting Goods on West Fourth Street. “He’s an icon,” says owner Greg Koch. Much like the store he stands guard for. Koch is the paragon of our local sporting goods culture, the preeminent spot for everything from shoulder pads to a Bearcats stocking cap—which is a pretty stark transition from its early years sewing theater curtains destined for New York City. The company started as Hoffmeister Braid in 1888, an embroidery business housed in the old Cincinnati Traction Building. Edward Maximillian Koch, greatgrandfather of Greg and a tailor at Hoffmeister, bought the company in 1891. “Sporting goods didn’t exist then,” says Greg (right). It wasn’t until the 1960s that Koch became a traditional sporting goods business, providing uniforms and equipment to youth and high school teams around town—and by the early ’70s, to the Reds and Bengals. This was before licensing, before brands were paying millions of dollars to slap a logo on every jersey, and in turn, before retail was a viable option. Greg, however, saw potential. Taking on a larger role in the late ’70s after graduating from UC, he wanted more than a warehouse of uniforms and equipment. “People always saw team and retail as two separate things,” says Greg. “I thought
putting them together was the way to go.” As the uniform business trailed off over the next few decades—with pro, college, and even high school teams stolen away by branding deals—the retail business soared. Today, the breakdown is roughly 50/50. “People are crazy about this now,” says Greg, motioning toward his wall of team hats, racks of Reds T-shirts, and enough Bengals jerseys to outfit his own 53-man roster. It’s still a one-stop shop, though. Retail is contained on the ground level, but Koch inhabits all five floors of its building, with on-site silk screening, embroidery, and inventory.
If you walk in and ask for 500 printed shirts by tomorrow, they’ll simply ask what color you want. It’s allowed them to continue doing business with the Reds and Bengals—small, immediate jobs, like stitching the nameplate on a Reds jersey for an impromptu minor league call-up—and a big reason why the shop has stayed downtown. “You need to have everything in one spot, and we’re right here in the middle,” says Greg. “This is the best place to be.”
KOCH SPORTING GOODS, 131 W. FOURTH ST., DOWNTOWN, (513) 621-2352, KOCHSPORTS.COM
So is it a Reds or Bengals town? “The guys in here will tell you Bengals,” says Greg. “During the three hours before a Sunday afternoon game, we’ll sell as much as we do over a normal two-day period.” GOOD TO KNOW
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEREMY KRAMER
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ON THE MARKET
ADDRESS: 6600 GIVEN RD., INDIAN HILL LISTING PRICE: $1,995,000
BLOCK PARTY
MORE INDIAN HILL HOMES FOR SALE
8875 FAWNMEADOW LANE
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BUILDER GRADE A DEVELOPER CALLED IT HIS DREAM HOME. SUBSEQUENT OWNERS MADE A FEW CHANGES AND GAVE IT A SPORTY ADDITION. — L I S A M U R T H A
WHEN DEVELOPER MIKE ZICKA BOUGHT THIS FIVE-ACRE
Indian Hill lot for himself in 1979, he paid just over $200,000. “People thought I was nuts,” he says. “It made the newspaper. It was the most anyone had ever paid for a lot in greater Cincinnati.” Fast forward to today. Zicka has long since moved on (the wood-clad contemporary home he built here in 1981 is now on its third owner) and the entire estate— tennis courts, in-ground pool, hot tub, pond, and all—could easily be called a bargain in these parts, on the market for $1.99 million. Some things have stayed the same, others have changed. The carved wood Aztec-style front doors Zicka purchased from Arizona are still there. The original jungle-themed etched glass wall still greets visitors at the front entry, too, but the indoor planting bed it once surrounded, complete with water feature and tropical plants (“I even got bananas to grow in a tree there,” says Zicka) has been filled in and carpeted 4 0 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
over. The second owner also tacked a little something extra on to the home’s original footprint: a sizable addition including a new master suite, glass-walled workout/observation room (currently used as an office), and an authentic half-court gymnasium, complete with basketball hoop, shiny wooden floors, and blue mats on the walls. Just like you remember from school, minus the sweaty smell. Adjoining the gym is an au-pair-style suite (with full bath) and a sprawling finished rec room equipped with full-sized Ping-Pong, pool, and air hockey tables, plus a jukebox, stand-up video game consoles, and a full bar with mini-kitchen. There’s a home theater and a wine cellar, too. At one point during Zicka’s tenure there was even a helicopter pad on the property and the front yard was fenced in so his daughter’s horse could roam free. Add up all those amenities, present and past, and it’s fair to say this home pretty much embodies “resort-style living.”
8805 INDIAN HILL RD. $1,445,000 Tucked into the 2 trees at the end of a private drive, this cozy home, with huge windows throughout and double-decker balconies, makes for a perfect woodsy retreat.
4400 MIAMI RD. $750,000 This century-old 3 cottage features two bedrooms, a pool, gazebo, and breathtaking views of the Little Miami River valley on nearly an acre and a half.
PH OTO G R A PHS CO U R T E S Y: (M A IN) SIB C Y C L IN E RE A LTO R S / (1) CO M E Y & SH EPH ERD RE A LTO R S / ( 2) J ENS PER S S O N / ( 3) SIB C Y C L IN E RE A LTO R S
$3,995,000 This six-bedroom 1 “European Manor” sprawls across 18,000 square feet and feels straight out of a storybook with its iron gate, massive pool, and stone pond.
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THE FIND
COLOR CRUSH “I’m a peacock. I like greens, blues, purples, and I’m on a quest to create the perfect burnt umber,” Parks says. Her husband wanted hand-knit socks in more muted shades like gray and brown, which have turned out to be some of her best sellers. Find her yarns at Silk Road Textiles or on her website, dashingmouse designs.com (with needles, bags, and patterns).
BASE HIT Dashing Mouse’s sock yarn base is 75 percent superwash wool blended with 25 percent nylon for durability. Parks favors highly spun yarn with a tight twist. “The less chance the fibers have to abrade against each other the more durable your socks are,” she says.
DYEING DAY On a typical day, Parks customblends her signature colors using powdered acid dyes and tints around 100 skeins in batches of six atop her kitchen stove. No easy feat considering the water temperature must remain constant at just below boiling.
CASTING ON HAND-DYED YARNS FROM DASHING MOUSE DESIGNS WILL MAKE YOU KNIT IT, NOT QUIT IT. —A LYSS A B R A N DT
Hand knitters salivate over the rich colors and tonal shifts of hand-dyed yarns. “Hand dyes turn even simple stitches into something special,” says Alexandra Parks, founder of Dashing Mouse Designs. After dropping out of grad school, Parks, a lifelong knitter, took a job at Silk Road Textiles in College Hill. “I thought it would be cool to have some hand-dyed yarn in the store to set us apart. The worst that could happen would be having a huge stash of hand-dyed yarn for myself,” she says. But the best thing happened: Dashing Mouse has become the best selling sock yarn in the store.
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P H O T O G R A P H BY A A R O N M . CO N WAY
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Get Inspired. To learn more contact us at 513.771.7744 or at sccinfo@cityofsharonville.com www.sharonvilleconventioncenter.com
Coming in 2016!
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BENZIE COUNTY, MICHIGAN
FOOD-FINDING MISSION
WHEN SIZE DOESN’T MATTER, THESE SMALL TOWNS WIN. —DAN ROZIER
Michigan has always been larger than life—from Ford to Ted Nugent, from Sleeping Bear Dunes to that extra piece it swears isn’t Canada. The Mitten State’s tendency to go big isn’t a secret, and Benzie County—a collection of quaint towns on the state’s western coast, south of Traverse City—is no exception. Although it’s the smallest county in Michigan, it makes up for its lack of land with enough breathtaking views, brisk lakes, and good food to put it right up there with the biggest and
best Michigan has to offer (see: Bob Seger). PACK AND PLAY
Layers are a Michigan must. Coat, sweater, hoodie—whatever your preference, your style should be warm. Bring a good camera to capture the leaves and sunglasses to protect the peepers from the sun reflecting off the water. The drive is roughly eight hours and the majority of it takes place on I-75. This is good news for those who like a straight shot, bad news for people who dislike endless
SIDE TRIP
ANN ARBOR Put down that college sports bias and go. —DAN ROZIER
construction. You’re going to want to put on some Motown to get you in the Michigan mood—and through Toledo. But fear not: The last hour and a half on the road is two lanes of pure wilderness on M-115, making up for the other six in spades. Where to stay when you get there? Nestled right on Crystal Lake and surrounded by Benzie’s finest foliage, Three Pines has five kitschy cabins to choose from with access to a private beach. It provides all of the benefits of seclusion while still being only a five-minute drive from Frankfort’s main strip and 15 minutes from neighboring Beulah.
Breakfasting: Located in the heart of the coastal town of Frankfort, Crescent Bakery is the perfect way to start your morning, especially if your definition of perfection is coffee with a side of bear claw. Of note: The one-room bakery has splashes of UK decor, so Newport and Covington folks won’t feel far from home. Dining: Don’t be put off by the fact that Manitou Restaurant is a cabin set deep in the woods near Honor, Michigan. Kick off the night with some frog legs and keep it going with anything from the “Great Lakes” portion of the menu: Fresh Lake Michigan whitefish, “Nutty” trout, or the lake perch—the holy trinity of freshwater fish. Drinking: A Petoskey stone’s throw from the Frankfort pier, Stormcloud Brewing Company is a new addition to a seldom-changed scene. Relax with their flagship
SHORE THING 1. Waves crashing at Point Betsie; 2. A view from Betsie Valley Trail; 3. Stormcloud Brewing Company.
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Rainmaker Ale, an awardwinning Belgian pale ale, and an appetizer. They even offer a “Hey! I’m Special!” menu for those who prefer seasonal or small-batch craft beer. Indulging: The Cherry Hut is a Benzie County staple. It first opened in 1922 and has been dishing out pies filled with the state’s signature cherries ever since. Cap off the night with a slice (or, pending your week, an entire pie) accompanied by vanilla ice cream. SITES TO SEE
A few miles north of Frankfort up M-115, Point Betsie (with the county’s landmark lighthouse) is the archetypal Lake Michigan beach, fit for watching the sun coming up or going down while you skip rocks into the water. Sunrises are good for seclusion-seek-
ers, while sunsets are more crowded, but still enjoyable. If you want something more active, put on some sturdy shoes and get ready to spend the next few hours inside what might as well be an L.L. Bean photo shoot: The 22-mile Betsie Valley Trail extends from Frankfort to Thompsonville (through Beulah), and is your access point for biking, hiking, and taking in the fall up north in all its glory. Three Pines crystalvacationrentals. com Manitou Restaurant themanitourestaurant. com Stormcloud Brewing Company stormcloudbrewing.com
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BEFORE YOU START SINGING “HANG ON SLOOPY” IN PROTEST, HEAR US OUT. ANN ARBOR IS
home to much more than the University-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Situated about halfway between Cincinnati and Benzie County, that puts it in prime position for a very important thing—lunch. Plus, the city has plenty of attractions to make you forget you still have four hours left behind the wheel. Leave home in the morning so you have an excuse to visit Zingerman’s Deli and sit down for their renowned Reuben. Work off your trip to sandwich heaven with a visit to the Hands-On Museum: Its 250 tactile, discipline-spanning exhibits dedicated to science and exploration provide a great break, especially if you’re traveling with kids. But don’t spend too much time in Ann Arbor: You might fall in love with it and have to have a really uncomfortable talk with Columbus.
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PHOTOGR APHS: (2) BY C AROL KR A AK / (3) STORMCLOUD BREWING COMPANY
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ESCAPE
THE OBSERVER BY BOB WOODIWISS
Wanna Take You Higher. Possibly. MARIJUANA’S ON THE NOVEMBER BALLOT. BUT SHOULD YOU INHALE?
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HEEEEEWHACK AND SWEET MOTHEROGOD, IT’S THE ANSWER TO A PRAYER. SMOKABLE scotch, rollable martinis, sparkable chardonnay, Bud sans weiser, rumless Jamaican shooters, newfangled Old Fashioneds, the one-ounce fifth, that is to say…cough, haaaaack, cough…LEGAL WEED!, or ¡MARIHUANA LÍCITO!, is on its way. Via a public vote—a.k.a. The Cool-Ass Electoral Cannabis Test (™, btw)—on November 3rd. And should the idea of lawful schwag fail to sway voters, no worries. There’s always the next election. Or the one after that. But it’s DEFINITELY COMING, O-high-o. Intoxicatingly and inevitably. Coming soon to a Bambú or brownie near you. Thank you, Jesus! (You too, Jesús, for past import services rendered.) 4 6 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
Although. Except. Whoa-hoa, hit the…SKREEEEEEEEEE…motherhumpin’ brakes. There’s been some kind of shakemy-fist-at-the-sky screw-up. See, the prayer-answer dropped from on high and RIGHT NOW plummeting at terminal velocity through the ionosphere has obviously, OUTRAGEOUSLY, been impeded— lost, perhaps, amidst the desktop clutter and chaos of God’s Prayermaster General or—spitballing here—sucked down some twisting, time-eating celestial wormhole between Heaven and Earth. Which is to say: It’s late. Waaaay late. Insultingly, emptily,
ILLUSTR ATION BY WA R D SUT TO N
“One World Wednesday Reunion” Hosted by: Dhani Jones WEDNESDAY, Nov. 25 / 5 pm - 9 pm / Free Admission Join us for a red carpet event on WEDNESDAY, Nov. 25 from 5 pm – 9 pm, for our “One World Wednesday Reunion” event during Art After Dark. Treat yourself to guided tours of High Style: Twentieth-Century Masterworks from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at 7 pm and 8 pm. Live Music from 6:30 pm-8:30 pm: DJ Mowgli, Black Signal and American Idol contestant Jess Lamb.
Attire: N.Y.C.-inspired / Cash Bar / Appetizers available for purchase
we bring people and art together | cincinnatiartmuseum.org
THE OBSERVER regrettably, why-bother-Father late. I.e., I no longer smoke weed. At all. Ever. Can’t. Gave it up long ago. Had to. Liked it, used it, to excess. A plot point that repeats in my life like amnesia in a soap opera. So, for me, really, the upcoming vote to legalize is moot. No matter how it plays out, my life changes exactly 0.0 percent. Thumbs up and I won’t be salivating over ads for The State’s Lowest Prices on The State’s Locoest Weed; thumbs down and I don’t furiously write my 420 Theses and nail them in defiance to John Kasich’s forehead. On the other hand, as a guy who once embraced the substance in question as a daily sacrament, included it as a line item in the household budget, was in so deep he frequently used the word stash as a noun and cop as a verb without making air quotes, yet who is now psychoconstitutionally self-forbidden from re-entering Reefer Heights, my interest in the issue is strong, my position and my perspective, at worst, informed, with the outside possibility of
it rising to the level of uniquely informative. (Note to the currently stoned: Yes, all those commas in the preceding sentence are really there.) Mind prepped and ready for blowing? Here we go. OK. THAT WAS MISLEADING. OR AT least premature. This next chunk of the story contains no drug war veteran’s reflections or projections, no singular perspective. Doesn’t need to. Its scope is limited, removed from pot usage and focused solely on the framework the current ballot measure—Issue 3—proposes for legalization. For that kind of wonky topic, cold, hard facts are needed. Though, in the interest of serving my point of view, not too cold, too hard, or too facty. But before detailing where we are, let’s contextualize, and see where we’ve been. The hippies, as well as the potheads and stoners they gave rise to, got it all wrong. Their approach to legalization was grass
rootsy, one of presumed parity and fair play. Meaning most users saw toking up as no worse—and in some ways better, safer— than knocking back a couple cocktails: an alternative way for alternative persons to unwind and relax, to muffle their intracranial racket with a little inhalable white noise, a mellow and hangoverless friend to turn one’s troubles over to. Equivalent indulgences with equivalent effects deserve equal treatment, they reasoned. And since they were often baked, reasoned only. They took no action, opting instead to recline on their floor pillows and parse the injustice between cuts of Dark Side of the Moon, hoping and waiting for the straight world to come around and do right. The same strategy that failed them with spelling Amerika with a K. Flash forward to today’s keep-yer-eyeon-the-ROI United States of Citizens United, where everyone knows it’s Money!, Capitalism!, The 1-Percent’s Hunger To Be 1-Percentier! that gets things done and
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Our collection features over 1,000 pieces of antique and estate jewelry. 513-541-5627, 6114 Hamilton Avenue • schwartzjewelers.net 4 8 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
wills whims into outcomes. Here, market forces are the irrevocably irresistible force. And it’s why legalization’s being voted on now instead of back when fringe was an acceptable fashion choice. What I’m getting at is this: The initiative Ohioans are about to vote on is a money deal. The brainstorm, the concoction, of a political consultant whose firm is being paid at least $20 million dollars by a small group of wealthy investors to collect signatures, get the issue on the ballot, and sell the idea to voters. Since he gets paid win or lose, he can only win. And the investors? Well, spliff fans, should it pass, those boys’ve bought themselves one whoop-de-doo of a constitutional amendment. One that would “endow exclusive rights for commercial marijuana growth, cultivation, and extraction to self-designated landowners who own ten predetermined parcels of land” around the state. Twenty glorious words that will forever empower said cabal to
control, or more accurately, monopolize the production and supply of all cannabis sold through commercial and medical channels in Ohio. Aaaand BOOM! The multimillionaires have legislated their own transformation into multibillionaires. Are you paying attention, El Chapo? Best (read: worst) of all, however, is this Orwellian element: In a referendum to sanction the widespread use of a brainaltering controlled substance, the Official Dietary Fiber of Woodstock Nation, nobody’s talking about getting high. To hear ResponsibleOhio (the pro-pot outfit made up of the consultants, the investors, and others) tell it, weed isn’t about getting stoned, it’s about job creation. About extracting tax revenue from a hitherto underground economy. About replacing dirty, immoral drug pushers who sell pot to children with clean, principled dispensaries adhering to strict rules about sales to minors, thus eradicating teen drug use just as liquor laws have rid us of teen alcohol
use. About a glorious therapeutic panacea for the ill and infirm. But decidedly not about tokingupgettingrippedsnarfingDoritosinfrontoftheTV. Weird as that is, it may not be about that for me either. Early on, in my teens, prior to my first nickel bag or swallowed roach, what drew me to pot was its taboo, its rebellion, its statement. Scoring it, possessing it, smoking it, being stoned, everything about it was illegal, defiant, subversive, an antithetical slap in the face to “The Establishment.” And for a knee-jerk antiauthoritarian like myself, life was good. Today, my positions have “evolved”: I’m way past getting high. No interest in, no intent to. At the same time “The Establishment,” i.e., the fat cats, special interests, and politically connected, have embraced the drug, want to own and market (formerly: push) it, and are encouraging and counting on all liberty-minded citizens and free-market champions to rally
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THE OBSERVER ’round the(ir) reefer. And for this diehard antiauthoritarian, that not only violates the spirit of the product, it’s the single best reason to suspect and reject Issue 3, and wait for a better, more populist deal. Case closed. NOT THAT WE’RE DONE HERE. NOT BY a long shot. That closed case is sitting inside another, bigger case that remains wide open. Namely: Even if legalization’s voted down this go-round, defeated as the cynical, greedy oligopoly it seeks to be, the issue’s not going away. The potential cannabonanza just has too many digits betwixt dollar sign and decimal point; it’s a sexy pot o’ pot money too voluptuously seductive to resist. And living in a democradundancy as we do, the moneyed interests will have us voting on this thing as many times as it takes to get it passed. (See: Four tries to get gambling approved in Ohio, primarily financed by gaming companies.) So what happens down the line if, say, a less objectionable plan is proposed, a law that more or less brings weed production, distribution, and sales into alignment with alcohol. How could I, a former fatty-head, not be cool with that, huh? I mean, just because I can’t safely frolic in the grass, I can at least be happy for my brothers (and sisters) of the doobie who will at last be free to enjoy their buzz of preference without fear of prosecution, right? Uh. Hmm. I gotta say I’m having trouble giving this prospect a big, unconditional hug of welcome. Partly, I realize, this is due to my past dependence, and to a lesser extent, a strong aversion to hugs, even metaphorical ones. Yet a deathbefore-hypocrisy mind-set, along with an admittedly fond nostalgia for the physically lazy, mentally hazy days of youth and rebellion, won’t let me slam the door in said prospect’s face, either. Leaving me tentative, muddled, staring across the threshold into the slack face of legal weed, tumbling into the abyss of its dilated pupils, struggling to untangle personal history from actual fact from public consequence.
ALL RIGHT, THEN, LET’S STRIP THIS baby down, peel away the distractions and prevarications. To the preponderance of voters, legal ganja isn’t and never will be about jobs or tax revenue or unemploying drug dealers or even, because we’re talking blanket legalization, compassionate medicine. Unh-unh. Those may be nice rationales but they’re not the passion behind the preference. The Nays want to stop drugs and/or protect society and/or enforce “morality.” (All futile hopes, but thanks for playing.) The Yeas want, for themselves and/or loved ones, readily available, good quality product at a reasonable price and without legal consequences. Ergo, in a word and as the hippies foretold, parity. To equalize and legitimize in the eyes of the law and squares the two most highly consumed highs—alcohol and marijuana. Begging the question: Are they equal? In the opinion of a man who’s spent far too much of life “researching” both abusables (full disclosure: I am that man), I can tell you unequivocally: Absolutely/Absolutely not. Take the high itself. Pot offers more of a peaks and valleys experience: Do a few hits, get ripped, stop smoking a spell, level out a bit, take a few more hits to reelevate, stop again, and so on through the evening. (Pro Tip: Stop talking, people. Stoned profundity is a myth.) Drinking is more of a unidirectional incline. For the prudent, it can be a long slow grade with many exits available— One To Be Sociable, Twofer After A Tough Day, Tipsy, Over The Legal Limit, Slurry, Sloppy, et cetera. For others, it’s a motocross sprint up the pitted face of Blackout Peak. But there’s another distinction: the only reason to smoke pot is to get high. And it works. Every time. (THC content willing.) Casual drinkers, though, don’t set out to get drunk and often don’t. The complication being, the most serious pot smokers never pass out or black out, whereas determined motocrossers can speed to their deaths in a single binge. Prompting the anti-pot faction to invoke their own specter of death, albeit death deferred: Marijuana Is A Gateway Drug, the first step on the road to becoming a
heroin OD! Coke freak! Pill popper! Acidhead! Well, maybe. But even if pot does, as it did in my case, lead to snorting and dropping and tripping, no harm or dependency resulted. Aside from, ya know: BOOZE! That was my drug of graduation, of greater sway, the dark path that lay beyond the herbal gateway. Or, to paraphrase Glinda: Everything I was looking for was right at the liquor store all along. And since we’re talking parity? Notice that concerns over where one’s first taste of alcohol may lead are nonexistent. Reason: in a drug category that ranges from 30-racks and alcopops to fortified wine and moonshine, it’s only a gateway to…………ITSELF. “WARNING! If product fails to cause numbness, increase dosage.” And since it’s also addictive, chances are the patient will. I know, I know, pot’s addictive, too. About 4 to 5 percent of users—around half the rate for alcohol drinkers—are, according to the experts, dependent. But so what? Is sucking a bong to get loaded every day worse than draining a bottle to do the same? OK, maybe boozers are more dangerous to others (overall: less passive, more unpredictable mood swings, drunk driving). But from what I’ve witnessed, devoted potheads are less likely to hit bottom and quit. Reefer addicts are already out there and if some single digit slice of citizens want to waste their lives in a stupor, who are we to stop them? I mean, if marijuana’s simply Alcohol 2.0 and we know prohibition doesn’t work, is pot some sort of libertarian birthright? (Damn. The questions are getting harder.) Answer: I love freedom. In theory. Problem is, non-theoretical freedom has to be delineated, codified, and that’s when things go to shit. Because even if we can all agree that my freedom stops where yours begins, is someone who, say, only smokes cigarettes in the privacy of her own home but by contracting lung cancer drives up my health insurance cost stepping over my liberty line? And if so, what do we do about it? Ban cigarettes? Deny smokers health insurance? Invest more in cancer research? It comes down to this: Are we willing to legalize any substance or activity in the name of liberty or parity or fairness,
so long as it’s no worse for an individual or society than an existing legal substance? If the answer’s yes, alcohol opens the door to more than weed, inviting in mushrooms, peyote, LSD, perhaps even Ecstasy. If the answer’s no, explain why, given the proven dangers involved, an alcoholic should be granted some special right to intoxication. THE FADED BACKDROP TO ALL THIS push and pull thinking is Amsterdam, a city I’ve visited exactly twice. On my first trip, in the early ’70s, it was one of the few Western cities where cannabis, though not technically legal, had been decriminalized. Making it a huge draw for disaffected American and European youth, longhairs and dopers. Hundreds gathered each day, all day, lounging, lazing, glazing on Dam Square, the central plaza. The collective lethargy had substance, mass, the watchful wait to score drugs indistinguishable from the idle daze of having done drugs. I kept my distance. Stoned in bulk was not attractive. My second trip was in the early aughts. Now pot was all but legal. The city still teemed with a disproportionate number of the youngish (late-teens to mid-30s), only instead of dirty hippies, these were, I’d learned from the Times, narcotourists. They had euros to spend in the “brown cafés,” sampling the cornucopia of weed and hash varieties available there, lounging, lazing, glazing out of view. At some point in my stay, as I wandered the crosshatch of narrow straats and canals, I couldn’t help but notice that brown cafés were nearly as ubiquitous as Amsterdam’s famed profusion of pubs and bars. The drinkers and the smokers, each in their respective retreats, were equal. In that moment, though, I didn’t see a justly balanced scale. I saw a scale with double the weight on a single side. I DOUBT I’LL EVER VOTE YES ON LEgalization. Or vote on it at all. Death before hypocrisy, remember? And when it finally passes? No tears here. It’s time the weed crowd be allowed their fun. I just want nothing to do with making that happen.
MEGAN HILTY Rosemary Clooney’s Songbook NOV 6–8 Music Hall
FREEDOM Dedicated to the legacy of Dr. Maya Angelou
NOV 13–14 Music Hall
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SLICE NIGHT The second annual Slice Night, an all-you-can-eat pizza fundraiser, took place Thursday, October 1 at Yeatman’s Cove. Produced by Presto Foods and Cincinnati Magazine, the event raised funds for the University of Cincinnati Cancer Institute. A new addition to this year’s fundraiser - VIP tents sponsored by Western & Southern. Sponsors and partners included: The Bon Bonerie, Brookwood Retirement Community, `z, Dellatorri, Dillard’s, Frank’s RedHot Sriracha, French Lick, McCluskey Chevrolet, Nestle, New Belgium, Presto Foods, Schofferhofer, Sierra Nevada, Stella Artois, Western & Southern and the Westrock Coffee Company. Participating pizzerias: Bub’s Pizza Bar, Dewey’s, Fratelli’s, Giuseppe’s, Goodfellas, Krimmer’s, LaRosa’s, Mac’s Pizza Pub, N.Y.P.D., Pisanello’s, Pizza Tower, Pizzelii, Ramundo’s, Salvadore’s, Snappy Tomato and Venice on Vine.
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PICTURED: 1 Alissa Rodriguez enjoying her pizza 2 Mark Smith with Cincinnati Magazine’s Dining Editor Joanne Drilling 3 Karen & Curt Jackson and Jody Aschendorf 4 Guests spiced up their pizza with Frank’s RedHot Sriracha 5 Cincinnati Magazine’s Senior Account Executive Matt Reis, Advertising Director Tammy Vilaboy and Publisher Ivy Bayer 6 Dr. Thomas Herzog and family 7 Glory Days performing at Slice Night 8 Christopher & Brittany Walker 9 Kalie Busam and Annie Fisk 10 Mark LaRosa 11 Jan Diehl, Mary Ann Bromwell and Jamie & Kevin Canafax 12 A popular accessory at Slice Night – pizza boxes 13 Jeralyn Barrett, Dr. Bill Barrett and Karen Bosse 14 Velisha, Nataniel & Lenore Smith 15 Pizza tossing expertise from Pisanello’s 16 TJ & Sarah Colvin, Angela Wambaugh and Jon Schrage PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF PAULA NORTON & STEVE SHAW
IWESTWOOD
NORTHSIDE
OTR
Old firehouses reborn as wood-fired pizza joints. Former factories morphing into mini-tech corridors.
Defunct school buildings transformed into loft apartments.
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PHOTOGRAPH BY RICK LOHRE
MADISONVILLE
PLEASANT RIDGE OAKLEY
WALNUT HILLS
NEWPORT
From Northside to OTR to Walnut Hills, significant chunks of Cincinnati’s urban sprawl are being rehabbed and redrawn.
The tour starts here.
B L O C K PA R T Y
Newport and Covington Give Good Face Northern Kentucky isn’t just Cincinnati south. NEWPORT/COVINGTON POPUL ATION: 15,273/40,640 | MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $75,000/$75,000 CHANGE SINCE 2010: -2.6%/59.6%
he core of Covington is experiencing a BY LISA MURTHA revival,” says city Public Information T Officer Liz Barlik. Evidence: The Aparium Hotel Group is pairing with Salyers Group (parent company of Donna Salyers’ Fabulous-Furs and the Madison Event Center) to transform the former city hall into a boutique hotel. Both the Mutual Insurance and Pike Star buildings have been renovated and converted into mixed-use structures (business accelerator UpTec moved into the Pike Star from Newport). And over on Banklick Street, Orleans Development built the Pulse Loft Apartments—a sleek new 32-unit residential complex. At least partial financing for much of the area’s new development has been secured with help from the nonprofit Catalytic Fund—one of Northern Kentucky’s biggest cheerleaders by far. Neighboring Newport has its fair share of shiny new projects, too. The Aloft hotel, Aqua apartment complex, and an 800-space parking garage are all well under construction on the Levee’s east side, plus there’s a Hampton Inn going up on the site of the old Travelodge. Kentucky Route 9 is being rerouted to take major truck traffic out of residential neighborhoods—a double bonus, says Newport Development Services Director Greg Tulley, because “all that new roadway will open up development opportunities.” And the Newport Pavilion is now 100 percent occupied and offers two things most urban Cincinnati neighborhoods would kill to have: a Kroger and a Target. D O W N T H E R OA D
Covington’s revitalization isn’t all office buildings and lofts; despite recent infighting, Gateway Community and Technical College is developing a strong physical presence there. Just last year the school opened a new Center for Technology, Innovation, and Enterprise on Madison Avenue on the same day it began renovations just steps away, at the school’s Center for Professional Services on Scott Boulevard. Newport shoppers still
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mourning the losses of Remke and Kmart now have cause to celebrate; a Fresh Thyme Farmer’s Market will soon take over the former Remke building and an Aldi will be “going just up the road,” in part of the old Kmart building, says Tulley. No official move-in dates yet, but stay tuned. Good old-fashioned hardware store aficionados will delight in a visit to Covington’s Klingenberg’s Hardware. Wood floors and all, they’ve been around for three generations and are happy
to help with all your home repair needs. If you’re looking for some urban outdoor fun, check out parking lot-turned-outdoor event space Madlot, at the corner of Seventh Street and Washington Avenue. Farmers’ markets and local bands alike make regular appearances at this unique outdoor venue, the result of collaborative efforts between local businesses and civic groups. The lot is surrounded by giant wall murals and paved with colorful painted asphalt.
N E I G H B O R H O O D WAT C H
THE UNOFFICIAL MAYOR If you’ve lived in Avondale, chances are you have heard of Fulton Jefferson Jr. Often called Avondale’s “unofficial mayor,” Jefferson has been involved in the community for nearly two decades. Avondale Youth Council, one of his projects, serves as a training ground for tomorrow’s adult community leaders. HOW DID THE AVONDALE YOUTH COUNCIL COME ABOUT? In 2006, I was the vice
president of the Avondale Community Council, as I am now. I went to a lot of meetings where people would talk about how they needed youth involvement. So I sat down with Ozie Davis and we decided to start the youth council to create a dialogue about some of the issues we were facing at that time. I believe the first one was littering. We got a group together and went to Rumpke. The kids learned how recycling happens, where trash really goes, and why it’s important to keep our neighborhood clean. Hopefully they will come back and be officers on the board of the community council some day. WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW? The
H O U S E P H O T O G R A P H S B Y A A R O N M . C O N W AY/J E F F E R S O N B Y E V A N S G O U R I S
SITTING PRETTY Covington and Newport have a large stock of colorful, stately Victorians—many of which have had recent facelifts.
youth council has a recycling project; they have a crime prevention through environmental design program; they have community gardens; they cut grass; they have a candy store; they run a marketing team; they work with CeaseFire. They also have some fun. They go to Kings Island, the zoo, the opera, and a lot of other places. The community recognizes the kids and invites them to different events. We even have alumni come back to talk to the current kids about their experiences. They usually have a lot to say. WHY AVONDALE? I was born and raised
here. I was in the Marine Corps for 20 years, then I retired, came home, and got involved with the community council. You have to really be here for the city if you want to help. If not, the youth will see right through you. I mean, I don’t get paid for working with the youth council. It’s just something that I want to do. It’s something we do to make sure the kids get everything they need. —KEVIN SCHULTZ
B L O C K PA R T Y
OVER-THE-RHINE EXPANDS ITS REACH The rehab boom moves beyond Central and Vine.
BY LISA MURTHA
POPUL ATION: 6,064 | MEDIAN HOME PRICE * : $265,000 | CHANGE SINCE 2010: 35.6%
J
Follow the new streetcar line north to Findlay Market and you’ll come upon early stages of Over-the-Rhine’s revival, version 2.0. 3CDC—the city’s “preferred developer” for 33 properties north of Liberty—is still a major player in the game, but some new faces are getting in on the action, too. Take Market Square by Model Group, a massive rehab project across from Findlay Market that encompasses eight Race Street and four Elder Street buildings. When complete (in fall 2016), Market Square will house apartments, condos, offices, and retail space. But perhaps the biggest news of all is that a 6,000-squarefoot grocery store will be a tenant, “to complement Findlay Market but not duplicate it,” says Model Group Principal and COO Bobby Maly. Another, much smaller mixeduse development nearby is Kim Starbuck’s renovated Crown Building at 1739 Elm. It includes four apartments, offices for tech company Modulus (a Brandery alum), and unfinished space on the first floor for a restaurant. Mixed-use isn’t the only game in this part of town, though. Starbuck is tackling renovations at two neighboring structures next: a single family home and a building of microapartments (translation:“small urban living spaces,” says Starbuck). And Kunst Development recently completed renovations on its Tailor Shop apartments, a three-unit building on Hamer Street. Suffice it to say, a year from now this part of OTR could have quite a different feel. *Includes all of downtown. MLS does not track data for OTR separately.
D O W N T H E R OA D
As part of the city’s Neighborhood Enhancement Program, locals ranging from Over-theRhine Community Council president Ryan Messer to Cincinnati firefighters armed with donation buckets at Bockfest banded together to raise money for Grant
Park playground’s recent overhaul, installing new play structures and effectively reclaiming the space for neighborhood kids. It’s been eight years since Bob Bonder hatched a plan to build a brewery in the old Moerlein bottling plant at 1910 Elm, but Rhinegeist Brewery has been
an OTR hotspot from day one and shows no signs of cooling off. The Pet Wants national headquarters are already housed at 1820 Central Parkway but founder Michele Hobbs isn’t stopping there; she’s in the process of drumming up investors to add a distillery to the building, too.
JUMP STREET Over-the-Rhine north of Liberty, looking west.
N E I G H B O R H O O D WAT C H
THE REHABBERS Ed and Carol Pfetzing live in a century-old home on Woodburn Avenue, a few blocks up from some of the city’s hottest real estate: DeSales Corner in East Walnut Hills. They’re not jump-on-the-bandwagon newcomers, though. Ed bought the house in 1974. Today he and his wife, Carol, own 10 Woodburn properties. YOU OWN ALL THE HOUSES ON ONE SIDE OF YOUR BLOCK. WHAT GOT YOU STARTED HERE IN 1974? Ed: I wanted an old house,
with real woodwork; I was looking in Price Hill, Covington, East Walnut Hills, and Mt. Adams. [The house I bought] needed work, but there was nothing that was destroyed. That makes rehabbing a lot easier. As I worked on my home, the other houses found me. The one next door was my former landlord’s; he got ready to sell, and came to me. One by one, they all came along. YOU WERE THE EAST WALNUT HILLS ASSEMBLY VICE PRESIDENT FOR YEARS. WHICH OF YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD CONTRIBUTIONS ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?
Ed: Enhancing the visual nature of DeSales Corner. Working with the city to get all the wiring moved underground, and the really nice streetlights—it wasn’t easy, believe me. Now that same style of street-scaping might be extended further down Woodburn.
OTR PHOTOGRAPH BY RICK LOHRE/PFETZING PHOTO PROVIDED
IF YOU WANT TO BUY AN OLD HOUSE IN AN INNER-CITY NEIGHBORHOOD… Ed: Get
involved in the neighborhood. Carol: You can buy something reasonably priced in an up-and-coming neighborhood, save money on your mortgage, and save more for retirement. And be happy with 80 percent of what you think is perfect for your house. Ed: The people who have trouble with old houses want it all 100 percent perfect—everything square and perfectly level. But you don’t complain about a leaky stone foundation. You say, “That’s what makes a perfect wine cellar.” When I go into a house, if it doesn’t have any imperfections, I don’t like it anymore. Our 1880s-era Queen Anne house has horsehair and plaster on the wall. It’s the imperfections that actually make it wonderful. —JEAN KINNEY NOVEMBER 2015
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The historic public bathhouse (hidden from view) is set to be remade into a swanky cocktail bar.
Walnut Hills and East Walnut Hills Meet at the Tipping Point
CORE CLAY
Change has taken center stage—with a whole lot more on deck. POPULATION: 6,495 | MEDIAN HOME PRICE * : $156,200 | CHANGE SINCE 2010: -2.4%
BY ALYSSA KONERMANN
WA L N U T H I L L S
GREEN MAN PARK
2
Beck Paint & Hardware has withstood the neighborhood’s shifting tides since 1959.
WA L N U T H I L L S
Nearly an entire block of the business district is under construction with the first phase of the Trevarren Flats 1 project, which will bring 30 market-rate apartments and 7,000 square feet of commercial space to East McMillan Street. Fireside Pizza 2 opened last September in the city’s oldest standing firehouse, which was barely saved from demolition. And this September, Angst Coffeehouse 3 started serving coffee, beer, and tacos around the corner. As nightlife destinations, they join such institutions as The Greenwich 4 and Brew House 5 , which also has a few new things: owners, menu, craft beer list, and facade. *Includes East Walnut Hills. MLS does not separate the two.
I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY C H R I S D E N T
on’t call it a comeback; they’ve been here for decades. But Walnut Hills is revving D up its efforts to revitalize, with freshly rehabbed market-rate apartments and retail opening soon, new food and bev destinations, and some large, game-changing projects on the cusp of being announced. Over in East Walnut Hills, the Woodburn Avenue business district is more bustling than ever: Beer is pouring and soon to be brewing, dining options are expanding, and the retail front still stands strong. And neither neighborhood has plans to stop.
ALMS HILL APARTMENTS
This fall, existing businesses Cuts Plus barbershop and Zweets candy shop moved to newer, larger storefronts. WALNUT HILLS BRANCH LIBRARY
PARKSIDE CAFÉ
5
THE VERONA
1 PEEBLES CORNER
Mortar will be taking over the vacant Dollar City for a popup holiday market.
WHRF OFFICE
A former hotspot for crime is being transformed into the St. James Pocket Park.
4
3
This alley, which the Five Points Biergarten has called home since 2013, is getting permanent lighting and other improvements this fall.
CONCORD STREET COMMUNITY GARDEN
E A S T WA L N U T H I L L S
KEY
RENOVATED HOUSING UNDER CONSTRUCTION
HELD BY THE CITY, WHRF,
NEW/UPDATED BUSINESSES
OR PORT AUTHORITY
STALWART BUSINESSES
HELD BY A PRIVATE DEVELOPER
The WHRF plans for an anchor restaurant or nightlife destination on this corner.
6
CAFÉ DESALES
8
7
11
MANIFEST GALLERY 9
10
13
16
12
14
PARLOUR
Yet some of the most substantial change is still hidden from plain sight. The Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation (WHRF), the city, and the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority have snatched up much of the land and many of the key buildings (in red) on and around Peebles Corner for future development, as have a couple of private developers (in blue). The ultimate aim: to get the heart of the business district pumping again. E A S T WA L N U T H I L L S
The drinking and dining scene at Woodburn Avenue and Madison Road continues to grow big-time. Mardi Gras on Madison 6 started serving up po’ boys and other Cajun favorites in January. O Pie O 7 , which opened in September, renovated the so-called
KITCHEN 452
15 Construction is well under way, with plans to open this year.
French Building across the street to create its bakery (and rents out office space upstairs). The Growler House 8 serves 30 beers on tap, and Myrtle’s Punch House 9 is the latest bar in the Molly Wellmann empire. The district’s retail identity isn’t going anywhere, either: Shops like Hi-Bred 10 , Cincinnati Bicycle Company 11 , and Leftcoast Modern 12 have all established permanent residency. Even with Le Bon Vivant and Heterotopia closing this year, vacancy is minimal. The street has its stalwarts: It’s About Hair 13 and Schulhoff Equipment Rental 14 have been serving customers for decades. Plus, there’s new blood coming in, notably The Woodburn Brewery 15 and Arkham House Games 16 . J Read more about Walnut Hills’s redevelopment on page 70. NOVEMBER 2015
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B L O C K PA R T Y
Your kingdom of vinyl and artisanal cheese awaits.
BY JUSTIN WILLIAMS
POPUL ATION: 8,083 | MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $149,000 | CHANGE SINCE 2010: 7.97%
J
After years of a first-timehome-buyer influx into places like Hyde Park and Oakley, the overflow is edging north toward the corner of Ridge and Montgomery. And for good reason. Aside from an affordable housing market (median 2015 year-to-date home price: $149,000 in Pleasant Ridge, compared to $230,900 in Oakley and $281,000 in Hyde Park), the bones of an up-and-coming neighborhood are already in place, including family-friendly conveniences (Pleasant Ridge Montessori, a fetching library branch, a CRC pool and water park) and heritage businesses (the Gas Light Café, Everybody’s Records, Pleasant Ridge Chili) all in walking distance. Naturally, newcomers are hot on the trail, including Share Cheesebar and Nine Giant Brewery. “It feels like an area that’s on a major upswing,” says Brandon Hughes, coowner of Nine Giant. “From a business perspective, it isn’t even close to saturated yet.” It means the run of bars, restaurants, and artisanal yarn shops unveiling new storefronts won’t ebb anytime soon. A few years back, the strip that housed the Gas Light and Everybody’s was in danger of getting bulldozed for a new Walgreens—until P-Ridgers bombarded Cincinnati City Council with pleas to halt the wrecking ball. “The people who live in the Ridge really get behind their businesses,” says Woody Dorsey, manager of the 37-year-old Everybody’s Records. “Just treat them right and respect the neighborhood.”
Northside Isn’t Just For Cool Kids The urban ’burb sits at the intersection of Hip and Livable. POPUL ATION: 7,467 | MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $130,000 | CHANGE SINCE 2010: 271.4% BY JENNY BURMAN orthside has been the It Girl of Cincinnati neighborhoods for a few years N now. Comfortable and cool without losing its gritty edge, it’s home to artist/creative types as well as a traditional working-class base. You stand the chance of bumping into members of the pop-punk group Tweens, the main lineup of Wussy, and writers Michael Griffith and Leah Stewart just by heading out for a coffee at Collective Espresso. Grooviest of all is Northside’s walkability. Hamilton Avenue runs a curvy spine through the neighborhood, home to an array of commercial establishments including Shake It Records and Black Plastic Records; Helltown Workshop furniture-repair; Melt Eclectic Café, a farm-to-table, hippyish destination for lunchies across Cincinnati; Sidewinder Coffee, a bohemian hub serving everything from yerba maté to hot toddies; vintage boutiques like Chicken Lays an Egg and NVISION; the anti-hip Blue Jay diner; Thunder-Sky gallery, “a haven for creative outsiders” founded by short-story writer Keith Banner; and on Wednesdays, the Northside Farmers’ Market, one of the most lively in the region and the source of fresh produce for The Littlefield and other locavore eateries. Walking and bicycling is encouraged here (the small bikes with training wheels parked up and down Hamilton, as well as the MoBo Bicycle Cooperative, should be a clue). One easy destination is Spring Grove Cemetery, an unlikely (but gorgeous) hang-out spot. And every July there’s the Independence Day parade, a miles-long spectacle that pays homage to irreverence as it honors tradition, helping make Northside a creative nexus with all the amenities of the good contempo-urban life.
D O W N T H E R OA D
Every neighborhood needs a good coffee place, but The Coffee Exchange of Pleasant Ridge goes above and beyond by offering locally roasted house blends and draft beer, not to mention some delicious homemade coffee cake. Clarence Howell Shoe Repair is a gem. The man himself, who
will undoubtedly be sitting behind the counter when you swing by, can fix just about any earthly shoe or leather calamity imaginable, and is constantly doling out advice and answering questions to keep your dogs from barking. Visit his shop before you give up on your winter boots. Yes, it’s a taco truck parked at a gas station—lately, the BP on Montgomery, catty-corner from
Everybody’s—but don’t let that scare you away. Tacos Locos is the real deal, with a salsa verde you’ll want to drink by the gallon. (Pro tip: Order the lengua.) You thought we were joking about that artisanal yarn? Fibergé, a yarn and fabric shop previously located in Over-theRhine, opened its new Montgomery Road store in September. Let the stitching begin.
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y A A R O N M . C O N W A Y/ P E R R I N O P H O T O P R O V I D E D
PLEASANT RIDGE IS ON THE VERGE. FINALLY.
D O W N T H E R OA D
The newly opened Northside Yacht Club on Spring Grove Avenue offers live music and a “vittles” menu with vegan and veg options. Housed on the ground floor of the former American Can Factory, with a slew of loft apartments above it, Ruth’s Parkside Café is a neighborhood joint in
the best sense: a bright artists’ hangout, with sculptural works hanging from the high-high ceiling, and a menu that’s very vegfriendly. Chicken Lays an Egg is more than a vintage shop. Recently relocated from Chase Avenue to a larger storefront on Northside’s main drag, Chicken is part shopping experience, part Americana gallery. Looking for big, purple
sunglasses and a story to go with them? This is your place. Gantry Apartments, a largescale residential development looming over the corner of Hamilton Avenue and Blue Rock Street, stands to permanently alter the old-timey feel of that intersection, for better or worse. But the classic buildings get their due: Kirby Lofts are slated for the 105-year-old Kirby Road School.
N E I G H B O R H O O D WAT C H
THE DIRECTOR Tim Perrino, artistic director of Cincinnati Landmark Productions, was the moving force behind “the miracle on Glenway” that turned an empty 1940s cinema into the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts. Hopes are high that his newest project, the Warsaw Federal Incline Theater in East Price Hill, will give his birthplace a civic boost. WHY WAS IT IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO DO SOMETHING IN EAST PRICE HILL? When I
was born my parents lived in the house across the street from where the theater is today. There was the store down the street where I could buy penny candy. We’d watch fireworks here from Crosley Field. I was baptized right up the street. This neighborhood is in my DNA. SO WHY DID YOU PUT A THEATER THERE?
The right arts program can do a lot for a neighborhood. My good friend D. Lynn Meyers at Ensemble Theatre stayed the course when everyone else was telling her to get out. And now, look at Overthe-Rhine. I think Ensemble was one of the first steps to the revitalization there. CURB APPEAL You can walk from just about anywhere in Northside to (clockwise from above) Collective Espresso, Ruth’s, Melt, and Chicken Lays an Egg.
WHAT OBSTACLES HAVE YOU OVERCOME?
I had to sit down and ask myself, “What would these [donor] organizations really be funding?” The momentum in this neighborhood is what we all wanted to build on. I thought, if we can get these six to eight blocks to come alive with diverse populations, you’re going to see great things for the entire west side. WHAT DO YOU HOPE WILL BE THE RESULT OF THIS WORK? We want to be a force for
good in the neighborhoods in which our facilities reside. In 2002, we started the Covedale Performing Arts Center. We took an abandoned movie house and it became an icon in the neighborhood. And it brought along with it a sense of vitality. Our neighbors—everyone from the dentist to the restaurant owners—told us their business grew. You’ll see homes in the area go on the market and say “in the theater district.” That is happening here in East Price Hill already. Besides the magnificent view, that’s what drove our decision to come here. —KEVIN SCHULTZ NOVEMBER 2015
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What does it mean to live in Cincinnati today? We dug through a mound of statistics, polls, studies, and databases to try to find a well-sourced answer. Turns out, it means working in a growing economy, living among a population still struggling with diversity, facing a significantly decreased crime threat, BY ADAM FLANGO managing traffic and infrastructure issues better than half the country, and enduring a low approval rating. For all the progress that’s been made, these are the numbers that define our city.
DIVERSITY
THE ECONOMY
Cincinnati has not exactly thrived economically over the past decade, but there are indicators of growth on the horizon. [Sources: 1, 3] MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME
$63,886
$65,000 56,875
$52,904
$53,951
$47,541
$47,391
$57,255
$44,914
48,750 40,625
$40,964
32,500
$38,759 $33,425
24,375
Ohio has the second-highest retention of residents born within its borders, behind only Michigan. Cincinnati has a slightly more global population than the rest of the state, but not when compared to the rest of the country. [Source: 3] WHERE UNITED STATES RESIDENTS COME FROM
26.9%
58.8%
BORN OUTSIDE STATE OF RESIDENCE
BORN IN STATE OF RESIDENCE
WHERE CINCINNATI RESIDENTS COME FROM
71.4%
22.8%
BORN IN OHIO BORN IN A DIFFERENT STATE
$31,110
$29,493
16,250 8,125
12.9%
$0
2000
2010
CITY OF CINCINNATI
2014
HAMILTON COUNTY
2020 (PROJECTED) CINCINNATI METRO
FOREIGN BORN
5.2%
1.4% BORN IN U.S. TERRITORY
BORN IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY
0.6% BORN IN A U.S. TERRITORY
33.2%
ASIA
25.8%
LATIN AMERICA
MEDIAN VALUE OF OWNER-OCCUPIED HOUSING UNITS
22.3%
AFRICA
$181,200 K34.3% $129,100
IN THE UNITED STATES, 2014
IN OHIO, 2014
$169,679
IN CINCINNATI, 2014
IN CINCINNATI, 2020
Cincinnati has a middling Residential Income Segregation Index, which adds the percentage of lower income residents living in lower income census tracts to the percentage of higher income residents living in higher income census tracts. Translation: The higher the number, the more income-segregated a city is. [Source: 2]
46 47 +16 6TH NATIONAL INDEX (AVERAGE)
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NOVEMBER 2015
INCREASE SINCE 1980
15.0%
EUROPE
$126,277
HIGHEST INCREASE AMONG 30 LARGEST METROS
3.3% NORTHERN AMERICA
0.4%
OCEANIA
The Diversity Index, as defined by FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver, shows the percentage of people from a given city, as well as within certain neighborhoods, who belong to a different racial group than the average resident. What is “the average resident”? A weighted composite based on a city’s racial breakdown. [Sources: 4, 5]
55.4% 38.2% CITYWIDE DIVERSITY INDEX
Cincinnati doesn’t rank well in terms of racial segregation, and it ranks even lower in terms of LGBT diversity. [Source: 6]
NEIGHBORHOOD DIVERSITY INDEX
3.2%
20
CINCINNATI’S SEGREGATION RANK AMONG 100 MOST POPULATED CITIES
45
RANK AMONG 50 LARGEST PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION U.S. METRO AREAS WHO IDENTIFY AS LGBT
INFRASTRUCTURE
CRIME
Staring at the endless stream of brake lights on I-75 may cause you to curse the traffic gods, but Cincinnati is in the middle of the pack compared to other U.S. cities when it comes to traffic headaches, and the city hardly puts a dent in the national traffic cost, a figure that puts a dollar amount on every driver’s frustration. [Source: 1, 7]
Violent crime in Cincinnati has been on the decline since its peak in 2002, with five of seven Part I offenses (robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, and auto theft) at their lowest point in the last 15 years. Overall, violent crime has been reduced by 30 percent from 2002 to 2014. [Sources: 8, 9] VIOLENT OFFENSES 15,000
-14.5%
ANNUAL DELAY PER COMMUTER: 12,000
9,000
= 41 HOURS*
-24.2%
*BY COMPARISON, THE ANNUAL DELAY PER COMMUTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C., WHICH RANKS WORST AMONG U.S. URBAN AREAS FOR COMMUTER DELAYS, IS 82 HOURS. 6,000
-76.8%
$
-42.1% 3,000
ANNUAL CONGESTION COST FOR CINCINNATI METRO
-43.2% -36.3%
0.7
45
PERCENT OF NATIONAL ANNUAL CONGESTION COST
RANK IN DELAY PER COMMUTER AMONG 101 LARGEST URBAN AREAS MEASURED
57.9%
23.1%
CINCINNATI RESIDENTS THAT WORK OUTSIDE THE CITY
CINCINNATI EMPLOYEES THAT LIVE IN THE CITY
0
RAPE
ROBBERY
AGGRAVATED ASSAULT
REPORTED CASES IN 2002
BURGLARY
THEFT
AVERAGE CASES PER YEAR, 2000–2014
REPORTED CASES IN 2014
ANNUAL HOMICIDES
HOMICIDE RATE PER 100,000 RESIDENTS
87
4.5
HOMICIDES IN 2006—HIGHEST NUMBER SINCE 2000
65.3 63 HOMICIDES IN 2014
NATIONAL
AVERAGE HOMICIDES, PER YEAR, FROM 2000 TO 2014
35
42.1%
76.9%
CINCINNATI RESIDENTS THAT WORK IN THE CITY
CINCINNATI EMPLOYEES THAT LIVE OUTSIDE THE CITY
AUTO THEFT
4.0 OHIO
21.1
HOMICIDES IN 2000—LOWEST NUMBER SINCE 2000
CINCINNATI
SOURCES:
A P P R OVA L R AT I N G
1. UC’s City of Cincinnati Economic Forecast, 2015 2. Pew Research Center, 2012 3. United States Census Bureau 4. FiveThirtyEight.com 5. Brown University’s American Communities Project 6. Gallup Poll, March 2015 7. Texas A&M Transportation Institute 8. City of Cincinnati Police Department 9. FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting 10. Gallup Poll, April 2015 11. Pew Research Center Poll, 2009
So who wants to live in Cincinnati? Not as many people as you may think. [Sources: 10, 11]
= 13% PERCENTAGE OF AMERICANS WHO SAY THEY WANT TO LIVE IN CINCINNATI
28 RANK AMONG 30 LARGEST METROPOLITAN AREAS
10* PERCENTAGE OF AMERICANS WHO SAY THEY WANT TO LIVE IN CLEVELAND *TAKE THAT, CLEVELAND!
(By comparison: 43 percent of Americans say they’d like to live in Denver, which makes it America’s most popular city.)
4 6 OHIO’S RANK AMONG 50 STATES IN WELL-BEING
91ST CINCINNATI’S RANK IN WELL-BEING AMONG THE 100 MOST POPULAR METROS
B L O C K PA R T Y
WHAT’S RIGHT ABOUT OAKLEY? For starters, it has all the stuff.
BY ALYSSA BRANDT
POPUL ATION: 10,429 | MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $230,900 | CHANGE SINCE 2010: 20%
Remember as a kid how your gang would always gather at one particular house? You know, the one with the pool and the plush rec room and the stocked fridge? Now that you’re an adult, Oakley is that house. Its central location and easy highway access make heading north or south a snap, and independent retail anchors like King Arthur’s Court Toys, Blue Manatee Books, Aglamesis Brothers, and Habits Café have helped attract home buyers over the past decade. The neighborhood has further juiced its destination rep with summertime events like Oakley After Hours and the Oakley Fancy Flea, which take place on the renovated central esplanade. But the last few years have seen an upsurge of hipster-bait businesses that include artisanal popsicles (Streetpops), indie coffee (Deeper Roots Coffee), and upscale eats (Sleepy Bee Café, Red Feather Kitchen, and Rooted Juicery + Kitchen). Now it’s an urban-style suburb where listed homes sell within hours. Oakley’s CRC pool is getting an upgrade, too: The new aquatic park, scheduled to debut in June 2016, will feature a slide, diving board, and splash pad. “Oakley has embraced my family and this business like you wouldn’t believe,” says Zach Eidson, who bought Oakley Wines on Allston Street in 2012. This fall, Eidson will uncork The Cellar at Oakley Wines, a 2,000-square-foot bar beneath his shop featuring beer, cocktails, and wine. The only thing lacking? Parking. “Parking is a downside,” says Eidson. “But when I get 100 people every Friday night for wine tastings, they’re finding a place somewhere.”
D O W N T H E R OA D
The nabe’s newest pop-up shop (and Oakley Fancy Flea regular), Gadabout Doughnuts features flavors like chocolate salted vanilla almond, blueberry
lemon, and strawberry rhubarb. Owner and resident Karina Rice offers free delivery for Oakley locations and events. Quince and Quinn’s grand new emporium in a former Bap-
tist church feels more Venice Boulevard than Madison Road and offers 9,000 square feet of eclectic furniture, home goods, and accessories as well as design services.
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WHAT’S WRONG WITH OAKLEY? Two words: Square footage.
BY RJ SMITH
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Blue Manatee and Sleepy Bee coowner Sandra Gross created Brazee Street Studios as a bright and airy urban artists’ colony devoted to glass-making, professional art studios, and gallery space on the site of an old tool and die factory.
The new Kroger Marketplace is a behemoth. But, says urbanologist John Yung , “there’s a long-term opportunity—those parking lots alone are so massive you might have the opportunity to gentrify them in the future on a human, walkable scale.
What if we looked at that drive lane in front more as a street, and then across from it we put in a sidewalk and space for small businesses, restaurants, and apartments with a parking garage in the rear?” It starts sounding like the Oakley we know.
The largest Kroger in the city—and the second largest in the world—just opened in the Oakley Station development. Coolness. So . . . how come it doesn’t seem so large in Oakley? It’s because with the big boxy buildings for Target, Meijer, Sam’s Club, Cinemark, and more around it— not to mention a parking lot that could accommodate a mid-sized community, boulevards the Red Army could parade down, and the supersized Crossroads Community Church campus nearby—one more enormo-edifice easily gets lost in the parade. Whenever he drives by the 74acre development that encompasses Oakley Station and two adjacent developments, former planning commissioner Caleb Faux sees one thing: “I still see a development that to me belongs on Fields Ertel Road in Mason, not in the city of Cincinnati.” He means it is suburban, meant for driving into from far away, not for living around. For years, the former Cincinnati Milacron site seemed rich with promise; there was talk of a dense, in-filled community. Talk of a Jungle Jim’s, a village-like shopping area threaded with sidewalks where people walked. That was in the early ’00s. What we ended up with is a vista of forgettable architecture in the middle of one of the otherwise most liveable communities in Cincinnati. Critics talk of back-room shenanigans; they describe a lack of public debate about making the area fit in with the community. In the end, we got the box you can drive your tanker to. “I see it as a lost opportunity,” says Faux.“We don’t have very many developable parcels inside of Cincinnati of that magnitude. We could have done a lot more with it.” NOVEMBER 2015
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CO M IN G IN THIRD Not work, not home, but that other place, where everybody knows your name. What’s the appeal? We’ve got the scoop. —AMANDA BOYD WALTERS
N E I G H B O R H O O D WAT C H
THE ARTS AMBASSADOR Ellen Muse-Lindeman, executive director of Kennedy Heights Arts Center, is fighting blight on Montgomery Road. In 2008, her organization rescued a deteriorating historic home, turning it into a haven for arts classes and gallery shows; in September, the $2.6 million Kennedy Heights Cultural Campus opened a performance and studio space just up the road on the site of an abandoned grocery store.
The Mercantile Library, mercantile library.com
Washington Park, washington park.org
THE A P P E A L Established in 1835 by 45 autodidactic merchants and clerks, the serene 11th floor aerie offers precious old-school solitude as well as opportunities to connect with other avid bookworms through discussion groups.
This is the city’s new crossroads, where families from OTR fill the playground as hipsters throng to City Flea and suburban symphony-goers meet urban dog owners as they stroll through après-concert.
HOW THE MAG I C HA P P E NS THE SMELL OF OLD BOOKS BROWSING THE SHELVES BOOKS QUIET NOOKS
TALKING ABOUT BOOKS
MUSIC HALL PARKING FRESH AIR/ DOG PARK/ PLAYGROUND
ALL THE EVENTS LUMENOCITY
HOW DID THE ARTS CENTER GET ITS START? The house [that the arts center
is in] was built in 1875 and it sat vacant for 10 years. When individuals from the area got word that someone wanted to buy the property to tear the building down, there was a rallying cry [to save] this beautiful old historic mansion. Two members of the group were artists and floated the idea of it being a community arts center. And that resonated with everyone. WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT FOR YOU? Some
of the best people I have ever known I have met through art engagements.
Cuts Plus Barbershop, cutsplusbarber shop.com
Price Hill Chili, pricehillchili. com
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT TO KENNEDY HEIGHTS? For each individual it’s impor-
tant because the arts provide opportunities for everyone to use their creativity. For the community, it’s important because the arts bring different people together. It breaks down barriers. It helps us have more empathy.
Western Bowl, westernbowl. sastn.com
HOW HAS IT CHANGED THE COMMUNITY?
Kennedy Heights is a really diverse and lively community, with lots of residents who have lived here for a long time. But when you drive down Montgomery Road, you don’t see that vibrancy because we’ve had such a decline in the business district. The development of the art center has and will continue to really change the landscape of the community, both the image that people see when they come [here], as well as just driving economic and community development. I see this as a neighborhood that is turning the corner. You’ll certainly see a lot more exciting things from here. —KEVIN SCHULTZ
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Crossroads Community Church, crossroads.net
Reser Bicycle Outfitters, reserbicycle. com
The old-school barber mural may not have made the trip to the new shop, but you’ll still feel like a regular the moment you hit one of the five chairs. Soak in the lively conversation.
This west side landmark is where you celebrate with your knothole team, recap the Elder game with your buddies, and bring your grandma for lunch after church.
In 2009 this bowling palace nearly closed. A last-minute sale allowed the legacy of Erv Hoinke Jr. to live on, as leagues and families take to the lanes seven days a week.
Live music, free coffee, and a welcoming atmosphere are just part of the story. This faith community has grown each of its five locations with a commitment to connection, a dedication to serving others, and a strong entrepreneurial streak.
As this region becomes more bike-friendly, folks who travel on two wheels need places to gear up, cool off, and connect— and they can do all three at this Newport spot.
RELATIONSHIP ADVICE DAILY NEWS PRECISION CUTS
WITTY BANTER GOLDEN FLEECE LOUNGE BREAKFAST ALL DAY CHILI
ELDER SPORTS BUMPER BOWLING
BOWLING LEAGUES HOINKE CLASSIC
AWAITED HOLIDAY SHOW
FIVE LOCATIONS
FREE COFFEE FAITH
SERVING OTHERS
BIKE-UP COFFEE WINDOW DEMO DAYS
ORGANIZED RIDES
FREE AIR
BIKES AND GEAR
KNOWLEDGEABLE STAFF
P H OTO G R A P H BY N ATA L I E J E A N N E P H OTO G R A P H Y
T H E P L AC E
B L O C K PA R T Y
B L O C K PA R T Y
WESTWOOD’S WORK IS PAYING OFF
Madisonville Is a Diamond in the Rough
This classic west side district is making itself over.
BY LISA MURTHA
Look past that first impression and you’ll see a creative enclave. POPUL ATION: 9,141 | MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $77,999 | CHANGE SINCE 2010: 82.2% BY JENNY BURMAN ounded by New Jersey pioneers in 1809, Madisonville may be something of an underdog in F the Cincinnati Neighborhood Olympics. It once was a thriving suburb, which the city annexed in 1911, and has a long history of racial diversity that continues (photographs of school children in 1895, 1905, and 1941 show African-American children among a majority white student population). The area began to decline in the 1960s, and signs of that are plentiful. But there is magic in the district’s moody atmospherics—its railway trestles and Italian Villa houses, some of which are landmarked in the Madison-Stewart Historic District. The area draws creative types who like the affordable rents, sleepy pace, and the integrity of so much of the vintage architecture, including a number of old churches. On Madison Road, the main artery, Madison Clayworks offers studio space, classes, and pottery for sale. Way on the other side of the neighborhood lies the luxury Red Dog Pet Resort & Spa as well as Mazunte, a hot Oaxacan-style taqueria that recently added outdoor tables. Then there’s REAL Human Performance, a chic-looking body-builders’ gym, on Plainville Road near Mariemont. Did we mention community spirit? The 500 Gardens in Madisonville program aims to help 500 households, many of which inhabit large lots, establish kitchen gardens. On top of all that—or really, beneath it—the land was home to various Native American peoples from the 1100s to the 1600s, and was the site of several important archeological digs in the late 19th century. History lives here.
D O W N T H E R OA D
The French Rendez-vous is a fabric importer/gift shop/ café with garden tables where visitors can enjoy coffee and croissants or pain-aux-raisins.
queria offers an array of tacos and other specialties (pozole!) from Oaxaca with fresh sauces and big glass vats of horchata and lemonade. Tecates are in the cooler, next to the Mexican Cokes.
A destination for anyone hungering for a taste of regional Mexican cuisine, Mazunte ta-
Madisonville’s big box footprint just got bigger and boxier. Madison Center, $124
Few communities can say that a band of puppets is helping lead their revitalization efforts; Westwood would be the exception. Madcap Puppets Executive Director John Lewandowski led the charge to purchase and renovate the old Cincinnati & Suburban Bell exchange building. When complete, it’ll be a nearly 200-seat theater and
“puppet production facility.” Every fall since 2008, Westwood closes down the stretch of Harrison Avenue between Montana and Epworth and hosts an art show packed with artists, musicians, and food vendors on the Town Hall grounds. This year’s event saw the biggest crowd ever—2,500 attendees.
million worth of mixed-use development at the intersection of Madison and Red Bank Expressway, will consist of office and commercial spaces, a conference center, and a chain hotel plunked next door to Medpace Inc. Not everyone here is happy about it, but it’s expected to bring upwards of 700 jobs to Madisonville.
D O W N T H E R OA D
It’s been a year since Tom Lorenz and his son Adam opened Tap & Screw Brewery in the former Tom & Jerry’s Sports Bar on Crookshank Road. Locals may have been leery at first, but word on the street is it’s a great place to grab a pint.
POPUL ATION: 29,950 | MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $60,250 | CHANGE SINCE 2010: -15.1%
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“It might not be visible yet,” says Elizabeth Bartley, executive director of Westwood Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation, but years of behindthe-scenes work should soon show results for Westwood’s Central Business District. Cincinnati awarded the community a $250,000 capital grant to rework the Town Hall property—great news for nearby mainstays like Henke Winery and Tom Bonhaus Auto Service. Plans are also in the works for a restaurant in the decommissioned firehouse and a brewery in the old KS Design building, both just a stone’s throw away. Equally inspiring is the way this community’s myriad civic organizations work to draw people together. Westwood Works rotates meeting sites at various neighborhood businesses “so residents will become more familiar with them,” says founding member John Eby. The same group also organizes everything from choral concerts to popup beer gardens to free movie nights and farmers’ markets in the area, too. And community supporters have welcomed former Northside-based nonprofit Cincinnati Urban Promise (CUP) with open arms to an old nursing home facility at Harrison and McHenry. CUP will offer services such as literacy training, a soup kitchen, and daycare “smack dab in an area that needs it,” says Mary Jenkins, president of the Westwood Civic Association. Add up all these changes, says Eby, and it’s clear that “we’re moving the needle in Westwood, and people are noticing.”
TO HEAR KEVIN WRIGHT AND A HOST OF NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISTS TELL THE TALE, THE RESURRECTION IS NIGH. BUT IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING. 70
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B Y A LY S S A K O N E R M A N N PHOTOGRAPH BY RICK LOHRE
DECEMBER 2013
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SEPTEMBER 12, 1940: A N E W - M O D E L F O R D P U L L S A W AY from the curb and heads west on East McMillan, passing a woman who’s little more than a blur on a bike. A man stands still, just a few steps into the street, debating his next move as pedestrians weave around him on the sidewalks and streets. Streetcar wires web the sky. Peebles Grocery closed nine years ago—so it goes when a depression hits—but the corner building has already been remade: Under a towering spire advertising the Paramount Theater, the rotunda at Gilbert and East McMillan sports window signs for Franklin Life Insurance Co., Paige Beauty Salon (air conditioned!), and McDevitt menswear shop, with full window displays and large striped awnings. Turnabout, starring Adolphe Menjou, is currently playing just down the block, and a tangle of signs and cars and people and shops stretch on beyond the camera’s frame. SEPTEMBER 12, 2015: IT’S BEEN RAINing all day, and a deep chill hangs in the air. A few couples walk hand-in-hand up Park Avenue; a drum beat thumps through the walls of the Brew House. It’s 7:45 p.m. and Music Off McMillan is underway. A man leans and wails on a saxophone in front of Cuts Plus barbershop, standing on freshly poured sidewalks under the glow of bright new streetlights. Up the street another guy settles back in a chair, his gaze and electric guitar notes fading into the Kroger parking lot. Further than their sound can reach, an acoustic guitarist stands outside of Fireside Pizza’s open sliding stacker doors. He’s got one avid listener sitting next to him, while the rest keep warm inside. Down around the corner at The Greenwich, a neighborhood mainstay for two decades, the night’s closing band prepares to play, while the bar seats fill up across the street at Angst Coffeehouse. 72
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N 1960, THE POPULATION OF Walnut Hills was 20,658. In 1980, it was down to 9,907. And in 2010? 6,495. Although there may be fewer of them these days, the resident leaders—old and new blood alike—are fiercely committed to the neighborhood and its renewal. They’re serious about doing it their way, a.k.a. the Walnut Hills Way. That means not wiping the slate clean to build a shiny new place to play, not disregarding the existing residents, not sacrificing the historic character and diversity of the neighborhood, not accepting any development without first taking a close look at what it will ultimately entail. Yet it also means a dogged effort to jumpstart the Walnut Hills economy, to again fill the sidewalks and storefronts and homes, to build anew on vacant land, to re-energize a onceprominent part of town. It’s one neighborhood’s effort, anchored by the dedication of a few longtime advocates and propelled by a recently reinvigorated redevelopment foundation. But it’s also a grand experiment in whether equitable urban redevelopment is possible—here, or anywhere. It’s early May, a so-this-is-climatechange kind of warm day. At a sidewalk table outside of Fireside Pizza, one of those leaders, Fred Orth, describes his plans to reinstate a 79-inch-tall, 3,979-pound bearded green limestone man across the street, in a vacant lot he’s transforming into Green Man Park. Carved by David Hummel (the stonemason whose work can be seen at City Hall and the Eden Park reservoir pump station), Green Man held court at that corner of East McMillan and Chatham from the 1880s until the building it was a part of was unceremoniously knocked down in 1991. Orth has been a neighborhood fixture for some time: He bought up several brownstones on Morris Street in 1973 during a spate of foreclosures, though it took a few years to get them rehabbed and into the hands of friends. “Nobody would loan on them because the neighborhood was I
THE NEXT REEL The Paramount building—in 1940 (top) and 2015 (bottom)—anchors Peebles Corner. Long-neglected by previous owners, in September WHRF purchased the building for redevelopment.
redlined,” he says. “They don’t do that,” he adds, sarcastically referring to the bankers he approached back then, though that practice most definitely had a hand in shaping the neighborhood’s present. Orth persisted and has been active in Walnut Hills ever since. Before leaving to tour the park and visit Green Man at his temporary home at HGC Construction, Orth hands over a thick green plastic pen emblazoned with perhaps the most bold and hopeful marketing slogan for any of Cincinnati’s 52 neighborhoods: Historic Walnut Hills 200 Yrs of Diversity Just North of Eden. H E N LY M A N B E E C H E R showed up in 1832, the riverboat was king, Cincinnati was booming, and land north of the Ohio was indeed a kind of Eden to the more than 2 million slaves in the antebellum South. The boom was so big that back east, the powers that be worried these western hinterlands would become lawless freefor-alls without some moral oversight. Thankfully, the Presbyterians were on the case. Beecher came to run Lane Theological Seminary, founded in 1829 on land carved from Reverend James Kemper’s farm, Walnut Hill (where Thomson-MacConnell Cadillac stands today), with his family— including his 21-year-old daughter, Harriet, whose book Uncle Tom’s Cabin would eventually cause such a public uproar about slavery that Abraham Lincoln reportedly called it “the book that made this great war.” What happened at Lane went on to influence how Walnut Hills would identify itself far into the future. With the Emancipation Proclamation still three decades away, public opinion in the North was split on the institution of slavery; even when white citizens were against it, they leaned heavily toward the concept of repatriation and colonization—re-purchasing Southern slaves and shipping them back to Africa. This was problematic not only logistically but in its fundamental ignorance of the slaves’ humanity. “That prejudice, that racism—this is what lit up [Lane seminarian] Theodore Weld,” says Chris DeSimio, president of the Friends of Harriet Beecher Stowe House, which operates the home today. “So when he came here to look for a place to ‘win the battle of the West,’ he was going after colonization.” Weld sponsored a W
P H OTO G R A P H S : ( TO P ) C I N C I N N AT I M U S E U M C E N T E R / ( B OT TO M ) A A R O N M . C O N WAY
series of debates over 18 nights in February 1834 to argue the issue of colonization vs. abolition, the first known public discussion of the issue anywhere in the country. More fiery revival meeting than prosaic public assembly, it caused something of a scandal and attracted boisterous crowds. In the end, the seminarians, who came to be known as the Lane Rebels, resoundingly voted for immediate abolition, and also went to work among the free black population downtown, treating them as equals. This made the seminary’s trustees nervous enough to forbid any more public talk of abolition, so the students left Lane and carried their fight to Oberlin College. Nearly two centuries later, this past feels quite present for many in the neighborhood, little known as this particular slice of history may be to the city at large. Kathy Atkinson—by all accounts and introductions a feet-to-the-fire sort of force, the very face of tough love—has been working in and for Walnut Hills since 1993. She started by tutoring high-risk teens through her then-job at New Thought Unity Center and eventually went on to spearhead a grant project that resulted in the Vision 2010 plan, agreed upon and codified by both the Walnut Hills and East Walnut Hills community councils—a first. “What happened in that corridor—in Lane Seminary, in the Stowe House— is who we are,” she says, her voice filling with emotion. “But so many people don’t know that story. So that’s what we work for. Then you have Ferguson, then you have Baltimore—and then you have your
SLOW BURN Fireside Pizza opened in September 2014, in an historic firehouse barely saved from the wrecking ball.
neighborhood. So we have to be that place. We started that story. We just have to keep writing it. That’s why I do what I do.” What Atkinson does is constantly fight for the renewal of Walnut Hills, and for that renewal to unfold equitably, whether dealing with the physical impact of the new I-71 interchange or the social impact of a new housing development.“We have to tap into the soul of the neighborhood—and yet be very practical about how,” she says. “You can’t just go around and expect everyone to want to fund your recovery based on somebody else’s history. You have to be a vital part of the history you’re writing today.” T’S 9:45 A.M. ON A WEDNESday in the middle of July. Jackhammers are already making a loud racket on East McMillan, busting up concrete and laying the work for the new sidewalks, trees, lighting, and signage coming to the block—the kinds of things urban planners get really excited about but will take residents a while to fully appreciate. Just past Kemper, two guys in cherry pickers carefully repair the 120-year-old masonry on the facades of Phase 1 of the Trevarren Flats project. Out back, drywall is hoisted through windows as a century’s worth of debris is piled into a dumpster. “These buildings were bad,” says Bobby Maly, chief operating officer of Model Group, which is running the gut rehab that will turn the three (long unoccupied) buildings into 30 market-rate apartments and 7,000 square feet of commercial space. “They took on a ton of water. There was fire [damage], asbestos, mold, lead— all the good stuff.” Construction started in February, and it’s moving fast: To meet historic tax credit and investor demands, I
they only have until December 31 to get a certificate of occupancy. Getting this project going was critical for the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation (WHRF). What they’re aiming to do—breathe new life and economic activity into an urban neighborhood that has suffered decades of disinvestment, in a way that respects its character and existing residents—has not been massively successful as a municipal gambit, here or elsewhere. The story, according to Kevin Wright, the executive director of WHRF, typically goes that“as a place begins to change and people begin to move in and investment begins to occur, the soul of the community—the culture and the history—is pushed aside. The question becomes how do you move the community forward in a way that respects that soul?” Wright and his colleagues at WHRF are determined to find out. So far, the leading strategy has been to create and shape a specific sort of demand, which allows WHRF some leverage over what will fill
P H O T O G R A P H S : T R E V A R R E N F L A T S ( L E F T ) A LY S S A K O N E R M A N N , ( R I G H T ) A A R O N M . C O N W A Y/ F I R E S I D E P I Z Z A ( L E F T ) A N D R E W S T A H L K E , ( R I G H T ) A A R O N M . C O N W A Y
GOING UP Construction is underway on Phase 1 of the Trevarren Flats project (two of the three buildings are shown here).
it. The foundation’s aim is to attract businesses (Wright invokes Fireside Pizza and Angst Coffeehouse as two prime examples) that see something—aesthetically, demographically, geographically—in the neighborhood’s bones; something WHRF’s events, such as the Five Points Biergarten, have helped to facilitate. “They’re not choosing it because it’s the next Over-theRhine, the next Northside, or the next Hyde Park. They’re choosing it because of the people, because of the community,” says Wright. “The gentrification problem isn’t going to get solved easily, but I feel like that’s [a start].” The fact that Walnut Hills already had a thoroughly discussed and documented community vision—the result of years of work, with resident and stakeholder input, wrangled by Kathy Atkinson—certainly doesn’t hurt, and neither does her continued eye on things. It’s no secret that Walnut Hills has grappled with high unemployment and generational poverty for decades. A Community Building Institute assessment earlier this year put the neighborhood’s unemployment rate at 25.4 percent for adults ages 16 and up—with staggering rates for the young (45.2 percent for 16- to 24-year-olds) and black (35.8 percent for black adults vs. 6.6 percent for white adults)—and noted that 46.3 percent of families lived below the poverty line. To chip away at these seemingly intractable issues, Atkinson helped
coordinate a job bank with Model Group and other community organizations to put neighborhood residents to work on Trevarren Flats (which the developer says has been successful), and WHRF ran a youth ambassador program this summer with funding from Easter Seals. Model Group’s approach to development suits what WHRF is trying to do: They’re for-profit, but with a concentration on neighborhood transformation. They prefer to work in areas that have been on some level neglected, areas that make most banks run the other way when it comes to loans. And they don’t go at it piecemeal. “What we get excited about is trying to figure out what pressure points are there. What specific buildings or types of projects can we do to have an impact?” says Maly. “How can we start to recreate a sense of place in a block like this that has a lot of vacancy and blight?” Which explains why they went straight for the heart: Peebles Corner.“To have your front door have a high degree of vacancy and boarded-up buildings—that affects the rest of the neighborhood,” Maly says.
HE BOTTOM LINE IS BUSIness, and there are reasons— in the bedrock and the buildings—that developers are paying attention to Walnut Hills. The first rule is always location, and that’s been to the neighborhood’s advantage since its founding, when those with means began leaving the basin for the ’burbs. It’s minutes from both downtown and Uptown, with easy access to the east and west sides. It also has really good bones. There’s stunning historic architecture. There’s Eden Park. There’s Krohn Conservatory (and the Cincinnati Art Museum on the edge). It was built as a dense, walkable urban neighborhood—all the trigger words for what the market wants now. Less tangible but no less significant, says Maly, is the “tremendous support and community buy-in for what they want to do. The WHRF is doing a lot with a little. I think that’s all because of good leadership with the community. There’s no such thing as unanimous consent, but I would say 90 percent agree on 90 percent of what general direction they want to go in.” T
“How do we bring in new investment but not do the gentrification route and kick everybody out?” Laura Davis asks. “It’s definitely harder.” Model Group also didn’t jump in clueless: The city, WHRF, and the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority (with help from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and Place Matters funding), have been strategically acquiring parcels on the corner and along East McMillan (see the map on page 60). Plans for future phases of the Trevarren project—encompassing the southeast and northeast blocks of Peebles Corner—are in the works. “We would not be doing this if it was just a one-off,” says Maly.“Not only would that be bad business, it would defeat the purpose of what we’re really trying to do, which is to be a part of a complete redevelopment of this corridor.”
On top of that, there’s diversity—in race but also in age and income, hitting all steps of the ladder from extreme poverty to extreme wealth.“I can’t think of another neighborhood in Cincinnati where everyone kind of just lives in the same environment and gets along for the most part,”says developer Ed Horgan of AGID Properties. “It happens that diversity, from a purely economic standpoint, is also a really valuable brand because it’s so different,” says Kevin Wright. And this list of reasons? It’s the same that many residents cite for moving to or staying in the neighborhood. H o rga n • CO N T I N U E D O N PAG E 1 0 5 NOVEMBER 2015
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Wealthy men and pretty college girls have always managed to find each other, since the first hunter-gatherer real estate mogul met the first Kappa Kappa Cave Girl... Student loans are a real bummer, am I right ladies? But why work at the dining hall when you can be a professional girlfriend?
now, thanks to SeekingArrangement.com, a dating website “where beautiful, Successful people fuel mutually beneficial relationships,” we can all bear witness to the ethically hazy and legally precarious relationship between Sugar Babies and their Sugar Daddies.
Earlier this year I saw a report on “Sugar Baby Universities”-that is, colleges with the highest number of SeekingArrangement.com accounts.
I guess it’s the proximity to { sexy } Cleveland, Ohio.
Inexplicably, Kent State was pretty high on the list...
I resolved to find out, and pitched the idea at our monthly story meeting.
But what about Cincinnati? We have cute college girls!
So it’s not prostitution? …But seriously: Do they get money for sex?
Or at least pimping?
No idea, guys. { 76 }
november 2015
I started by setting up a profile on the site. You’re not supposed to use your real name (duh), so I had to think of a handle.
I can’t believe that name isn’t taken. Score!
Who better than fearless crime fighting reporter and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle advocate April O’Neil?
Journalists aren’t exactly allowed to snoop around on the site, so I fully anticipated being booted off once I attempted to reach out to any users. And get booted off I did. But not before I had a good look around. Here’s some kinda gross stuff that I learned!
You can’t message people unless you post a real picture of yourself. Because this site is about trust, you know?
You get a free membership upgrade with a .edu e-mail address. Newsflash: Older dudes dig young college girls!
If you want to succeed as a Sugar Baby--or at least understand what you’re reading--there are some acronyms and key terms that you should know: BCD: Behind Closed Doors; FWB: Friends With Benefits; NSA: No Strings Attached; “Mutually Beneficial” (that’s code for “will provide sex for money”--or vice versa).
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november 2015
I figured I should meet some Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies IRL (that’s In Real Life). So I sat down with Yvette, Jamie, and Fernando.* Yvette joined the site with her friends as a joke, but now she makes upwards of $1,500 a month in “allowance” payments from her gentleman friend. She uses the money to pay her bills while she finishes school.
Sometimes he gives me cash, and sometimes he just deposits money into my PayPal account, since it’s so convenient for me.
College student Jamie refers to herself as a “normal” girl, and by that she means she won’t slash your tires or show up crying at your job if the relationship sours. She guesses that’s why she’s had some luck on the site (to the tune of about $2,000 a month).
Fernando is a middle-aged European entrepreneur who is just trying to have a good time. He doesn’t understand all the fuss about monogamy in America.
I have a Sunday guy. Do you call him Mr. Sunday?
I’m looking for someone who can blow my mind. Like, can you BLOW MY MIND?!
No thank you, Fernando.
That’s really romantic.
See, she’s normal. She wears glasses!
*Names changed to protect the identities of the Sugar People.
The folks at SeekingArrangement.com are not shy about what they do. But I still wanted to hear the company philosophy straight from the horse’s mouth. So I called up Their corporate P.R. rep. Prostitution is the exchange of sex for money. And that’s {not} what happens on the site.
So, How is this not prostitution?
What do you say to people who suggest that these relationships set up the potential for prostitution--or at the very least, create an icky power dynamic between young broke women and older rich men?
A lot of times, the people who are criticizing the site are the ones who are not the wealthy elite or not young women. If you’re out of those two realms, you think there’s something wrong.
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november 2015
So…they’re just jealous? No! HAHAHAHA. No. I’m not saying that. Exactly. Just that, you know, they aren’t as attractive or wealthy. So…
right. SeekingArrangement.com is pretty proud of how many college students it attracts. And there are more than a few in Greater Cincinnati, including (at press time) 79 at NKU, 49 at Xavier, 156 at Miami, and 262 at UC, for a grand total of 546 Cincinnati-based Sugar Baby college girls. Want to be one of them? Herewith, the 10 Commandments of the Sugar Daddy Search: the winner!
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november 2015
This is a story about planning to host a CD-release show at a Clifton coffee shop and five years later landing on stage alongside the Rolling Stones. It’s a Cincinnati story, about overplaying local bars to build a name and fan base, and eventually becoming the biggest rock group the city has ever produced. It’s a story about all the right stuff— timing and talent and luck and hard work. But perhaps what it’s mostly about is the marketing power of face paint.
emerge from Cincinnati. “The Isley Brothers?” he suggested. The answer is no. The Isleys were indeed from Lincoln Heights but they did not really establish themselves until relocating to Teaneck, New Jersey. Similarly, The National didn’t really become The National until the guys in the band transplanted to New York. The Afghan Whigs? Nope. The Whigs are a band beloved for making music in a particular intersection on the ’90s-alt rock Venn diagram, but their fans are dwarfed by the number of face-painted obsessives who fill amphitheaters when WTM comes to town. “I guess you might be right,” he finally said. “We’ll take it.” There is no fake modesty in Petricca’s response. There’s no genuine modesty, either, and no boast. It’s just a plainly spoken acceptance of fact. He works his ass off, and he has a humongous following to show for it. “They’re working harder now than when they were driving themselves
THE HARDEST WORKING BAND IN SHOW BUSINESS? From left: Sean Waugaman, Nicholas Petricca, Kevin Ray, and Eil Maiman of Walk The Moon—sans face paint.
PHOTOGRAPH BY SHERVINFOTO
T
What we’re talking about here is Walk The Moon, the band that refused to become a fluke. A band that established a Midwest foothold on its own and are now conquering the rest of the world with the help of a dedicated “team” of management, legal advisors, and record label support. The band’s managers, past and present, are the ones who tell the story. They can explain in plain terms how Walk The Moon made it from Point A (complete unknowns) to Point B (buzz band) to Point C (pop stars). They also offer a warning: No Cincinnati band should attempt to copy the same formula and expect the same result. At the center of everything is Nicholas Petricca, the lead singer, keyboardist, and frontman of Walk The Moon. Petricca started the band eight years ago at Kenyon College and is the only remaining original member. His vision and drive have fueled Walk The Moon’s relentless onslaught of Top 40 teenage utopian pop-rock and generated the warm, welcoming vibes that pulsate through their breakthrough video “Anna Sun” and their ubiquitous radio cut “Shut Up and Dance.” That song alone broke Walk The Moon with new audiences pretty much everywhere. In June, they hometownheadlined the Bunbury Festival. In July, they played a mid-afternoon set at Lollapalooza in Chicago that had the energy and audience draw of a headlining show; opened for the Stones in Detroit; and returned to Cincinnati to play at the Home Run Derby the day before the AllStar Game. In August, they performed at MTV’s Video Music Awards. “Shut Up and Dance” has gone platinum in countries as far-flung as Sweden, Australia, and Germany, not to mention the United States. Attention Earthlings: Resistance is futile. Not too surprisingly, the weight and import of their pop cultural impact has not fully settled in. Petricca was on his way to Japan for the band’s first shows there when he picked up the phone and put up a bit of a fight against the notion that his is the biggest rock band to
around in the van playing gymnasiums,” says Michael McDonald, who manages the band from his office in Brooklyn. McDonald has managed John Mayer and cofounded ATO Records. Which is to say: He’s worked with some genuine stars in the pop-rock firmament. Still, the work ethic of Petricca and his bandmates—Eli Maiman, guitar; Kevin Ray, bass; Sean Waugaman, drums—impresses him. “They are the hardest working band that I’ve worked with,” McDonald says. “They’re tireless in their dedication to their career.” Petricca confirmed this, honestly and avidly. “It was never a question of whether or not to do the work and put in the effort,” he told me. “When we were on our own, I like to say that we were reckless. Recklessly booking shows, booking as many as possible in as many different places around town as possible, and as we started to grow, in as many different cities as we could. That wound up putting us in a lot of shitty gigs that we probably
didn’t need to play. But it was all part of our growth that got us to the point that we met Michael and the other industry people who teamed up with us. Once we finally had guidance and people with experience directing us to the best possible outlets and interviews and gigs, it was great. We just ate it all up. We continue to work as hard as we can. Sometimes it’s too much. We’re definitely a ‘yes’ band. We say ‘yes’ to almost everything.”
I
F ALL OF THE ABOVE
sounds like Petricca and company ripped a page right out of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success—specifically, the one where the author invokes the 10,000-hours-of-practice-rule as the key to eventual success for such masters of our universe as Bill Gates and the Beatles—well, yeah. But it takes a mess of help to get to the top, too. Katie Carlson was introduced to Walk The Moon’s music by a friend in 2009,
when she was a high school senior in Columbus and they were an unsigned, relatively unknown band from the Queen City. She caught Petricca’s attention at a promotional show the band played at the Gap at Easton Town Center by standing up front and singing every word. The two talked afterwards and kept in touch. Carlson describes their relationship as one in which she became his “friend-ager”—friend + manager—lending a hand with management duties out of loyalty (read: gratis) when she enrolled at Butler University later that fall. That basically amounted to handing out burned CDs on campus and booking their gigs in Indianapolis, but it’s how she ended up at Petricca’s side in 2010 when they made the video that started the buzz. (Carlson now gets paid for her efforts; she works for McDonald and handles the band’s day-to-day obligations.) The “Anna Sun” video ties everything together in the Walk The Moon origin story: the up-tempo catchiness of the tune, the gloss of positivity, the inclusive vibe, and the colorful face paint favored by both the band and its fans. Carlson says the face paint is inspired by a scene in the Robin Williams movie Hook, in which a food fight is imagined as a paint battle. The face paint has since turned into a semi-official thing. Fans show up to shows wearing it and band members have adopted their own individual looks, like a bunch of dance-pop Ace Frehleys. Carlson sees the paint as a potent ingredient in the band’s success. “When Nick and the guys were out touring in a place they’d never been before, they would go into the audience with a plate full of paint, and he’d say, ‘Hi, I’m Nick. My band is playing here in 30 minutes. We’re called Walk The Moon, and part of our show ritual is we paint faces. Can we paint your face?’ ” she says.“In that way, people made a personal connection with the guys in the band and then they paid attention to the show, and it was a memorable experience. It was this community feeling, that feeling that we’re all in this together. My face is painted so I’m going to • C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 1 0
NOVEMBER 2015
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT Meet the elected officials of Symmes Township.
4 OVERVIEW & NEIGHBORHOODS Learn about the township’s history and communities.
04
8 PARKS & RECREATION Explore hundreds of acres of parkland and plenty of ways to experience nature.
12 DINING, SHOPPING, & MORE
08
Discover great shops, places to feast, and more ways to have fun.
14 EDUCATION Examine top-ranked educational opportunities.
16 MAP
12
12
DID YOU KNOW? Symmes Township was formed in 1824.
14 S YM M ES T O W NSH I P
Cover and this page: Photos by Jeremy Kramer / Bottom, this page: Photo courtesy Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy
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WELCOME
SYMMES TOWNSHIP BOARD OF TRUSTEES Philip J. Beck, President Kenneth N. Bryant, Vice President Jodie L. Leis, Trustee Carol A. Sims, Fiscal Officer 9323 Union Cemetery Road Symmes Township, OH 45140-9312 Tel: (513) 683-6644 Fax: (513) 683-6626 symmestownship.org PRODUCED BY
DEAR GREATER CINCINNATI, Welcome to Symmes Township! Our community is situated in the northeast corner of Hamilton County, was formed in 1824, and bears the name of John Cleves Symmes, who made the Miami Purchase in 1788, which led to the founding of Cincinnati. Symmes Township is nine square miles of the best that suburban life has to offer, including:
Publisher Ivy Bayer
• A premier residential community, including seven Homearama sites in the last 20 years and boasting nearly 40 residential subdivisions
EDITORIAL & ART
• Multiple diverse business districts, including Fields Ertel, Governor’s Hill, Montgomery Road corridor (including Harper’s Point), and the Loveland Madeira Road corridor
Creative Services Editor Sue Goldberg Art Director Jen Kawanari Production Manager Julie Whitaker Digital Media Editor Amy Brownlee ADVERTISING & FINANCE Advertising Director Tammy Vilaboy Custom Publishing Account Manager Maggie Wint Goecke Senior Account Representative Matt Reis Account Representative Jenny Swain Senior Outside Representative Laura Bowling Advertising & Marketing Designer Emily Nevius
• An abundance of parks, which offer a wide range of recreational variety, including nine township parks (totaling nearly 200 acres), the 77-acre Lake Isabella county park, and a section of the 70-mile Little Miami Scenic Trail state park • Highly ranked schools, including both private and three public school districts (Sycamore, Loveland, and Indian Hill) • Amazing history, including the Civil War–era community of Camp Dennison • Easy access to all points via I-71 and I-275 Symmes Township offers very high quality public works and administrative services and nationally accredited safety services. In addition, Symmes Township residents and workers enjoy zero earnings tax! We invite you to visit our community and see for yourself why nearly 15,000 residents and more than 500 businesses are proud to call Symmes Township home. Symmes Township is a healthy, vibrant, and prosperous community—both family and business friendly!
Marketing Director Chris Ohmer EDITORIAL/ADVERTISING OFFICES
Carew Tower 441 Vine Street, Suite 200 Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 Phone: (513) 421-4300 Fax: (513) 562-2788 Subscriptions: 1-800-846-4333 cincinnatimagazine.com
S YM MEST OW NSH I P.ORG
Phil Beck, Trustee
Ken Bryant, Trustee
Jodie Leis, Trustee
Carol Sims, Fiscal Officer
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TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT
ELECTED OFFICIALS A three-member board of trustees and a fiscal officer govern Symmes Township. The board develops policy and oversees the township government.
Symmes Township Board of Trustees PHIL BECK, PRESIDENT Phil Beck was first elected to the board of trustees in November 2007. He is dedicated to providing professional service to the residents of Symmes Township. Beck graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1988 with a bachelor of science degree in architecture. He is a registered architect in the states of Ohio and California. In 1996 Phil graduated from the University of Berkeley with a master of science degree in construction management. He has 29 years of combined experience in the management of complex public programs including transit, sports, aviation, military, parking and roadway structures, and wastewater facilities. Beck is currently the project executive for both the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County on The Banks project on Cincinnati’s riverfront. Since 1999 Beck has been honored to serve as an officer in the United States Navy, Civil Engineering Corps (including the Seabees). He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). Beck and his wife, Suzanne, have been residents of Symmes Township since 2000. They have three children in the Indian Hill School District. Beck enjoys serving as an assistant scoutmaster and supporting his children in their extracurricular activities. He and his family enjoy traveling to National Parks, seeing places of significance to American history, and visiting an occasional sunny beach. He can be reached at beckfortrustee@fuse.net.
KEN BRYANT, VICE PRESIDENT Ken Bryant is originally from Northern Kentucky and is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Engineering. Bryant and his family have lived in the Calumet Farm subdivision in Symmes Township for more than 25 years. He has been a Symmes Township trustee for 10 years and has two more years to serve on his current term. Bryant and his wife, Jean, have been married for 45 years and enjoy being active in many religious, academic, and civic activities. Their adult children, Angela and Gregory, and their granddaughter, Jordyn Bryant, are graduates of Sycamore High School. Bryant has a wealth of business experience. Prior to his retirement from industry, he had a long and successful business career as a manager and senior staff engineer at GE Aircraft Engines. His 35 years of engineering and management experience included both personnel and program leadership in both product design and engine systems integration. During his industrial career, Bryant successfully managed several multi-million dollar contracts and technical programs. Bryant is an active member of the Montgomery Community Church and loves golf, volleyball, DIY projects, and family travel. He can be reached at (513) 489-1886 or by e-mail at kennethbryant@fuse.net.
DID YOU KNOW? The township takes its name from John Cleves Symmes (1742–1814) who completed the Miami Purchase in 1788, which led to the founding of Cincinnati.
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DID YOU KNOW? Santa and his helpers have distributed more than 7,200 treat bags to Symmes Township kids since the Operation Santa program began in 2002. In return, more than 4,800 toys have been donated to the Toys for Tots program.
JODIE LEIS, TRUSTEE Jodie Leis was elected to the board of trustees in 2001. She graduated from Mother of Mercy High School and attended the University of Cincinnati where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing. Leis has been employed with the Hamilton County Adult Probation Department since 1989. She worked as an intensive supervision probation officer for 15 years and is currently employed as the director of community service. She is married to a Loveland-Symmes firefighter, Jack George, and has three children: McKenzie, Bailey, and Remington. McKenzie attends Nova Southeastern University, working towards an anesthesiologist assistant degree, and Bailey and Remington attend Loveland High School. Leis is committed to a fiscally responsible government, providing quality services while keeping taxes as low as possible. She feels it is important to connect neighborhoods to libraries, schools, and parks through the township’s sidewalk program. She has developed two parks, Home of the Brave and Hopewell Park, since serving as trustee. She promotes fitness in the township by organizing Yoga in the Park, Get Fit Symmes Township, and Walk and Get Fit programs. She is involved in the community through school, youth sports programs, and volunteering. Leis also feels that family is the key to a great community and brings the community together through events in the township. She can be reached at jodie.leis@gmail.com.
CAROL A. SIMS, FISCAL OFFICER Carol A. Sims started with Symmes Township in 1989 and served as the assistant fiscal officer. Her duties included all financial aspects of township government—from the day-to-day financial operation to providing assistance in the development of the annual budget and year-end reports. She was secretary to the zoning commission and the board of zoning appeals, as well as other various committees. She was responsible for the computerizing of the accounting and cemetery records, played an integral role in the development of the township zoning resolution, and worked for the establishment of the Symmes Township Historical Society. Sims was first elected to the fiscal officer position in November 2013. Prior to that, the board of trustees had appointed her to the post, taking the place of long time Fiscal Officer John Borchers, who retired in March 2013 after 20 years of service. Sims is also the cemetery sexton and manages the township’s three cemeteries. Sims is pleased to have the opportunity to continue working for the residents of Symmes Township and is honored to be entrusted with the financial management and oversight of our tax dollars. She continues to be a great source of knowledge and experience. Sims resides in the historic Camp Dennison area and is actively involved with St. Andrew Church in Milford. She is current president of the Symmes Township Historical Society and worked toward the restoration of the 1830s Ross Family Log House located in Meade Park. She enjoys being active with other organizations. She can be reached at (513) 683-6644 ext. 304 or at csims@symmestownship.org.
DID YOU KNOW? Chateau LaRoche is located in Symmes Township on the banks of the Little Miami River. This impressive European-style castle was built by Boy Scout Troop Leader Harry Andrews over the course of 50 years.
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OVERVIEW & NEIGHBORHOODS
Calumet Farm
SYMMES TOWNSHIP Living The Dream PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEREMY KRAMER
River Oaks
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Calumet Farm
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Camp Dennison
Waldschmidt House
I
f you’re in search of the American Dream, talk to residents of Symmes Township, because they likely will tell you they’re living it. A close look at the community proves they’re onto something. Within the T-shaped township’s 41.8 square miles in northeastern Hamilton County you’ll find many of the amenities associated with the good life: beautiful neighborhoods, an abundance of green space, three of the state’s most highly rated school districts, a wide range of shopping and dining options, and a thriving business community that looks to the future with anticipation. At the foundation of what makes Symmes Township a great place today is a rich history with roots in the very formation of our country.
From Frontier Outpost to Upscale Community The United States was a mere five years old when Judge John Cleves Symmes, a member of the Continental Congress and one of the country’s first land developers, acquired 300,000 acres in the southwest-
ern part of what would become the state of Ohio. Positioned between the Big and Little Miami rivers, the fertile ground of the Symmes Purchase proved to be the perfect location for settlements when the new nation began to push west. As Losantiville, renamed Cincinnati in 1790, grew along the banks of the Ohio River, Symmes Township grew too. The community evolved from stagecoach outposts in the 18th century to towns and villages along and near the Little Miami Railroad and old Ohio turnpike roads in the 19th and early 20th century, until it finally formed into the prosperous 21st century suburb it is today.
Since 1976, Symmes Township has been home to seven Homeramas, the area’s premier showcase of new homes. Camp Dennison, located in the southernmost portion of the township, retains strong ties to its important and historic past as a Civil War recruiting and training center and military hospital for Union troops. Remnants of that and earlier eras can be found at the Camp Dennison Civil War Museum and Waldschmidt House, built in 1804 by Christian Waldschmidt, a Revolutionary War soldier and one of Symmes Township’s first settlers.
A Great Mix of Old and New
Today, regardless of which part of the townships residents call home, they are only minutes away from top-notch schools, beautiful parks and playgrounds, and a wide range of faith-based organizations. And when the big city calls, the surrounding and intersecting highway system means downtown Cincinnati is a half-hour’s drive south. Symmes Township: It just might be the best of all possible worlds.
The appeal of living in Symmes Township is foremost evident in its wide range of housing options and neighborhoods. Newer signature subdivisions include River Oaks, Steeplechase, Calumet Farm, Terwilligers Run, Paulmeadows, Hearthstone, and Plantation Pointe. These upscale communities feature a variety of architectural styles on wooded and beautifully landscaped lots.
Convenience
DID YOU KNOW? Camp Dennison was established in 1861 by General William Rosecrans to be a recruitment or rendezvous area for Union regiments during the Civil War. As the war progressed, the camp also had a hospital and treated wounded Union soldiers and Confederate soldiers who were prisoners of war. S YM MEST OW NSH I P.ORG
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Photo courtesy Symmes Township
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OVERVIEW & NEIGHBORHOODS
COMMUNITY CALENDAR WINTER Operation Santa Santa and his helpers will visit various neighborhoods in Symmes Township to spread holiday cheer. Donations will be accepted for The Dragonfly Foundation and Marine Toys for Tots organization.
2016 SPRING The Great Symmes Egg Hunt This family event offers the usual favorites including face painting, games, candy, the “hunt,” and a visit from the Easter Bunny.
SUMMER Symmes Honors Veterans Symmes Township honors veterans who served this great nation.
Saturday Morning Yoga Free summer classes are conducted by a certified yoga fit instructor. Movie Night in the Park Sit back under the stars while we play your favorite movies on the big screen. Symmes Day in the Park Enjoy a fun day at the park with a cruisein, great food, live music, kids’ activities, a fireworks display at dark, plus much more. (Top) Photo by Jeremy Kramer / (Bottom) Photo courtesy Symmes Township
2015
FALL Fall for Symmes We celebrate the fall season with hayrides, a hay maze, pumpkin patch, petting zoo, a “haunted trail” with trick-ortreat stations, and much more. Call (513) 683-6644 or visit symmestownship. org for updates and details.
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Photos courtesy Otto Huber & Symmes Township
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SAFETY FIRST Keeping residents safe is a priority of Symmes Township trustees. The township contracts with the Hamilton County Sheriff ’s department to provide deputies whose sole responsibility is the protection of the township using the latest technology and equipment. The Loveland-Symmes Fire Department, rated one of the best in Ohio, provides firefighting and emergency medical services to residents. They also offer CPR classes and several specialized services, including Paramedics on Bikes to assist injured bikers on the Little Miami Scenic Trail and a database of information on special-needs children and seniors in the township, available to paramedics should an emergency arise.
DID YOU KNOW? The township hall was originally located on Trustee Street. The hall had no running water and had a double outhouse out back. It was later turned into a volunteer fire station.
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PARKS & RECREATION
Lake Isabella
PARKS AND RECREATION S
ymmes residents love their green spaces, evidenced by the spacious yards that surround many homes and the beautiful parks that can be found throughout the township. How important are they? Each time a levy or ballot issue dealing with the parks appears, locals have voted “yes.” The hiking trails, variety of play areas, and athletic fields guarantee that there’s a park to suit every need and leisure moment.
Little Miami Scenic Trail
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Home of the Brave Park
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Photo courtesy Symmes Township
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEREMY KRAMER
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Symmes Township Park
THE DETAILS Symmes Parks Camp Dennison Nature Trail Corner of Munson and Campbell streets, Camp Dennison 45111
This 12-acre nature site contains a half-mile crushed limestone trail. Highlight: The beautiful wooded setting is the perfect alternative for mall walkers seeking more scenic surroundings.
Home of the Brave Park 11605 Lebanon Rd., Symmes Twp. 45140
This newest addition to Symmes Park system is a focal point for team sports. Its 54 acres contains five multi-purpose fields for baseball, softball, soccer, and lacrosse. Other amenities include wet and dry playground areas and a large shelter that can hold up to 60 people. The centerpiece of the park is a Veteran’s Memorial plaza containing an engraved wall honoring past and present veterans of all the armed services. Highlight: If you’re a kid, the wet playground features a splash pad to cool off S YM MEST OW NSH I P.ORG
and slip and slide through those hot, muggy days of summer. (Wet & Dry)
Hopewell Meadows Park 9131 Hopewell Rd., Symmes Twp. 45242
The 14-acre residential park, just around the corner from the neighborhood of Steeplechase, features tennis courts, a playground and a two-thirds mile paved walking trail. The main shelter, which can accommodate up to 68 people, is located near the playground; a smaller shelter at the northeastern edge of the park is a more private setting for groups up to 38 people. Highlight: The large shelter has a fireplace to take the chill off spring or fall days.
Meade Park 11887 Lebanon Rd., Symmes Twp. 45140
The centerpiece of this 27-acre park is a stunning 1906 Greek Revival mansion, headquarters for the Cincinnati Horticultural Society and a horticulture education center for children and adults. The park features a number of flower gardens including a rose garden. The Symmes Historical Society and Symmes Township Trustees collaborated
to move and reconstruct the 1830s Ross Family Log House in the park several years ago. Several walking trails also meander throughout the grounds. Highlight: The Ross Family Log House is open to the public the first and third weekends of the month, April through October, from 1 to 3 p.m. Private tours available upon request.
Seven Gables Park 11680 Seven Gables Rd., Symmes Twp. 45249
This 8.3-acre park features a playground, tennis and basketball courts, and halfmile paved walking trail. A small shelter can accommodate up to 20 people and contains three picnic tables. Highlight: The park’s wide open spaces are friendly to park visitors looking to toss a Frisbee or a ball.
Symmes Township Park 11600 Lebanon Rd., Symmes Twp. 45140
The township’s largest park at 61 acres has three playgrounds, basketball and S YMME S TO WNSHIP • 9
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PARKS & RECREATION
volleyball courts, a soccer/softball field, a seasonal dog run, bird sanctuary, and six walking trails that vary in length from 1/10 to 7/10 of a mile. Three shelters located in different parts of the park can accommodate 48 to 80 people depending on the shelter. Highlight: The dog run, a fenced-in area at the back of the park that is open between April and November, allows pooches to work off a little steam while sticking close to their owners.
More Recreational Sites Lake Isabella 10174 Loveland Madeira Rd., Symmes Twp. 45140 greatparks.org/parks/lake-isabella
This Hamilton County Park features a 28acre pay lake that is stocked weekly March through October. Fishing is permitted from the bank, dock, or rental boat. Personal watercrafts are not permitted. Amenities: a full-service boathouse, picnic areas, playground, and access to the Little Miami River.
A Hamilton County Park day or season pass is required.
Andrews, an intellectual eccentric, who preferred the days of yore to the present.
Highlight: Each year Lake Isabella hosts a number of fishing contests and river trips for adults and children, as well as popular Friday night cookouts.
Highlight: When touring the castle, be on the lookout for ghosts.
Little Miami Scenic Trail miamivalleytrails.org/little-miami-scenic-trail
Cyclists will revel in this flat portion of the 75-mile paved Little Miami Scenic Trail that runs between Newtown and Springfield and passes through picturesque Camp Dennison in southern Symmes Township. Highlight: The bike trail runs right behind the historic Schoolhouse Restaurant, a great place to stop and refuel with a piece of chocolate peanut-butter pie. The Historical Chateau Laroche 12025 Shore Dr., Symmes Twp. 45140
Chateau Laroche comes under the heading: You have to see it to believe it. The full-scale medieval castle, near the Little Miami River, was the life’s work of Harry
Little Miami Scenic Trail
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MORE INFO Additional Symmes Township Parks Online: symmestownship.org/departments/ parks-recreation/parks.aspx Blong Memorial Park 11433 Blong Rd., Symmes Twp. 45249 Shore Drive Park Shore Dr., Symmes Twp. 45140 Stonebridge Park 12150 Stonebridge Way, Symmes Twp. 45140
AMENITIES KEY: Basketball
Trails
Baseball
Shelter
Volleyball
Dog Park
Tennis
Fishing
Playground
Symmes Township Park Shelters Symmes Township park shelters can be rented from April 15 to October 15. Fees vary with size. Symmes Township residents may reserve a shelter after October 15 for the coming calendar year. Nonresidents may reserve a shelter one week prior to the date of the event. For more information or to make a reservation, call (513) 683-6644.
DID YOU KNOW? The township has more than 196 acres of parkland. Camp Dennison Nature Trail
‡™ ™‹Â? ‘Â?’Ž‡š …‘Â?‹Â?‰ –‘ Opening May 2016! Š‡ Ž—„ ƒ– ÂƒÂ”Â’Â‡Â”ÇŻÂ• ‘‹Â?–Ǩ State-of-the-art pool features include: Čˆ ʹ͡ Â?‡–‡”ǥ ͸ ŽƒÂ?‡ …‘Â?’‡–‹–‹˜‡ ’‘‘Ž Čˆ ‹˜‹Â?‰ „‘ƒ”†• Čˆ Ž‹†‡ Čˆ ƒ–‡” ˆ‡ƒ–—”‡• Čˆ Šƒ†‡† œ‡”‘ ‡Â?–”› ‹Â?ˆƒÂ?– ’‘‘Ž
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Expansion will also include 8 state of the art Har-Tru courts
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The Club At Harper’s Point, The Resort in Your Backyard ͺ͸͚͡ ƒ•– ‡Â?’‡” ‘ƒ† Čˆ ‹Â?…‹Â?Â?ÂƒÂ–Â‹ÇĄ Š‹‘ ͜͡ʹ͜͝ ‘” Â?‡Â?„‡”•Š‹’ ‹Â?ˆ‘”Â?ƒ–‹‘Â? …ƒŽŽ ͡ͳ;nj͜ͺ͝nj͚͝ͲͲ ĚˇÂ…ÂŽÂ—Â„ÂƒÂ–ÂŠÂƒÂ”Â’Â‡Â”Â•Â’Â‘Â‹Â?– ‘” ˜‹•‹– …Ž—„ƒ–Šƒ”’‡”•’‘‹Â?–Ǥ…‘Â? S YM MEST OW NSH I P.ORG
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DINING, SHOPPING, AND MORE
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variety of retail, dining, and unique shopping opportunities can be found throughout Symmes Township, but many shops and restaurants are located within three main business corridors: Fields Ertel Road along Symmes’ northern border, Montgomery Road in the northwestern portion of Symmes, and Loveland-Madeira Road north and south of Interstate 275 near the Little Miami River.
DINING
Photos by Jeremy Kramer
The Schoolhouse Restaurant
From morning till night and casual to fine, there’s an option to satisfy every appetite. Begin the day at Balance Café & Smoothies with one of a dozen fruit smoothies or choose a scratch-made breakfast bagel from Skip’s. Later in the day, drop by deSha’s for a menu built around American tavern fare. If it’s a chicken fix your taste buds crave, Silver Spring House is the answer. When the occasion calls for an upscale experience, Tony’s Steaks & Seafood is the destination for fine dining. Venture beyond the three main business corridors to Corner Coffee Café in Remington to combine a meal with antiquing. The Schoolhouse Restaurant, housed in an 1862 two-room schoolhouse in Camp Dennison, offers a lesson in history as well as a fried green tomato BLT, or chow down on a regional favorite at nearby Midwest Best BBQ and Creamery.
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SHOPPING The Shops at Harper’s Point, lying within the three business corridors, has a range of specialty stores, including Cooks’ Wares for kitchenware and a full roster of classes for the novice or gourmet cook. Earthwise Pet Supply specializes in natural and holistic pet products, as well as grooming. Ed’s Feed & Seed has been helping residents beautify yards and care for pets and wildlife for more than 30 years. McCabe Crossing shopping center is the destination for lighting with two specialty shops: Lighting One of Cincinnati and A Shade Better with thousands of lampshades in stock. BOVA, on Royal Point Drive, is a contemporary furniture store showcasing pieces ranging from modern Italian design to sleek Scandinavian design and everything in between. Rose & Remington promises to keep you and your space current with the latest fashions, soaps and sundries, jewelry, accessories, and trendy touches for the home.
MORE FUN
The Shops at Harper’s Point
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Relax with a visit to the salon and spa professionals at Paragon Salon. Play year-round at Grand Sands All Season Beach Volleyball, which has more than 20,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor sand volleyball courts, and at The Club at Harper’s Point, set to expand with an outdoor pool and state-of-the-art clay courts, for tennis and fitness fun. Whatever your fitness goals, trainers at The Academy of Sports Performance can whip you into shape, or check in with the riding instructors at Derbyshire Stables to perfect your equestrian skills.
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esidents of Symmes Township are served by three highly rated school districts (based on address) and one top-ranked private school.
Loveland City School District serves the northeastern portion of Symmes Township and includes six schools: early childhood center, primary, elementary, intermediate, middle, and high school. The school system has a history of community support, updating and expanding its facilities as enrollment has grown. LCSD has a strong commitment to preparing students for the digital world they will live and work in. Beginning with the 2015– 2016 academic year, all students pre-K through grade 12 have access to either a Chromebook Internet-based learning system or Android tablet. lovelandschools.org
Indian Hill Exempted Village Schools serves students living in the Camp Dennison and Remington areas of Symmes Township, as well as other designated areas. The district consists of four schools: primary, elementary, middle, and high school. With a motto of “Enduring Excellence in Learning, Leadership, Innovation & Service,” Indian Hill provides students with exceptional opportunities to explore and participate in a range of academic, artistic, and athletic pursuits. The district receives superior ratings on the State Performance Index. It is consistently ranked first, second, or third in Ohio by Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and has been ranked in the top 100 schools nationally by Newsweek four years in a row. indianhillschools.org
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Sycamore Community Schools serves students in western Symmes Township. Consistently rated as one of the top-performing school districts in the state, Sycamore High School graduated 21 National Merit Scholarship finalists in 2015. Sycamore is known for its top-notch faculty, challenging curriculum, and high expectations for all students throughout its elementary, intermediate, junior high, and high schools. High school students have a study choice of six different languages, and all students have access to a 10-acre land lab at Symmes Elementary for instilling environmental responsibility through a variety of projects and opportunities. sycamoreschools.org Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy is a private, college-prep, multidenominational academy offering preschool through grade 12. The school’s primary goal is to help each student discover and develop his or her unique gifts and talents. All students are prepared to succeed in college and later in life through a rigorous academic program and by encouraging and supporting their “courageous curiosity, discerning wisdom, and resilient Christian faith.” Students have a variety of athletic and fine-arts opportunities, 18 AP classes at the high-school level, and all grades have access to science labs. The student/ teacher ratio is 12 to 1, with 100 percent of CHCA graduates heading to college. chca-oh.org
DID YOU KNOW? All three public school districts in Symmes Township have earned the Excellent with Distinction rating on their annual report cards from the Ohio Department of Education.
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WILL WALNUT HILLS RISE AGAIN? CONTINUED FROM PAGE 75
first invested in Walnut Hills in 2000, buying and rehabbing a 36-unit apartment building at the corner of Park and East McMillan. “[It was right near] the business district, and even though it had fallen upon hard times, you could still walk to the grocery store, the library, restaurants, the dry cleaner, the bank—there were still plenty of core assets that a lot of business districts in town don’t have. So that got us excited,” he says. And excited they stayed: About three years later came a large condo conversion near Eden Park, then the renovation of the historic Cooper and Verona apartment buildings into condos, which they completed during the recession. In the past few years, and with new partners, Horgan has renovated two abandoned buildings into apartments and retail spaces opposite Beck Paint & Hardware (itself a neighborhood institution since 1959), and plans to rehab 15 apartments and five storefronts on the next block. The opening of Fireside Pizza is viewed by many as a linchpin in the recent spate of development. Fire Company No. 16—the oldest firehouse still standing in the city— had no roof, no second floor. Vacant and abandoned since 1976, it was slated for demolition until a perfect storm of Fred Orth, then–Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, and developer Kent Hardman (who also owns buildings next door and across the street) combined forces with WHRF to change its fate. With help from the city, it was stabilized in 2012; two years later, Fireside began serving beer and wood-fired pizza to hungry neighbors. Ceramicist Laura Davis is a decade into being a business owner in Walnut Hills. When she opened Core Clay in 2005 in a former thrift store on Gilbert just north of Peebles Corner, she had no further designs on real estate. But then she was able to pur-
chase the apartment building next door in 2009, followed by the Brew House (with her brother) in 2012. Sitting in her pottery studio, she is candid about why redevelopment in Walnut Hills can be such a fraught undertaking. “How do we lift people up who are currently here and bring in new investment, but not do the gentrification route and kick everybody out?” she asks. “It’s definitely the harder way.” Things take longer, too. Her real estate agent told her she was crazy when she bought the space for Core Clay, but Davis was convinced Walnut Hills had a future. She’s watched it grow in fits and starts, only recently seeing changes come to fruition. “There are huge social issues”in transitioning a neighborhood, she says, which she’s found herself mired in with her refresh of Brew House, moving too fast for some and too slow for others. She speaks frankly, but not without empathy: “I want a good quality I can be proud of. We just redid the menu and I’m thrilled. But we had to raise the prices.” And encountered some resentment.“It’s: You’re going to lose your customers if you raise the prices. But I’m paying them to eat the food right now,” she says. “So I’m not going to keep doing that. And I can’t not redo the storefront because I can’t get new customers in.” She goes on, acknowledging the larger issues hovering over the neighborhood’s rebirth.“It’s so hard. I don’t know what the answer is. The history of how people were treated is unfair. But I do know that Walnut Hills is trying really hard to [redevelop itself] fairly.” WALNUT HILLS WAS THE CITY’S SECOND downtown, a major streetcar transfer point, a shopping district. “It was the suburbs up until the suburbs became the suburbs,”says Charles Dillard, who returned home to run his medical practice in the neighborhood from 1975 until 2008. He is 80 now.“I grew up here on Burdette,” he says, pointing out the front window of Mardi Gras on Madison, the new Cajun restaurant on DeSales Corner, where he’s covered the table with historic photos. “That was during a time when black people had difficulty getting houses, but my father was a doctor and somehow we lived on Burdette.” He remembers the Paramount and Orpheum
theaters in their heyday, the stores and restaurants and delicatessens that surrounded Peebles Corner—so-called, the story goes, because an enterprising grocer bribed streetcar drivers to use his store, built at the corner of Gilbert and East McMillan in 1883, as the name of the stop. In 1930, Walnut Hills’s census tract 21—the southwest quadrant near Florence Avenue—housed the highest density of Italians anywhere in the city. “When I grew up,” says Dillard, “we were always told Don’t cross Gilbert Avenue. Because they called that Little Italy. And we’d get beat up if we’d cross [into] Little Italy. It was an Italian slum, really—poor Italian families poured into that particular area as they immigrated into the U.S.” Meanwhile, tract 36—the northern part of the neighborhood—was nearly 90 percent black, matched at that point only by the West End, a fact Dillard attributes to Lane Seminary’s tolerant stance in welcoming former slaves to the area. Barbara Furr, longtime librarian of the Walnut Hills Branch, volunteer coordinator for the Stowe House, and a founder of the Walnut Hills Historical Society, says that from very early on “there was a small black community here because Kemper was one of the few people to rent or sell land to blacks—we’re talking from the early 1800s on.” When Furr moved to the neighborhood in the early ’60s, she remembers Graeter’s, Woolworth’s, a Chinese laundry, and pony kegs all nearby.“It’s always been a place you could walk,” she says. “We used to come to Walnut Hills on Saturdays to go shopping at Peebles Corner,” says Kathryne Gardette, former WHRF board chair and current Walnut Hills Area Council president, whose voice has a lyrical rhythm that immediately gives her away as a singer. She navigates a mental map of her visits: Ebony Records, Thatched Roof jeweler and seamstress. Later, when she moved to the neighborhood in the mid’80s, “it had a lot more people. There were businesses all along here. The beauty salon, the pool hall, three meat markets, poultry places, fish markets, a fruit and vegetable market.” She remembers going to parties thrown by artists who lived in the old Trevarren building. Some places had started shuttering—which many attribute to the
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WILL WALNUT HILLS RISE AGAIN? business district’s conversion to one-way streets, as well as a continued pattern of urban flight. But to those living there, the decline of Walnut Hills was gradual, not a jarring, singular event. “When you’re in the midst of something, there’s not a demarcation that you can say, ‘Oh that happened then,’ ” she says. “It was more of an evolution until you realized that we had blocks that were no longer occupied.” THE IMPACT OF INTERSTATE 71 IS ONE thing that most everyone agrees hurt Walnut Hills: The highway came in and there went the neighborhood. Although spared the wiped-off-the-map fate of swaths of the West End and Evanston, when I-71 came through in the ’70s East McMillan and Wm. Howard Taft were switched to one-way streets, forcing drivers to shoot through Walnut Hills as fast as possible. Which, it turned out, was not exactly great for business. So the neighborhood fought
with the city for almost 20 years—paying for a study, then being told No, it’s not feasible, again and again—until finally their two main drags were switched back to two-way traffic in October 2012. According to Gardette and others, that simple traffic change seems to have turned the clock back for the business district. Neighborhood leaders and the WHRF spent years developing a form-based code to ensure future development along the new two-way streets fit their vision. Jeff Raser, a principal architect at Glaserworks and a key consultant for the code, describes its aim as preventing bad architecture (“Not aesthetically; I mean buildings like Kroger”—with large blank facades and off-street entrances—“that create an unsafe place and are bad for economic development,” he says) and allowing good architecture (“Mixed-use buildings that are up close to the sidewalks, just like the old buildings”). The new code also gives the community the authority to determine
the size and type of buildings—which will soon be evident in new construction along East McMillan. Crime is not always as quick to change as plans for the landscape, however, and Walnut Hills still has its fair share. According to District Four Police Captain Maris Herold, it stems from a few specific street segments, addresses, and violent offenders. The statistics since 1997 show an overall peak in crime in 2006, with most categories (except theft) on the decline since. Poor-bordering-on-absent property management is the critical issue, Herold says; it allows crime to cluster, gives gangs a foothold, and drains police resources. Case in point: the Alms Hill Apartments. Opened in 1891 and expanded in 1925, the Hotel Alms was a regal place: the ballroom, the WKRC broadcast studios, the Tokyo Garden and Mermaid Lounge. But in the 1980s it was converted to 200 units of public housing under the Housing Assistance Payments program and has per-
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sisted on various Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidies since. For decades the building’s tenants have endured neglectful out-of-town owners and a laundry list of health and safety violations. The city has fought a long battle against its blend of blight and bad living conditions, ultimately leading to a search-warrant inspection last December (resulting in 29 pages of infractions) and a lawsuit set for trial next month. Herold says many problems start at the Alms and spill over. In September there was a shooting at the Alms’s front door, and days later, another shooting in the McDonald’s parking lot nearby. (Both incidents are still under investigation.) Yet the District Four captain’s outlook is positive. “I think Walnut Hills has a really bright future,” she says. “They’re very strong as far as neighborhood leadership, concern, and activism. I think we clearly understand what we’re up against and we’re addressing it, with data and with partnerships.”
SOME PEOPLE HAVE ONE BOSS. OTHERS maybe two. But the number of elected officials, funders, and neighborhood board members who can lay claim to the title Acting Supervisor of Kevin Wright just keeps growing. Fred Orth talks about regularly sending him articles about things happening elsewhere that he’d like to see in Walnut Hills (like Whole Foods’s announcement about a lower priced chain of stores—why not here?). Kathy Atkinson just shakes her head. “Poor Kevin,”she says.“When he first got hired, we would have lunch or breakfast once a week because I would have to say, ‘You have to understand the neighborhood’s story. You don’t have to do it the way we’ve done it, but you have to know how we got here and where we want to go. It’s not your vision; it’s ours.’ ” At this point, Wright seems to have accepted his fate. When I ask him how he handles the situation, he just laughs and shrugs: “Yeah, I have like 75 bosses.”But it’s not a source of resentment.“I’ve learned so
much,” he says.“If Kathy hadn’t been there, if Kathryne hadn’t been there, if Clarence [Taylor] hadn’t been there, if Fred hadn’t been there—I probably would have been the inexperienced sort of urban planner who was just like Get out of my way, we’re going to do this. I’m kind of a put-my-headdown-and-get-shit-done person. They’ve embraced that, but said, Respect this piece or Respect that piece. I can’t imagine waking up every day for 30 years and fighting like they’ve fought and never seeing much change. It’s unbelievable.” WHRF has been through its own ups and downs. Founded in 1977, its first 28 years are now recalled more for a lack of focus, dearth of resources, and occasional ineptitude. Positive things still happened—musician Ric Hordinski opened The Monastery, a recording studio and performance space, in 2005; Parkside Café filled the space vacated by Frisch’s in 2007—but generally without the group’s direction or assistance. Then in 2010, Greg
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WILL WALNUT HILLS RISE AGAIN? Loomis stepped in to assume the role of WHRF’s executive director, and projects and partnerships were set in motion. But when Loomis passed away suddenly in August 2011, those in charge of WHRF’s future were left to wonder if it would even have one. There was a six-figure budget deficit from the recession, along with heartbreak and disillusionment. Wright came on that October, his first stop in a second career as an urban planner. He walked into WHRF’s office on May Street and found a three-ring binder with Loomis’s meticulous notes and little else. Over the past four years Wright has worked hard to find funding, added four full-time staffers, and shown that the group can do a lot with a little (their 2015 operating budget was $550,000). Wright doesn’t punt when it comes to the challenges and tensions that come with WHRF’s role, either. Over coffee in February, he laid it out: “We had these listening sessions last year, and there’s a trust issue.” Residents didn’t know what— or who—WHRF was, and were suspicious about what they were up to. So the organi-
heard, eventually cofounding Elevate Walnut Hills to bring residents who might otherwise not have a voice to the table. Does she think WHRF is conscious of trying to preserve the neighborhood’s pre-existing diversity and community bonds? “It took them a while,” she says. “Had you asked me this question two years ago? Hell no. But I think they’re really understanding the tenacity of this community. They needed a punch in the face. And Frankie was the punch in the face.” From what Young sees, “there’s excitement because things are happening. There’s anxiety because neighbors are changing. There is fear, because, for me, the price of rent is going up. There are so many mixed emotions going on. And I think we need to be sensitive to those feelings. On both sides.” She praises Fireside Pizza for keeping things friendly, mentioning their intentional choice to keep a $2 beer among the craft selections and a $6 pizza on the menu—something Angst Coffeehouse has mirrored with its “beer it forward” neighbors-buying-drinks-for-neighbors idea.
“I HAVE LIKE 75 BOSSES,” SAYS WRIGHT. “I CAN’T IMAGINE FIGHTING LIKE THEY’VE FOUGHT FOR 30 YEARS AND NEVER SEEING MUCH CHANGE. IT’S UNBELIEVABLE.” zation moved its office to a first-floor space on Peebles Corner, and has continued its many-tentacled work of planning weekend music events and input sessions at the same time that it’s closing multi-million dollar development deals. WHRF hasn’t been without its critics— or at least its skeptics. Frankie Young spent her early years in Walnut Hills and moved back in 2007 to be closer to family. “When all of this stuff started happening, I admit, I was so angry and so bitter, like You guys are trying to gentrify Walnut Hills and I hate you people!,” she says. “I had to take a step back and say, Hey, relax Frankie, no one’s trying to gentrify Walnut Hills. Things change, it happens.” After testing the waters and being frustrated by what she felt was a lack of inclusivity at a few events, Young made her voice
Of course there are people who’ve had to move out of Walnut Hills due to rising rent, a fact that is discussed somberly. Regardless of race or economic status, though, being a renter vs. a homeowner informs one’s specific anxieties or joys with what’s changing. “Those [rehabbed] buildings were empty,” says Kathryne Gardette. “But when you fill those buildings, how do you structure it so that people who are living in the neighborhood are afforded the ability to stay in the neighborhood? How do we as a neighborhood grab hold of that?” It is a balance, attracting new residents and visitors without alienating or disregarding the long-standing ones. One of Wright’s big concerns is that WHRF maintain the same level of control as development gains speed. For instance, will they be able to achieve a diverse retail district?
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In early September, WHRF announced a partnership with Mortar, an organization founded to help entrepreneurial OTR residents left out of the redevelopment surge get their businesses off the ground. In Walnut Hills, Mortar has already held information sessions and planned its first set of classes; it even has a pop-up holiday market slated to run in the former Dollar City. “They completely changed the way we look at a lot of projects,” says Wright. “Maybe we retain ownership of a couple of the retail spaces [for] Mortar to put to social-entrepreneur uses. That’s a two-fold solution: We have a challenge of having too much vacant retail, so we can make sure a certain percent remains affordable. Mortar is going to be key to that.” THE NEIGHBORHOOD WILL NOT GET back to 1940 or 1960 overnight—or ever. “In its heyday, the McMillan corridor was a mile long, and the vast majority of that was retail on the first floor,” says Jeff Raser of Glaserworks. That’s not likely in the new reality. But the I-71 MLK interchange, scheduled to be finished in 2017, will open up easier highway access to the neighborhood (though not without some trepidation about its effects). The Harriet Beecher Stowe House expects to receive some $2 million for renovations from the Ohio History Connection. At the end of September, WHRF purchased the old Paramount building, arguably Peebles Corner’s most prominent, which is currently in abject disrepair. They are working with (but at press time had not yet announced) a developer to construct new apartments and retail spaces on the vacant land next to Fireside Pizza and across from Green Man Park, as well as a future bar tenant for an historic (but long defunct) bath house nearby. The annual Cincinnati Street Food Festival, which gathered a large and diverse crowd in September, continues to grow. Five Points Biergarten and Music Off McMillan are preparing for a 2016 return. Even the Walnut Hills Historical Society is recording an oral history, hoping to document living memories before they’re lost. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin couldn’t have been written were it not for [Harriet Beecher Stowe’s] 18 years here in Walnut Hills,” says Chris DeSimio. “She had seen enough.
She had lived with slavery across the river, had seen escaping slaves, [and] she picked up her pen. It built on the debates; they were about These are people too.” Standing in line in late June at the weekly Findlay Market Farmstand on East McMillan, Gary Dangel, longtime resident and community volunteer, gets up from the Vitality Cincinnati table to introduce himself and offer a tour of the five gardens he helps run. The Concord Street Community Garden is brimming with beds (up to 60 this year) and a new retention pond and greenhouse. Seven people have gathered nearby in Green Man Park for a free yoga class, despite the 84-degree temperature. It’s seven days after the massacre in Charleston, yet things feel refreshingly . . . not impossible. Walnut Hills is far from carefree, but it’s not contrived stock-photo diversity, either; race, equity, change—what they mean and how they do or don’t work—is a conversation friends and neighbors are constantly having. Wright talks about a general apprehension in urban planning about community engagement, that bothering with it means any progress will be slow and small. “And there’s truth to that—you can create paralysis, because you’re never really going to have consensus. But hopefully we’ve proven that you can move forward and listen at the same time,” he says. “All across the country, cities and neighborhoods are challenged with how to make growth equitable. That’s our biggest challenge and my biggest worry. But I’m really hopeful because we’re talking about it. Everybody wants to get to that same place, regardless of sometimes differing on tactics.” “I’ve said for a long time that I believe Walnut Hills is going to be the community the nation looks to when it says How does redevelopment happen equal for all?” says Gardette.“We have the opportunity to be the example of how that happens.” For Orth, back at that sidewalk table at a once-abandoned firehouse that’s now putting out pizzas, looking over at a park-in-process, it’s all just measured strides.“We’re working real hard to continue being what we’ve always been,” he says.
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BANG! ZOOM! TO THE MOON! CONTINUED FROM PAGE 83
paint your face.” Petricca’s stage banter, and presence, has been a key to building the band’s fan base. “He sort of stops and talks and tells a bit of a story” in the middle of their show, says McDonald. “He says, ‘For those of you that weren’t here before, welcome to the family, the place where we all like to be free and be ourselves and be dorks together and create positive energy.’ ” It sounds hokey, but it works. WALK THE MOON HAD FINISHED BOTH a new album and the “Anna Sun” video by the fall of 2010. All they had to do was pick a venue for the CD-release show. Petricca wanted to have it at Baba Budan’s, a now-closed coffee shop on West McMillan Street. Carlson wanted to aim bigger. She convinced Petricca to do it at the also-now-shuttered Mockbee, a large art/performance space in Brighton where “Anna Sun” was filmed and where Carlson and Petricca had seen a packed CD-release show and video debut by fellow Cincinnati band The Lions Rampant. It was a crazy thought, as far as Petricca was concerned: If only Walk The Moon could be as big as Lions Rampant and sell out a show at the Mockbee! They went for it. And miracle upon miracles, it was bigger than the Lions Rampant show. The Mockbee was not the type of place to fall under the watchful eye of a fire marshal, so who knows how many people were there. Petricca guesses it was around 450. “It was completely busted out,” he recalled. “That top room, you couldn’t fit one more person in there. There were people squeezing through the doors. It was at that moment that we realized we had built something special at home and that’s all we needed to know that we could do it everywhere.” That’s where the video comes in. Their manager McDonald feels that “Anna Sun” is better than 90 percent of major-label big
budget videos. The blogosphere seemed to agree. It got picked up by the musictastemaking blog Neon Gold in January 2011 on the same day that the band was in New York to play a show at the Lower East Side club Pianos. Neon Gold ended its Walk The Moon post by taunting the industry: “A&R’s who aspire to be good at their jobs might want to be in attendance.” Brian Penick owns a Cincinnati artistdevelopment company that worked with Walk The Moon at the time. His phone blew up the day after the Pianos show.“It’s what I like to call the quote-unquote freakout,” he says.“That’s not an industry term, but that’s when the industry freakout happened.” Walk The Moon continued on its tour, planning to return to New York about a week later for another show, where they figured managers, booking agents, and record labels would be ready to pounce. But Michael McDonald did not want to wait a week. He hadn’t attended the show at Pianos, though people in his office had and came back buzzing about it. So, after getting the permission of his wife, he flew to Indianapolis where Walk The Moon was playing a dance marathon at Butler University. “I referred to it as the worst rock and roll environment I’ve ever seen—a gym with all the lights on during a dance marathon where the arrival of pizza trumped the music for a large part of the audience,” McDonald remembers. “It was not vibey at all, but they went up there and played their hearts out like they were playing Madison Square Garden, and I said to myself, ‘If they can do that here, there’s no stopping them.’ So I really, really pushed hard.” McDonald was in. When the band returned for the second show in New York, he and his wife were carrying the band’s gear and selling their merch, which likely showed his industry competition all it needed to see. Soon after signing with McDonald, the band landed a recording contract with RCA Records. McDonald believes that coming out of Cincinnati gave the band a leg up. “There was no development necessary. They’ve continued to grow and mature and improve, but it wasn’t like I had to go send them to play 30 shows in tertiary markets to get their shit together. They came ready,” he says. “It’s places like Cincinnati where you
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have time to develop and mature. In larger cities and more expensive cities, you can’t afford to put a band together and pay for the rehearsal space and pay to rent a van and park the van. There are a lot of obstacles, and some of those are just financial.” Walk The Moon had its share of roster turnover before settling into the current lineup, which has been intact since 2011. Carlson gives credit for the band’s success to all members past and present but especially Petricca. “He’s a super visionary,” she says.“He found the right people who shared that vision and were ready to take that on. Walk The Moon had such an established aesthetic. [They] did it with the ‘Anna Sun’ video. They had a look. They had a feel. In terms of the Cincinnati music scene at the time, a lot of the bands that were around were a little more punk, a little more hard rock or folk. I think they filled a void for a dance-pop band, which was helpful.” BRIAN PENICK WARNED ME THAT there’s a lot of mythology connected to Walk The Moon’s early days in town, people who take credit for the band’s success who have nothing to do with it. I ran one story by him that a local musician told me: That after Petricca spent the early years of Walk The Moon failing to make waves, he told a friend, I’m going to stop making the music I like and start making music for money. In other words, Petricca sold out. Myth, says Penick. “No, that’s not Nick. Everything that Nick puts his hands on is still completely a part of what he wants to do. He wouldn’t do this if he didn’t fully believe in himself. Knowing Nick as well as I do, he’s his harshest critic, and he wouldn’t let anything come out through Walk The Moon, but more importantly with his name affixed to it, unless he absolutely was willing to sign off on it from a creative standpoint,” he says. “Nick would have sleepless nights fixating on a few sequences of notes.” Maybe other Cincinnati musicians are jealous of Walk The Moon. Maybe they have reason to be. Carlson thinks the Walk The Moon story—that combo pack of work, talent, circumstance, and fully realized vision—is a one-time deal. “But that doesn’t mean some other band won’t have success,” she offers, consolingly. “It will just happen in a different way.”
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FOCUS ON WOMEN’S HEALTH
THROUGH THE DECADES
LOCAL OB/GYNS OFFER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EVERY STAGE OF A WOMAN’S LIFE PLUS:
NEW PROCEDURE IMPROVES INTIMACY
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HEALTH WATCH WOMEN’S HEALTH “We really try to establish a good rapport early on,” says TriHealth OB/ GYN Betsy LeRoy, M.D., FACOG. In addition to meeting privately with teens, she always gives them her card for follow-up calls if questions arise. Although LeRoy encourages her patients to talk with their parents, teens’ information must be kept confidential unless they give consent for it to be shared. “Access to gynecological care can be difficult for teenagers, so I let them know that the relationship doesn’t just exist in the office. It exists over the phone, too,” says LeRoy, who is a member of the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. Teen pregnancy continues to be a nationwide issue, so gynecologists are focusing on awareness about long-acting, reversible contraception—an initiative known by the acronym LARC. Longterm birth control options that are implanted in the arm or in the uterus are proving to be effective options for teens who can’t remember to take a pill every day and are many years away from a planned pregnancy.
THROUGH THE DECADES
LOCAL OB/GYNS OFFER THE MOST CURRENT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EVERY STAGE OF A WOMAN’S LIFE. BY MARN IE H AYUTI N
O
ther medical specialists come and go, but the yearly visit to the OB/GYN remains a constant throughout a woman’s life. Each stage brings new joys and challenges—not to mention that guidelines for screenings and treatments are changing all the time. Whatever stage you’re currently in, here’s what you can expect to discuss with your doctor at your next annual visit.
TEENS Pap smears and pelvic exams typically aren’t done anymore until age 21, but the American Congress of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists recommends that teens make their first gynecology appointment by age 15. In the teen years, young women may experience problems with irregular or debilitating periods that interfere with participation on sports teams or school activities. Doctors have numerous therapeutic options to alleviate symptoms and prevent these early issues from becoming long-term problems. But other than that, initial gynecology appointments are generally about education—everything from establishing healthy lifestyle habits, to practicing safe sex, to how to put in a tampon.
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20s & 30s Women 25 and younger are at the highest risk for sexually transmitted diseases, doctors say, so regular screenings for STDs such as chlamydia and gonorrhea take the forefront in the first half of this decade. Also, young women have until age 26 to receive the highly recommended vaccine for HPV—with dozens of strains, the human papilloma virus is linked to sexually transmitted diseases and to cervical cancer. Women embarking on their career paths are focused on birth control at this stage, and many are surprised to discover that they’re candidates for long-acting reversible methods such as an IUD (intrauterine device). “I always tell my patients this isn’t our mother’s birth control. There are a myriad of choices available to women to fit into their lifestyles and to make it easy for them,” says Amy Thompson, M.D., FACOG, associate professor at the UC College of Medicine and an OB/GYN with UC Physicians.
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HEALTH WATCH WOMEN’S HEALTH
Nutrition counseling is also essential at this stage, says Mercy Health physician Michelle Federer, D.O., OB/GYN, noting a huge jump in obesity rates among women over the age of 20. “We focus on that a lot in our practice because obesity makes pregnancy more high-risk, it makes surgery more difficult, and it adds risk to any medical condition,” she says. Mid-20s to early 30s are typically reproductive years. Huge advances in prenatal care and preventative screenings have made pre-conception visits with your OB/GYN more important than ever. Talk to your doctor about the specific genetic or other screenings that may benefit you, but at the very least, all women considering pregnancy should be taking a prenatal vitamin to improve overall nutrition and reduce the risk of certain birth defects. Current guidelines also recommend that women get a TDAP vaccine with each
pregnancy to protect the newborn from whooping cough. Family planning continues through the 30s, and doctors say they’re seeing more and more patients deferring pregnancy into the late 30s and even early 40s. “With infertility and reproductive endocrinology specialists, we have the ability to help them get pregnant,” says Abby Loftus-Smith, M.D., OB/GYN, a St. Elizabeth physician.
40s & 50s The average age of menopause is 51, but doctors say the perimenopausal period can begin several years before that, bringing with it hot flashes, mood swings, irregular or heavy periods, vaginal dryness—and plenty of confusion. “There are many misperceptions around hormone replacement,” notes Mickey Karram, M.D., director of urogynecology at The Christ Hospital and professor of
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OB/GYN and urology at the UC College of Medicine. “Don’t suffer if you’re having a lot of menopausal symptoms. In appropriately selected patients, hormone replacement therapy can be very safe and can significantly improve a woman’s health.” Symptom-specific therapies are proving to be game-changers in the management of menopause transition. If you’re experiencing vaginal dryness but not hot flashes, for example, your doctor can offer treatment targeted just to the symptoms you’re actually exhibiting. (See page 118 for a new laser treatment for severe vaginal dryness.) “It used to be that we would kind of throw hormones at all women once they hit menopause, and that was kind of our shotgun approach,” LeRoy says. “You can really individualize your menopause years with your gynecologist to make sure that you’re enjoying those years and at the same time optimizing your health.”
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Heavy and/or irregular periods are common complaints in the 40s. Although they can be attributed to the normal hormonal changes associated with perimenopause, they may also be signs of uterine fibroids or even cancer. Don’t assume anything at this stage, doctors say; talk to your OB/GYN about anything that’s new or unusual for you. You already know that screening mammograms start at age 40 unless there’s something in your medical history that would suggest doing them earlier. Here’s the recommendation you’re probably not expecting: “It’s extremely important to establish a relationship with a primary care provider in your mid- to late-40s and early 50s,” Thompson notes. While women as a rule are diligent about their pap smears and GYN care, baseline cardiac screenings, routine blood work, and monitoring of the rest of the body may be forgotten as
busy women focus their efforts on teenage children, aging parents, and active careers.
60s If you haven’t already had a bone-density scan (also known as a DXA or DEXA scan), you’ll need one by age 65 to screen for signs of osteoporosis. Pelvic floor disorders often become issues for women as they age, affecting up to 50 percent of women above the age of 60, Karram notes. Over time, the muscles, ligaments, and nerves that support and control the organs of the pelvis can weaken or become damaged. The most common pelvic floor disorders include loss of bladder and bowel control and pelvic organ prolapse (where the pelvic organs fall out of place). “Millions of women around the world are suffering in silence,” Karram says. “They consider the subject taboo because they’re embarrassed and often misinformed
that treatment isn’t possible.” In fact, numerous therapies are available—from medications to surgical procedures and cutting-edge nonsurgical devices. Talk to your doctor about any symptoms that are affecting your quality of life.
70s AND UP The risk for cervical cancer declines after 65, but ovarian and breast cancer are still threats, and screenings should continue until very late in life. “When we get into the much, much older population, if you would still want to be treated if we found something, then we should still screen for it,” notes LoftusSmith. But what’s just as important at this stage, doctors say, is quality of life. Staying active, eating properly, maintaining intimacy for as long as possible, and keeping the mind engaged—those are the interventions that will make a world of difference. Q
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HEALTH WATCH WOMEN’S HEALTH
HOT FLASHES too often?
IMPROVING INTIMACY
MOOD SWINGS unpredictable? PAINFUL intercourse?
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Menopause should not disrupt your life Dr. Linda Evans understands the importance of safe, individualized care for every woman; making menopause
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hile hot flashes and mood swings get all the attention during menopause, another side effect of declining estrogen is vaginal dryness, which leads to painful intercourse. Previously, estrogen replacement was the only option for genitourinary syndrome of menopause (formerly known as “vaginal atrophy”). Now, a painless laser procedure can revitalize the vaginal tissue and restore the vagina to a state similar to before menopause. The therapy is especially life-changing for breast cancer survivors who are not candidates for estrogen replacement therapy. “It’s pretty remarkable,” says Mickey Karram, M.D., director of urogynecology for The Christ Hospital and professor of OB/GYN and urology at the UC College of Medicine. Karram led the first U.S. trial of the MonaLisa Touch therapy at The Christ Hospital in conjunction with an investigator at Stanford. “We’re seeing an 85 to 90 percent success rate in 85 to 90 percent of patients.” The therapy includes a series of three treatments, which take less than five minutes each and can be done in the office. The effects last for a year, after which only one treatment will be needed.
Linda Evans, MD, FACOG • MonaLisa™ Certified • SottoPelle® Licensed
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Cincinnati’s Leading Expert in Menopausal Care
; Guidelines for this cervical cancer screening have changed, and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists no longer recommends annual screenings for all women. Talk to your doctor about your own risk factors and the appropriate frequency for you.
Feel Better Today.
; Important: This does not mean you don’t need to see your OB/GYN every year. Those yearly exams are still essential to monitor other health issues.
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The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!
FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF
November 13–15 Duke Energy Cincinnati ti Convention Center – Downtown
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It’s a vintage Christmas at this year’s Santa scene at The Greater Cincinnati Holiday MarketSM. Visit Santa in the warm glow of his hearth room filled with antique-style toys and treasures and framed by a festively decorated holiday tree. The experts at Tracie Jean Photo Studios welcome children at Booths 170 & 172 for professional portraits with Santa. Fun accessories, such as reindeer hats, will also be available for purchase. To help create an enjoyable and memorable encounter, studio owner Tracie Maglosky suggests that parents have their kids think about the top three things on their holiday wish list. “Santa is a great conversationalist, but this will give the children something to talk about,” she says. Mom and dad will take home a digital copy of the photo with a release to print as many additional copies as they choose. Meanwhile, back at their Findlay Street studio, the pros at Tracie Jean Photo Studios create a unique set each holiday season to photograph groups and families. Sets range from reclaimed barn wood with a rustic flair to a clean white and cashmere-gray set with lighted birch trees and a decorated mantel. Along with each year’s holiday-set photo options, families are welcome to choose an outdoor holiday and photography experience at Big Tree Plantation in the midst of a beautiful Christmas tree farm. To learn more, visit traciejeanphoto.com.
It’s a Cincinnati tradition! Find hundreds of distinctive gifts at the best celebration of holiday shopping in our region. Local, regional and national retailers are ready and waiting for you with fabulous boutique finds and exclusive gourmet treats at the Duke Energy Convention Center. From handcrafted treasures, toys, sporting goods and fabulous jewelry to tantalizing spices and gourmet chocolates, The Greater Cincinnati Holiday MarketSM is ready to help you discover that special something for every special someone. Show admission includes the 2015 Cincy Specialty Food & Treats Show SM, where you’ll find holiday entertaining and tasty gift ideas—perfect for serving at your next festive party or for gifting at that next holiday open house. Don’t miss the live demonstrations, informative seminars and photo ops with Santa. Later, relax and unwind at the extensive wine bar and let one of our chef attendants help you create your own custom cheese plate, or order up a delicious carved turkey sandwich with all the trimmings. It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Enjoy the Show!
VICKI HART Owner/Show Manager Hart Productions, Inc.
November 13–15, 2015 • Duke Energy Convention Center Show Hours Friday, November 13...............10 AM–6 PM Saturday, November 14...........10 AM–6 PM Sunday, November 15..............10 AM–5 PM
Admission & Discounts Adults..............................................$9 Children 12 & under......................Free (when accompanied by a paying adult)
Save $3 by purchasing your ticket at Kroger. PHOTO COURTESY TRACIE JEAN PHOTO STUDIOS
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THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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The Holiday Shopping Scene Preview 16 merchants in this exclusive sneak peek. BY MARNIE HAYUTIN
OH Baby! The littlest Ohio residents can show their state pride with a hand-cut and hand-stitched bib from Tiny Treasures. Made from upcycled T-shirts, the super-absorbent bibs are 10 inches by 12 inches with snap closures. Paula Mangold started Tiny Treasures after the birth of her second child. Her goal was to create handmade baby items that are both useful and trendy. “I want everyone to know that there is a fun alternative to commercially made baby items,” Mangold says. The I LOVE Ohio baby bib will be available for $13 in Booth 115.
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Cozy. It’s more than a look.
Evoke that feeling and more during our Anniversary Sale. Our everyday low prices are 20-40% off manufacturer’s suggested retail. Free Delivery with your purchase of $1000 or more within a 50 mile radius. Financing available to qualified buyers. See store for details.
Amelia: 1912 Ohio Pike 513-797-5000
Kenwood: 8155 Montgomery Rd. 513-794-1555
Open: Open: M-Sa 10 - 6 • Su 1 - 5
Open: M/Th 10-8 • Tu/W/F/Sa 10 - 6 • Su 1 - 5
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Healthy Snacking Jamie Coates-Donohue developed the first Grandola Granola flavor as a healthy snack for her baby daughter Ella. A business was born after Ella’s second birthday party—she gave the granola away in favor bags, and friends and family started placing orders. Nut-free and all-natural, Grandola flavors incorporate organic pumpkin and sunflower seeds, Ohio maple syrup, organic dried fruits and organic spices. Certified gluten-free versions are available, too. Sample Ella’s Favorite, Autumn’s Best and Summer Time in Booth 566. Prices range from $5 for a small bag to $25 for the two-jar gift box.
Hometown Pride With a mission to grow love, Be Ohio Proud creates simple ways to show admiration for your state and your community. This super-soft, ¾-sleeve T-shirt ($30) is the perfect gift for kids away at college and all the proud Ohioans on your list. Or, choose from many other T-shirt styles, glassware and gift items on display in Booth 514.
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Age of Romance Using the tagline “Jewelry for the Old Soul,” Sara Davis designs mixed-media and soldered assemblage jewelry and home accents. Each piece incorporates vintage elements such as European crystals and beads, sacred medals, gems and rhinestones. “I want each piece to reflect a celebration of those things that romance the heart: love, faith, family, friendship and the poetry of life,” says Davis, owner of In Small Spectacles. Her work has been featured in Belle Armoire Jewelry and Jewelry Affaire, but you can see it in Booth 258.
Getting Saucy Let Cucina Pitrelli make your holiday entertaining easier this year. Pitrelli’s pasta sauces maintain the family tradition of using the freshest all-natural ingredients—the same tradition guests enjoy at Pitrelli’s restaurant in Mason. Stop by Booth 462 to sample fan favorite Basil & Garlic, as well as Spicy Arrabbiata. Each 32-ounce jar (24-ounce for the Arrabbiata) is $5.
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Holiday Lights These frosty-glass Christmas candles by Aunt Sadie’s Candles resemble the sugar-coated candles popular in the 1950s. The glass cylinder has a clear crystal outer coating, which sets the image aglow when the pinescented candle burns. Once the candle has burned away, replace it with a votive candle for continued use of the decorative cylinder. They’re available for $20 at Fort Thomas Central, Booths 108 & 110, where you’ll also find Charley Harper by Pomegranate, Lucie Rice Prints, Shiraleah fashion accessories and more.
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Yes, It’s a Mix! Dessert doesn’t get any easier than the Buckaroo Brownies from Mother Mills OldFashioned Food Mixes. Simply add oil and eggs, and you’ve got dark, rich, fudgy chocolate chip brownies. Mother Mills was founded on the idea that everyone deserves homecooked food. “Our mission is to take the hard work out of made-from-scratch cooking,” says Jamie Mills. Visit Booth 380 to sample some of their most popular mixes, including chicken tortilla soup, white chili, flavored beer breads, scrumptious muffins and more.
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Sneak Peek Signature Scents Set the holiday mood with a soy candle or reed diffuser from Peripeti Home, Booth 259B. Owner Kate Walsh blends the fragrances herself, so each one is a unique scent that can’t be found anywhere else. The limitededition holiday scents include Cypress & Jasmine, Holiday Hearth and Pumpkin & Ginger. The newest line is the Landmark Series featuring original fragrances developed with inspiration from local Cincinnati landmarks, such as Music Hall and Findlay Market. Prices are $19 for the traditional-wick candles, $25 for wooden-wick candles (Show special: 2 for $45) and $35 for the reed diffusers.
Greater Cincinnati’s Finest Homemade Candies and Ice Cream Since 1939
The best gift choice for friends, employees & clients!
Try our delicious Opera Creams, our most popular candy, a Greater Cincinnati specialty! Made with pure rich cream to tantalize the tastebuds and to create the ultimate of creams. Other specialties include Fudges, Caramels, Cordial Cherries, Pecan Caramelettes (turtles), and so much more, all home-made. 420 Fairfield Avenue • Bellevue, KY 41073 (859) 431-3545 • schneidercandy@fuse.net • schneiderscandies.com
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On Dasher! Be ready to call Santa’s reindeer on Christmas Eve with a set of heirloom-quality bells from Irish Leather Works, Booth 137. Tuned to Santa’s specifications with a different tone for each reindeer, the set of bells is handcrafted from English bridle leather and solid brass hardware. The set includes a leather strap with brass clasps for hanging under a tree, under a mantel or on the wall. It’s specially priced for Holiday MarketSM at $200.
2015
EXTRAORDINARY HOME DECOR & GIFTS
November 14 – January 3 Admission Adults Children (5-12) 4 and under
Hours $7 $4 FREE
Open Daily 10 am - 5 pm
Presented by: VOTED BEST OF THE EAST • ARTWORK • MIRRORS • LIGHTING FLORALS • ACCESSORIES • JEWELRY FASHION • BABY & KIDS CANDLES • CARDS • OUTDOOR • HOLIDAY TREASURES
7767 Five Mile Road • Cincinnati, OH 45230 231-6861 • Like us on W W W. H A R T P R O D U C T I O N S . C O M
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT
Sneak Peek
One for Everyone Treat your friends, family, clients or employees to a tasty gift that fosters good health. Think.Fresh boxes are filled with high-quality assorted mixed nuts, dried fruits and more, either in decorated mason jars or individual snack packs. Created by LBSnutrition, Think.Fresh offers a healthy alternative to gift-giving and holiday snacking. This box of 15 sampler packs is $40. Check it out in Booth 559.
Meet Elsa! 11 AM–3 PM ON SUNDAY
The Ultimate Christmas Cookie White chocolate peppermint cookies from Jenny’s Homemade Cookies have Santa’s name all over them—that is, if you’re willing to share. Jenny’s original recipe is made with white chocolate chunks, crushed candy canes and pure butter. (“No shortening in our bakery!” she says.) A dark chocolate variety is available, too, made with Nestle and Ghirardelli dark chocolates. All cookie flavors are made by hand with absolutely no preservatives or artificial flavors. Cookies are priced individually at $3. Put a gift box together at Booth 261B.
H 14 • THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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A Tall Order The father/daughter team behind Little E Trends has created these growth chart rulers. Handmade by carpenter Tom Knueven and available in a wide range of colors, they’re designed with hooks on the back to hang on the wall. “Take them down to measure your child’s height, and put it right back on the wall,” says owner/ designer Emily Knueven. “This way you will not ruin your walls with the typical pencil marks, and if you move you can take it with you!” Most styles are $58; find one that matches your child’s room decor in Booth 159C.
Candy Cuties Ann Emerson started Annie’s Homemade Sweets in 2001 with the goal of creating candy that looks as beautiful as it tastes. “I show my love in the beauty of the candy,” Emerson says. Bestsellers include the Santa, Snowman and Reindeer Nutter Butters (pictured, $3.95), Turkey Nutter Butters, Snowman Oreos, Peppermint Crunch Bark and more. See the selection in Booth 476.
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THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT
Sneak Peek In The Bag Bow clutch wristlets evoke a soft, vintage style with selections from B Ritze, Booth 313. Available for $78 at the Holiday MarketSM , each clutch is crafted from 100 percent reclaimed wool, and no two are alike. The product line comes from Baabaazuzu, a company in Michigan that started after the founder’s husband shrunk her favorite wool sweaters in the dryer. It’s just one of the many creative and original product lines lovingly assembled by Blair Ritze, owner of B Ritze, the Anderson Township clothing boutique.
Imbibe in Style This smart-looking wine clutch combines fashion and function. Insulated to keep your wine cool, it comes with a handy corkscrew hidden inside a side zipper. Available in a variety of colors and patterns, the wine clutch doubles as a fashion purse—a wardrobe essential for women who enjoy wine! You’ll find it for $21.95 at Cork and Grape, Booth 249, which offers a full line of products for the wine enthusiast. Photo courtesy of Primeware, Inc.
Nutty Treat Pure cane sugar, fresh butter, real vanilla and a commitment to small-batch production make JK Brittleworks “a brittle like no other” as the tagline states. The owners of this familyrun business strive to ensure that every box that leaves their kitchen is of the highest quality. You’ll find pecan, cashew and pistachio brittle in Booth 464 this year.
H 16 • THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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What to Bring to The Show Come Prepared! No matter what your shopping strategy is, you’ll find the following checklist will prepare you for a day of shopping fun.
Comfortable walking shoes
Your appetite...for a pre-Thanksgiving luncheon or an after-Show trip to one of the many downtown restaurants
Your go-to credit card or cash
A mental note to check in on the holiday happenings A cooler to leave in the car—perfect to pack gourmet
on Fountain Square (myfountainsquare.com)
cheeses and other food items in for the drive home
Your naughty and nice list A highlighter to mark your must-see vendors in the Show program
Loads of cheer
Large tote bag to carry packages
And your holiday spirit!
Paintthehe ect Perfect Present! at
Kenwood Towne Centre 513.745.8777
www.thepotteryplace.biz
T he
Pottery Place Kenwood
An all inclusive paint your own pottery studio
Walk In Parties Mobile Events Workshops W W W. H A R T P R O D U C T I O N S . C O M
Style • Gifts • Home
We have a gift for style. 3439 Michigan Ave. Cincinnati, OH Hyde Park Square 513.871.8852
www.nestgifts.com
THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
• H17
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT
Demonstrations and Seminars FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 11 AM Busy Weeknight Cooking Dave Cook NOON Go Nuts with Healthy Alternatives Think.Fresh by LBSnutrition 1 PM Cookie Uncorked Patti Foster 2 PM Holiday Appetizers with Made By Mavis Artisan Jams Made by Mavis 3 PM Holiday Appetizers Chocolate Raspberry Meatballs & Savory Brussels Sprout Dip Ann’s Raspberry Farm
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14
A Cincinnati Landmark Since 1907
The most exquisite collection of fine linens and accessories for the bed, bath and table.
Fine Linens • Nursery & Baby Unique Gifts for the Home • Elegant Lingerie
11 AM Holiday Appetizers Chocolate Raspberry Meatballs & Savory Brussels Sprout Dip Ann’s Raspberry Farm
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15 NOON Busy Weeknight Cooking Dave Cook
7809 Cooper Road in Historic Downtown Montgomery 871-4050 or 1-800-634-4369 • www.gattlescincinnati.com H 18 • THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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Exhibitors
Show sponsors are listed in Bold.
3 Sweet Girls Cakery...................................................466
C’est Chic Paris..................................................341–345
Hannah’s Huggables ........................................... 550
Chic Embroidery Boutique, LLC.............. 160
Hey Baby! Boutique .............................................. 425
Chickenmash Farm ...............................................166
Honey Sweetie Acres...........................456 & 458
Christian Help Center ........................................ 354
How Cute is That? LLC........................................ 329
Cincinnati Beer Soap .............................. 106
HSMI.........................................................................................460A
Cincinnati Gaslite Co. .......................................... 224
The Humble Jumble................................................437
Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Honda Dealers ..................................... Lobby, Cafe
The Hummingbird Feeder............................. 255 Image Leather Inc. ..........................458A & 458B
A to Z Expressions ...................................................149
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park ................D (Saturday & Sunday)
In Small Spectacles................................................ 258
A Very Vine Creation, LLC. ............................ 554
Cincy Shirts .............................................................. 358B
Irish Leather Works, Inc. ......................................137
ALOTTA Chocolate and Cheese................157
Classic Golf Gifts ......................................................301
It’s in the Details, Ltd..................................................404
And the Bead Goes On, LLC.......... 214 & 216
Classic Prep Monograms ................................ 407
I’ve Been Framed..................................................... 222
Anna Maria Patterns ...........................................403
Clever Container .......................................................560B
Ivy Basket .............................................................................311
Antonio Violins......................................................... 232
Cork and Grape................................................................249
JoJo Bean SEW Sweet ........................................462
Aquatic & Garden Décor................................... 223
Country Charm Quilt Co......................................L5
Kentucky Gentlemen Cigar Co....................451
Art On Symmes................................................................8
Country Manor Mixes, LLC .............523–527
Kid Kovers, LLC .......................................................... 141
Artistry In Sync.........................................................344
Crabapple Alley Gifts, LLC ....................................7
Kids Kloset......................................................................500
Artists, Poets, & Soldiers ...............................166B
Curate Boutique ......................................... 426 & 428
Kirtiffdy Crafts........................................................... 427
Aura Art Wear ........................................................................228
Cute As A Button....................................... 214 & 216
Kismet................................................................... 112 & 114
B & E Ceramics ..............................................523–527
Delicious Additions .........................359B & 359C
Kreative Mindz ................................................................. 501
B. Ritze ................................................................................313
Design With Heart, LLC....................................459B
KSCanuck LLC ............................................................. 458C
Baby Cheeks by Shannon ..................................442
Designs by Lynnea ................................................ 528
La Crema Coffee Company ................. 513–517
Bake Me Home ..................................................................4
Downtown Girl .......................................... 201 & 203
The ‘Lil’ Country Store ........................................126
Balconi Gear.................................................................350
Dynogen Marketing............................................. 453
Lilla Rose..........................................................................244
BANDI Wear......................................................................316
East 125 Gallery ............................................................ 352
Linda Cowell Originals........................................... 411
Bard Nurseries, Inc. .............................................. 100
Elite Cosmetics ........................................... 156 & 158
Lindy Lee’s Designs...............................................512
Baylee’s Beauties........................................................ 159B
Elizabeth’s Closet....................................................... 207
Little Bea Boutique ................................................ 563 (Saturday & Sunday)
Be Ohio Proud .............................................................514
ellajude ............................................................................... 118 Emily Kai Headbands LLC ......................... 558A
Little E Trends, LLC ........................................... 159C
Bear Paddle Swim School ............................... 226
Eternity Lights ............................................................145
Lucky Kat..........................................................................162
Becoming Mom Pregnancy Spa & Ultrasound Center .........................................159A
EZ Hang Chairs .........................................................449
Lula Bell Art & Designs .......................... 513–517
Bee Mine Sunshine ................................................127
Fatty & Skinny Brand Sauce ......................... 207
Made by Mare.....................................................................5
Bella’s Boutique...................................................459A
Flaherty’s – "The Irish Candy Co!" ........540
Made to Love................................................................ 236
Belvedere Emporium ...........................................414
Flora Sun Jewelry ...............................................259C
Master Guild, LLC ............................................... 358A
Ben’s Mustard........................................................................ 253
Fort Thomas Central............................. 108 & 110
Maya’s Barkery..........................................359B & 359C
Blackout Tees .............................................................. 507
Fountain Square Publishing .......................327
MAYcreations..............................................................506
Bling!...........................................................................................2
Frontier Soups ................................................................132
Miche....................................................................................123
Bottle Crafters................................................................ 359
Gingham Rose ..............................................................261A
Miss Em’s ..................539 (Saturday & Sunday)
Brady Bands.............................................................. 258B
Girl’s World............................................................ 101–105
Mom’s Gourmet ........................................................ 245
The Brewhaus Bakery: Brewhaus Dog Bones ............................................. L2
GlassLight Candle Co. ....................... 200 & 202
Monera Chic Boutique ...........................................433
GMH Enterprises .................................................460B
My Favorite Beads............................................... 358C
Busom Buds.................................................................. 558
Going Green Lanterns ....................................461B
Nest.............................................................................................241
Cashmere Bath ...........................................................510
Gypsy South .................................................. 150 & 152
NEST Home, Garden & Gift......................120
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THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT
Exhibitors Sacksteder’s Interiors ..............................Lobby
Vintage Vamp Jewelry .................................556
Savvy Clothing............................................240
Walton Creek Boutique ............................204
Scentsy - Pages Scent, Inc. .....................133
We The Beautiful .............................................536
The Scrabble Chick ......................................423
WendyWear ........................................................416
The Sewing Loft ............................................227
Winey Girl, LLC..............................................129
SherLis Boutique...........................................256
World Threads ................................... 457 & 459
Shop Twenty Something ........................459C
The Younique Boutique ..............................547
The Sign Post ...............................................158A
Younique By Lynn ..........................................455
Original Depler......................................... 258A
Silpada Designs Jewelry.............................401
Owl Be Sweatin’ ..........................................444
The SilverLady II ...........................................306
Yummés Handcrafted Confections ...................................................155
Paddycakes Natural Skin Care ...............254
Silver Rabbit Studio .........................533–537
Pearly Vine by Heidi Ackley................ 258C
Skin Food By Aubrey.......................................1
Pens & More .................................................541
soHza, Ltd........................................................558C
Peripeti Home .............................................259B
Station Bay, Ltd. .............................................302
Photo Greetings & Other Gifts ...............405
Stephanie Dawn .............................522 & 524
Pine Lane Soaps ............................................429
Steve Hayden .......................................................... 359A
Pink Boutique 1 ............................................ 174 (Saturday & Sunday)
The Style Loft .......................................................... 461A
New Richmond Alpaca Farm ............................549–553 & 548 The Nola Watkins Collection ...............557B Northwest Flags .........................361A & 361B Ohio Valley Herbal Products ..................310 Once and Again Designs ..........................552 One Dog Organic Bakery .......................560A Origami Owl ................................................441
The Pink Box ...............................................315 Pink Slate Boutique ......................................161 Pink Tulip Club ..................................101–105 Pinky’s Pickens ..........................................314
Sunrise Showers Soap Co.........................555
A Spice Above .................................................281
T & T Gifts .........................................................323
Annie’s Homemade Sweets.....................476
Taylor Monroe Boutique ........................... 135
Ann’s Raspberry Farm................................473
Ten Thousand Villages ..............................526
Applecreek Specialty Foods...................... 571
TeSori, Inc. .......................................................544
Baking You Happy .......................................266
Their Candle Company .............................. 504
Bessie’s Noodles ..........................................372
Think.Fresh .....................................................559
Bev’s Best Brittle ............................................265
Pitrelli’s Restaurant......................................462 Poeme ............................................................215 Pony Pal Stables .......................360A & 360B
Thirty-One Gifts.............................................300
Boone Creek Creamery ...............................471
Princess Parties Boutique ..........Meet Elsa! (Sunday, 11 am–3 pm)
Three French Hens .........................................111
Bouna Terra .....................................................465
Prints Charming Cartoons ......................130
Tiny Treasures Designs .............................115
Browning’s Country Ham........................182
Proper Tea Apparel ......................................259
Toko Baru ..............................................112 & 114
Pure Romance by Stephanie Muth Ryan.................................303
Toy Rocket Studios LLC ..............................107
Buckeye Chocolate Company.........................................................271 & 273 Busken Bakery ..................................................373
Queen City Revolt..............................................117
Tracie Jean Photo Studios........................170 & 172, 259A
The Ram's Horn Connection....................358
Trend Boutique of Cincinnati.................440
Cappy’s Caramel Corn, LLC................... 583
RAP Ventures, LLC .......................................405
True Adorn Boutique .....................305 & 307
Recreations Outlet .......................................349
Truckshop .................................................................151
Caruso’s Gourmet Foods – The Italian Torta ..........................................477
Reflections .......................................................348
The Twisted Giraffe .....................................326
Robben Florist & Garden Center ...............................248 & 250
Twisted Sister Crochet ...............................445 Under the Kentucky Sun...........................164
Cape Fear Rum Cake ...................................605
Chamoda’s Candy Café ...............................613 Chuck Evan’s MONTEZUMA Brand Sauces & Salsas .............................................173
Robert Flischel Photography ..................327
UptownJo Creations ...................................229
Colonel De Gourmet Herbs & Spices ................................................ 381
Robin’s Letter Art .............................................L1
Usborne Books & More ...............................400
Cookies By Design......................................570
Rory Maxwell ..................................................410
Varu .....................................................................328
Cookies Uncorked ...........................................609
Ruby Ribbon................................................. 402
The Velvet Road ..............................................211
Corporation for Findlay Market .............264
Ruffles N Buttons.........................................159B
Vineyard Designs ......................................... 159
Cutco Cutlery..................................................467
S & P Hats to Primitives ......................................357
Vintage Candle Company .......................415
D’marie ............................................................481
H 20 • THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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Don Popp’s Honey Farm ..........................463 Fab Ferments..................................................366 The Fawn Candy Co.......................................178
CELEBRATE in
Merry Madison, IN
Fireside Coffee Co. ........................................163 Flying Olive..........................................................167 FoodieCards ......................................................165 Garlic Plate ......................................................263 GC of I Gripstic ................................................371 Gourmet Creation Dip ................................367 Graeter’s...............................................................577 Grandola Granola .................................................566 Jenny’s Homemade Cookies..............261B JK Brittleworks..................................................464 Katie's Premium Jerky and Snacks.....176 Life of Riley Foods .......................................567 Lifetime Cookware ...........................270 & 272 Lolly’s Apple Pops ..............................................564
November 27 & 28 & December 4 & 5 Tour Private Homes and Public Sites www.nightsbeforechristmas.com
Very Merry Madison Christmas Parade December 5 Great Holiday Shopping
Louise’s Sweets....................................... 176B
Learn About All Our Holiday Festivities
Lustre Craft.......................................................480
visitmadison.org | 800-559-2956
Macaron Bar .................................................376 Made By Mavis ..............................................607 Mastershand BBQ........................................572 Mother Mills Old-Fashioned Food Mixes........................................................380 Mt. Kofinas Olive Oil ..................................579 My Momma’s Kitchen ..................................580 Nut But Baby, LLC ..........................................567 Ohlemacher’s Wisconsin Meat and Cheese Products, Inc...........................262 Ole Ray’s Sauces................................................377 Owl Creek Bison...........................................277 Patty’s Old Fashioned Popcorn ..............363 Rimmer Family Favorites........................575 Ron & Frank’s Hot Chocolates...............569 Smokin’ Oak ...................................................576 Sophistication is Overrated....................562 Stovetop Indoor Smokeless Grill...........171 The Sweet Shoppe ..........................362 & 364 Tastefully Simple - Beth Martin .............267 Tea72 .................................................470 & 472 Tupperware ..........................................................180 Whirlybird Granola.....................................370 Yankee Doodle Pret...ZELS...........................581
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THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT
Show Map cakery
Official Bakery of the Holiday Market
SM
FIFTH STREET
Watch for many great giveaways from 3 Sweet Girls Cakery on the Holiday MarketSM Facebook page!
presented by the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Honda Dealers
ELM STREET H 22 • THE GREATER CINCINNATI HOLIDAY MARKET SM PRESENTED BY CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY HONDA DEALERS
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CONNECT WITH US
By Charles M. Schulz Based on the television special by Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson Stage adaptation by Eric Schaeffer By special arrangement with Arthur Whitelaw and Ruby Persson
DEC 4-6, 12 & 13 AT THE TAFT THEATRE
TICKETMASTER.COM
www.thechildrenstheatre.com
800.745.3000
2015 FACES CINCINNATI of
The Face of
AWARD-WINNING PUBLISHING
Ivy Bayer of
CINCINNATI MAGAZINE
ARE YOU THE FACE OF YOUR INDUSTRY? Reserve your proямБle today. Call Tammy Vilaboy, Advertising Director, at 513-562-2779.
COMING DECEMBER 2015
D NE
LUNCH AT KINNERET CAFÉ P. 150 O FILL YOUR GROWLER P. 152 O EAT LIKE A BENGAL P. 153 O SOTTO’S OCTO-BOMB P. 156
TAPAS THE POPS A SELECTION OF SMALL PLATES FROM MITA’S: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) SPANISH OMELETTE, BLISTERED SHISHITO PEPPERS, QUESO BURRATA WITH TOMATOES AND SERRANO HAM, AND BEEF SHORT RIB EMPANADAS.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JEREMY KRAMER
N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M 1 4 7
DINING OUT
FAMILY MATTERS
Jose Salazar is back for round two with even more evocative flavors. This time it’s personal. — J E F F M A T H E W S
“TASTES LIKE GRANDPA,” MY FRIEND GLEEFULLY CHORTLED, TWIRLING HIS COCKTAIL GLASS WITH equal parts delight and amused authority. I’d just mentioned that his margarita was a touch sour for my taste, but my Angeleno dining companion would hear none of it. A hit of lime, he told me, was all that he needed to remember the casual gatherings of his large Mexican family, when older folks used minimal humble ingredients to highlight tequila, not turn it into something else. At Jose Salazar’s newest restaurant, Mita’s, chasing this kind of flavor memory is a huge part of the appeal. His sweeping 130-seat restaurant in the newly christened 84.51° building at Fifth and Race pays homage to Spanish and South American cuisine, whose ruddy, bright flavors have always nonchalantly informed the edges of his cooking. The name pays tribute to his own grandmother, Martha Mejia de Toro. (Mita is short for mamita, a term of endearment that literally translates to “little mother” or “mommy.”) Salazar spent many summers with his mita in Medellín, Colombia, watching her grind white masa with an aluminum hand crank, turning the meal into the same kind of arepas and empanadas that now grace Mita’s menu. “Obviously we take some liberties,” he says, “but sometimes there just isn’t much room to play—these foods are a big part of me.” The ground-floor space itself feels formidable, even a bit racy. Darker tones, and Moorish-patterned metal screens imported from Portugal break up the cavernous room into a series of more intimate areas, each curving outward from an open kitchen. Columns along the interior are lined with Spanish tile. Later in the evening, the energy of a nightclub merges with the hushed gravitas of a formal dining room. Mita’s soul might be Salazar’s biological family, but it’s his chosen restaurant family that provides its backbone. Jonathan Fox, sous chef at Salazar, designed the tony denim aprons worn by cooks and bar staff, 1 4 8 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5
FYI
Mita’s 501 Race St., downtown, (513) 421-6482, mitas.co Prices $5 (pan con tomate)–$59 (paella for two) Hours Mon–Sat 5–10 Credit cards All major The Takeaway Deftly executed comfort food ripe with the flavors of the Spanish diaspora. Service is attentive and friendly, but there’s a bit of hovering. Cab it if necessary—the drinks are not to be missed.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEREMY KRAMER
MAMA MITA’S!
(Clockwise from left) Chuleta de puerco (pork loin); paella Valenciana; making a drink in the lounge; a mezcal Manhattan; Chef-Owner Jose Salazar.
spiffy numbers that offer enough pockets for thermometers, pens, and muddlers. Francisco Alfaro, another long-time sous chef, helms the kitchen, while Andrew Rettig moves downtown from the mothership to steer Mita’s ambitious drinks program. It’s a treat to watch Rettig and his bar staff work. Margaritas notwithstanding, the drink menu serves a range of palates—a mezcal Manhattan benefits from a smoked cherry undertone, while the effete yet dazzling Nuevo Frontera has a raspberry and watermelon sweetness, and the marigold petal garnish helped me get in touch with my softer side. A simple glass of 2014 La Cana Albariño may taste like a mouthful of rocks to the uninitiated, but its high minerality and acidity jams superbly with the rich, salty Spanish cheeses on the menu. Mita’s tapas menu is rife with little indulgences. Voluptuous fried plantains maximize their sweet potential and pick up just the right hint of citrus from the wedges of lime that line the bowl. But the short rib empanadas steal the show. These wellconstructed pockets of made-to-order corn masa are filled with tender short rib. Take a tip here from Salazar’s former partner in crime Dan Wright, whom we saw at the bar cutting in with the sauce spoon and heaping as much cilantro/hot chile pepper aji verde into the pockets as he could. Wright leaned in and smirked, “If you want to have some fun, call this ‘chimichurri’ in front of Jose.” Even friends can spar over semantics. What I enjoy most about Mita’s is how Alfaro and Salazar constantly reach for bold yet balanced flavors. Still, some of the side dishes were inconsistent. A red snapper ceviche had a stirring mango-hot pepper flavor, but
the fish was “overcooked.” Long-cut fried plantain chips served elegantly—fanning upward and outward from their saucepan—were stunningly crisp on one visit, but drastically salty on another. An awkwardly assembled heart of palm salad came with a heap of saturated greens on top of the Roncal cheese and orange wedges. But these are normal quirks—a sign, if nothing else, that the kitchen needs a few more turns around the dance floor. Let’s be clear—you will pay downtown prices for entrées, which start near $30 and climb higher fast. My advice: Sell your car if you have to. Domino-thick slices of tender lamb loin arrived swimming in a piercing fennel soubise alongside smashed potatoes that pick up a vegetal sweetness from Spanish olive oil, one of four varieties the kitchen uses. A bone-in Duroc pork chop had a snappy salt crust and a soft, lovely chew, perched regally atop a medley of seasonal beans and succulent roasted chanterelles. But true culinary adventurers should opt for the paella for two. Mita’s version is built on calasparra rice and finished in the Valencian style with sweet peppers, chorizo, chicken thighs, shrimp, clams, mussels, and octopus. At close to $60, it’s pricey, but worth it. It’s a tribute to Mita’s professionalism that my friend and I were never pushed toward sweets when we were clearly so fat and happy. As a public service, however, I pressed on. Yes, there is a dessert menu, where you’ll find an outstanding chocolate torte served with a housemade dulce de leche ice cream. It adds a welcome salty antidote to the richness of the chocolate. But you’d be better off finishing with a glass of Fino En Rama, a palate-cleansing sherry with a raisin nose and a bone-dry finish. When I first saw Mita’s glamorous space and all the intense flavors on the menu, I felt as if my id had opened a restaurant. Aside from a quibble or two, it never disappointed. It speaks to Salazar’s skill as a restaurateur that a place this ambitious can feel complete so quickly after opening. It’s clear he’s firing on all cylinders. This is a family table where it’s an honor to have a seat. N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M 1 4 9
LUNCH BOX
Vaad Habit
The schmear stops here. UCKED INTO AN INCONSPICUOUS CORNER OF Deer Park is a tiny tour de force of Israeli and pan-Mediterranean flavors prepared to one of the strictest codes in town. Cincinnati is home to very few sit-down kosher restaurants, and when Avner and Karen Chriqui opened Kinneret Café in 2009, they sought to fill that void for the Hasidic Jewish community. The Chriquis have seen a steady stream of health-conscious diners ever since. While Kinneret is technically pescatarian (try the tuna panini!) most of the menu is vegetarian. For the ultimate experience, opt for the Mediterranean platter. At $9.95, it’s a steal for five herby falafel globules, generous scoops of hummus and baba ghanoush, two briny stuffed grape leaves, chopped Israeli salad, and the accompanying basket of warm pita. The vegan shawarma plate—made with deftly spiced (think curry and cumin) seitan—is served atop a giant schmear of house-made hummus. It may not be the most colorful plate on Plainfield Road, but it’s undoubtedly one of the tastiest. And don’t pass on the shakshuka: three eggs poached in blistering hot tomato sauce with sautéed peppers is a comforting way to break the mid-day fast. — J O A N N E D R I L L I N G
T
Kinneret Café, 8316 Plainfield Rd., Deer Park, (513) 791-1777, kinneretcafe.com. Lunch Fri, lunch and dinner Sun–Thurs.
TAKE 5
HOST WITH THE MOST Everyone loves to sit down for the big meal, but no one wants to cook it. For a stress-free turkey day, go pro— and order early! —J E N N Y B U R M A N
THE PIE Yes, Thanksgiv1 ing is about gratitude, but it’s also about pie. O Pie O specializes in sweet and savory combinations with historic relevance—think vinegar pie, apple-rosemary pie with salted caramel, pumpkin pie with browned butter, bourbon pecan, and quiches. opieo.com
THE SIDES Just enough 2 time, patience and oven space for the turkey? Eat Well Celebrations and Feasts whips up stuffed acorn squash, roasted brussels sprouts, traditional sausage stuffing with raisins and herbs, and a classic Kentucky pecan pie. eatwell online.com
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THE BIRD Big bird freaking 3 you out? Whole Foods feels your pain. Pre-order locally raised kosher, organic, heirloom, or freerange turkeys at both locations, oven-ready or fully cooked. Deadline for orders is three days before Thanksgiving. wholefoods market.com/service/ holiday-menu
FOR DELIVERY Vonderhaars 4 has been catering since 1970 and will deliver the all-American classics: cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetable sides, and the turkey— sliced and ready to serve. Deliveries and pick-up until 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. vonderhaars.com
TAKE IT TO GO A Forkable 5 Feast focuses on fresh regional ingredients, seasonally updated. Whole Amish turkeys (or pieces) from Heritage Farm, sage dressing, and cranberry relish are standard, but special order sides are available, too. Deadline is five days ahead. aforkablefeast.com PHOTOGRAPH BY JEREMY KRAMER
THE CRAFT BEER
AUTHORITY CAVALIER DISTRIBUTING
largest selection of craft & import kegs available PUBLIC SALES | 1/2 barrels | party pumps | keg tubs
text order to 513-630-4249 pick up 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. fridays for more information, email info@cavbeer.com CavBeer.com
@CavBeerOH
CavBeer
4650 Lake Forest Dr. Suite 580 Cincinnati, Ohio
CavBeer
HIGH SPIRITS
License to Fill THE GROWLER STOP, NEWTOWN’S UNLIKELIEST CRAFT BEER HAVEN, IS A MODEL OF BOTTLING EFFICIENCY. — J U S T I N W I L L I A M S
Brew Master About two years ago, recognizing the growth of craft beer in the area, owner Bob Slattery (who also co-owns nearby Fifty West Brewing Co.) transformed the Shell gas station on Church Street into The Growler Stop, replete with 22 taps—most flowing with local brews—and 64- and 32-ounce growler bottles.
Fill ’Er Up They fill growlers using the Pegas CrafTap system, a counter-pressure device that functions like a standard beer-bottling machine. The Pegas creates a vacuum in the growler, removing all oxygen from the filling process, and then blasts the bottle with carbon dioxide once it’s full. “Whenever beer comes into contact with oxygen, that’s bad,” says manager Dale Richter.
Air Supply The blast of CO2 helps preserve the beer. Unopened, a Pegas-filled growler stays fresh for up to 90 days, as opposed to only a couple of weeks for a tap-filled growler. “We had a growler that we filled and kind of forgot about,” says Richter. “We found it six months later, and when we opened it, it tasted just like day one.”
Intensive Care There are reasons you won’t see many Pegas systems around town— Richter knows of only three others: It’s expensive, costing anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000, and requires a decent amount of maintenance by someone familiar with the intricacies of the device. “It’s not the most durable system,” says Richter. “But as long as it’s taken care of, it works great.”
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Head Space Most places fill growlers using a tube that runs to the bottom of the bottle. This helps to minimize foam (or “head”), but doesn’t eliminate the oxygen. With the Pegas, the standard 2 to 3 inches of foam filling the neck of the bottle creates a vapor lock for the beer below, ensuring that oxygen stays out.
Magic Button The switchboard is a series of nozzles connected to a corresponding keg—not unlike the taps nearby. The line on the front of the board runs from the selected nozzle to the Pegas, making it easy to switch between different beers, CO2 (for the carbon dioxide blast), and water (for cleaning the line). “You do pretty much the whole process right from the board,” says Richter. “It makes everything really simple.”
P H O T O G R A P H B Y A A R O N M . C O N W AY
TABLESIDE WITH...
STEPHANI SHEPHERDSYFAX
AS THE PERSONAL CHEF FOR A key Bengals wide receiver, Stephani Shepherd-Syfax has a big job on her hands—keeping the 6-foot-4, 200 pound A.J. Green fueled. But the former college athlete and MasterChef competitor has never shied away from a challenge. How did you land this job? I’ve always been a go-getter. One day I decided I wanted to cook for A.J. Green. I contacted him on social media and sent a photo of my food. I told him what I could do for him, and he believed in me. I met him and his girlfriend Miranda, who’s his wife now, and made them a dish. What guidelines do you use to feed a professional athlete? I did a lot of research before I even contacted him, just to make sure that I would do the job right. I am an ex-college athlete myself, so I know what works for athletes’ bodies. It’s a lot of personal experience and continuing education. How would you describe your cooking? I love to do what I call soul food. Now mine isn’t the typical soul food that people think of—fried chicken or macaroni and cheese—soul food is really just anything that you make your own and you cook out of passion. What does a typical meal for Green look like? I like to use healthy, complex carbs, very lean protein, green vegetables, and I always do raw vegetables and fruits at some point in the meal. He really loves seafood— like crab legs and shrimp—so I do a lot of seafood for him.
—CAROLINE chefbambina.com
CUNNINGHAM
FINE DIVING
Diner’s Club A VERITABLE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VINTAGE DINER CULTURE, PARKSIDE CAFÉ TOOK OVER a defunct Frisch’s location in Walnut Hills in 2007 and the place has thrived ever since— serving up flawless textbook examples of Americana classics: The eggs (as in Steak and Eggs) take a back seat to a juicy, six-ounce Angus sirloin along side the crispy hash-browns they call Parkside potatoes. Imagine that plateful your grandpa ate for breakfast back before cholesterol was a dietary abomination. They also nail biscuits and gravy: Big, tender biscuits want to float away, but are brought back down to earth by lovin’ spoonfuls of creamy gravy heavy with snappy sausage. Still remember “gluten?” If not, Parkside is happy to reeducate you with fluffy pancakes, crisp Belgian waffles, and decadent French toast. Looking for lunch? Skip those big salads and head straight for the sandwiches. If you’re used to fast food burgers, you might want to duct tape yourself to your seat before attempting to sink your teeth into one of Parkside’s third-pound Angus burgers: bold, dripping, and the definition of “meaty.” Now if you’re looking for “lighter” fare (yeah, right) their turkey melt smothers succulent grilled turkey with melted Parkside Café, 1026 Swiss. Add a few bacon slices and bookend the mess with two slices of East McMillan St., Walnut Hills, (513) 221Texas toast. As they used to say in the days before Wikipedia: Open 2026, parksidecafe. up an encyclopedia and look for “lip-smacking.” You’ll find a photo of info. Breakfast and lunch seven days. Parkside Café. — J . K E V I N W O L F E
ILLUSTR ATION BY A D R I A M E R C U R I / PH OTO G R A PH BY J E R E M Y K R A M E R
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ROADTRIP
A Lot of Gaul
A luxe Lexington outpost realizes its full potential.
THINK OF THE WORD COMPOUND—AS in Waco—but with much better cheese, bread, wine, pastry, and all-around taste. National Provisions isn’t just a café, restaurant, beer hall, or gourmet larder, it’s all of that under one very stylish roof. When Lexington native Andrea Sims and her French husband, Krim Boughalem, left New York City in 2008 to return home, their fancy friends may have snickered. But when the two opened the first stage of National in 2013, the local mic literally dropped. They started with an industrial bakery and café storefront that served Gallic standards with plenty of panache (vintage hotel silver, parchment-wrapped tartines) in the emerging Mentelle neighborhood. A Bauhausmeets-Bavaria beer hall followed, replete with mounted antlers and vintage steins. Brews range from esoteric European offerings to neue Cincinnati favorites such as Rhinegeist and Rivertown. Then the Bluegrass Brasserie—a technical study in exquisite 18-percent gray with cadet blue tufted velvet banquettes—officially started cranking out French classics with Low Country flair last December: bouillabaisse with fennel and sausage broth, duck confit with dumplings, and Blue crab salad with local peas and tarragon aioli. Bottomless sweet tea and baskets of biscuits National most definitely is not, but that hasn’t stemmed the tide of well-heeled patrons who devour their meals and wash it all down with an array of refreshments, from Ricard to Ridgemont Reserve. Who says you can’t sell brandade in the Bluegrass? —J OA N N E D R I L L I N G National Provisions, 264 Walton Ave., Lexington, (859) 303-4763. Open seven days.
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY SARAH JANE SANDERS
TRY THIS
OCTO BOMB
t’s been real, pork belly, but your rock star run as protein du jour is drawing to a close. Enter octopus, a meaty and juicy cephalopod prepared with precision at Sotto and popping up on menus around town. Fear not, tepid tentacle tasters. Octopus may carry a mean rep in the ocean, but its firm texture and lack of fishy taste make it the perfect foil for other flavors. Chef de Cuisine Danny Combs serves up choice cuts of grilled octopus (gently dusted with breadcrumbs) over a sea of white bean ragu laced with spicy shishito peppers and frisée, which adds a welcome bitter bite. At Sotto, 118 E. Sixth $21, it’s the priciest item on the antipasti menu, but it’s hearty enough serve as an entrée St., downtown, (513) 977-6886, when paired with a bruschetta. — A D A M F L A N G O sottocincinnati.com I
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P H O T O G R A P H BY A A R O N M . CO N WAY
Music Cincinnati
Sunday, November 29, 8:00 PM This month Music Cincinnati highlights selections from the Music in the Museum Concert Series from the 2014â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2015 season featuring organists Jean-Baptiste Robin, Nathan Laube, and Chelsea Chen with Romain Leleu on trumpet, mezzosoprano Stacey Rishoi, and Rick VanMatre on soprano saxophone.
DINING GUIDE
CINCINNATI MAGAZINE’S
dining guide is compiled by our editors as a service to our readers. The magazine accepts no advertising or other consideration in exchange for a restaurant listing. The editors may add or delete restaurants based on their judgment. Because of space limitations, all of
the guide’s restaurants may not be included. To update listings, write to: Dining, Cincinnati Magazine, Carew Tower, 441 Vine St., Suite 200, Cincinnati OH 45202-2039 Or e-mail: cmletters@cincinnati magazine.com
KEY: No checks unless specified. AE American Express, DC Diners Club DS Discover, MC MasterCard, V Visa MCC Major credit cards: AE, MC, V $ = Under $15 $$ = Mostly under $30 $$$ = Mostly under $49 $$$$ = $50 and up
159 AMERICAN 160 BARBECUE 160 CHINESE 162 ECLECTIC 163 ITALIAN 163 JAPANESE 164 KOREAN 165 MEXICAN 166 THAI
has the perfect proportion of sauce, noodle, and crumb topping. The Eagle OTR seems deceptively simple on the surface, but behind that simplicity is a secret recipe built on deep thought, skill, and love. 1342 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 802-
AMERICAN ANNABEL’S You should know Annabel Stolley, because she possesses the skills and talent of many of the most visible chefs in the city. Take her grits: Cheesy with Pecorino Romano, then grilled and topped with black beans, fresh housemade salsa, and eggs your way (ours arrived perfectly over easy), Stolley’s glorious grits prevent her “Eggs of the House” from living a more conventional life as a mere Tex-Mex breakfast dish. Breakfast, desserts, plump sandwiches, and fresh salads are delivered by energetic servers with dispositions as sunlit as the room. 1004 Delta Ave., Mt. Lookout, (513) 4178669. Breakfast and lunch Thurs–Sun. $
BRONTË BISTRO You might think this is a lunch-only spot where you can nosh on a chicken salad sandwich after browsing next door at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. But this Norwood eatery feels welcoming after work, too. The dinner menu features entrées beyond the rotating soup and quiche roster that’s popular at noon. Fried chicken? Check. Quesadillas and other starters? Yep. An assortment of burgers? Present, including turkey and veggie versions. Casual food rules the day but the surprise is Brontë Bistro’s lineup of adult beverages, which elevates the place above a basic bookstore coffeeshop. The regular drinks menu includes such mainstays as Hemingway’s Daiquiri, a tribute to the author who drank them (often to excess). 2692 Madison Rd., Norwood, (513) 396-8970. $5–$17. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days. MCC. $
THE EAGLE OTR The revamped post office at 13th and Vine feels cozy but not claustrophobic, and it has distinguished itself with its stellar fried chicken. Even the white meat was pull-apart steamy, with just enough peppery batter to pack a piquant punch. Diners can order by the quarter, half, or whole bird—but whatever you do, don’t skimp on the sides. Bacon adds savory mystery to crisp corn, green beans, and great northerns (not limas) in the succotash, and the crock of mac and cheese
5007. Lunch and dinner seven days.MCC. $
Top 10
BREAK THE FAST Stephen Williams and his wife Jessica launched Son & Soil, a healthy to-go spot in MainStrasse, modeled after the downtown cult classic Total Juice Plus. Pop in for breakfast or lunch and you’ll find seasonal wraps, sandwiches, soups, and salads. Everything will come from the Bouquet kitchen, and will feature local ingredients.
Son & Soil, 627 Main St., Covington, (859) 360-6268, facebook. com/sonandsoil
ORCHIDS AT PALM COURT
Veteran executive chef Todd Kelly possesses a mastery of flavor, pulling inspiration from any tradition he can get his hands on: Dazzling sashimi tuna paired with ponzu, persimmons, and candied ginger; a saffron-infused egg custard with white truffle and house-cured pancetta; or a 20day house-aged duck breast from Indiana’s Maple Leaf Farms, bathed in apple butter, with a few roasted turnips. The à la carte menu also showcases Kelly’s keen intuition for pairing—roasted venison with earthy chestnut puree, say, or a scallop entrée with quail egg, preserved pears, and pistachio gremolata. Sense a splurge coming on? This is the place. 35 W. Fifth St., downtown, (513) 421-9100, orchidsatpalmcourt.com. Dinner seven days. MCC, DS, DC. $$$
OTTO’S Chef/owner Paul Weckman opened Otto’s, named after his father-in-law, with $300 worth of food and one employee—himself. Weckman’s food is soothing, satisfying, and occasionally, too much of a good thing. His tomato pie is beloved by lunch customers: Vine-ripe tomatoes, fresh basil, and chopped green onions packed into a homemade pie shell, topped with a cheddar cheese spread, and baked until bubbly. Weckman’s straightforward preparations are best. The sauteed tilapia in lemon caper butter sauce with fingerling potatoes and roasted asparagus is elegant in its subtlety; an apricot-glazed duck breast served with Brussles sprouts and a squash-prosciutto risotto summons the peasant comfort of the French countryside. This is, at its heart, a neighborhood restaurant, a place with its own large, quirky family. 521 Main St., Covington, (859) 491-6678, ottosonmain.com. Lunch Mon–Sat, dinner Tues–Sat, brunch Sun. MCC. $$
RASCALS’ NY DELI Sandwiched between Café Mediterranean and Jersey Mike’s in a Blue Ash strip mall, Rascals’
has large laminated menus that read like a deli greatest hits playlist: towering cold and hot sandwiches, soups, combo plates, dinners, sides, desserts, and breakfast (“served all day”). There are bowls of pickles on the tables, cans of cream soda and celery tonic stacked on a counter, trays of rugelach piled in the pastry case, and friendly, no-nonsense service. Rascals’ does a Reuben well. Thinly sliced corned beef piled with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and housemade Russian dressing on grilled rye bread. Aromatic, moist, briny, sweet, and spicy—everything a good Reuben should be. 9525 Kenwood Rd., Blue Ash, (513) 429-4567, rascalsdeli.com. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner Mon, Wed-Sun. MCC, DS. $
Top 10
RED FEATHER KITCHEN
Historically peasant-grade cuts of meat get the full Pygmalion treatment at Red Feather in Oakley, where there’s deep respect for the time and tending necessary to bring a short rib, pork chop, or hanger steak to its full potential. After a quick sear to lock in juices, the steak takes a turn in the wood-fired oven. While primal cuts play a leading role, the supporting cast is just as captivating. The hot snap of fresh ginger in the carrot soup was especially warming on a winter evening and the crispy skin on the Verlasso salmon acts as the foil to the plump, rich flesh. Service here only improves the experience. 3200 Madison Rd., Oakley, (513) 407-3631, redfeatherkitchen.com. Dinner Tues–Sun, brunch Sun. MCC. $$
THE SCHOOLHOUSE RESTAURANT An old flag stands in one corner and pictures of Abe Lincoln and the first George W. hang on the wall of this Civil War–era schoolhouse. The daily menu of familiar Midwestern comfort fare is written in letter-perfect cursive on the original chalkboard. Once you order from a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to your high school lunch lady, the elevated lazy Susan in the center of the table begins to fill up with individual bowls and baskets of cornbread, slaw, salad, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, and vegetables. The deal here is quantity. More mashed potatoes with your fried chicken? More cornbread with your baked ham? You don’t even have to raise your hand. 8031 Glendale-Milford Rd., Camp Den-
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nison, (513) 831-5753, theschoolhousecincinnati.com. Lunch Thurs & Fri, dinner Thurs–Sun. MCC, DS. $
TRIO Trio is nothing if not a crowd pleaser. Whether you’re in the mood for a California-style pizza or filet mignon (with side salad, garlic mashed potatoes, and seasonal veggies), the menu is broad enough to offer something for everyone. It may lack a cohesive point of view, but with the number of regulars who come in seven nights a week, variety is Trio’s ace in the hole. A simple Roma tomato pizza with basil, Parmesan, and provolone delivered a fine balance of crunchy crust, sharp cheese, and sweet, roasted tomatoes. Paired with a glass of pniot noir, it made a perfect light meal. The service is friendly enough for a casual neighborhood joint but comes with white tablecloth attentiveness and knowledge. Combine that with the consistency in the kitchen, and Trio is a safe bet. 7565 Kenwood Rd., Kenwood, (513) 984-1905, triobistro.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DC. $$$
THE WILDFLOWER CAFÉ Todd Hudson, the chef and owner of The Wildflower Café built his entire menu around organic and local food. Located in the older section of downtown Mason in a century-old house that occupies a wide corner lot at East Main Street and Kings Mills Road, Hudson serves up well-presented, uncomplicated food that’s modest and nourishing. There is fresh fish of the day; burgers on pretzel buns with shaved onions and double-smoked bacon. There’s an eclectic collection of entrées from quiche to beef du Jour, vegan vegetable curry to chicken and waffles. The attention and care for handmade is apparent. “I never thought about doing anything else,” Hudson says. “It’s not a trend. It’s the past, and the future.” 207 E. Main St., Mason, (513) 492-7514, wildflowergourmetcafe.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sat. MCC. $$
BARBECUE ELI’S BARBEQUE Elias Leisring started building his pulled pork reputation under canopies at Findlay Market and Fountain Square in 2011. Leisring’s proper little ’cue shack along the river serves up ribs that are speaking-in-tongues good, some of the zazziest jalapeño cheese grits north of the Mason-Dixon line, and browned mashed potatoes that would make any short order cook diner-proud. The small no-frills restaurant—packed cheek-by-jowl most nights—feels like it’s been there a lifetime, with customers dropping vinyl on the turntable, dogs romping in the side yard, and picnic tables crowded with diners. The hooch is bring-your-own, and the barbecue is bona fide. 3313 Riverside Dr., East End, (513) 307-8318, elisbarbeque.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. Cash only. $
PONTIAC BBQ Dan Wright’s BBQ dream comes to life in a honky-tonkish setting, delivering inexpensive barbecue that draws from multiple traditions—Kansas City, Memphis, and Texas—a few basic sides (bacon-and-pickled-jalapeñotopped white grits and a silky mac-and-cheese), and plenty of bourbon. Snack on fried pickles or smoked wings, then move on to brisket (both fatty and lean), pulled pork, and smoked-on-the-bone short ribs. This is ridiculously high-quality comfort food at a friendly price point. 1403 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 5798500, pontiacbbq.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sun, brunch Sun. MCC. $$
WALT’S BARBEQUE Walt’s Barbeque on Colerain Avenue serves Texas-style barbecue, with an emphasis on pork. Their housemade sauce is excellent—thick, slightly spicy, slightly sweet, and not too tangy—and the smoked hickory flavor is evident in all of their slow-cooked fare. The ultra-tender baby back ribs were, by far, the high-
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light of the menu. Walt’s serves more than 17 different hot and cold side dishes, including fantastic collard greens, baked beans, and a sweet potato casserole that is more dessert than vegetable. 6040 Colerain Ave., Colerain Township, (513) 923-9800, waltsbarbeque. com. Lunch and diner seven days. MCC, DS. $
WALT’S HITCHING POST A Northern Kentucky institution returns. Roughly 750 pounds of ribs per week are pit-fired in a small building in front of the restaurant, with a smaller dedicated smoker out back for brisket and chicken. Walt’s ribs begin with several hours in the smokehouse and then are quick-seared at the time of service. This hybrid method takes advantage of the leaner nature of the baby-back ribs they prefer to use. Each rib had a justright tooth to it where soft flesh peeled away from the bone. One hidden treasure: Walt’s house-made tomato and garlic dressing. Slightly thicker than a vinaigrette yet unwilling to overwhelm a plate of greens, the two key elements play well together. 3300 Madison Pike, Ft. Wright, (859) 360-2222, waltshitchingpost.com. Dinner seven days. MCC. $$
CHINESE AMERASIA A sense of energetic fun defines this tiny Chinese spot with a robust beer list. The glossy paper menu depicts Master Chef Rich Chu as a “Kung Food” master fighting the evil fast-food villain with dishes like “fly rice,” “Brocco-Lee,” and “Big Bird’s Nest.” Freshness rules. Pot stickers, dumplings, and wontons are hand-shaped. The Dragon’s Breath wontons will invade your dreams. Seasoned ground pork, onion, and cilantro meatballs are wrapped in egg dough, wok simmered, and topped with thick, spicy red pepper sauce and fresh cilantro. Noodles are clearly Chef Chu’s specialty, with zonxon (a tangle of thin noodles, finely chopped pork, tofu, and mushrooms cloaked in spicy dark sauce and crowned with peanuts and cilantro) and Matt Chu’s Special (shaved rice noodle, fried chicken, and seasonal vegetables in gingery white sauce) topping the menu’s flavor charts. 521 Madison Ave., Covington, (859) 261-6121. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Mon–Sat. MCC. $
ORIENTAL WOK This is the restaurant of your childhood memories: the showy Las Vegas-meets-China decor, the ebulliently comedic host, the chop sueys, chow meins, and crab rangoons that have never met a crab. But behind the giant elephant tusk entryway and past the goldfish ponds and fountains is the genuine hospitality and warmth of the Wong family, service worthy of the finest dining establishments, and some very good food that’s easy on the palate. Best are the fresh fish: salmon, sea bass, and halibut steamed, grilled, or flash fried in a wok, needing little more than the ginger–green onion sauce that accompanies them. Even the chicken lo mein is good. It may not be provocative, but not everyone wants to eat blazing frogs in a hot pot. 317 Buttermilk Pke., Ft. Mitchell, (859) 331-3000; 2444 Madison Rd., Hyde Park, (513) 871-6888, orientalwok.com. Lunch Mon–Fri (Ft. Mitchell; buffet Sun 11–2:30), lunch Tues–Sat (Hyde Park) dinner seven days (both). MCC. $$
RAYMOND’S HONG KONG CAFÉ It has all the elements of your typical neighborhood Chinese restaurant: Strip mall location. General Tso and kung pao chicken. Fortune cookies accompanying the bill. The dragon decoration. But it is the nontraditional aspects of Raymond’s Hong Kong Café that allow it to stand apart. The menu goes beyond standard Chinese fare with dishes that range from Vietnamese (beef noodle soup) to American (crispy Cornish hen). The Portuguese-style baked chicken references Western European influences on Chinese cuisine with an assemblage of fried rice, peppers, carrots, broccoli, zucchini, and squash all simmering together in a creamy bath of yellow curry sauce. Deciding what to order is a challenge, but at least you won’t be disap-
pointed. 11051 Clay Dr., Walton, (859) 485-2828. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC. $$
SICHUAN BISTRO CHINESE GOURMET
create your own
PIZZA, PASTA OR SALAD $
6.99
Like many Chinese restaurants that cater to both mainstream American and Chinese palates, this strip mall gem uses two menus. The real story here is found in dishes of pungent multi-layered flavors that set your mouth ablaze with fermented peppers and fresh chilies and then just as quickly cool it down with the devilish, numbing sensation of hua jiao, Sichuan pepper. Its numbing effect is subtle at first: appetizers of cold sliced beef and tripe, as well as slices of pork belly with a profusion of minced garlic, lean toward the hot and sweet; mapo tofu freckled with tiny fermented black beans and scallions, and pork with pickled red peppers and strips of ginger root, progress from sweet to pungent to hot to salty—in that order. Alternated with cooling dishes—nibbles of rice, a verdant mound of baby bok choy stir-fried with a shovelful of garlic, refreshing spinach wilted in ginger sauce, a simply sensational tea-smoked duck—the effect is momentarily tempered. 7888 S. Mason Montgomery Rd., Mason, (513) 770-3123, sichuanbistro.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sun. MCC, DS. $
ECLECTIC BOCA Top 10
Boca’s third incarnation, powerful and refined, is a pitch-perfect aria that shatters conventional expectations while proffering rich, complex dishes originally created for comfort. Housemade pasta with slowly simmered Bolognese—a nod to the restaurant’s origin as a Northside trattoria—is prepared with such attention to detail that it easily holds its own next to the more continental beef Wellington. The plush men’s club vibe of the lounge area is punctuated by the pewter bar, where casual diners can dig into dry-aged Pat LaFrieda-blend burgers while bartenders happily guide them through a 200-bottle wine list, rich in Old World choices. 114 E. Sixth St., (513) 542-2022, bocacincinnati.com. Dinner Mon–Sat. MCC,DS $$
DUTCH’S LARDER The praise for Dutch’s sandwiches is well deserved. The bold beefiness of the short rib grilled cheese was paired perfectly with some sweet and stinky taleggio, and served pressed, almost panini-style. The individual ingredients of the BLT sing in peak-season harmony—a crisp slice of house-cured bacon, a purple-flecked heirloom tomato straight from the vine, snappy aioli, and just enough butter lettuce for crunch. Free-flowing evenings on the patio call for a charcuterie plate. Surgically thin slices of peppery, salmon-hued Smoking Goose capicola rubbed shoulders with varzi, a Lombardian salami with a slightly course texture and unexpected notes of clove and cinnamon. The Bent River camembert was sweet and sour, with a texture only slightly firmer than sweetened condensed milk, and the six-month aged manchego’s salty-nuttiness was only enhanced by a housemade pistachio-and-honey paste. 3378 Erie Ave., Hyde Park, (513) 871-1446, dutchs.squarespace. com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sun. MCC. $$
THE LITTLEFIELD
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Inside a modest 1,500 square-foot space on Spring Grove, just south of Hamilton Avenue, at least 70-odd bourbons behind the bar drive this little restaurant’s philosophy. The menu is meant to be limited, the better to support and celebrate the bottled flavors up front. There are surprises: a faint hint of curry powder deepens the moody cauliflower fritters; skewered golf-balls of mild, peppery ground lamb get a faint crust from the final sear. You’ll also want to order the brisket. Applewood-smoked then braised, the meat maintains just enough fat to stay soft, and the earthy, smoky-sweet flavor comes with a patent-leather char to remind you of the caramelized nuances in your glass. The signature
pot pie is lighter than most, more like a hearty (read: lots of white and dark meat) soup than a fricassee held captive within a flaky crust. 3934 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, (513) 386-7570, littlefieldns.com. Dinner Mon–Sat. V, MC. $
METROPOLE Top 10
A stunning renovation of the century-old Metropole Hotel at Sixth and Walnut is the setting for an inventive menu that’s primarily locally sourced. The charcuterie alone is worth a visit, with house-made finocciona that will spoil you forever for anything packaged. Braised onion soup pairs pickled red onions with earthy rye croutons, while tender grilled octopus rubs shoulders with fresh green garbanzo beans and a confetti of minced serrano chiles. Even the check is presented with panache—nestled under a tuft of ethereal Meyer lemon cotton candy— a fitting finish for a night of high spirits and earthy delights. 609 Walnut St., downtown, (513) 578-6660, metropoleonwalnut.com. Breakfast and dinner seven days, lunch Mon–Fri. MCC. $$
NECTAR There’s nothing lean about the dining experience at Nectar. Whether it’s the cumin spiced fried cauliflower, the black bean and goat cheese tamales, or the warm grains salad made with bulgur wheat, charred asparagus, smoked greens and a cumin caraway vinaigrette, Chef Julie Francis creates dishes that inspire food lust in even the most unflappable diner. Francis is deeply committed to seasonal ingredients. In spring, a deceptively simple organic spinach salad topped with caramelized shallots, sourdough croutons and a fried quail egg is elevated from good to exquisite when dressed with warm bacon sherry vinaigrette. The Marksbury Farm beef tri-tip boasts freshness among caramelized rutabaga and grilled asparagus. Twice monthly, the poplar Nectar dinner club features a local farmer or artisan on-site, their specialty presented in five courses. 1000 Delta Ave., Mt. Lookout, (513) 929-0525, dineatnectar.com. Dinner Wed–Sat, brunch Sun. MCC. $$
RUTH’S PARKSIDE CAFÉ The spiritual successor of Mullane’s Parkside Café, Ruth’s brings back the vegetable-forward menu with a few concessions to contemporary tastes. Dinner options now include steaks and heavier, braised entrées. But the stir-fries, beans and rice, pasta, and the traditional option to add a protein to an entrée (tofu, tempeh, chicken, or local chorizo) for a $2 upcharge are all old standards. While dishes are generally hearty, they are rarely too rich, leaving room to freely consider dessert. There are a small selection of baked goods, including a chocolate bundt cake, homemade fruit pies, and Madisono’s Gelato. 4101 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, (513) 542-7884, ruthscafe.com. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Mon–Sat. MCC. $$
SENATE Ever since it began dishing out its lo-fi eats, Chef Dan Wright’s gastropub has been operating at a velocity few can match. From the howl and growl of supremely badass hot dogs to the palate-rattling poutine, Senate has led the charge in changing the local conventional wisdom about what makes a great restaurant. Consumption of mussels charmoula means either ordering additional grilled bread to soak up every drop of the herby, saffron-laced broth or drinking the remainder straight from the bowl and perfectly crisped and seasoned fries inspire countless return visits. 1212 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine (513) 421-2020, senatepub.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sat. MC, V, DS. $
ZULA For a restaurant whose name loosely derives from an Israeli slang term for “hidden treasure,” it seems apt that a dish or two might sneak in and stun—like the mussels Marseilles, with its bouillabaisse-style broth, rich with saffron, tomato, and fennel. But Zula is no one-trick pony. With a wood-fired oven on the premises, it’s incumbent on you to try the flatbreads. One zula is the eggplant option, where caramelized onions and
marinated red bell peppers pair well with subtly sweet fontina. Not every bite at Zula is a game-changer, but one is all you need. 1400 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 744-9852, zulabistro.com. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC. $$
COMING SOON
I TA L I A N ENOTECA EMILIA If you shun excessive embellishment you’ll love Enoteca Emilia’s dishes. The presentation is relatively modest, with few frills and nothing extra on the plate that’s not intrinsic to the flavors. There’s no urge to gild a dish of polenta with a spray of greens. Don’t mistake this straightforwardness for a lack of sophistication. A contorno of cavalo nero (black leaf kale) sautéed with olive oil and roasted garlic is as soulful as any of the chef’s more complicated pasta dishes. Few of the dishes are truly revolutionary, but they don’t need to be. They just need to be simple, satisfying, and celebratory. 2038 Madison Rd., O’Bryonville, (513) 8345773, enotecaemilia.com. Dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $$
PADRINO This sister restaurant to 20 Brix is also owned and operated by the Thomas family and their superstar Executive Chef Paul Barraco, who brings his passion for the slow food movement to the Padrino menu. Billed as “Italian comfort food,” Padrino offers the classics (like lasagna and chicken carbonara) plus hoagies and meatball sliders, an impressive wine list, seasonal martinis, and a decadent signature appetizer—garlic rolls, doughy buns smothered in olive oil and garlic. Best of all, Barraco’s pizza sauce, which is comprised of roasted tomatoes and basil, is so garden-fresh that one can’t help but wonder: If this is real pizza, what have we been eating all these years? 111 Main St., Milford, (513) 965-0100, 20brix.com/padrino. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $$
SOTTO Sotto’s interior design is inspired and the menu is dynamic, with brightly flavored antipasti and family-style entrees that encourage conviviality. Knowledgeable servers extol the virtues of the homemade pasta—and their enthusiasm is warranted. The short rib cappellacci and the pillowy cavatelli with sausage are definite winners, so much so that it’s tough to determine which carries the dish—the pasta or its carefully prepared accompaniments. Don’t miss the action: Sotto’s pasta prep area is in full view near the back of the dining area. 118 E. Sixth St., (513) 977-6886, sottocincinnati. com. Dinner seven days. MCC, DS $$
VIA VITE Executive chef and owner Cristian Pietoso is a passionate champion for the cooking traditions of his native Italy. His pizza crusts are canvases for simple ingredients with an old country pedigree—prosciutto crudo and speck, rapini, and spicy sausage among them. His exquisitely judged soups, hearty seafood stew, and citronette-coated arugula salad are a testimony to the virtues of restraint. Count on Via Vite for a lunch that veers from the ordinary with a few shavings of truffle; for a Sunday brunch that soothes the regret of too much Saturday night with Parmigiano-laced frittata; and for a weekend kickoff with an assortment of salumi and a glass of sparkling on the outdoor terrace. 520 Vine St., downtown, (513) 721-8483, viaviterestaurant. com. Lunch and dinner seven days, brunch Sat & Sun. MCC, DS. $$
J A PA N E S E ANDO Ando is all about serious, old-world Japanese cuisine, presided over by a master craftsman with more than 40 years of kitchen experience. Order a few appetizers and you’ll quickly discover Ken Ando’s devotion to
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traditional technique. Oshinko (Japanese pickles), the thick-cut daikon in particular, packs a shattering snap and has just enough saltiness. Tempura is an exhibit in grease-less, bubbly crackle—the panko-coated shrimp arriving still succulent. Ken sources all his fish directly from vendors in Japan, along with a Taiwanese contact for freshwater eel. On multiple visits the sashimi selection ranged from impeccably fresh bonito to yellowtail, sayori (halfbeak), toro (fatty tuna), and flounder. And for a convivial night out with a crowd, don’t miss the cook-your-own Sukiyaki experience. 5889 Pfeiffer Rd., Blue Ash, (513) 791-8687, an dojapa neserestaurant.com. Lunch Tues–Fri, dinner Tues–Sun . MCC. $$$
KYOTO Owner Jason Shi seems to know everybody’s name as he chats up diners, guiding them through the extensive sushi and sashimi menu. Five young sushi chefs, all part of Shi’s family, work at light speed behind the bar, a choreography backlit by rows of gleaming liquor bottles. Dinner proceeds with glorious chaos as a feisty Carla Tortelli–like server delivers one dish after another—slivers of giant clam on ice in a super-sized martini glass, a volcanic tower of chopped fatty tuna hidden inside overlapping layers of thin avocado slices, smoky grilled New Zealand mussels drizzled with spicy mayo, and delicate slices of a samurai roll—all between shots of chilled sake. 12082 Montgomery Rd., Symmes Twp., (513) 583-8897, kyotosushibar. com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC. $$
MEI Mei’s menu is meant to represent traditional Japanese cuisine, appealing to the novice as well as the sushi maven. It is divided into sections that encourage a progressive meal of small dishes: One each for hot and cold appetizers, noodles, sushi and sashimi, special rolls, soups and salads, sushi dinners (with miso soup), and combinations (such as tempura paired with sashimi). Deep-fried soft shell crab comes with ponzu sauce—a dipping sauce made of rice vinegar, soy sauce, mirin, and citrus juice—and the kind of yakitori that you can find on the streets of New York. Bento boxes—lacquered wooden boxes divided into compartments—offer the neophyte a sampling of several small dishes. Mei’s are lovely: deep red and stocked with tempura, cooked salmon, sashimi, stewed vegetables, and a fabulous egg custard with shrimp and gingko nut. Mei’s sushi—nigiri, maki, and handrolls—is exceptionally good with quality cuts of fresh seafood. The staff is knowledgeable, extremely efficient, respectful, and attentive, even when it’s at peak capacity. 8608 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, (513) 891-6880, meijapaneserestaurant.com. Lunch Tues–Fri, dinner Tues–Sun. MCC, DS. $$
KOREAN RIVERSIDE KOREAN RESTAURANT Come for the jo gi mae un tang—a bowl of sizzling, happy hellbroth pungent with red pepper, garlic, and ginger, crowded with nuggets of fish, tofu, and vegetables. Come for the restorative
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power of sam gae tang, a chicken soup for the Seoul—a whole Cornish hen submerged in its own juices and plumped with sticky rice and ginseng, dried red dates, and pine nuts. Revered for their medicinal properties, both dinner-sized soups will leave your eyes glistening and your brow beaded with sweat. They’re a detox for your overindulgence, rejuvenation for when you’re feeling under the weather. Expect crowds on weekends. Expect too, that dozens of them have come for dolsot bibimbap, the hot stone pots filled with layers of rice, vegetables, meat or tofu, egg, and chili paste. Characterized by its electric color and addictive flavors, Riverside Korean’s version is a captivating bowl of heaven. 512 Madison Ave., Covington, (859) 291-1484, riversidekorean restaurant.com. Lunch Tues–Fri, dinner Tues–Sun. MCC, DS. $$
SUNG KOREAN BISTRO Co-owner and executive chef Sung Oh, formerly of Riverside Korean Restaurant, creates a modern, sophisticated urban-Asian experience: all right angles with minimal decorative touches; Shoji screens of translucent white paper over the windows; jazz floating through the ambient red glow of a dark, backlit bar and low-hanging lanterns. The dolsot bibimbap, a.k.a. the “stone bowl,” suffers by comparison with the Riverside version—in which you mix an egg, sunny side up, with veggies, spicy bean paste, and rice that turns crispy in a hot stone bowl. The best dish came from the “Dinner with Grill” menu: doeji galbi, the barbecued pork ribs. Glazed with the ubiquitous sweet and spicy bean paste that Oh calls “Korean ketchup,” the ribs were moist and tender and packed a perfect punch of heat. 700 Elm St., downtown, (513) 721-7864, sungkoreanbis tro.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat. MCC, DS. $$
SISTER ACT This month, Oriental Wok in Hyde Park features a few dishes native to Liuzhou, Cincinnati’s Chinese sister city. Guy Burgess will prepare dishes that he learned while visiting the city with his wife, Susanna Wong Burgess, on an exchange program earlier this year. Proceeds from the special menu will go to fund further relations between the two cities.
orientalwok.com
SURA This traditional Korean oasis has been flying well beneath the radar since 2010. Don’t let the pepper count on the menu deter you. Each entrée arrives with purple rice and assorted small bites aimed at cutting the heat—steamed broccoli, pickled radishes, soy-sauce-marinated tofu, pan-fried fish cake, and housemade kimchi. Korean barbecue staple osam bulgogi—one of only two items meriting a three pepper rating—swiftly clears sinuses with a flavorful duo of pork belly and squid lashed with Korean red pepper paste and served on a sizzling skillet. The two-pepper kimchi jjigae stew marries fermented Korean cabbage with hunks of tofu and shards of pork in a bubbling tomato-based broth. Make sure to order a bowl of the bone noodle soup for the table—a comforting combination of thick noodles and bits of flank steak floating in a umami-rich marrow broth that magically soothes the burn. 7876 Mason-Montgomery Rd., Mason, (513) 204-3456, surakorean.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat. MCC. $$
dations and patiently help you navigate the crazy-busy menu. You won’t necessarily feel ignited by the blazing sun of the southern hemisphere, but El Meson is authentic enough to have you imagining a few chickens scratching around the parking lot. This is one family fiesta worth showing up for. 903 E. Dixie Dr., West Carrollton, (937) 859-8229, elmeson.net. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Mon–Sat. $$
EL VALLE VERDE Guests with dietary issues, high anxiety, and no Spanish may take a pass, but for hardy souls, this taqueria delivers a memorable evening. Seafood dishes are the star here— ceviche tostadas, crisp corn tortillas piled high with pico de gallo, avocado, and lime-tastic bits of white fish, squid, and crab; the oversized goblet of cocktel campechano, with ample poached shrimp crammed into a Clamato-heavy gazpacho; and simmering sopa de marisco came with langoustines, mussels, crab legs, and an entire fish—enough to feed three. 6717 Vine St., Carthage, (513) 821-2232. Lunch and dinner seven days. $
MEXICAN EL MESON The last place you’d expect to find a lively pan-Latin restaurant is among the stark concrete environment of gas stations and dollar stores in West Carrollton. Nearly two dozen tapas are featured throughout the menu, and ordering a handful is one of the best ways to experience El Meson. Gambas al Ajillo may be the best small plate: Sauteed shrimp swimming in oil brick-red from pepper, resonant with garlic, crisp-charred along the edges of the bowl. The house-made chorizo, smoky-dark and buzzy from good Spanish paprika, goes well with the “tapa mixta espana,” a sampler of roasted red peppers, olives, caperberries, crusty bread, and cubes of slightly tangy Manchego cheese. Servers confidently make recommen-
HABAÑERO It’s easy to find a cheap burrito place around a college campus, but you’d be hard-pressed to find one as consistently good as Habañero, with its flavors of Latin America and the Caribbean wrapped up in enormous packages. Fried tilapia, apricot-glazed chicken breast, hand-rubbed spiced flank steak, shredded pork tenderloin, or cinnamon-roasted squash are just some of the ingredients for Habañero’s signature burritos. All salsas are house-made, from the smoky tomato chipotle to the sweet-sounding mango jalapeño, which is hot enough to spark spontaneous combustion. 358 Ludlow Ave., Clifton, (513) 961-6800, habanerolatin. com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DC, DS. $
MAZUNTE Top 10
Owner Josh Wamsley is committed to freshness. Corn is the crux of his restaurant’s appeal. It appears as elotes, seared in the husk and slathered
with lime juice and chipotle mayo; as hominy, nestled in a comforting posole stew, with avocado, pork, chicken, and radish; and it’s pounded on a comal and fried up as large chips to be dipped into one of four salsas (pico de gallo, tomatillo-heavy salsa verde, a fiery salsa picante, and a roasted tomato version) made fresh daily. And then there’s the tacos: sangria-marinated skirt steak with pickled red onion, beer battered mahi-mahi tossed with a mango salsa, or shredded pork with plenty of avocado salsa and pomegranate seeds. An alternative is just go for the combo platter and cast decision fatigue to the wind. 5207 Madison Rd., Madisonville, (513) 785-0000, mazuntetacos.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat. MCC. $
MONTOYA’S Mexican places seem to change hands in this town so often that you can’t get the same meal twice. Montoya’s is the exception. They’ve been hidden in a tiny strip mall off the main drag in Ft. Mitchell for years. It’s unpretentious and seemingly not interested in success, which means success has never gone to their head here. At a place where you can get Huracan Fajitas with steak, chicken, and chorizo or Tilapia Asada, the tacos are still a big item. 2507 Chelsea Dr., Ft. Mitchell, (859) 341-0707. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sun. MC, V, DS. $
NADA The brains behind Boca deliver authentic, contemporary, high-quality Mexican fare downtown. You’ll find a concise menu, including tacos that seem straight from a Mexican street vendor; salads and sides, including a plantain and potato mash; large plates; and desserts. Traditional tacos of barbacoa (short ribs) and carnitas (braised pork) share space with modern dishes. Pork chops get a smoky adobo chile rub before being expertly grilled and served with an orange habañero demi-glace, mashed plantains and rajas; dreamy mac-and-cheese looks harmless, but there’s just enough of a roasted poblano and jalapeno punch to have you reaching for another icy margarita. 600 Walnut St.,
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hot pico de gallo. A shrimp quesadilla paired with one of their cheap and potent margaritas is worth the drive alone. 6507 Dixie Hwy., Fairfield, (513) 942-4943; 100 E. Eighth St., downtown, (513) 381-0678, tmercadocincy.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $
Rd., Monfort Heights, (513) 481-3360, thainamtip.com. Lunch and dinner Mon-Sat, dinner Sun. MC, V. $
downtown, (513) 721-6232, eatdrinknada.com. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner seven days, brunch Sun. MCC, DS. $$
TAQUERIA CRUZ The menu at this four-table mom-and-pop welcomes you to “a little piece of Mexico.” The huaraches (spelled guarachis here), are flat troughs of thick, handmade fried masa dough the approximate shape and size of a shoeprint, mounded with beans and slivers of grilled beef or chili-red nubs of sausage, shredded lettuce, a crumble of queso fresco, and drizzle of cultured cream. Should you have an adventurous side, you can have your huarache topped with slippery tongue, goat meat, shredded chicken, or pork. There are stews, carne asada plates, and sopes—saucers of fried masa much like huaraches, only smaller. 518 Pike St., Covington, (859) 431-3859. Lunch and dinner seven days. Cash. $
TAQUERIA MERCADO On a Saturday night, Taqueria Mercado is a lively fiesta, with seemingly half of the local Hispanic community guzzling margaritas and cervezas, or carrying out sacks of burritos and carnitas tacos—pork tenderized by a long simmer, its edges frizzled and crispy. The Mercado’s strip mall interior, splashed with a large, colorful mural, is equally energetic: the bustling semi-open kitchen; a busy counter that handles a constant stream of take-out orders; a clamorous, convivial chatter in Spanish and English. Try camarones a la plancha, 12 chubby grilled shrimp tangled with grilled onions (be sure to specify if you like your onions well done). The starchiness of the rice absorbs the caramelized onion juice, offset by the crunch of lettuce, buttery slices of avocado, and the cool-
flavors in Thai food: astringent lemongrass gives way to pepper, then Makrut lime, shot through with the gingery, herbaceous galangal, all yielding to the taunting sweetness of coconut. Even the simple skewers of chicken satay with Thai barbecue sauce are rough and honest, dulcified by honey and dirtied up by a smoky grill. 5461 North Bend
THAI
WILD GINGER
SUKHOTHAI Nestled in the nearly hidden Market Place Lane, this tiny restaurant isn’t exactly slick. A chalkboard lists the day’s specials, usually spicy dishes worthy of an adventurous diner. But if it’s noodle dishes and curries you’re after, Sukhothai’s pad kee mao—wide rice noodles stir-fried with basil—is the best around. Served slightly charred, the fresh and dried chilies provide enough heat to momentarily suspend your breath. Pad Thai has the right amount of crunch from peanuts, slivers of green onion, and mung sprouts to contrast with the slippery glass noodles, and a few squeezes of fresh lime juice give it a splendid tartness. The crispy tamarind duck is one of the best house specials, the meat almost spreadably soft under the papery skin and perfectly complemented by the sweet-tart bite of tamarind. 8102 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, (513) 794-0057, sukho thaicincy.com. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Mon–Sat. DS, MC, V. $
THAI NAMTIP Classic Thai comfort food on the west side from chef/owner Tussanee Leach, who grew up with galangal on her tongue and sriracha sauce in her veins. Her curries reign: pale yellow sweetened with coconut milk and poured over tender chicken breast and chunks of boiled pineapple; red curry the color of new brick, tasting of earth at first bite, then the sharply verdant Thai basil leaves, followed by a distant heat. Tom Kha Gai soup defines the complex interplay of
Wild Ginger Asian Bistro’s ability to satisfy a deep desire for Vietnamese and Thai fusion cuisine is evidenced by their signature Hee Ma roll—a fortress of seaweed-wrapped rolls filled with shrimp tempura, asparagus, avocado, and topped with red tuna, pulled crab stick, tempura flakes, a bit of masago, scallions, and of course, spicy mayo. It’s tasty, even though the sweet fried floodwall of tempura and spicy mayo overpowered the tuna completely. The spicy pad char entrée was a solid seven out of 10: broccoli, carrots, cabbage, succulent red bell peppers, green beans, and beef, accented with basil and lime leaves in a peppercorn-and-chili brown sauce. 3655 Edwards Rd., Hyde Park, (513) 533-9500, wildgingercincy.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sun. MCC, DS. $$ CINCINNATI MAGAZINE, (ISSN 0746-8 210), November 2015, Volume 49, Number 2. Published monthly, except for June, which has two issues— $15 for 13 issues annually — at Carew Tower, 441 Vine St., Suite 200, Cincinnati, OH 45202-2039. (513) 421-4300. Copyright © 2015 by Emmis Publishing LP, a subsidiary of Emmis Communications, Inc., 40 Monument Circle, Suite 100, Indianapolis, IN 46204. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or reprinted without permission. Unsolicited manuscripts, photographs and artwork should be accompanied by SASE for return. The magazine cannot be held responsible for loss. For subscription orders, address changes or renewals, write to CINCINNATI MAGAZINE, P.O. Box 421919, Palm Coast, FL 32142-1919, or call 1-800-846-4333. Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, Ohio and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Please send forms 3579 to CINCINNATI MAGAZINE, Carew Tower, 441 Vine St., Suite 200, Cincinnati, OH 45202-2039. If the Postal Service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year.
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