Month: June 2011

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

“Courses” brings food and community together on Main Street

CS13 is an art and performance space, located at 1420 Main Street, that hosts concerts, monthly reading series, and bi-monthly art projects/exhibitions. These projects often engage with overlaps in art practice and everyday life. Over the 2 year run of the gallery, CS13 has become more than just a collective that curates and hosts, transforming into an art collective that also produces projects of our own, also under the name CS13.

Paralleling their ongoing interest in overlaps of art and the everyday, this June CS13 presents a month-long project that looks to the comforts, history and politics of the kitchen, emulating the format and layout of cooking lessons and TV shows as a vehicle for discussion driven presentations by local community members. This project will consist of a working kitchen built in the gallery that will double as a meeting space and lecture hall, from which a weekly series of talks and demonstrations will be programmed and led by local community members, merchants and non-profits. Focused on the social structures implicit in recipes, cooking traditions and food based services, COURSES hopes to provide a unique community space that will offer both free storytelling, educational programming and shared meals prepared on site.

“We constructed the the kitchen and programmed all the events, but the details of each dinner/discussion are left up to the guest cook/speaker,”CS13 collaborator Aaron Walker explains “[The forum] gives the speaker a platform to highlight personal topics of interest and to host informal, intimate cooking demonstrations and dinner conversation.”

The crew at CS13 hopes to break down the barriers that some may feel when dealing with art by presenting it through the familiar lens of food. Many different kinds of folks feel comfortable interacting with Cincinnati’s robust selection of dining establishments. But art spaces, for many, are conceptually distant. “COURSES” is a fun way to bring those worlds together and imagine a more integrated and accessible creative community. Meanwhile we hope to highlight the important community-oriented work that a variety of organizations have been doing and provide an outlet for learning and engaging with a these provoking, forward thinking trades/projects that many people might not be aware of.

This coming week’s “COURSES” events include:

Final Friday, June 24th from 5-8 PM: Ufuk Adak
UFUK ADAK is a University of Cincinnati PhD student from Izmir, Turkey, will lead an informal discussion about Turkish and Ottoman food cultures as he prepares a popular dish or two. Possible topics of conversation include the appropriating of Ottoman court cuisine by the masses and contemporary Turkish food culture.

Saturday, June 25th from 5-8 PM: Vicki Mansoor and Bill Brown
VICKI MANSOOR: Mansoor is part of an evolving initiative, Homemeadow Song Farm, where participants are active in areas of land stewardship, gardening, nutrition, education, artistic processes and cultural renewal.

Vicki has invited Susan Gilbert, a gifted storyteller and artisan and Jose Navales of Pura Vita, a pop-up taqueria in Dayton KY, to support this program. They will lead a cooking demonstration centered around the history of corn in the U.S. Corn from Homeadow Song Farm will be ground and used to make tamales.

BILL BROWN: Bill Brown is both the author and the publisher of “Fenced Off, Obscured or Painted Over” (Colossal Books, Cincinnati: 2011), which is a collection of photographs of murals in community gardens in the Lower East Side of Manhattan (NYC) that Bill took in 1997 and 1998.

Established as long ago as 1972, and the survivors of Mayor Giuliani’s attempts in the 1990s to have them all bulldozed and sold off, these community gardens in NYC still bring people together who want to better their relations with their neighbors and the earth itself. Small-scale food production is the key to these gardens, which are oases in the middle of one of the least-green metropolises in the world.

For more information, check out CS13 on Facebook.
Courses + Cincinnati Cooks! picture provided.

Categories
Development News

Green home show enters second weekend in historic Columbia Tusculum

Following the success of recent CitiRama home showcases, the City of Cincinnati has decided to present another urban home show but this time with a decidedly more green focus. The new Greenarama Home Show first opened to the public this past weekend, and still has one more weekend for public viewing.

Organizers say that Greenarama is the first home show of its kind which focuses on green homes built pursuing LEED for Homes certification. In total there are nine homes constructed, by five builders, along Strafer Street in Cincinnati’s historic Columbia Tusculum neighborhood.


2011 Greenarama home at 463 Strafer Street.

One of the three-story townhomes has already sold, but the remaining eight feature outdoor space, state-of-the-art green technology and modern finishes meant to accentuate the urban location.

Organizers say that beyond Columbia Tusculum’s urban location, it also boasts inherently green lifestyle features that have made the neighborhood a destination for new homebuyers. Within a short walk of the Greenarama homes is the new Columbia Square development, dozens of neighborhood businesses, Alms Park and Riverside Academy Elementary School.

Those interested in seeing the new green homes first-hand can still do so this weekend. Tickets cost $10 per person (children under 12 years of age are free) with all proceeds going to benefit the Cincinnati Scholarship Foundation.

The 2011 Greenaram Home Show will be open on Friday from 2pm to 9pm, Saturday from 12pm to 9pm and Sunday from 12pm to 6pm. Tickets can be purchased online or at the event.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

Roeblingfest expands to include focus on food & music

Photo provided by Paul Collett
Photo provided by Paul Collett

This weekend marks an annual celebration for one of Cincinnati’s most iconic landmarks, The John A Roebling Suspension Bridge. Roeblingfest, now in it’s seventh year, will take place this Saturday in the area just south of the bridge named Roebling Point. The festival which started as a midday celebration on a Sunday afternoon has now gown into a full day event on Saturday to be closed out by Rozzi Fireworks. As the festival has grown, so has the vision as it now features not only a focus on history, but also a focus on local food and local music among other things. It is a true mix brought forth by a collaborative effort of organizers from the Covington-Cincinnati Suspension Bridge Committee (the CCSBC) as well as the businesses in the Roebling Point Entertainment District.

This well known landmark is featured everywhere from the backdrop of local newscasts to the logo of your favorite site that talks about all things in the urban core. The bridge was just painted for the first time in almost thirty-five years and new lights have begun the process of restoring the bridge to its true glory. The CCSBC is dedicated to doing even more to modernize the lighting and maintaining the flags on the bridge, and while memberships are available via the web on an ongoing basis, this festival marks one way for the group to raise money annually.

As the roots of the festival focused on the history of the Roebling Bridge, a prototype for New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, there will be walking tours given of the bridge, the floodwall murals, and other historical Covington landmarks for $5 per tour. The tours are scheduled to go off on an hourly basis from 1p through 4p. It should be noted that there are no tours of the bridge that will allow folks to go to the top, but there will be a silent auction for such a trip which includes dinner for four at Keystone Bar & Grill.

In addition to a historical focus, this year’s event features quite a food selection. Of course all the local establishments that are part of the Roebling Point Entertainment District will be out including Keystone, Blinkers, Sidebar, The Down Under and Molly Malone’s. This year too features a few less traditional vendors including Covington’s Amerasia as well as both the Dojo Gelato cart and (making their inaugural outdoor appearance) Pho Lang Thang from Findlay Market. Add in a Roebling Porter from Rivertown Brewing and a special small batch Moerlein Roebling Fest Lager and there are plenty of special drinks to go around too.

Additionally, this year’s festival also features quite a line-up of music that is scheduled to run from 1pm to 1015pm. With the focus being on local & original music, this is one area that Roeblingfest 2011 has really differentiated itself from years gone by. With the stage located in the heart of the square at Court Street and Park Place, it will be a definite focal point throughout the day featuring bands from all across the region and it will have a true mix of genres too.

1pm to 1:45p – Perfect Sequel
2pm to 2:45pm – The Crick Gypsies
3:15pm to 4:15pm – Supermassive
4:45pm to 6pm – The Spookfloaters
6:30pm to 7:15pm – The Chocolate Horse
7:45pm to 8:45pm – The Dukes
9:15pm to 10:15pm – The Lions Rampant

Add in an art show as well as the finish line for the 2011 Covington Quest and the 2011 Roeblingfest has a little something for everyone. As parking could be challenging, the use of public transportation is most definitely recommended and the TANK Southbank Shuttle will be more than sufficient. Taking the shuttle will allow festival goers to park in downtown Cincinnati, Newport, or other parts of Covington and get to and from the festival for only $1 each way.

Categories
Development News

Over-the-Rhine needs your help.

The Over-the-Rhine Foundation has been selected – one out of one hundred projects in the country deemed worthy enough – to potentially receive 25,000 dollars through The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s This Place Matters 2011 Community Challenge.

The contest kicked off June 1 at 8am and will end at 11:59pm, June 30. First, second and third places will win $25,000, $10,000 and $5,000, respectively. The Over-the-Rhine neighborhood is one of the most architecturally significant in the country, with the largest collection of Italianate architecture, rivaling similar but much smaller areas in Charleston, South Carolina; the French Quarter in New Orleans, Savannah, Georgia, and even Greenwich Village in New York City.

Votes are counted by email registration – a quick 30 seconds registers an address and enables you to vote one time. The small contest has quickly become a grassroots effort to rally votes and energize the neighborhood. Vote now!

Sean Rhiney, Vice President of the Foundation, described the contest as “a significant opportunity not just for Over-the-Rhine, our oldest and most beloved urban neighborhood, but for the entire City of Cincinnati.” He sees the contest as a chance for the city to shine nationally.

“We’re already proving OTR can be a national model for how older cities can recognize their significant architectural and community assets and let them guide and enhance preservation and development,” Rhiney explained. “The National Trust recognized this when they placed us on their endangered list in 2006 – that wasn’t a death sentence, that was a national organization shining a light on the beauty of what we have, and the limitless potential in saving and celebrating it.”

$25,000 could do a lot of good – the Foundation will enhance several programs already in place. The Over-the-Rhine Legal Defense Fund provides money for lawyers as preservationists battle the city, corporations, and private owners who wish to demolish historic structures.

Another program is the Green Historic Study – demonstrating the marraige between sustainable building and historic property. “Of course, saving structures on the city’s most endangered list in OTR remains a top priority as well identifying proactive ways to deal with infill and greenspace,” said Rhiney.

On June 9, OTR was in 84th place. The effort to win began in earnest the next day and has catapulted OTR into 2nd place. The standings as of 5:00AM, June 20 are as follows (votes alone determine which organization wins the challenge but Facebook “likes” are another, unofficial barometer):

  1. Wellington Ritz Theatre, Inc.: 2,939 votes and 690 facebook “likes”
  2. Over-the-Rhine: 2,761 votes and 1,733 facebook “likes”
  3. Enterprise Hometown Improvement: 2,706 votes and 250 facebook “likes”
  4. The Preservation Society of Newport: 2,388 votes and 354 facebook “likes”
  5. Embankment Preservation Coalition: 1,981 votes and 271 facebook “likes”
  6. (had been 5th) Cleveland Urban Design Urban Collaborative & Kent State University: 1,630 votes and 1,008 facebook “likes”
As one can see from the current standings, Over-the-Rhine is within striking distance of 1st place but cannot win without the support of all of us. This neighborhood is significant and this is a chance to show the country that we are all behind it.
  • To vote, click here.
  • To attend the facebook event, click here.
  • To monitor the voting results, click here

    Please share all of this information with your friends and remember that you’re allowed to vote once for every email address you have. Vote at http://bit.ly/voteotr

    Seth Schott of OTR Matters contributed to this article.
    Photo credit: Chuck Eilerman.

    • Categories
    News Transportation

    Ridership continues to grow on Metro’s express commuter routes

    Newly released data shows an uptick in commuter bus ridership in Cincinnati. The figures from Metro show a 10.9 percent ridership increase for May when compared to last year, and is the fifth straight month of such ridership increases. Officials believe that the increase is a result of increasing gas prices.

    “It’s exciting to see the growth in our commuter market,” Metro CEO Terry Garcia Crews said in a prepared statement. “This increase demonstrates that viable option for our residents.”

    Such gains may prove difficult to maintain though as economic conditions continue to stagnate and gas prices begin to level off. According to recent reports, unemployment climbed in May and is the highest it has been in 2011. Additionally, employers were reported as adding the fewest workers in eight months.


    Metro bus at Government Square in downtown Cincinnati.

    Gas prices have also declined from the highest levels since July 2008. These two factors may be tricky for transit officials as they attempt to project ridership patterns for the rest of year. Previously, Metro has been very susceptible to such economic activity, with ridership often declining with the economy.

    Even with that said, Metro officials believe that long-term rises in gas prices signal positive ridership trends for the transit agency as commuters look to their wallets.

    “If you drive 20 or 25 miles one-way to work, you’re probably using two gallons of gas a day,” Crews explained. “Metro offers a convenient alternative to paying higher gas prices.”

    According to Metro officials, these savings can add up. The regional transit agency estimates that local commuters can save $4,500 or more each year by riding transit.

    Further complicating the matter is a reduction of state funding support for express commuter bus service. In February, newly elected Governor Kasich (R) cut $70 million which was to support such bus service throughout Ohio. The cuts hit Cincinnati by eliminating funding for express routes from Cincinnati’s western and northern suburbs into Uptown.

    Whether commuters will continue to turn to express commuter bus service or not is yet to be seen, but it appears that Metro is banking on such future activity with the recent announcement to expand express bus service to Cincinnati’s northern and western suburbs by cutting service elsewhere.