Year: 2011

Categories
Business Development News

Capital Shoe Repair heals the sole in OTR’s Gateway Quarter

Capital Shoe Repair in the Gateway Quarter, picture by Jenny Kessler for UrbanCincy

Worn footwear, busted purses and torn leather car interiors will live to see another day, thanks to leather extraordinaire and soul musician James Napier and Capital Shoe Repair & Shine Parlors.

Though believed by many to have gone the way of the milkman or the service station attendant, there is strong evidence to the contrary at 1344 Vine Street. Business is good, the door is open and Napier can’t finish a sentence without returning a wave to someone on the street, signifying Capital is in good company. “The neighborhood is great,” said Napier.

The Northside native was in the market to open a second location to supplement the original Capital Shoe Repair downtown and decided on the Vine Street location after a friend insisted he take a drive through Over-the-Rhine.


Capital Shoe Repair [LEFT] in the Gateway Quarter of historic Over-the-Rhine. Photograph by Jenny Kessler for UrbanCincy.

“I hadn’t even considered Vine a possibility. I had been on the road playing music for three years and when I came home I was surprised to see the neighborhood had come such a long way,” he said.

Napier has traveled all over the Midwest promoting his other passion: soul music. He’s been playing piano and guitar almost as long as he’s been in the shoe repair business – almost.

Capital opened in October 2010, but Napier’s been honing his craft for 37 years. His father, Frenchman Napier, opened Frenchman’s Shoe Repair of Covington, Kentucky in 1969, and laid the foundation for a family tradition.

“My first experience was at my father’s shop. I was fourteen years old and he had left to run some errands and put me in charge. Up until this point I had never operated any of the machines, my father thought I was too young. As soon as he left, I went to the Good Will next door and bought a small, decorative metal shoe and took it back to the shop. I used a scrap of leather and the trimming machine to put a sole and a heel on it,” said Napier.

Napier reached under the counter and showed the metal shoe with a flawless sole and heel attached; his first work, the passing of the shoe. “When he came back I showed him what I had done, he was impressed,” he added.

Impressed indeed. Two businesses and eight soul albums later, James Napier has still got it. He now divides his time equally between the original Capital Shoe Repair on 221 E. 4th Street (8am to 1pm) and the new Over-the-Rhine location (1pm to 8pm) and will mend anything from shoes to baseball gloves – just drop bye and say hello.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

Historic Over-the-Rhine brewery tours expand offerings

Five years ago a group of people started to reveal a bit of Cincinnati’s history by offering the very first Prohibition Resistance Tours in the historic Over-the-Rhine Brewery District.

Since those first tours the reaction has been positive and overwhelming as they have continually sold out when offered, first at the annual Bockfest celebration and then starting during Oktoberfest weekend last year.

“When we started the Prohibition Resistance Tours in 2006, we were entering new territory.  We believed that there were a lot of other people out there like us who would be fascinated by Cincinnati’s brewing history and intrigued by our literal brewing underground,” says Michael D. Morgan, Brewery District CURC board member and author of Over-the-Rhine: When Beer was King.

The Prohibition Resistance Tours: The Lager Tour will be offered all summer long and commence at the Findlay Market Biergarten promptly at 1pm each Saturday and Sunday. These walking tours will run about ninety minutes long and include visits into the old Clyffside Brewery as well as a trip into the Clifton hillside lagering cellars at the historic Jackson Brewery building.

With a limit of 50 people per tour, it is highly recommended that reservations be made in advance through their website. A portion of the proceeds from each ticket sold go back to helping preserve the building stock that makes up Cincinnati’s brewing history in Over-the-Rhine.

The Lager Tour will be offered every weekend from now until mid September which leads right into Oktoberfest weekend when The Marzen Tours are scheduled to coincide with both Cincinnati’s famous Oktoberfest as well as the reincarnation of the Hudy 14k run.

Categories
Business News

Keystone Community Garden connects urban neighborhoods to sustainable produce

(Left to Right) Melody Byrom, manager of Over-The-Rhine and Walnut Hills Kitchens & Pantry, Dan Neyer, president and CEO of Neyer Properties, and Patricia Wakim, executive director of OTR and Walnut Hills Kitchens & Pantry

During a time in which 51 percent of Americans will live in poverty sometime before the age of 65 and an estimated 20.7 percent of all children under the age of 18 in the U.S. currently live in poverty, Neyer Properties is rolling up its sleeves and taking its talents to the dirt.

The Cincinnati-based sustainable real estate developer has taken on yet another project that promotes its unwavering dedication to ethical and environmentally-friendly business practices with the Keystone Community Garden at Keystone Parke in Evanston along I-71. Although originally planned for Earth Day on April 22, planting finally took place on Friday, May 13 after being rescheduled four times due to rain.

Throughout the summer volunteers will harvest tomatoes, peppers, corn, potatoes, green beans, lettuce, cucumbers and onions and donate the fresh produce to the Over-the-Rhine and Walnut Hills Kitchens and Pantry. Founded in 1976, the Over-the-Rhine kitchen is the Tristate’s oldest soup kitchen and dishes out roughly over 4,000 meals per week.


Directors from OTR Kitchen and Food Pantry and Neyer Properties.

“Neyer Properties represents the wonderful generosity of corporations in our city,” said Patricia Wakim, executive director of OTR and Walnut Hills Kitchens and Pantry. “It is through this kindness and support that we are able to continue our mission to care for the poor and homeless in an environment of respect and hospitality. We applaud Neyer Properties for its dedication in caring for those less fortunate.”

Of course, feeding Cincinnati is not a mission one embarks on alone; the 60 x 120 foot community garden was a team effort. Lawn Systems provided the equipment to till the land; the American Red Cross gave volunteers and the irrigation supply; and Mills Fence Company supplied a six-foot fence to protect the garden from animals. Neyer is no stranger to the other kind of corporate greenery – the kind that allows one to boast several LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified properties. Giving back is an integral part, if not the integral part of Neyer’s corporate culture.

Since 2007 the company and its employees have donated their efforts to Working in Neighborhoods with annual home rehabilitation and landscaping projects, and since 2008 have cleaned up litter and recyclables every month on Dana Avenue from I-71 south exit ramp to Evanston Avenue along Keystone Parke as part of Keep Cincinnati Beautiful’s Adopt-A-Spot program.

The location of the LEED-certified Keystone Parke, the Adopt-A-Spot area, and now the community garden is by no means an accident. Nestled against the notoriously traffic-laden I-71 not only brings attention to Neyer’s mission of sustainable developments, but showcases the results that come from adhering to that mission.

“Born and raised in Cincinnati, I believe any place where you live, work and play you have to give back if you want it to be better than when you first arrived,” said Dan Neyer, president of Neyer Properties. “The reason we have an education event to honor Earth Day is to educate with our hands, and do something that is visible and long-lasting. I think it’s the ultimate sustainability, between the air we breathe and the food we eat – it’s the only way we can live.”

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

German Day Weekend reminds Cincinnatians of German roots

The 2010 German Day Parade.

Cincinnati’s German heritage will be evident this Saturday and Sunday at the 116th German Day Weekend.  The event will begin at 11am Saturday June 4 at Findlay Market with a parade and opening ceremony.  German dance and singing groups will perform, and representatives from numerous area German-American societies will be on hand.

Dr. Don Heinrich Tolzmann, president of the German-American Citizen’s League and author of several books including German Cincinnati, says that “Germans influenced just about everything in the area: even the symbol of the city, the Tyler Davidson fountain which was brought from Munich, and the suspension bridge, which was built by Roebling, a German immigrant.”


2010 German Day Parade.

Along with St. Louis and Milwaukee, Cincinnati forms a part of the German Triangle, consisting of the three major centers of German heritage in the United States.  The first Germans came to this area in the late 18th century, and many followed in the 19th and 20th century.  “Germans were involved in all different industries in addition to brewing, like baking, banking, and music,” said Tolzmann, a retired UC professor.

On Sunday, June 5, join the fun at Hofbräuhaus Newport, where German music can be enjoyed throughout the day along with German food and plenty of beer.  Hourly raffle prizes will culminate in a grand raffle at 5:30pm: a dinner party for 20 at Hofbräuhaus.  Raffles will support the GACL and Cincinnati’s German Heritage Museum. 

The museum, which showcases memorabilia, artifacts and pictures relating to Cincinnati’s German history, located at 4764 West Fork Road, is open 1pm to 5pm on Sundays and by appointment.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment Business News

City Flea introduces Cincinnati to urban flea market culture

City Flea location, photo provided

While living in New York, Cincinnati natives, Nick and Lindsay Dewald enjoyed spending the better part of their Saturdays at Brooklyn Flea, an urban flea market. According to Nick, since it was within walking distance, it was just “something you did in the neighborhood,” and whatever you needed to do—“eat, buy a gift, card, something for the house, or get a cup of coffee”—you could do it at Brooklyn Flea.

When they returned to Cincinnati eight months ago, the couple noticed a cultural boom happening among the city’s creative class. Inspired, Nick and Lindsay started The City Flea to expose the city to an urban flea market culture.

“Six years ago, it didn’t seem like [Cincinnati] was thriving the way it is now,” says Lindsay, who resides in Prospect Hill. “When we came back, we said, ‘We’ve got to bring that flea market culture to Cincinnati because there are definitely vendors and patrons who will embrace us.’”

At City Flea, patrons can eat a meal from one of the many food vendors in attendance, or peruse through ceramic goods, handmade furniture, jewelry, vintage clothing and other merchandise from local entrepreneurs and artisans.


City Flea’s location at Vine Street and Central Parkway

“We want people to know it could be a well thought out, well curated sort of market that showcases local artists and collectors,” says Lindsay. “There’s not going to be much rummaging through to get to the good stuff. The good stuff, you’re gonna see as soon as you walk in.”

This Saturday, June 4, City Flea will be located in the parking lot in front of the Cincinnatus mural at Vine Street and Central Parkway [map]. “We like that it’s on the border of Central Parkway and downtown—and people coming from outside of the city, I think, will be more comfortable with the fact that it is downtown…of course, we want to break that stereotype that Over-the-Rhine is scary, so we thought this would be a good location to do that,” says Lindsay.

The neighborhood feel of Brooklyn Flea is what Nick says he and his wife were hoping to recreate for the people that live in the community. “We’re hoping that for the people that live in the area, it can be a part of their weekend,” says Nick, mentioning that it could be a destination stop on the way to brunch or Findlay Market. He also hopes that the monthly event (which will return July 9, August 6 and September 3) will eventually happen every weekend.

Jessica Rilling, owner of bakery, Jessicakes, says she looks forward to City Flea’s melting pot of people, ideas, and goods. “As a designer, self-taught baker, business owner, and a former urban planning student, I felt like the goals of the market were something I could really stand behind,” says Rilling. “It just seemed natural to get involved with bringing that here to Cincinnati.”

Among City Flea’s list of sponsors are downtown and Over-the-Rhine businesses Arnold’s Bar and Grill, A-Line Magazine, Atomic Number 10, Yelp! Cincinnati, Cincinnati Fringe Fest, The Famous Neon’s Unplugged, Know Theatre, Architreks, Park & Vine and The Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati.

Accessible to several Metro bus routes, The City Flea is open from 11am to 5pm in the Cincinnatus mural parking lot at Vine Street and Central Parkway, and is free. No alcohol or outside food is permitted. For more information on parking and directions, visit City Flea’s website or find them on Facebook.