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Arts & Entertainment News Transportation

2012 MidPoint Music Festival bicycle parking overview

The City of Cincinnati has partnered with the MidPoint Music Festival (MPMF), for the second consecutive year, to offer expanded bicycle parking options.

This year’s MPMF is shaping up to be the biggest yet, and as a result, city officials say that they will convert nine on-street automobile parking spaces into bicycle-only parking stalls. Each stall will include a lockable bike corral that can accommodate up to 12 bicycles comfortably.

The spaces will be temporary in nature, and will be removed at the end of the three-day music festival which begins today.

“We want to encourage festival goers to try going carless this year,” explained Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE) director, Michael Moore. “With all of the venues located in such a compact area in OTR and Downtown, this is a great opportunity to experience how easy it is to get around town on a bicycle.”

The converted spaces will compliment an existing permanent collection of structured bicycle parking throughout the Central Business District and historic Over-the-Rhine. Those hoping to take advantage of the bicycle parking options during this year’s MPMF can refer to the following map for guidance.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Film showcase to kick off this year’s MidPoint Music Festival

A pair of locally produced documentaries will be showcased tomorrow during the first ever MidPoint Film Festival, which is being used to help kick-off the three-day MidPoint Music Festival.

The first will is a film about the rebirth of Cincinnati’s historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, and the second is a new film highlighting the history of Newport’s seedy past. The festival is being hosted by Midland Film Institute and will make its debut at the School for Creative & Performing Arts’ (SCPA) Mayerson Theater.


Part of the film crew works on Rebirth of Over-the-Rhine along Elm Street. Photograph provided.

Rebirth of Over-the-Rhine, which was highlighted by UrbanCincy in 2010, covers the nascent redevelopment of the historically struggling neighborhood and how the interplay of social and economic forces is being brought out in the rapidly changing neighborhood. It is directed by award winning director Melissa Godoy.

“We started looking around and we found we were right at the beginning of this push. The history of the neighborhood, combined with its present-day components, really helped to make the story,” co-producer Joe Brinker told UrbanCincy.

The film has been shot in Over-the-Rhine between 2009 and 2012, and highlights some of the social struggles surrounding Washington Park.

Newport Gangster, meanwhile, showcases the gambling legacy of Newport, Kentucky, the original Sin City. The film highlights the scale of Newport’s gambling scene and how it gave birth to the modern gambling industry.

The event is free to the public although a $10 donation is encouraged. Both films will also host a question and answer session with their directors and producers. The film festival will begin at SCPA (map) Thursday, September 27 at 6pm. Those interested in attending are encouraged to RSVP online.

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Up To Speed

In Cincinnati, orchestrated academic support boosts students from cradle to career

In Cincinnati, orchestrated academic support boosts students from cradle to career.

Cincinnati Public Schools has not only become the highest rated urban school district in Ohio, it has also become a model of reform for the rest of the United States. The targeted efforts made by CPS to improve its academics, in conjunction with local efforts by groups like Strive Partnership, have established the district as a national leader, and reestablished it as a trusted local asset. More from MSNBC:

There are indications that the early intervention and sustained support are working: The percentage of children deemed ready for kindergarten, while still just over 50 percent, has increased 9 percent since 2005. Eighth-grade math scores for Cincinnati public school students have increased 24 percent over the same period. Officials with Strive Partnership, which provides an organizational backbone to the collaboration, estimate that around 100,000 children and students participate in the partnership in some fashion.

The Cincinnati model has attracted national interest. The Obama administration has dedicated $40 million to a “Promise Neighborhoods” initiative that encourages community groups to form similar partnerships. Many cities have loose networks of educational, social service and philanthropic agencies. But it’s rare for a network to be focused on the singular goal of raising student achievement. Also key is getting agreement on a common method of tracking their work, said Greg Landsman, the executive director of Strive.

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Arts & Entertainment News Transportation

Cincinnatians transform dozens of parking spaces into temporary parks

For the fifth straight year Cincinnati has participated in the international advocacy effort known as Park(ing) Day. The event, which takes place annually on the fourth Friday in September, aims to draw attention to how much public space is dedicated to automobile parking in our communities. Community organizers do this by taking over on-street parking spaces in cities throughout the world, and turning them into temporary spaces that are more usable by the general public.

In past years Cincinnati has seen parking spaces transformed in the Central Business District, Over-the-Rhine and Clifton Heights. The Central Business District has served as the most hostile location for the activists with several being confronted by business owners and police in past years. Over-the-Rhine, on the contrary, has become the defacto home for the movement, and in 2012 saw more than a dozen spaces converted in the historic neighborhood.


Temporary park/cafe space on Main Street outside of Park+Vine. Photograph by Travis Estell for UrbanCincy.

Cincinnati’s 2012 campaign took on a much different flavor than in past years. Instead of a small collection of grassroots spaces, Merchants of Main Street partnered with Art on the Streets to create temporary art in spaces up and down Main Street between Central Parkway and Liberty Street. The effort included ballet dancers, painters, art installations, and a violinist between 5pm and 7pm.

While the active art spaces took place outside of core business hours, when many Park(ing) Day spaces are set up due to parking demand, organizers were able to dramatically increase the number of converted spaces, and the number of people involved.

Also showcased during this year’s Park(ing) Day was a preview version of what will become Cincinnati’s first parklet – a mini-park built on top of an on-street parking space – in front of Tucker’s on Vine Street.

The following slideshow highlights many of the parking spaces transformed into other uses during Cincinnati’s 2012 Park(ing) Day. All photographs were taken by Travis Estell for UrbanCincy.

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Up To Speed

How an abandoned building in St. Louis became an urban rock climbing destination

How an abandoned building in St. Louis became an urban rock climbing destination.

An abandoned building in St. Louis has become a destination for rock climbers. Similar transformations have occurred elsewhere throughout the United States including exterior rock climbing walls on the sides of buildings in Chicago, and a church turned rock climbing venue in Dayton. Is this something Cincinnati could do with the former church at Fifteenth Street and Race Street in historic Over-the-Rhine? More from Rust Wire:

The video explains the construction of Climb So Ill, a rock climbing gym constructed in the city of St. Louis in a formerly abandoned industrial building. The guy who sent me this, Adam Koberna of Walltopia, said his company is looking to build gyms like this throughout the industrial Midwest.