The Betts House, one of Cincinnati’s best kept secrets, has a new exhibit opening this weekend featuring over twenty drawings by the husband and wife team of Barbra and David Day. Vanishing Cincinnati includes drawings that depict Cincinnati’s urban landscape from the mid 1800’s to the mid 1900’s. They feature both very familiar landmarks such as Findlay Market and the Roebling Suspension Bridge as well as landmarks that have been lost as time moved on including the Albee Theater and the Bus Depot.
The Days are design consultants that work in Pendelton, and are fourth and fifth generation Cincinnatians that have taken many projects on around the city. Some of their work around the city has included the architectural restoration of the historic Enquirer building on Vine Street, the Over-the-Rhine Gateway Monument at Liberty Street and Reading Road, and the mosaic in the market house at Findlay Market which was installed to celebrate its 150th year of operation.
In interviews, David Day has said that through the multiple generations of his family there has been a David Day shopping at Findlay Market since the end of the Civil War. Clearly he and his wife have a passion and deep understanding of Cincinnati which should come through loud and clear in their drawings.
The partnership with The Betts House is really a match made in heaven as The Betts House has deep historical connections as well. Not only is it the oldest residential building in the Cincinnati basin, it is also the oldest brick house in the state of Ohio.
Built in 1804 as a part of the Betts Family Farm (a 111 acre piece of land that makes up today’s West End neighborhood), the Betts House is currently used as a gallery hosting various art projects through the year, there were five generations of the Betts family that called the house on Clark Street home and it basically sits unchanged today, after some restoration of course. The house and the exhibits are privatley funded through grants and sponsorships with donations and memberships available for individuals as well.
Vanishing Cincinnati, made possible by a grant from ArtsWave, will open this Friday, February 11 with a reception starting at 5pm and run through April 23. The Betts House is otherwise open Tuesday through Thursday from 11am to 2pm, and on the second and fourth Saturday each month from 12pm to 5pm. Admission for Vanishing Cincinnati is just $2.
One-by-one, and with little fanfare, nearly every major American city which scrapped its streetcar and other rail transit lines mid-century has since 1970 built a new rail system of some kind. Between 1970 and 1990, new-start systems began operations in Washington, DC, Baltimore, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, Buffalo, San Diego and Miami. Between 1990 and 2010, new-start systems were built in Denver, St. Louis, Seattle, Sacramento, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Phoenix.
As of 2011, Cincinnati is now the largest metropolitan area, with the exception of Detroit, with no rail transit whatsoever. Attempts to fund a regional rail transit system were defeated by Hamilton County voters in 1971, 1979, 1980, and 2002. Cincinnati’s modern streetcar plan, after winning at the polls in 2009, was fully funded in 2010 but faces yet another challenge from special interest groups in 2011.
Is there some physical reason why rail transit is poorly suited for Cincinnati, as its opponents have always contended? No – and the purpose of this article is to illustrate that Cincinnati is in fact much better suited than several cities that have recently built rail transit systems. In short, dating from Mayor Murray Seasongood’s assertion in the late 1920’s that Cincinnati was too small for a rapid transit system, a long line of Cincinnati politicians, usually self-proclaimed reformers or financial watchdogs have succeeded in diverting federal funds away from Cincinnati to less deserving cities.
How Atlanta received the Federal award to build MARTA Thirteen years after passage of Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, the Federal Government began funding construction of rapid transit systems. First was the Washington Metro, which received funding in 1969 and began construction shortly thereafter. The Urban Mass Transit Act of 1970 allocated $10 billion for the expansion and upkeep of existing systems in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and elsewhere, and funded approximately 80 percent of the cost of new rapid transit systems in Baltimore, Miami and Atlanta.
The award of nearly $1 billion, to Atlanta in the early 1970’s, stands as one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of public transportation in the United States. This enormous sum (equivalent to approximately $3 billion in 2011 dollars) was originally allocated to Seattle but was diverted after King County voters failed to approve a local tax to operate the planned system. Meanwhile, Atlanta-area voters did approve a transit sales tax, and due to a shortage of cities with such a tax, received the federal award and broke ground on MARTA in 1975.
The configuration of MARTA’s two lines, which radiate from downtown Atlanta in four directions, has been the subject of much criticism. Approximately four miles of subway construction in the Downtown and Midtown areas consumed enough of the project’s budget as to force cut backs in suburban areas. Outside of the Downtown tunnels, the lines typically follow freight rail lines, with inconveniently positioned stations. These poorly located stations have limited the system’s overall ridership by discouraging the construction of transit-oriented developments. Nevertheless, large transit-oriented developments (TODs) have been built at some MARTA stations, and system ridership is presently reported to be 260,000 each weekday.
So why did Cincinnati not apply for the award Atlanta received?
In 1970, Atlanta and Cincinnati were at the center of metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) identical in population. But Cincinnati was still much more densely built than Atlanta, and therefore much better suited for construction of a rapid transit system. Not only were Downtown and Over-the-Rhine much more active than they are now, but Cincinnati had numerous old neighborhood business districts that could have been saved from extinction with a subway station beneath their primary intersections.
A drawing for such a system was in fact made by the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI). In anticipation of a UMTA application in 1971, OKI developed a 57-mile regional rapid transit plan that would have included at least 10 miles of subway construction in Cincinnati, a tunnel under the Ohio River, and more subway construction in Covington and Newport. Under UMTA guidelines, Cincinnati-area residents would only pay $100 million of its estimated $500 million capital cost.
But Cincinnati could not apply because UMTA awards were available only for those cities with publicly operated bus companies. In 1970 public transportation in Cincinnati was still provided by Cincinnati Transit, the bus-only descendant of the Cincinnati Street Railway, a situation that persisted after a countywide property tax that would have funded a public bus company failed in 1971. Cincinnati Transit was not put out of its misery until city voters approved an earnings tax in 1973 that enabled formation of Queen City Metro.
The .03 percent earnings tax was insufficient to cover the 20 percent local match required for UMTA awards, therefore, even after having established a public bus company, Cincinnati could still not apply for large capital awards without either a supplement or replacement of the city earnings tax. A pair of countywide transit taxes failed in 1979 and 1980, and therefore Cincinnatians paid in but received nothing from the Urban Mass Transit Assistance Act.
What is so frustrating about these events is that of the three cities that received new-start awards, only the traditional urban character of Baltimore in any way resembles that of Cincinnati. Miami and Atlanta, which by 1970 had just surpassed Cincinnati in size, experienced most of their growth in the automobile era and so could not possibly benefit similarly from construction of rapid transit systems. In short, federal awards weren’t made on the basis of suitability or cost-benefit, but rather who fought hardest for the money.
What if…? Federal funding of rail transit declined after the exhaustion of UMTA funds in the late 1970’s. As such, the FTA has not funded any new-start rapid transit subway systems, with the exception of the Los Angeles Red and Purple Lines in the late 1980’s, and has shifted its funding to the less expensive light rail mode. In Cincinnati, regional transit system plans downsized from OKI’s 1971 Regional Rapid Transit plan to less ambitious light rail plans.
These light rail plans typically called for little or no tunnel construction. Unfortunately, this is not the best solution for Cincinnati, as many of its walkable neighborhood business districts can only be reached by the type of bored tunnels called for in OKI’s 1971 Regional Rapid Transit Plan. Since the FTA no longer funds extensive tunnel construction in mid-sized cities, Cincinnati has no hope of constructing such tunnels without a return of Federal funding for such projects to 1970’s levels.
Next time you are in Hyde Park Square, at Skyline Chili in Clifton, near St. Lawrence Church in Price Hill, or walking Covington’s MainStrasse Village, imagine being able to walk down a staircase to a subway train that could take you Downtown or to any of those other points in just a few minutes. The money was there for the taking back in the early 1970’s, and we could have gotten it just as easily as Atlanta did, but your parents and grandparents were tricked into voting against it.
Jake Mecklenborg is a transit historian and published author. His new book Cincinnati’s Incomplete Subway: The Complete History explores the strange and largely untold history of rail transit in the Queen City.
Developers, city officials and community leaders gathered on Broadway Commons this past Friday to celebrate the groundbreaking of Cincinnati’s first casino and what will be Ohio’s largest with more than 100,000 square feet of non-stop gaming. Once complete, Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati is expected to attract roughly six million visitors annually.
Rock Gaming has long pledged to build a truly urban casino and design it in such a way that does not turn its back on the neighborhood surrounding it as casinos so often do. To help facilitate the process a local group called Bridging Broadway formed and has been working with city officials and developers.
In addition to announcing the name, operator and manager of the casino, developers also revealed updating renderings of what the Cincinnati casino will look like once complete in late 2012.
Inside, the casino will feature 72 table games, a World Series of Poker room with 31 poker tables, approximately 2,300 slot machines, a 400-seat international buffet, three additional restaurants and a food court, and more than 33,000 square feet of banquet/event/convention/meeting facilities.
What do you think? Are the developers delivering on their promise to design an urban casino that does not turn its back on the surrounding neighborhood?
Last year it was Google’s Parisian Love commercial that took home the prize for best Super Bowl commercial with its clever way to highlight the benefits of using Google search through an identifiable love story. This year’s winner is much different.
Imported From Detroit by Chrysler embodied an overall theme this year of brand identity. The theme started with the obvious efforts of the National Football League to brand football as America’s sport with its pregame festivities. In the two-minute commercial spot, Chrysler was able to do several things. They highlighted Detroit’s powerful past, its mighty fall from grace and its present existance as an American powerhouse city (11th largest MSA in the United States with nearly 4.5 million people).
All at once, the commercial was able to sell the audience on a new perception of Detroit, the strength of an industry and the quality of car. The selection of Eminem also seemed particularly apt given Eminem’s identity and music being so closely tied to the city he calls home.
What was particularly interesting to me was the fighting nature of the commercial. For decades Midwestern cities have been beaten up by the media as their stagnating growth and economic woes have made them look inept in the face of explosive growth in the Sun Belt. While Midwestern cities have envied the growth seen in the Sun Belt, those southern cities have often been envious of the culture and history found in the Midwest and Northeast. This commercial highlighted just that and said, we’ve got a lot of fight left in us and you’ve already thrown your best shot.
Immediately the commercial was seen as the runaway winner in this year’s Ad Bowl, but what do you think?
It appears as if the special interest group that led the effort to require a vote on all passenger rail transportation in Cincinnati is now leading an effort to outright ban all passenger rail transportation in Cincinnati.
The anti-spending group COAST evidently did not get the message from Cincinnatians who voted nearly 2:1 in November 2009 when they voted in support of passenger rail. So, after asking if city residents wanted to vote on every passenger rail investment, and getting a resounding no, they are doing what they want and asking city residents to vote on passenger rail investments. Specifically at hand would be any investments in streetcars or light rail for the next decade.
The vote that will decide whether or not to ban passenger rail in Cincinnati for the next decade, whether it is fully funded by whatever funding source, will more than likely occur this May in a special election that will cost taxpayers $400,000.
So for those that have yet to see a modern streetcar, you can check out this video on the modern streetcar design that may be used for Cincinnati’s fully funded streetcar system that is about to begin construction and be operational by 2013. If you need more information on Cincinnati’s streetcar project, check out the CincyStreetcar Blog for regular updates and information or CincinnatiStreetcar.com for official project details, studies and reports.
The Betts House, one of Cincinnati’s best kept secrets, has a new exhibit opening this weekend featuring over twenty drawings by the husband and wife team of Barbra and David Day. Vanishing Cincinnati includes drawings that depict Cincinnati’s urban landscape from the mid 1800’s to the mid 1900’s. They feature both very familiar landmarks such as Findlay Market and the Roebling Suspension Bridge as well as landmarks that have been lost as time moved on including the Albee Theater and the Bus Depot.
