Fountain Square has experienced record crowds over the winter for its popular ice skating rink, and is coming off of a summer 2009 season that broke all kinds of crowd records including concert series and movie night attendance. Cincinnati’s primary public gathering space has help lead the transformation of the city’s urban core since it was renovated in 2005. With warmer temperatures and nice weather upon us, it is time to once again get ready for another Summer on the Square.
Tag: Cincinnati
The City of Cincinnati is starting several street rehabilitation projects in Mt. Auburn, Walnut Hills Clifton Heights and Corryville. Auburn Avenue, Burnet Avenue, McMillan Street, Vine Street and William Howard Taft Road will all be affected by the various improvements totaling $2.3 million.
Depending on each street’s current condition they will receive partial- or full-depth repairs followed a process that will grind off the existing asphalt. According to Don Steins, Senior Engineer with Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE), the partial and full-depth repairs will last approximately two weeks.
From there, crews from Little Miami Construction Company will replace deteriorated curbs, construct curb ramps, sidewalks/driveway aprons where necessary, adjust utility castings, and resurface all of the pavement area. All of the street rehabilitation work should be completed by early August, 2010.
Steins noted that this time line might very well change with the potential addition of other Clifton Heights streetscaping work, and said that the DOTE is encouraging drivers to use alternative routes during the reconstruction process. While reconstruction takes place there will always be some degree of access for drivers, and during morning and evening rush hour times all lanes will be open to traffic.
The Cincinnati Riverfront Park project has landed a $1 million gift that will go to create the event lawn in Phase 1 of the 45-acre park project. The $1 million gift will be presented on Friday, April 9 at 2:30pm at the Cincinnati Parks Administrative Offices in Mt. Adams (map).
The gift comes from the Jacob G. Schmidlapp Trusts for which the new Jacob G. Schmidlapp Stage & Event Lawn in Cincinnati Riverfront Park (formerly known as the Walnut Street Event Lawn) gets its name.
Once complete, the Event Lawn will be built as a green roof to the underground parking garage below, and will act as a venue for special events, performances, and passive recreation. Park officials state that the Event Lawn is also being built to ADA standards so that the space will be fully accessible to all people.
The Event Lawn will be immediately surrounded by pedestrian promenades, with the much anticipated Moerlein Lager House overlooking the site on the east, the performance stage on the western portion of the space, The Banks development to the north and Mehring Way will sit just to the south.
Phase 1 of the overall $60 million riverfront park is currently under construction, on-time and on-budget according to Cincinnati Park officials. The anticipated completion date for Phase 1 is April, 2011.
The LGBT Arts Festival originally planned to take place at the Know Theatre from Saturday, April 23 through Saturday, May 8 has been postponed due to a lack of resources. This is the second postponement of the festival which was first planned to take place in October 2009.
“We are dedicated to the idea and the realization of the LGBT Arts Festival,” said Eric Vosmeier, Managing Director at the Know Theatre. “However, this Festival was conceived over 18 months ago, when the Know Theatre was in a very different position and frankly had a staff that was larger by five.”
The second conception to take place in the coming weeks was planned to coincide with the production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. The two-part play will take place as originally planned and run through May 8th.
“I’ve been looking at Know Theatre’s available resources, and while financial consideration is certainly one of the concerns, for me the most important thing is the preservation of our staff as a resource,” Vosmeier described. “We need to ensure the success of every single production we present. At this moment, that means that we’ll have to postpone the LGBT Arts Festival to ensure that we’re able to fully realize our production of Angels in America and the 7th Annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival.”
Staff at the Know Theatre note that a visual art exhibit of the LGBT Arts Festival will go forward as scheduled and will open at CS13 during Final Friday (map) on April 30, 2010. The exhibit will run through May 15 and feature work of prominent LGBT artists like Jan Wandrag, Gio Black Peter, Matthew Stradling, Zachari Logan, Scooter LaForge, Scott Hug, James Huctwith, Jeremiah Degrandpre, David DeWitt, and Matthew Dayler who is also serving as the curator for the exhibit.
As for the rest of the festival, Vosmeier stated that the plan now is to host the festival in October 2011 to coincide with National Coming Out Day on October 11th.
“I want to see a Festival that truly speaks to the LGBT community,” said Vosmeier. “This community is large and diverse with dramatically different economic, racial, educational, and political backgrounds. I want time to explore options, to collect ideas from the community and to seek out performers, artists, filmmakers who speak to that diversity.”
The Cincinnati Rollergirls kicked off their third season of interleague competition at the Cincinnati Gardens on Saturday, with the varsity Black Sheep taking on the San Diego Wildfires, and the JV Silent Lambs facing off against the Circle City Socialites of Indianapolis. Although the home-team split the matches — beating Circle City in the undercard 112-30, but falling to San Diego 128-109 — there was little doubt that the season opener was a success.
Tailgating, $1 beer specials, and a burgeoning reputation for exciting sport turned out 3,222 fans that produced explosive cheers (and boos) in reaction to the action on the floor. Though the organization started just a few years back in 2005 and features entirely unpaid athletes and staff, the atmosphere on March 27th was electric, and nothing if not first-class.
The Cincinnati Rollergirls take the track next on Saturday, April 17 when they play host to the Arch Rival Rollergirls of St. Louis at 7pm at the Cincinnati Gardens (map).