Tag Archives: Cincinnati Ohio

1950s Flashback

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The Cincinnati Museum Center has presented a 1940s Day or Weekend annually since 2011. I attended the third in 2013. Saturday was their first-ever 1950s Day. Asked on their Facebook page if this would also be an annual event, the museum said no. It is intended to be a one-time thing to mate up with the ongoing Julia Child and Barbie exhibits. “But,” they added, “it could come back!” I don’t really remember the 1940s, but I do remember the 1950s, and the rain on Saturday looked just like rain did when Ike was in the White House and Waite Hoyt was on the radio.

Individual information tables lined the rotunda. Pictured are King Records Legacy, Casablanca Vintage Clothing, and the American Sign Museum with a genuine 1950 NEON SIGN.

I stepped into the Newsreel Theater intending to watch a few minutes of the Moving Images presentation and ended up staying more than an hour watching clips of “Melody Showcase”, “Midwestern Hayride”, and commercials. I don’t remember “Melody Showcase”, but “Midwestern Hayride” was a staple at our house, and it’s even possible that I saw some of what I saw today when it was broadcast live.

1950s Day included quite a bit of live music. I caught the P&G Big Band, the Queen City Sisters, and Naomi Carman and the Bluecreek Boys. I do intend to check out the Barbie and Julia Child exhibits sometime, but the museum was far too crowded for that on Saturday. I’ll slip them in on a weekday when school’s in session and employed people are doing employee things.  

Living on the Air in Cincinnati

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I’m sure everybody is familiar with the joke about someone having “a face for radio.” It’s based on the idea that you do not have to look good to sound good. That’s an idea that often applies doubly to buildings. I’ve not been in a lot of radio stations, but I have been in enough to know that the people behind the microphones are frequently speaking in a dark cubicle far from prying and non-prying eyes, with little for their own eyes to take in as they work. That description has applied to Cincinnati’s WVXU and WGUC, but will no longer. Cincinnati Public Radio is letting the public see its new building this weekend. The bulk of personnel are already operating in the new space, and the plan is to switch broadcasting activity at noon on Tuesday.

I attended Saturday’s open house, which repeats today, April 27, 2025, from 1:00 to 5:00. Directions and other details are here. The cartoon in the opening photo stood not far from the entrance. The distance between speech balloons represents reporter Bill Rinehart’s signature pause when identifying debris on the roadway. I got my first view of the building from a drive by a few weeks ago, but this was my first up-close and stationary look.

And it was obviously my first look inside. That is the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Woodwind Quintet on stage in an area dubbed The Gathering Space. There is also a Performance Studio. With spaces such as this, dare we hope that live music performances — possibly featuring local talent — might be in CPR’s future?

Pictures from the upper floor, including subjects from the preceding paragraph, show how open the building is.

The Instrument Petting Zoo, which seemed to be a big hit, was a new one on me. A more traditional petting zoo was also on the agenda, but the pettees had not yet arrived when I was there. After I walked to my car and worked my way back through the traffic to exit, I saw a Cincinnati Zoo van parked near the front door. I’m pretty sure that meant additional petting was happening or about to.

There are a number of smaller work areas, including some without windows. Most, if not all, of these are mixing and editing stations where a little isolation is a good thing.

As far as I know, the food trucks will not always be there, but they were certainly welcome on Saturday and will be there on Sunday if you want to grab a meal or some Graeter’s ice cream while checking out the building. The CSO quintet was piped outside to a nice park-like area, so I assume Sunday’s Gathering Space performances will be as well. That is where I listened while enjoying some black raspberry chocolate chip. The new place is finished, and the Welcome Weekend is half over. Cincinnati Public Radio is just about done packin’ and unpackin’.

ADDENDUM 29-Apr-2025: Although I was aware of the building’s forward-thinking mass timber construction and actually had it in mind as something to point out when I snapped the picture of the stairway, it completely got away from me during the writing phase. I was reminded of my glaring oversight as I listened to the official throwing of the switch at noon today. The core of this building is not steel or concrete. This is the first mass timber building in Cincinnati. Learn about mass timber here and watch a video about why Cincinnati Public Radio chose it here. 

Cycle Thru and Collective Behavior at CAM

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I made it to “Cycle Thru! The Art of the Bike” within its first week. It opened at the Cincinnati Art Museum on Friday, April 4, and I attended on Thursday, April 10. It will be there for another eighteen weeks, through August 24. The exhibit includes photographs, paintings, and other pieces of art that feature bicycles, but while I enjoyed looking at those items, what I documented were the real things: Bicycles that might themselves be considered pieces of art.

The exhibit begins with an 1878 Ariel High Wheel. This style of bicycle originated in Britain and was commonly known as a penny-farthing because the pairing of the large and small wheels reminded people of the relative size of penny and farthing coins. On the left in that first picture is an Otto Dicycle, which women could ride without risking the embarrassment of exposing an ankle. In the foreground of the second photo is a cast iron and wood velocipede from 1865. I had seen the three-wheeled vehicle in the third picture in promotions for the exhibit but could not figure out what was going on until I read its description at the museum. That trailing wheel was supposed to make the ride smoother, but it’s not clear how well that worked. That rider comfort was definitely top of mind with this bike is reinforced by its “bespoke anatomical saddle“.

I thought one of the vehicles in the 1900s-1910s display might belong to Wile E. Coyote, but what looked like an Acme Rocket is one of two metal cans to hold air and keep the water bike afloat. The wall behind the very rare 1960 fiberglass Bowden Spacelander is filled with bicycles from the 1930s and 1940s. The 1965 Sears Spaceliner at upper left in the 1950s-1960s caught my attention because of its resemblance to my 1960 J. C. Higgins Flightliner. The Spaceliner was designed by Viktor Schreckengost and built by Murray, and I’m guessing that is also true of the Flightliner.

Of course, for anyone not having owned a Flightliner, the big attention grabber in that last group of bicycles is almost certainly the customized 1953 Schwinn DX Cruiser from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. The saddle might not be bespoke, but everything else sure is.

The museum itself is, as always, free. “Cycle Thru!” is not. However, admission to the bicycle exhibit also includes another paid exhibit at the museum. Until May 4, that second exhibit is “Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior!“. After that, “Cycle Thru!” will be paired with “Farm to Table: Food and Identity in the Age of Impressionism“. I’m sure “Farm to Table” will be a very good show, but man, I sure liked the Sikander exhibition. The photo above is of the second edition of her sculpture “NOW”. The first edition is on permanent display outside the Appellate Courthouse in Manhattan

As the museum’s description of the exhibit states, Shahzia Sikander works “in a variety of mediums—painting, drawing, print, digital animation, mosaic, sculpture, and glass,” and I believe the exhibit contains examples of every one of them. The first item shown here, “Provenance the Invisible Hand“, combines silkscreening and hand painting. The second, “Arose“, is a glass mosaic. A detail from its center is here.

“Liquid Light II” is painted glass. “Promiscuous Intimacies” is a bronze sculpture. I made myself comfortable on a futon and watched the “Parallax” digital animation but somehow missed its description, so I am including a capture from a PDF of exhibit labels here.

I also missed any onsite description for “NOW”, so am including a capture of the PDF for that as well. It is here. As I did some fairly casual research on Sikander, I learned of an 18-foot statue named “Witness” that is similar to the 8-foot “NOW”. On July 8, 2024, while on display at the University of Houston, “Witness” was beheaded. Although an anti-abortion group had protested the statue’s presence in February, nothing is known that connects the group with the decapitation. Sikander explained her desire to not have the statue repaired with, “The damage reflects the hateful misogynistic act and it should not be forgotten.”

Cincy’s Fire Fighting Heritage

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I once ate dinner here. It was sometime in the 1980s. The company I worked for held a banquet for a sales conference here, and we were all allowed to tour the museum before the meal. I recall that I found the Cincinnati Fire Museum quite interesting at the time, but for some reason gave those memories the better part of four decades to fade. During Saturday’s visit, I did find a few pieces of equipment to be somewhat familiar, but I don’t really remember anything about the layout of the museum and have a hunch it has changed more than a little since I was here.

Steps — or for adventurous youngsters, a pole — lead to a lower level where the oldest items in the museum are on display. The city’s first fire engine has been lost to history, but its second survives. It is a pumper built by William C. Hunnerman of Boston in 1816. With a crew of twelve, it could throw water up to 133 feet. The massive drum was Cincinnati’s fire alarm from 1808 to 1824. After the city became too big for the drum to be heard by all, a bell took over, and the drum fell on hard times, which included a period of being used as an oat bin before someone recognized its importance and started to take better care of it. Bored-out logs like the one here were once common components in city water systems. When firemen reached the scene of a fire, they might drill a hole in the nearest pipe to access the water, then plug and mark it for possible reuse in the future. The name “fire plug” has outlived wooden pipes and hand drills by a bunch.

Before the middle of the nineteenth, things called fire engines were merely pumps that were usually mounted, almost always accompanied by some sort of tank, on wheels. Manpower pulled the engines to fires, and manpower operated the pump once they arrived. In 1853, Shawk and Latta, a Cincinnati company, developed the first practical steam pump for fighting fires. Cincinnati soon gained a reputation as a supplier of firefighting equipment. The horse-drawn fire engine (rear view here) was built in 1884 by the Ahrens (later Ahrens-Fox) Fire Engine Company, who had obtained the Latta patents in 1868.

At almost exactly the same time that steam power was dramatically changing firefighting equipment, an equally dramatic change was occurring with the firefighters. Boston began paying some of its firefighters in 1679. Cincinnati went further in 1853 and is considered to have established the nation’s first fully paid fire department. In 1873, Cincinnati firefighters were forbidden from holding other jobs, making them truly professional.

Closing things out is a pair of twentieth-century Ahrens-Fox fire engines. The chain-driven Model M-4 was delivered to Cincinnati’s Company 13 in 1918. The 1958 cab forward Model ECB is the last fire engine ever produced by Ahrens-Fox. It was retired in 1981.

Cincinnati Celebrates Bock

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Predictions of rain or snow during this year’s Cincinnati Bockfest parade were on and off over the last few days, and with them, my own plans to attend. At the last hour, I decided to go, but at the last minute almost reversed course as a few drops of water appeared on my windshield on the way there. I ultimately put my trust in the weather reports and arrived at the parade launch point about forty-five minutes before launch time. The parade naturally took some hits during the COVID-19 pandemic, but I thought it had pretty much recovered when I was last here in 2022. In years past, this area has been filled an hour or more before the parade so maybe those rain predictions had succeeded in scaring off a number of attendees.

Even with what I thought was a slightly off crowd, Arnold’s was packed, and I didn’t even try to get inside. Instead, I joined this line at a booth where four local bock beers and pretzels from event sponsor Servatii were being served. The complete lack of sunlight and the slightly damp air made things feel quite a bit colder than the 46 degrees the thermometer registered.

Bock in hand, I roamed the staging area a bit and grabbed pictures of perennial favorites the Moerlein Goat and Arnold’s Pushable Bathtub. Sadly, Arnold’s Gas Powered Bathtub was nowhere in sight. The Clyffside float is new to me (I think).

I also got a shot of a self-propelled wheeled goat being interviewed and a group photo of the lovely but reserved ladies of the Monthly Parking Available dance team. This was one of three dance teams in the parade, but one of my longtime favorites, the Red Hot Dancing Queens, was not among them. Their Facebook page shows no activity since May 2023, so I fear they are no more. Bummer.

When the parade started, I missed seeing Jim Tarbell until he was directly in front of me and had to scurry up the street to get this shoddy shot of Cincinnati’s favorite politician, promoter, and parader. I’m not sure why I missed the 2023 parade. I missed — or at least mostly missed — the 2024 parade because of a concert scheduled for nearly the same time. The venue was right on the parade route so I did see a bit of it in passing. I even grabbed photos of Mr. Tarbell and the big goat.

I really didn’t do any better in capturing the 2025 parade than I did in 2024. I knew before I arrived I would not be following the parade to Bockfest Hall/Tent and sampling multiple beers as I’ve typically done. As it passed, I mostly watched and chatted with friends, with little effort put into recording it. Some of that was due to weather, but most of it was due to age. Though it seemed a little shorter this year than in years gone by, it is still one of Cincinnati’s coolest parades, and no doubt the four Official Bockfest Halls and eighteen Official Bockfest Venues were sites of great fun. I expect to be back next year, and maybe I’ll walk the parade route, but probably not. Bock on, young ‘uns. Bock on.

Cincinnati Chili Week II

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Cincinnati Chili Week is back. Today is the final day of its second coming, so you can still participate if you’d like. I’m taking the day off after participating in all six of the week’s previous days. Although there are no actual repeats from last year, the list of visited restaurants looks kind of familiar. Just one entry is 100% new to me, and I only avoided full on repeats by patronizing different locations of three restaurant chains. That is not the fault of event organizers. It’s mine.

There are several interesting restaurants on their list that don’t make my personal list of candidates because the only chili they serve is on cheese coneys or in bowls. I simply don’t care for cheese coneys, and although I don’t really dislike chili by the bowl, I can’t say that I really like it either. To be entirely honest, I guess what I do like is pasta and cheese, and I have learned to enjoy both chili and marinara toppings because I Iive in Cincinnati.

Monday: Chili Hut was not one of my stops during last year’s Chili Week, but I have eaten here before. Their primary mode of operation is as a food truck, but they do have a brick-and-mortar location in Loveland that kept regular hours for a short period and is now open on special occasions like Chili Week. Their chili is meaty and slightly on the spicy side. My only previous visit was during the summer of 2022 when the Loveland location was open full-time.

Tuesday: This is the only completely new to me restaurant on this year’s agenda. Since Cincinnati’s chili scene was started by a couple of Greek emigrants, having a 4-way at Mezedes, a restaurant started and operated by real Greeks from Greece, might be seen as going back to the beginning. The chili here is fairly meaty and definitely spicy but not painfully so,

Wednesday: This was my first time at Champions Grille, but I have eaten Empress Chili before, which is what they serve, so I can’t count this as a totally new experience. Empress is where Cincinnati Chili first began back in 1922, and at one time there were several Empress Chili parlors in the area. Just one remains, in Alexandria, KY, but there are other places like Champions that license the name and recipe. I feel that Empress is one of the mildest chilis in the area, so it might be a good one for noobies to start with,

Thursday: The rest of the week is filled with almost repeats. I included the original (but moved slightly) Blue Ash Chili in last year’s chili week. As many as three locations of this small chain have existed in the past. Now, there are just two. I believe I’ve eaten at the Tri-County location before, but it has been remodeled and was not at all familiar. The 4-way, however, was very familiar. It’s a personal favorite with what I consider just the right amount of spice, meat, and cheese.

Friday: The next almost repeat from the inaugural Cincinnati Chili Week is Dixie Chili. I visited the original location in Newport, KY, last year, and I know I have eaten at the restaurant on Dixie Highway, but the tiny chain has three locations, which means one remained for a first-time visit. This is the Covington store where I enjoyed a familiar and tasty 4-way.

Saturday: As I did last year, I made Gold Star the sixth and final 4-way supplier in this year’s run. Last year, I simply went to the nearest location which I guess could be called my “regular” Gold Star restaurant. I did not want to repeat that but had little criteria for selecting a different location from the 50+ partictpants in the promotion. The very first Gold Star was in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Cincinnati. It’s long gone but I decided to visit — for the first time — that neighborhood’s current Gold Star restaurant. I always think of Gold Star chili as spicy but it isn’t really hot spicy. It’s just flavorful spicy.

Voice of America Museum Revisited

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The nearby National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting reopened last month after a seven-month closure for refurbishing. I visited the museum back in 2022 but had been hearing about the update and decided to fill an idle Saturday with a return visit. One thing that is different from the last time is noticeable from the outside. Visitors now enter from the side rather than the front. I’m guessing that’s part of the recent rework, but it might have been that way beforehand.

I arrived a few minutes ahead of the day’s first guided tour, and I used those minutes to look over the Cincinnati radio and TV displays near the entrance. Cincinnati was a real leader in the early development of both forms of broadcasting. The pictures are of the Larry Smith Puppets and the Ruth Lyons set. Smith came to fame on the Uncle Al Show and later had a show of his own. Ruth was a true pioneer in daytime talk TV. Note the converted-to-color Predicta TV next to Ruth’s sofa.

When I visited in 2022, the display of Cincinnati’s commercial broadcasting history was kind of like a big attic. These nicely designed exhibits are typical of the improvements made during the recent refurbishing. 

When the United States entered World War II, Cincinnati’s WLW was using this 50,000-watt transmitter to broadcast entertainment to South America via shortwave. The newly created Voice of America initially rented the transmitter and started broadcasting on February 1, 1942, less than two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In the second picture, Joe, our guide, demonstrates how shortwave signals reflect off of the ionosphere and bounce around the globe.

The Volksempfänger (people’s receiver) existed to bring Nazi propaganda into German homes, and USSR-built transistor receivers did the same for the Soviet Block. The VOA never managed to get its programming to the Volksempfängers, but the BBC did. People figured out how to tweak the Soviet radios to pick up both. Incidentally, VOA has never broadcast propaganda, rightfully believing that broadcasting the truth is more effective.

Within about a year and a half, the building that is now the museum was complete, equipment was in place, and a huge array of antennas was erected. The last picture is just the front panels of the 250,000-watt transmitter, which is not just room-sized — it’s a room. I think at least half of our tour group stepped inside at the same time without a hint of crowding.

Here is something left over from World War II that is still pretty useful. 

Beer and Bikes

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Descriptions of Cincinnati’s Rhinegeist Brewery often mention the size of the taproom. It is housed in the former Christian Moerlein packaging plant, and it is big. Knowing that whiffle-ball tournaments have been held there should give you some idea of just how big. Events I’ve attended here include the library’s Maker Fair and a birthday party that was one of about a half dozen that were happening simultaneously, but Saturday’s Garage Brewed motorcycle show was a first for me.

I had breakfast at nearby Dunlap Cafe, then dawdled until just a few minutes before the scheduled noon opening. A block-long line of attendees who hadn’t dawdled as long as I did greeted me when I arrived. The doors soon opened, and the line started moving, but there was a lot of sidewalk and three flights of stairs to cover, so the taproom was already hopping by the time I entered.

The FAQ on the show’s website said 55-60 bikes were expected, but I think the count was well above that. I won’t claim that I’m showing a representative sample, but it is a sample.

Putting two engines in a motorcycle involves some pretty impressive engineering in addition to some very impressive craftsmanship. There is a closer look at the Triumph from the other side here.

There were some bikes on an upper level I don’t believe I’d ever seen before. I snapped an “overhead” shot from the landing on the way there.

All those heavily modified motorcycles were pretty cool, but I liked the vintage stock entries — even those showing some patina — at least as much.  Of course, some of those vintage bikes looked even better than they did when brand new. 

Solstice Glow at Krohn

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I admitted attending Krohn Conservatory‘s holiday display last year partly because of the word “yule” in the name “Golden Days of Yule”. I’m back again this year largely because of the name. It was almost unavoidable since “Solstice Glow” was near the top of the list of hits in my annual search for solstice-related events. I went on Wednesday when temperatures were in the 20s and an overnight dusting of snow left no doubt that winter was here and made the warmth inside the giant greenhouse much appreciated.

The giant poinsettia tree that has become a regular winter feature at Krohn is once again front and center near the entrance. The tree appeared, as planned, on December 6 more than a month after the November 2 opening of “Solstice Glow” and is scheduled to remain two days beyond the January 5 closing. I intentionally delayed my visit to not miss the tree.

At the heart of Kron’s holiday show are the models of area landmarks made from natural materials. A new model is constructed each year to be added to the display. This year that new model is of the CVG Airport complete with airplanes and a pair of abbreviated runways.

Last year’s addition was the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. The year before that, the eight-foot-long Music Hall was added and Findlay Market was new in 2021.

Bridges and railroads have played an important role in Cincinnati’s history and the Krohn holiday display recognizes both with model trains traveling over replicas of automobile bridges. Of course, the 1866 Roebling Bridge predates automobiles but that is its role today. The Daniel Carter Beard Bridge opened in 1976 but is partially closed today due to a November 1 fire over which arson charges have been filed.

All of those model buildings, bridges, and trains are the work of Applied Imagination of Alexandria, KY. Today the company is responsible for similar displays in many cities but started the whole concept here at Krohn in 1991. In 2012, station KET created a video profile of this remarkable company which can be accessed from the company website or directly here.

I have made much of my attendance at this event being prompted by the words “yule” and “solstice” in its name. I came dangerously close to making way too much of that and making a big mistake. I’m guessing we have all seen click-bait, stir-the-pot posts of the form “X is really upset by Y” with little or no evidence that X is even aware of Y, let alone upset by it. When Krohn Conservatory announced the title of this year’s winter event, I thought I saw some posts bemoaning the presence of the word “solstice” and the absence of the word “Christmas”. I even thought addressing that would be a major part of this post. Fortunately, I took another look.

As one commenter observed, there were “…more people complaining about people  complaining than actual people complaining.” In all honesty, I found no one complaining. Just some people defending something that was not attacked. I believe what I initially took as a complaint about the name was intended as a many-year belated complaint about a pricing change. I guess that I, like several news sources, had somehow decided this was the Krohn Conservatory Christmas display. It is possible that once upon a time, that was its official name, but of all the online references using the word Christmas that I found, not one came from the conservatory. 

I believe the official titles of Krohn Conservatory’s holiday displays over the last dozen years were: 
2024 – Solstice Glow
2023 – Golden Days of Yule
2022 – Celestial Holiday
2021 – Trains and Traditions
2020 – A Very Merry Garden Holiday
2019 – A Zinzinnati Holiday
2018 – A Crystal Holiday
2017 – Cincinnati Choo Choo
2016 – Whimsical Wonderland
2015 – The Poinsettia Express
2014 – Magic and Mistletoe
2013 – A Cincinnati Scenic Railway

African American History along the Cincinnati Riverfront

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I took this Harriet Beecher Stowe House walking tour last Saturday with the idea that it would be the subject of last Sunday’s blog post but it was not. I told myself there wasn’t enough time to create a post for Sunday morning, which was certainly one reason, but another reason was that I felt slightly disappointed in the tour. I should not have. The problem was my expectations were off. For no good reason, I had thought we would visit spots where historic things happened but with just a little more thought I realized how ridiculous that was—the Cincinnati riverfront of 2024 bares little resemblance to the riverfront of the past. The tour took us to places where historic things are commemorated. I enjoyed the tour as it happened and now appreciate it with the passage of a little time.

We met tour guide Zinnia Stewart by the statue of John Roebling near the south end of the bridge that bears his name. Other than a meeting point, the statue plays no role in the tour. Neither does the bridge as anything other than a walkway across the river. I chose the particular opening photo that I did because it mimics the photo that has appeared at the front of this blog since the beginning. Its purpose is to show the river of the tour’s title. Dredging, dams, and other feats of engineering have made the Ohio River consistently navigable for large barges which is something it was not in the days when it separated the free North from the slaveholding South.

The tour began by heading east along the river to a statue representing James Bradley. We were supplied with small wireless (Bluetooth I assume) listening devices so that we could easily hear Stewart as we walked. Bradley was abducted from Africa and worked as a slave until he was able to buy his own freedom in 1833. He then moved to Cincinnati and was the only former slave participating in the pivotal Lane Debates of 1834.

We then headed west past the Roebling Bridge to the string of Robert Dafford murals on the riverfront and stopped at The Flight of the Garner Family. In 1856, Margaret Garner escaped from slavery by crossing the frozen Ohio River with her husband and children. They were captured in Cincinnati and Margaret killed her daughter to save her from a life of slavery. She was prevented from killing herself and her other children as planned. Toni Morrison’s Beloved was inspired by these events.

It was now time to cross the river ourselves. I had taken that opening picture of the River Queen during our visit to the murals and now caught it from the middle of the Roebling Bridge after it turned and headed back. We stopped twice while crossing as Stewart shared stories and photos of people and places along both sides of the river.

On the Ohio side, I spent more time at the Black Brigade Monument than I have ever spent before, and as a result, I know I need to spend a lot more time here in the future. I simply did not realize the many facets of this monument that it seems I’ve only glanced at before. One bit of information that made the whole tour worthwhile is that William Mallory, who was instrumental in getting the monument constructed, was the model for the face of Black Brigade member Marshall P.H. Jones. I thought I knew the story of the Black Brigade but, just like the memorial, there is a lot more for me to learn.

Our last stop was at this statue of politician Marian Spencer. Spencer left her mark on the area in many ways but she is probably best remembered for her efforts to desegregate Coney Island Amusement Park.