RoadDog Day Afternoon

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Denny

I get to be part of somebody’s road trip again. Don Hatch is a roadie whose nickname and online handle is “RoadDog” and that is the source of my not particularly clever title. He stopped in Cincinnati today on his way back from relatives in North Carolina to his home in Illinois. Unlike Fred Zander, whose road trip I got to be part of last month, Don has been to Cincinnati before and even visited the American Sign Museum in its original location. In spite of that, or more likely because of it, seeing the new and improved set up was high on his list of goals for the visit.

To save time and make sure we didn’t miss the four hour (noon-4:00) Sunday window, we met at the museum. We arrived a little after 1:00 and roamed the museum on our own for awhile then hooked up with about a dozen others for the 2:00 tour. This was my first “official” tour of the museum in the new location. Museum founder Tod Swormstedt did his normal excellent job job while RoadDog took notes.

I experienced another first by going inside Neonworks, the independent sign shop that occupies some of the museum’s space. The shop can be seen from the museum proper through large windows but is usually idle on weekends. Today craftsman Tom Wartman showed up near the end of the tour and we were allowed into the shop for an up-close look and a little demonstration. As we watched, Tom sealed and filled then brought to life a length of neon text.

Another of Don’s Cincinnati goals was grabbing some chili but, as I’ve noted before, all the independent chili parlors are closed on Sundays. The two big chains, Skyline and Gold Star, have plenty of stores open and both turn out some very fine Cincinnati chili but I talked Don into waiting until Monday for his chili fix and trying out a ‘burger joint today. Probably the currently best-known Cincinnati ‘burger joint is Terry’s Turf Club and that’s where Fred and I went. However, Don has experienced — and loved — Terry’s in the past so I led Don to someplace “new”. That “new” is in quotes because, while Zip’s Cafe may be new to Don, but it has been turning out award-winning “Zip Burgers since 1926.

For dessert, we did exactly what Fred and I had done and ate delicious ice cream at one of the 98-year-old marble tables at the Aglamesis Brothers shop on Madison Road. Most people who think of Cincinnati ice cream think of Graeter’s and I don’t want to demean it in anyway. Like Skyline and Gold Star chili, it is an excellent product and I’m proud to live near its source. All three brands are Cincinnati to the bone, if any of them had bones, but they can now be found in other cities in the region. Camp Washington and Blue Ash Chili (which is in tomorrow’s plans) are among a number of independent one-location Cincinnati-only chili dispensaries. Aglamesis does have two stores but all of their ice cream is made on Madison Road. Fred actually had Graeter’s on his list when he arrived but I steered him to Aglamesis. I was happy to learn that he did get to sample their product in Columbus, Ohio, and sent this picture to prove it.

We wrapped up the day at Washington Park. The park, which originally opened in 1855, had become a somewhat scary place in recent years but an extensive makeover has just been completed. The ribbon cutting was July 6 and tonight a sort of grand reopening celebration took place with a free concert featuring Jake Speed & the Freddies and Over the Rhine. You can’t get much more Cincinnati than that.

The reverse road trip continues tomorrow with stops planned for Blue Ash Chili, Pompilio’s, and Mansion Hill Tavern.

Reverse Road Trip

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Denny

I was part of a road trip today but it wasn’t mine. Roadie Fred Zander from Topeka, Kansas, is in Ohio visiting family north of Dayton and came down to Cincinnati for the day. Like many others, Fred has wanted to visit the American Sign Museum but its limited hours made him put it off. The ribbon cutting was yesterday. Today was the first “normal” day and Fred was among the first “normal” customers.

Although it was the Sign Museum that prompted the trip and Fred even commented that the museum alone would have made the trip worthwhile, this was also Fred’s first visit to the Queen City and an opportunity for me to do a little boostering. I think I did OK in that regard but really fell down in the picture-taking department. I had good intentions and almost always had a camera nearby but, presumably since everything was familiar to me, whatever it is that makes me want to click rarely appeared. So, while I showed Fred what I believe is some Cincinnati “good stuff”, I’m going to have to tell about it with few visual aids.

I met Fred at an I-75 exit a little north of the city where he could leave his car. We headed directly downtown from there and drove by Music Hall, Fountain Square, P & G headquarters, and Cincinnati’s oldest bar, Arnold’s. On the way to the 1867 Roebling Suspension Bridge, we got a glimpse of the football and baseball stadiums and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. On the Kentucky end of the bridge, we pulled into a small lot beneath it that offers a good view of the bridge, the river, and the Cincinnati skyline. I even thought to get a picture of the skyline in addition to the picture of Fred backed by the Roebling Bridge. Before moving on, we took a look at the scenes from area history captured by large murals painted on the flood wall.

Then it was time for the sign museum to open so we headed back to Ohio. I actually remembered to take some pictures there. One reason may have been that the explanatory panels that stand near most signs were new to me. The text had been ready for the sneak previews but not the stands. I wish I had taken a picture of the face of one of the panels as an example. Tod wrote most or all of these and it’s no surprise that they are quite informative. Sharp eyes may have noticed the American Sign Museum sign at the museum entrance in the photo at the top of this article. That’s also been added since the previews as have some plaques and section signs inside. We were not on an official tour but Tod was always nearby answering questions and pointing out things so it was an “almost tour”.

Real tours, which are free, are given at fixed times. Space permitting, walk-ups are welcome but tours may be scheduled and tickets purchased through the museum’s website. The picture is of the first official tour at the new location. Most of the group is on the other side of the wall.

I also got a picture of Fred’s favorite sign and a picture of Fred taking a picture of Fred’s favorite sign.

After a couple of hours at the sign museum we drove a couple of miles south to the Cincinnati Museum Center. The museum center is in the 1931 Union Terminal and the art deco building with its murals and other decorative features is something of a museum itself. We did not visit any of the three real museums there.

It was beginning to get a little hungry out so we headed over to Terry’s Turf Club. I had originally wanted to stop at Camp Washington Chili which is just a few blocks from the Sign Museum but it’s closed on Sunday. Terry’s is known for its fantastic hamburgers and huge collection of working neon signs. It’s definitely a fitting place to eat after an American Sign Museum visit. Dessert was ice cream at the 1913 Aglamesis Brothers shop just a few miles north.

Although I didn’t do a very good job of recording the reverse road trip, I did enjoy the chance to show someone a little bit of my town. Fred clearly enjoyed his first visit here and declared his intentions to return. I’m looking forward to it.

American Sign Museum Reopening

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Denny

Mark your calendars. On June 23, the American Sign Museum begins full five-days-a-week operation at its new bigger and taller location just a few blocks from Camp Washington Chili. There were previews on Friday & Saturday and I assure you that seeing an entire Mail Pouch barn side in a museum is not the same as seeing pictures. I’ve created an Oddment page for those previews and this blog entry simply points to that page and provides a place for comments.

This way to the Oddment.

Carillon Park Heritage Fest

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Denny

On the south side of Dayton, Ohio, there is what amounts to a small Greenfield Village. It’s now called Carillon Historical Park and is part of the Dayton History organization. Just as Henry Ford was behind the collection of historic buildings that is Greenfield Village, Dayton industrialist Edward Deeds was behind the collection here. I believe the place was actually called Deeds Park once upon a time. In fact, I didn’t realize that Deeds was not part of the official name until I started doing research to write this. At least the carillon that gives the park its name is still called the Deeds Carillon. It was built in 1942 and, at 151 feet tall, is the largest in Ohio.

Today was the day of the Heritage Festival which meant admission was free (just pay for parking), all the buildings were open and staffed, and there were plenty of food vendors. There was also entertainment scheduled throughout the day with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra preceding event ending fireworks.

Quite a few bicycle manufacturers called Dayton home and that included the Wright Brothers. Two of the five surviving Van Cleves (the Wright’s , brand name) are in the park but are not part of this display. Both are in a building devoted to the brothers. Huffy originated in Dayton and introduced the Radio Bike in 1955. The three tube radio was built into the “tank” with batteries and antenna on the rear fender. Only a few more years separate the 1890s high-wheels in the first picture from the Radio Bike than separate the Radio Bike from today.

There’s some big stuff, like rail cars and buses, in the transportation building. The 1835 B & O engine is the oldest existing locomotive built in the United States. Because of the way the vertical pistons and connecting rods looked when in motion, locomotives of this type got the nickname “grasshoppers”. The horse-drawn steam-powered pumper was built in Cincinnati in 1883 and used in Sidney, Ohio, until 1916.

I remember this clock standing beside I-75 just south of Dayton. It marked the Reynolds and Reynolds Company headquarters and I guess I thought it always had. Nope. It started out in downtown Dayton on the Callahan Building. That building was demolished in 1978 and the clock moved to Reynolds and Reynolds. It has been patiently waiting here since 2006.

I’m not sure what this fellow’s real name is but he calls himself Wilbur
“…because I can’t grow a mustache”. He is standing in a replica of the Wright’s work shop since Henry Ford took the original to Greenfield Village at the Ford Museum. After doing a wonderful job of telling about the wind tunnel and other experiments that both preceded and followed that first flight in 1903, he tells us that there is a real airplane just down the hall that “…I’ll be flying this afternoon about 3:00.”

This is the plane. It is the Wright Flyer III from 1905. With the 1903 flyer, they got off of the ground more or less when they wanted but they returned the the ground when the plane “wanted” and the flight path was essentially straight. With this plane, they learned to fly where they wanted and land on their own, rather than the plane’s, schedule. When Orville gave the pieces of this plane (it’s about 80% original) to Deeds in 1948, he insisted that it be displayed in a pit so that visitors could look down on the plane and see what was involved it operating it. The pilot’s right hand works a horizontal lever that controls the rudder. The left hand works a vertical lever that controls the elevators at the front of the plane. By moving his hips from side to side, the pilot controls the twisting of the wings which the Wrights called “wing warping”. Orville died before the park opened.

I didn’t make it to the fireworks or even to the Philharmonic but, as always, I very much enjoyed a visit to my favorite neighborhood historical village.

Signs of Summer

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Denny

The fountain in front of Union Terminal, a.k.a., Cincinnati Museum Center, runs all summer and is turned off all winter. Therefore, one sure sign of summer in Cincinnati is the turning on of the fountain. That happened Friday at 10:30 AM. I had kind of hoped to see the stepped pools below the fountain go from bare concrete to a series of waterfalls right before our eyes but it wasn’t quite that dramatic. Whether the pools were primed in the interest of time or whether the standing water was simply left over from some secret testing I cannot say, but they started the day ready to overflow at the slightest provocation.

I still think bare concrete morphing to cascading waterfalls would have been cooler but watching the fountain go from zilch to a spurt to a full spray wasn’t bad.

All the kids, and there were plenty, were properly wowed and they also enjoyed the characters on hand to promote the ongoing A Day in Pompeii exhibit. I’ve seen the exhibit and it’s a duesy. University of Cincinnati Professor Steven Ellis, along with several UC students, has been instrumental in the current excavations in Pompeii and that was instrumental in making Cincinnati one of only four US cities hosting the exhibit. As you can see, security was tight.

The weather was obviously quite nice for the events at the fountain but Friday was just one of several consecutive near-perfect days. Perfect not only for fountains of water but for fountains — or taps — of root beer. I made it to three different root beer stands on three of those near-perfect days.

On Thursday it was the Jolly’s on the west side of Hamilton, Ohio. Back in 1938, Vinny Jolivette opened an A&W Root Beer franchise in Hamilton. He built this place in 1967 and, casting off the A&W identity, used the family name to inspire a new one for the restaurant. It’s west of the Great Miami River on Brookwood. Somewhere along the line, they added another on the east side of town on Erie. That one has a cooler sign but this one still makes its own root beer and that trumps the sign. The two remain officially connected (The car side signs carry both telephone numbers.) but are managed somewhat separately by two brothers. There is a third Jolly’s in Tiffin, Ohio, that was started, also as an A&W, in 1947 by Vinny’s brother, Roy, and it seems there was a fourth somewhere in Indiana (possibly Bloomington) but I know very little about it.

I stopped by The Root Beer Stand in Sharonville, Ohio, on Friday afternoon. It started life in1957 as an A&W then went independent in 1982. It stopped using carhops in 1972. Originally built and operated by the Rideour family, it moved on to its second and current owners, Scott & Jackie Donley, in 1990. The Donleys have kept everything pretty much the same and that definitely includes making the root beer using water from their 280 foot well. Claims that “it’s something in the water” may very well be true here.

I got my Saturday root beer fix at the A&W in Union City, Ohio. Despite this being a place I frequented as a teenager, I know few details of its history. I do recall that is was owned by a fellow named Smith in the 1960s and that he operated a used car lot right next door. I have vivid memories of sipping root beer and drooling over a black 1956 Thunderbird that sat in that lot when I was about seventeen. At some point, it became Neil’s A&W Drive In and so it remains today. Curiously, this place doesn’t show up on the official A&W website nor does it have its own site but it does have a FaceBook page.

All three of these places make their own root beer using at least some of the original A&W equipment. Guess that stuff was made to last. All of them taste great and I’m guessing that the recipes are all the same or similar. The Root Beer Stand has its special water and both it and Jolly’s serve their brew in chilled glass mugs. I love ’em both and I do tend to dislike chains but “real” A&Ws (Not stuffed-into-a-corner-of-a-gas-station A&Ws.) are pretty cool and it’s hard to beat an ice-covered mug.

I’m guessing that some noticed the slightly red convertible in the center of the Root Beer Stand photo. That’s my 1963 Valiant and plans to drive it to Darke County and the A&W at the border led to the warm-up visits to Hamilton and Sharonville. The 200-mile round trip was the car’s longest outing since the cold drive home from Cambridge in early 2011. She done good. These pictures show her at Jolly’s and Neil’s.

I recently learned that the neighborhood Flipdaddy’s does brunch on Sundays so I walked over this morning to check it out. It was quite good. I’m always dismayed but rarely surprised to find myself alone on a restaurant’s patio. But, with the thermometer at 74 degrees, I was a little bit surprised today. Lots of people just don’t like any temperature I guess. To be fair, one couple and their home from college daughter did venture outside to eat. That was it. The restaurant was fairly busy inside but just one other outside table was ever used all the while I leisurely worked through my bacon & eggs and slowly sipped my Magic Hat dessert.

The Stars: Up Close and Personal

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Denny

This was the first week of the 2012 NCAA basketball tournament. Both local entries, Xavier and the University of Cincinnati, survived their first games and are playing tonight (Sunday). The week also contained Saint Patrick’s Day with temperatures in the 70s and a parade on the actual holiday. However, even amid all the madness, marching, and meteorologic magnificence, the highlight for me was sitting in a folding chair inside a seventy-five year old stone building.

The building was the Trailside Nature Center in Cincinnati’s Burnet Woods. The chair was part of a circle surrounding the oldest planetarium west of the Alleganies. The WPA built the Nature Center in 1939. It didn’t have quite as many walls in those days and there was no planetarium. That arrived around 1950. Planetarium is the name of the precision projector; Not the building. This one, known as the Wolff Planetarium, is a Spitz A-1. The original unit, purchased for about $500, was an A model but somewhere along the line, it was sent in for repairs and came back an A-1. Maybe it was easier to replace rather than repair the broken unit or maybe the update was the best way to fix things or maybe it was a mistake. No one in Cincinnati wanted to chance asking. Another bit of luck seems to be behind the dome. While it is possible that the builders had a planetarium in mind (America’s first planetarium, the Adler Planetarium, opened in 1930.) there is, apparently, no evidence of that. In fact, the dome is just a wee bit short so that some stars get projected on the wall below the “horizon”. The building originally contained even more museum style displays than it does now and the dome was just part of the ceiling.

I’ve been to a few planetariums but most have been the typical late twentieth century set up with a recorded presentation and automatic/computerized positioning and all had seriously reclined seating that points your eyes to the artificial sky without your neck being involved. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Laying back in a nicely padded recliner is one of my favorite “activities” and swiftly stepping through seasons or centuries accompanied by carefully synchronized music and commentary is certainly entertaining and informative. But it’s not interactive and it’s not very intimate and it’s probably not as much fun as I had Friday night.

A good part of that fun can be directly attributed the Mr. Mike. Mr. Mike does the greeting, reservation list checking, and fee collection. He also pulls the curtain!, operates the projector, delivers the commentary, aims the (definitely not here in 1950) laser pointer, and occasionally punches buttons on a boombox to launch stuff like Also Sprach Zarathustra and Here Comes the Sun. He also encourages and answers questions and prompts attendees to help with sound effects as he tells Greek, Roman, and Native American stories (“…and then the mother bear let out a deep growl.”). Constellations of the Zodiac were a big part of Friday’s show and Mr. Mike shared pointers on how to find several of them.

I don’t know if Friday’s audience was typical but I do know it was one of the most diverse I’ve ever been part of. That this was in a room with a capacity of twenty made it even more impressive. Five of the seats were filled by three rest home residents and their two attendants. They arrived in a lift equipped van and slowly made their way to the show on walkers. The park borders the University of Cincinnati campus and two seats were filled by a young couple who looked as if they might be students on a date. There was a mom-dad-and-two-kids family. There were two or three mothers with young children. There were black folks, brown folks, and white folks. Everyone was attentive and most contributed comments or questions. The kids did the best sound affects. The people from the rest home showed the most appreciation.

Mr. Mike’s helpfulness continued after the show. Outside, he identified the only star visible in the early evening sky as Sirius. The other two bright spots most of us thought were stars he told us were the planets Venus and Jupiter. You may find information on the internet claiming there are weekly shows with $2.00 admission. At present shows are held once a month and admission is a still bargain $5.00. Call (513) 751-3679 for the latest information and to reserve your folding chair.

Of course, I can’t just ignore Saturday’s parade. With the temperature at a record tying 74 degrees, the crowd was huge and.so was the parade. I have not heard attendance estimates or the number of units but getting the parade out of the staging area took well over an hour and a half.

Former Air Force Major Tom Griffin, one of five surviving Doolittle’s Raiders, was the parade’s Honorary Grand Marshall. I’ve always thought that “honorary” meant “not really” and I’ve never figured out what a parade’s Grand Marshall does except ride and wave. In other words, Grand Marshall seems like a rather honorary position so the title Honorary Grand Marshall seems something of a slight. I hope I’m over thinking it. Major Tom was one of the things I was looking for in the parade. I got this so so shot through the crowd at the turn onto Fifth Street then moved ahead in hopes of getting a better picture. After working my way through the crowd at Fountain Square and beyond, I discovered that the car he was in had disappeared and that the real Grand Marshall, whose name I failed to note, had bailed out of his ride. I gave Griffin the benefit of the doubt and thought he might not have felt up to traveling the whole route. But I’ve since seem a photo of him standing at the reviewing stand and I’m guessing the the real GM is there, too. I heard “Where is he?” comments from the crowd beyond the Square so I know that others wanted to see the hero as well. I’ve never studied the subject but this is the first time I’ve been aware of Grand Marshalls of any sort not finishing a parade. If it was Griffin’s decision — if he wanted to see the parade from the front row — I’ve no complaint whatsoever. He has more than earned the right to get out of the car anywhere he pleases. However, if anyone else at all came up with this idea, you should probably apologize for leaving more than half the parade route asking “Where is he?”

Air Force Museum

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Denny

C-141 Starlifter and YC-125B Raider at Air Force Museum The National Museum of the US Air Force is about 35 miles away from my home. I drive by it at least a couple of times a year. Almost the instant I retired I told myself I’d get up there soon on a weekday and avoid those weekend crowds. So, over two years after telling myself that and well over two decades after my last visit, I made it to the museum on an unseasonably warm February Friday. I’ve posted an Oddment page here. Comments may be made to this blog entry.

Tricked into Breakfast

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Denny

I was tricked (probably by myself) into going downtown on Thursday. A story on the morning news told of artifacts unearthed by an ongoing major development of the Cincinnati riverfront, The Banks. It mentioned the articles being transferred to the Cincinnati Museum Center’s Research Center and gave a time of 9:30. Somehow I read into that the idea that the artifacts would actually be on display for the day. By the time I learned I was wrong, I had enjoyed a delightful breakfast,

I thought seeing the artifacts would be good and decided that, if I was making an earlyish trip downtown, I ought to take in a new breakfast spot. Annabel’s doesn’t have its own website but has been getting rave reviews at places like Yelp and Urban Spoon. In addition to praising the food, almost all of those reviews mentioned a crowd and a long wait. But many also mentioned brunch and quite a few also mentioned Sunday. Although brunch is certainly not restricted to Sundays or even weekends I hoped that the reviews were and I now think that likely.

Annabel’s is small. Reviews that talked of a wait almost always mentioned this. There is seating for exactly two dozen people. Today, three two-tops to the left of the picture were full or, in the case of mine, half full, as was a two-top to the right. The restaurant is open 9:00 to 2:00 Thursday through Sunday. One of those reviews suggested getting there at 8:00 AM on Sunday to be sure of a seat. I suggest getting there just about whenever you feel like it on Thursday. No long wait for me but the food was just as awesome as the reviews claimed. I had the Carrot Cake Faux Toast which the menu describes as “French toast without the French” and which I describe as delicious. As I told the waitress, I was almost as impressed with the honey/syrup server as I was with the food. The top bit lifts off of the bottom bit and pressing the lever dispenses syrup through a hole in the bottom. Even if it dripped, which it didn’t, it would drip into the base and not in your lap. Brilliant!

The Thursday evening news also had a segment on the artifacts. Some of the items, such as nineteenth century bottles, were shown but the segment ended with a clear message that, though a public display of the artifacts is planned, that’s not yet the case. The morning version might have been somewhat misleading or I might very well have mislead myself. In either case, on Thursday morning I found myself on the west side of downtown Cincinnati in need of a new plan. Not a problem. Some conflict had interfered with recent plans to visit an exhibit at the nearby Betts House so that became a perfect substitute.

The Betts House was built in 1804 using brick made on site. It started as a two-room farm house and grew to a two-story eight-room residence as the city grew around it. The house that was once far beyond the settlement’s boundaries, now has to include the qualifier “downtown” in its claims. The website identifies it as “the oldest residential structure in the downtown Cincinnati area”. The house was restored in the 1980s and opened as the Betts House Research Center in 1996. The “Research Center” part of the name came from plans to establish a reference library in the house but that turned out not to be feasible. Director Julie Carpenter calls the Betts House a “museum without collection”. The house itself is certainly a worthwhile exhibit and it usually has something else, like a photo or painting exhibit, going on, too.

Its current exhibit is The Big Shake – How the 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes Rocked the Ohio River Valley. When I first read about the exhibit I wanted to see it but I really didn’t make any particular connection with the house. I thought of it as simply a display and a space coming together. The exhibit — and Carpenter, who organized the exhibit and provides an introduction — soon straightened me out. Though the series of earthquakes was centered more than 300 miles away near what is now New Madrid, Missouri, they were huge. The tremors were not just felt in Cincinnati; They did some damage. No large structures were destroyed but houses were severely shaken and chimneys were toppled. A brick summer kitchen behind the Betts House was made unusable and it’s felt that a toppled chimney was the likely cause. So the house is a survivor and a rare one. Other area structures certainly survived the earthquake but they didn’t survive the two centuries of progress that followed. In that, the Betts House is alone. It is a most appropriate setting for this exhibit which provides information on earthquakes in general and the New Madrid Earthquake in particular including its connection with the Betts family.

On Saturday the 14th, I stopped in another new eatery that had been on my list for awhile. It’s Olive, an urban dive in Dayton, Ohio, and, yes, it really was once a Wympee’s. I never ate there when it was actually part of the Wympee empire but I did eat there a few times while it was an independent diner/’burger joint. The outside may look the same but the inside, as photos on the restaurant’s website show, has been totally redone. The menu is slightly Mediterranean but everything else is local. “local over import, labor over convenience and service over everything else” is their published motto and I can vouch for the service part. The service was excellent, the food quite good, and the prices OK. That local streak extends through the music, too. It comes, at an unintrusive volume, from an iPod (or something similar) that contains nothing but local performers. A nice touch that I particularly liked.

Signs on the Move

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Denny

One phase of Tod Swormstedt’s dream came true in 2005 when the American Sign Museum moved into a warehouse on Essex Place in the Walnut Hills section of Cincinnati. The next phase is coming true as it gets ready to move out. The warehouse was not the ideal location but it did its job and provided a home for lots of signs and a shrine for lots of sign lovers. Signs come in all sizes and one of the site’s shortcomings was a lack of height for some of the larger specimens. Many sat in a parking lot across the street exposed to weather and vandals. That’s not a problem at the museum’s new home about 2 1/2 miles away in Camp Washington. The former factory’s 42,000 square feet will accommodate many more signs in general and its 28-foot ceilings allow the tall guys to get out of the rain. In addition to “normal” museum exhibits, visitors will get to see the sign restoration shop and a working neon shop. In fact, the neon shop, Neon Works of Cincinnati, is already operating there and has been for roughly two years.

The Camp Washington site was initially acquired in 2007. Renovation of the building and installation of new exhibits progressed while the existing museum operated as usual. No more, though. It’s time to start moving. Yesterday, January 7, was the last hurrah for the Essex Place location and a grand hurrah it was.

The museum announced the closing and accompanying “Done with the Old. On to the New” open house about three weeks ago through its email list and a week ago through Facebook. Apparently a couple of hundred people responded by registering for the event. Then, on Friday, the Cincinnati Enquirer ran this article and registrations skyrocketed. Registration was not required and no really accurate counting took place but it’s safe to say that over a thousand people visited what many consider Cincinnati’s best-kept secret on Saturday. These photos were taken after 4:00 when things were thinning out. (The Cincinnati Bengals lost last week but, because some other teams lost, too, backed into the playoffs and a 4:30 game. Football fans left the museum to position themselves in front of a TV. The Bengals backed out of the playoffs by losing again.)

It takes more than two men and a truck and a weekend to move a museum but Tod and crew think a couple of months should be enough. They have targeted April 28 for the Camp Washington Grand Opening which will be exactly seven years after the Essex Place Grand Opening. I was there at the original and I fully intend to be there for the sequel. With the new location, the huge jump in space, and increased hours, I don’t think this place will be a secret much longer.

Even though this was my last visit to the sign museum on Essex Place, I’ll probably be back to the building. The museum’s co-tenants, Essex Studios, remain and their Art Walks will resume in the spring. A large number of talented artists from a wide range of disciplines fill the studios and make the Art Walks a cross between a visit to a museum and a festival. It’s another Cincinnati secret I recommend.

The Art Walks are in the evenings, however, so it may be a long time before I again see the building in sunlight. Therefore, I figured this was a good time to present this lesson on how a small difference in perspective can make a big difference in perception.

After the museum, I met Canadian roadies Bill and Karen McKibbon for dinner at their hotel. The McKibbons both work in the school system which gives them a great chunk of time off in the summer and a pretty decent one around Christmas. They use that time in well-planned road trips documented here. We’ve followed each other’s travel online for quite a while but had never met. The closest we came was when I chased them out of the country in August but they crossed the border at Sault Ste Marie five days before I did. Today they were passing through Cincinnati on the way home from the sun and sand of South Padre Island, Texas. It’s always good to turn cyber-friends into real friends.

Dickens of a Christmas

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Denny

I missed it. I missed an exhibit I really wanted to see. From April through November, the Ohio Historical Center had a display entitled Controversy: Pieces You Don’t Normally See. Of the five items it contained, the retired electric chair seemed to be the main attraction with a KKK outfit, a thumb mitt, an adult crib, and a nineteenth century condom rounding out the bill. I’m sure I drove by the building more than once while the exhibit was in place but, as we often do, I assumed there would always be another chance. It wasn’t until I visited the Ohio Historical Society’s website to sign up for Dickens of a Christmas that I realized that I’d blown it.

Dickens of a Christmas is an annual festival sort of thing that takes place in the recreated nineteenth century village adjacent to the Historical Center. I registered to attend the first night of Dickens of a Christmas and, even though there was no electric chair or condom to be seen, headed to Columbus in time to visit the Historical Center in the afternoon. That’s how I got the picture of the entrance to the recently closed Controversy exhibit.

In addition to the many worthwhile permanent exhibits, the Center currently has a captivating temporary exhibit called The American Soldier: A Photographic Tribute From The Civil War To Iraq and several of the 434 Civil War battle flags in the museum’s possession are on display. Plus, although it’s a poor substitute for an adult crib from an insane asylum, there was, once upon a time, at least a little controversy associated with the two headed calf.

The Ohio Historical Center is certainly a cool place to spend an afternoon but the title of this entry is “Dickens of a Christmas”. My evening at Ohio Village is covered in a separate Oddment page here. It is only the second Oddment page added since the start of this blog. While there is no precise definition of what qualifies one subject for an oddment page and another for a blog entry, it seems likely that I’ve completely covered a subject in a blog entry that might have appeared as an Oddment in pre-blog days and it is all but certain that some of the existing Oddment pages would have instead been blog entries had the blog existed at the time they were created. I believe one of the things that helps decide Oddment or blog is number of pictures. I haven’t posted a huge amount of pictures from Dickens of a Christmas but there are more, sixteen, than I feel comfortable with in a blog entry. Look them over at the Dickens of a Christmas Oddment page.

I know some who see this will have heard of Kickstarter but I’m guessing not all. It’s a method for funding projects with large numbers of small contributions. Learn more about it at the Kickstarter website. Kickstarter depends a lot on word of mouth. Friends tell friends, usually in an indirect Facebook/Twitter/newsletter sort of way, about projects they like and that, in case you haven’t guessed, is what I’m doing here. I’ve contributed to a couple of projects that I liked and blown off a couple more that didn’t quite click with me. I recently learned of a documentary project that I like and, since you’re reading about it here, there’s a chance you will too.

I heard of the project from Dirk Hamilton. It isn’t Dirk’s project but he is in it. I was inclined to give it a couple of bucks ’cause I like the general subject and, of course, I like Dirk but I was hooked for sure when I read the “Part music documentary and part road trip movie…” line. The documentary is called Folk. Check out its Kickstarter page here.

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