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A Transition in the West End Residents at a major West End apartment complex prepare for new ownership as changes look likely for the neighborhood BY N I C K SWA R T S EL L
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The Arts Apartments at Music Hall is up for sale PH OTO: NIC K SWARTSELL
the company would like to apply for LowIncome Housing Tax Credits to renovate the property. LIHTC financing allows developers to leverage tax credits to raise capital for projects. In exchange, the developer must keep the developments affordable for up to 30 years. “I’ve lived in the Arts Apartment complex for the past 24 years,” Arts Tenant Association board member Melvin Griffin says. “While I was there, I single-parented four children. It’s been a nice place to live, and I’d like to continue living there at a decent rate of rent and not have a bunch of people relocated or moved out. Basically, the tenant’s organization was founded to distribute information to everybody that is accurate, and to manage the expectations of the tenants and to work with the new and outgoing ownership.” A couple dozen residents attended recent meetings by the complex’s tenant association to say they were worried about being displaced under new ownership. “I’m a product of the West End,” resident Liz Murphy says. “I went to school at Hays Porter and Taft. I grew up on Ezzard Charles Drive. I want to remain down here. I have easy accessibility to my job.
My church is right up the street — the only church I’ve ever belonged to. My main concern is affordable rent. I am working, but you could have a job this week and not have a job next week. Nothing is sacred these days when it comes to employment.” Some residents like Griffin have lived here for decades, while others just arrived this year. Newcomers say they were attracted to the complex because it is affordable and centrally located. Stanley Williams has lived at the Arts for two years. “I came here because it was affordable and it’s close to work,” he says. “The place I came from was the same kind of thing. I was there 23 years. But it came under new ownership. The owners decided to bring everything up to market value, and the rents rose by $200 a month. That didn’t include utilities. I had to leave. It was no longer affordable to me. But this place is, and I like it.” Ezzard Charles Associates LP, which lists addresses in St. Louis and Irving, Texas, currently owns the property, according to the Hamilton County Auditor. Should the deal with Birge & Held fall through, the building will likely go back on
the market. This summer, the owners issued a 76-page purchasing memorandum from brokers Affordable Housing Advisors of Marcus & Millichap, which touts the property’s location in the West End and its overall condition. The apartment complex received an 82 percent on a HUD REAC inspection last year. The document notes the property’s potential eligibility for Low-Income Housing Tax Credits for rehabilitation. It also devotes a page to the coming FC Cincinnati soccer stadium on the neighborhood’s eastern side — a development that has caused concerns about rising rents and property speculation in the West End. The developer’s plans for the building won’t work “unless we can keep the Section 8 contracts, unless we can keep your rents as affordable as we can possibly make them,” Shakarchi told residents at a recent tenants’ meeting. “I know the city is concerned with the new stadium coming. As an affordable developer, when the property went up for sale, we were the only CONTINUES ON PAGE 07
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esidents at the West End’s Arts Apartments at Music Hall — actually about a mile away from the Cincinnati landmark on Ezzard Charles Drive — say they like living in the 21-building, eight-acre complex. The community is tight-knit, residents say. It’s mostly a quiet place, and people know each other well and tend to take care of the building. A resident named Miss Margaret even plants roses around the complex. Many residents are elderly, some facing health concerns, and a number were born in the West End. Some remember the demolition of the neighborhood’s southern half in the early 1960s. Others lived in Laurel Homes and Lincoln Court, nowdemolished public housing that once existed farther east on Ezzard Charles. Now, they’re worried, because the complex some of them have lived in for decades is up for sale as bigger changes seem to be coming to the West End. The developer looking to buy the Arts Apartments, however, says they would like to keep the apartments affordable — if the deal goes through. Indianapolis-based developer Birge & Held has entered into a contract to buy the Arts Apartments, formerly known as Richmond Village, and is currently conducting due diligence on the site. The 248-unit complex was built in 1962 as affordable housing using funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The complex currently has a site-based HUD Housing Assistance Payment contract covering about a third of the units. That contract provides subsidized rents to eligible residents, many of whom are low-income AfricanAmerican seniors. The building’s HAP contract expires in 2020. That contract is a key part of the new buyer’s plans for the building, Birge & Held’s Tallal Shakarchi says. Eventually,
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CITY DESK
Cincinnati Police Officers’ Racial Slurs Draw Ire, Calls for ‘Systematic Change’ BY N I C K SWA R T S EL L
After two Cincinnati police officers were caught using the same racial epithet in two different incidents, some are calling for their dismissals — and for a review of the culture within the Cincinnati Police Department. Body camera footage released Jan. 1 by the Cincinnati Police Department shows officer Dennis Barnette struggling with a woman outside the Brownstone Café in Roselawn Dec. 23 and remarking, “N***** slapped me in the face.” Barnette is white, and the woman is black. Barnette says the woman pushed him. She was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer. Footage from an unrelated, Sept. 26 call responding to a domestic situation shows officer Donte Hill and another officer attempting to break up a verbal altercation. The confrontation between a man and a woman becomes physical, and Hill steps in, using his Taser on the man and arresting him. As he does, Hill remarks, “That goddamned alcohol got you n****** acting crazy.” Hill and those he was addressing are black. The Cincinnati NAACP, however, says it would like to see both men dismissed from the force. And some Cincinnati City Council members say the city needs to take a hard look at the culture within CPD. “I am deeply concerned about the actions of both Cincinnati Police officers using racially charged language,” Councilwoman Tamaya Dennard wrote Dec. 30. “However, as you all know for me, it’s about systems change. I am asking the CPD and the City Administration to come before my committee to discuss how they teach/train officers to go into different communities equipped with the cultural competencies required to protect and serve this entire city. An officer’s ability to be fair is the most important part of their job. If we don’t have the confidence they can do that, what is the point?” The incidents came during a rough year
for CPD, during which the department saw controversy around its use of Tasers on minors, questions about the culture inside the department and an independent audit suggesting that the department has walked back from key parts of the city’s Collaborative Agreement. That courtordered set of reforms sprang up in the aftermath of the 2001 civil unrest sparked by the police shooting of black, unarmed 19-year-old Timothy Thomas. A group led by Saul Green, the attorney who monitored the original court-ordered Collaborative, looked at the progress the city has made since the initial reforms. The group’s assessment: The city is moving backward when it comes to some racerelated police reforms. The panel found that evidence provided by the city “strongly signals that the City of Cincinnati has abandoned the principles of the Collaborative Agreement,” Green’s team wrote in their final of three reports. “…Taken literally, it states that the City of Cincinnati has unilaterally withdrawn from the Collaborative Agreement.” Both officers involved in the recent controversies around racial slurs were placed on desk duty following the incidents. CPD Chief Eliot Isaac later said that degree of punishment wasn’t enough and promised a further investigation into both incidents after they became public. In response to the incidents, Mayor John Cranley Jan. 4 introduced legislation that would require training in implicit and explicit bias for new recruits to the city’s police force as well as other new city workers. Cranley also highlighted changes to city policy made by City Manager Patrick Duhaney earlier this year that clarifies penalties for city employees who use such language while in a work environment. “We all know that racism is the original sin in American history,” Cranley said
Mayor John Cranley at a news conference proposing bias training for new city employees PH OTO: NIC K SWARTSELL
during a news conference about the legislation. “The use of the n-word is totally unacceptable, and we won’t stand for it.” Duhaney says under old policies, discipline for discriminatory behavior like using racial slurs was unclear. Under the revisions put in place last August, an employee would be subject to 40 hours suspension without pay and mandatory retraining upon a first offense and could be subject to dismissal after a second offense.
CPD’s Isaac says both officers who used racial slurs in recent incidents would be subject to those disciplinary actions should an investigation find they broke city policy. “We have to be mindful of administrative law,” he said at the mayor’s news conference Jan 4. “(The officers) must be given due process.”
Ohio’s Minimum Wage Rises — But Still Doesn’t Buy What It Used To
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BY N I C K SWA R T S EL L
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Almost 60,000 workers across Ohio got a pay raise starting Jan. 1, when the state’s minimum wage increased from $8.30 to $8.55 an hour. Tipped employees also saw their base pay go from $4.15 to $4.30 an hour.
state’s minimum wage rise with inflation. The price of consumer goods — the key metric used to measure inflation — rose by almost 3 percent in Ohio last year.
been when adjusted for inflation. Ohio’s minimum wage was $7.30 an hour a decade ago — the equivalent of $8.71 an hour today. And in 1968, Ohio’s $1.25 an hour minimum wage was worth $9.24 an hour in today’s dollars.
That minimum wage applies to employees over the age of 15 working at companies that take in more than $314,000 a year. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 still applies to smaller companies.
Ohio is one of 20 states raising its minimum wage, and across the country, more than 5 million workers will see slight or significant increases in their hourly pay. New York, for example, increased its minimum wage to $15 an hour, a $2 increase.
Today, an employee working 40 hours a week at Ohio’s minimum wage earns $17,784 a year — just $1,600 above the federal government’s poverty guidelines for a two-person family.
Ohio voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2006 requiring that the
While Ohio’s minimum wage has increased, it still isn’t as high as it has
Some have argued for a bigger boost to the minimum wage, saying it will help
alleviate poverty, lead to raises for other hourly workers, stimulate spending and lower the costs of social welfare programs over time. Opponents of that idea, however, say big minimum wage hikes will put more pressure on employers by raising labor costs, slowing economic growth and leading to layoffs. Research on the effect of minimum wage increases has been mixed, but seems to show a small percentage of jobs lost in places that have raised the minimum wage.
The Arts Apartments at Music Hall PH OTO: NIC K SWARTSELL
FROM PAGE 05
ones left trying to keep it affordable, rent restricted, at the end. The other purchasers, their plans were different than ours. We want to keep you close to your church, keep you close to your doctors, keep you close to the store. I get the sense that there
is a strong community here. You guys stick together. The idea is to keep you in your homes.” Birge & Held has traditionally been a market-rate developer, but last year started an arm dedicated to affordable housing. The company is currently working on a $37 million renovation in Indianapolis using LIHTC and $19 million in city bonds. That project will rehab 304 units at Regency Park South apartments while locking them into affordable rents. Eventually, the company would like to do the same at the Arts Apartments. That would mean more affordable housing in the neighborhood, but it would also subject residents at the apartments to maximum income requirements — meaning they would have to leave if they were not eligible for subsidized housing. For now, however, Shakarchi says the
plan is to provide small fixes should the company be able to purchase the property. If all goes according to plan, Birge & Held could take possession of the Arts Apartments in March. It’s unclear exactly how much lowcost housing is in the West End, though a housing study commissioned by the Greater Cincinnati Redevelopment Authority should shed some light on that question. That study was a condition of a community benefits agreement between FC Cincinnati and the neighborhood. A CityBeat analysis of HUD and U.S. Census data, however, found that the West End has roughly 1,000 units of rental housing at below-market-rate affordability due to ownership by Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority or because they were built by private developers like The Community Builders using Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. Some of those buildings, however, will change over the next few years as CMHA eyes redevelopment through a program called Rental Assistance Demonstration that will effectively turn over the public housing to private operators, who will continue to operate it as affordable housing. There will also be a bit more affordable housing nearby soon. Next door to
the Arts Apartments, nonprofit Tender Mercies is working with Over-the-Rhine Community Housing on a $10 million, 57-unit subsidized housing development for those suffering from mental illness and addiction issues. Citywide, there is a roughly 30,000-unit gap between available affordable housing units and needed units, according to data form the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. Census data shows that more than 3,000 of the West End’s residents live below the poverty line. Another 1,300 live above poverty level but still well below the income needed to comfortably afford the city’s average rent, which has hovered around $900 a month in recent months. Residents are hopeful the coming change at the Arts Apartments will be positive and won’t cut into the affordable housing in the neighborhood. Arts Tenant Association board member Patricia Dixon, born in the West End, has lived in the building for six years. “I’m 72 years old, thank the lord,” she says. “I don’t want to move. I don’t have time to move. Anyone who lives down here knows that downtown has long been a stomping ground for most black people. We’ve lived down here for many, many years. My neighbor lived here for 50 years. We hope that we can stay here.”
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G R E E N H I L LS WAS O N E O F J U S T T H R E E TO W N S C O N ST R U CT E D BY T H E F E D E R A L G O V E R N M E N T AS A K I N D O F S O C I A L E X P E R I M E N T. E I G H T Y Y E A RS L AT E R , I T S C O M P L E X L E G A CY I S IN FLUX.
BY N I C K SWA RTS ELL
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s the crush of the Great Depression dragged on into 1939, the American Institute of Planners released a curious film simply called The City meant to screen at that year’s New York World’s Fair. The striking collection of black-and-white footage sat at an odd intersection of documentary film, social commentary and borderline propaganda for one of the most radical experiments the United States government would ever undertake — the wholesale creation of entire self-sufficient “greenbelt” towns ringed by forests and farmland and built around collectivist principles. The federal government built one of those towns, called Greenhills, on a flat sweep of farmland 15 miles north of Cincinnati. These New Deal towns were meant to provide work and housing for those struggling under the harshest economic calamity the country had ever seen. But they also aimed to provide a new way of living together for the residents lucky enough to be selected as “pioneers” to settle there. In its opening minutes, The City features swells of gentle, gliding strings underscoring scenes of rural splendor — village squares, water rushing over mills, children playing in a swimming hole. A man’s voice enters, extolling the simple, small-town life Americans led in the previous century. Soon, the mood shifts. Anxious, discordant music with quick, stabbing horns accompanies a rush of smoking factories, tenements and lines of ramshackle houses in cities that look very much like Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Men and women trudge through a bleak, industrial landscape. Children forlornly peer out of windows. Cars endlessly wait in traffic, or careen into pedestrians, or sit mangled. “Don’t tell us that this is the best you can do in building cities,” the voice intones. “Who built this place? What put us here and how do we get out of here again, we’re asking?” The footage then transitions into a sequence of warm, peaceful images: boys riding bicycles through a sun-dappled landscape of tree-lined paths with simple, clean-lined structures around them. Children filing into a tall, pale building with simple, chiseled lines bearing the name “Greenhills Community Center.” Men and women working in sleek kitchens. Inhabitants tending gardens, having picnics and going fishing. All are white. In the film’s closing minute, the smoke-filled cities and urgent music return to alternate with the gentle scenes of the idealized towns.
Photo: Nick swartsell
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Greenhills community building
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Greenhills under construction
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photo: Library of Congress
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“You take your choice,” the voice says as the contrasting images flicker back and forth. “Each one is real. Each one is possible. Shall we sink deeper, sink deeper in old grooves, paying for blight with human misery? Or have we vision? Have we courage? Shall we build and rebuild our cities clean again, close to the earth, open to the sky? Can we afford a house, a neighborhood, a city as good as this for everyone? Maybe the question is, can we afford all this disorder?” By the time The City was released, the escape from congested city life it advertised was more than a futurelooking city planner’s fever dream. It was a brick-and-mortar, flesh-and-blood reality in three locations around the country, including Greenhills. But that dream — designed by a small cadre of advisors to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, executed by his recently-created Resettlement Administration and championed in its early years by first lady Eleanor — was also dead by 1939, declared unconstitutional by a federal court. Eighty years later, Greenhills still exists, both in memory and reality, its International Style white buildings surrounded by now-mature trees planted in spots dictated by federal planners’ diagrams. If you ask many of the early residents of Greenhills alive today, they can still paint you a picture of the early years. They’ll tell you about the dozens of kids at play in epic war games in the forests and
fields that ringed the peaceful, isolated town. About the hours spent under the sun at the local pool or at potlucks where everyone knew everyone. About the cooperatively owned grocery store. About Roy Rogers and Flash Gordon flickering on a screen above the golden-hued hardwood floor of the gym in that towering white community building that looked out from the center of town. About John Baldwin, the police chief who knew everyone’s name and who would personally find a lost child or direct traffic as students walked to school. About ice cream socials, fish fries fueled by the shared spoils of the great fishing in the neighboring lake and fireworks displays so large they shut down Winton Road, the main street running through town. Jackie Noble’s parents moved to Greenhills the year it opened, 1938, when she was 2 years old. Save one brief interruption, she has lived there ever since. “I don’t know if Eleanor Roosevelt expected this or not,” Noble says as she sits in a coffee shop that was once the village bank. “But she had to sit back and think, ‘I did a good thing.’ Of course it worked. It’s still working. My granddaughter and great granddaughter are still living in the village. That’s five generations.” For many original residents, the New Deal-era effort at Greenhills was a success. But the legacy — and future — of the Ohio town born out of this radical experiment is cloudier today. The march of time and social conventions shed harsh light on the town’s segregated origins. And recent demolitions have leveled some of the town’s original buildings. In some ways, the greenbelt towns — Greenhills; Greenbelt, Maryland outside Washington, D.C.; and Greendale, Wisconsin, outside Milwaukee — would presage the rapid suburbanization of many predominantly white, middle-class Americans in the coming decades. That development was privately undertaken, of course, but was also encouraged and in some cases subsidized by the federal government. But in other ways, the towns exist in their own strange moment in time; one in which, for a brief few years, federal authorities flirted with openly collectivist goals even as they dictated that their futuristic utopias be racially exclusive. Eight decades removed, the lessons of the greenbelt towns may still have some
relevance as contemporary America rediscovers a love for walkability and urban green space in its cities and struggles with housing affordability, residential segregation and its fraught, complicated relationship with ideas and policies some would call socialist. University of Cincinnati History Professor Julie Turner has researched Greenhills extensively and is working on a book about the village. “We see in them a recognition by the federal government, or at least a small subset of planners, an acknowledgement that better housing alone wasn’t enough,” she says. “The towns specifically addressed many of the anxieties of the era between the World Wars: fears about urbanization, about the ‘machine age,’ about changing family dynamics and gender roles, etc. By providing things like movie theaters and swimming pools, the planners were consciously aiming to bring residents together in very neighborly ways, to avoid youth crime, and to bolster the idea of a traditional American way of life, even as they did so using new planning and architectural models.”
If You Build It, They Will Apply The ideas FDR advisor and Resettlement Administration head Rexford Tugwell marshaled together to launch the greenbelt initiative weren’t new. The “garden cities” concept — suburbs designed in close proximity to green space as a balm for the increasingly sooty, congested urbanity of the Industrial Revolution — was originally the late 19thcentury brainchild of British social theorist Ebenezer Howard. Howard’s concepts were never completely carried out, but a new generation of city planners carried the garden city torch into the 20th century, designing towns like Radburn, New Jersey and Letchworth in the United Kingdom. Responding to the sweeping Depression, voters elected President Roosevelt in 1932 on his promises to address the nation’s deep economic malaise. As part of those efforts, Roosevelt created the Resettlement Administration in April 1935 via an executive order and put Tugwell, then a Columbia University economics professor, at the head. “He definitely saw government
“Mr. Bastion didn’t want anything to do with the government,” Richardson says. “He literally got his rifle out and shot at federal agents.” Eventually, officials left him alone, and, though the land sold decades later and contains housing today, there’s a large notch missing from Greenhills as a result. With much of the necessary land acquired, federal officials went to work building the town. Ohio native Justin Hartzog, who had previously designed parks for Cincinnati suburb Mariemont, was Greenhills’ chief planner. Tugwell himself visited the site, though there is no evidence Franklin or Eleanor Roosevelt set foot there. While Tugwell toured the site in a suit and tie, those charged with the day-to-day construction lived a more rugged life. Nick Bates, hired by the federal government to help oversee construction, is said to have lived in a tent in Mount Healthy and ridden a mule down Springdale Road into Greenhills every day to go to work. He later became the village’s maintenance supervisor and head of its volunteer fire department. Eventually, the project required $11.5 million (roughly $210 million today) in federal investment and more than 3,000 workers putting in more than 4.3 million man hours. By 1936, the same year work on the greenbelt towns launched, political pressures forced Tugwell from the Resettlement Administration. He would stay close to Roosevelt, eventually getting the president’s nod to become the governor of Puerto Rico. In the meantime, work continued on the towns. Originally, Greenhills was to be home to 1,000 families. But due to budget cuts, it ended up with 676 units of housing — some sturdy brick, others frame houses. By 1940, about 2,677 people lived in those government-constructed houses, Census data shows. All were carefully chosen by the Resettlement Administration. That, too, was part of the experiment. “The original intention was to make jobs,” Richardson says. “But the other intention that Tugwell had, interviewing all those people, was to start a neighborhood out of nothing. They were trying to create community. Of course, other towns like Mount Healthy are also communities, but
here, the government was trying to create one from scratch.” Potential residents had to fill out a 15-page application and were expected to be working class. Only families making between $1,000 and $2,000 a year were considered, and only white applicants were invited, a reflection of the racist political realities of the time. UC professor Turner says there isn’t a lot of documentation on the issue, but that there are a number of clues that make it fairly clear why Greenhills ended up segregated. “A general consensus among historians of these and other housing and townbuilding projects during the Depression suggests that it was already pushing the limits of many Americans’ political beliefs for the government to even be providing homes, and that integrating these residential areas would have pushed too many iffy supporters to oppose the programs entirely,” she says. “After all, even Cincinnati and Milwaukee were largely segregated at the time.”
The Self-Contained Utopia But for many of those who were able to move to Greenhills, the government’s efforts were life-changing. English professor Mary Ellen Seery’s parents moved to Greenhills in 1938 and she was born there in 1941. She left for college but returned in the early 1960s to live in the community for a few more years. Seery’s parents were looking for a place to raise a family in the midst of the Depression. They had been living with Seery’s
Applicants interviewing for a spot in Greenhills photo: Library of Congress
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intervention on behalf of the underprivileged as a legitimate federal power — not a common outlook at that time,” UC professor Turner says of Tugwell. “During the New Deal, he proposed the greenbelt idea to FDR as a way to put men to work building the towns, with the added bonus of slum clearance and the provision of good, low-cost housing for the working class.” Tugwell, extensively-educated, dapperly dressed, confident and pugilistic, was a divisive figure. Critics called him a socialist and said his ideas were un-American. But, not one to shy away from ideological battles, he quickly pushed forward with the unprecedented greenbelt concept, and by 1936, construction of Greenhills and the other greenbelt towns was underway. “My idea is to go just outside centers of population, pick up cheap land, build a whole community and entice people into it, then go back into the cities and tear down whole slums and make parks of them,” he said of the concept at the time, though the federal government wouldn’t begin slum clearance in earnest until much later. The Resettlement Administration surveyed more than 100 prospective cities near which to establish greenbelt towns. The criteria: the cities must have some manufacturing, but more than one dominant industry. They also needed reliable, modern public transportation and had to be surrounded by cheap, abundant farmland. Cincinnati made a short list with four other cities, including St. Louis, which was later dropped from the program, and Trenton, New Jersey. A settlement there called Homestead was never finished to the scale envisioned by planners due to legal battles over the greenbelt concept. After locking down locations, the federal government moved quickly. In what would become Greenhills, that meant snapping up 5,930 acres of land in a matter of months for the town, the greenbelt surrounding it, outlying farms and possible future developments. Most farmers, suffering greatly during the Depression, quickly sold their plots. But not everyone was willing to go, Greenhills Historical Society’s Paul Richardson says. A farming family by the name of Bastion resisted federal advances to buy their land on the south side of what would become Greenhills.
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Bobbe Kugele
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Photo: Nick Swartsell
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grandparents on Scioto Street in busy, cramped Corryville when their first daughter was born, forcing them to seek their own place. After a brief stint in a small, older apartment in North College Hill, they heard about Greenhills and applied. The budding family landed on the list of accepted residents and soon moved into a brand-new house on Cromwell Street — part of what Greenhills residents call the “C-Block.” “This was a godsend for a lot of people,” she says. “I think my family was very typical in that way. They were ecstatic they got on the list. They talked about that all their lives, how important it was at that point of their lives, during the Depression, for a young couple to move into a glorious place with all these other young couples. They made lots of friends in the community.” The family found itself in another world, full of white-painted small apartment buildings cradled by a massive greenbelt and centered around the community building. It was affordable —about $28 a month for a two-bedroom apartment — and easy to get around. Walking paths and narrow, pedestrianfriendly streets without four-way intersections curved gracefully through the heart of the town. Houses faced away from the street into more green spaces to encourage residents to meet each other there. Neighbors interacted easily, and with a cooperatively-owned grocery store, a drug store, doctors and dentists, there were few reasons to leave town except to go to work. While Greenhills didn’t have any churches at first, congregations held services in the gym of the community center, with Catholics wheeling an altar in and out of the space between masses. Seery’s parents immediately fell in love with the place, eventually moving to a large four-bedroom house on Burnham Street in the B-Block with a huge yard that led straight into the greenbelt. “They thought that was total heaven,” she says. By the time Seery was born, the Depression had faded and a new struggle had risen to take its place — World War II. Even as a young child, the conflict and its attendant rationing, black out drills and pensive atmosphere left an impression on her and
other early town residents, as it did on many Americans. The difference, however, was that Seery and her neighbors lived in a town built by the federal government and designed to foster a sense of tight-knit community. “I remember lots of get-togethers and potlucking with other families,” she says. “Who has this? Who has that? And putting it all together in a communal way. It was this utopian existence superimposed with the war, where there was want and worry.” The close-knit, idyllic feeling continued after the war and even beyond the federal government’s divestment from Greenhills in 1950, when Congress’ deep suspicions of such an avowedly collectivist endeavor finally caught up with the greenbelt towns. Residents were allowed to buy their houses from the government, and the recently-formed Greenhills Homeowners Corporation took control of the common spaces in the village. Despite the change in ownership, dayto-day life in the town didn’t change much at first. As smitten as Seery’s parents were with the community, they wanted her to experience the outside world. While other children in town went to Greenhills High School, then located in the community building, Seery’s mother sent her to Our Lady of Angels Catholic School in Saint Bernard. “She didn’t want us to grow up any more in this isolated environment,” Seery says. “I learned about German bakeries, all of the bars my classmates’ parents owned, I got to meet girls from Saint Bernard, which is a whole other experience, and I got to know black students from the West End.” Others stayed and attended Greenhills High School, deepening their ties to the town. Bobbe Kugele sits in the former library of the community building and talks about its significance. She’s the head of the school’s alumni association, as well as an employee with what is now called Winton Woods School District, which serves Greenhills and neighboring Forest Park. Her family moved to Greenhills from Ludlow, Kentucky in 1941, and she was born there in 1945. These days, the library is a museum
Larry Zettler dedicated to the town’s history, and the legacy of the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration permeates the space. The room is still ringed with a mural by locallyrenowned WPA artist Richard Zoellner and contains a model kitchen with a 1930s-era stove and refrigerator “The room downstairs was my kindergarten classroom,” she says. “For me to look at this building, which is 80 years old, it’s beautiful. It means a lot. The folks who went to school here have a special bond. Some of my friends, they’re still close, whether they graduated in the ’40s, the ’50s or the ’60s.” As if to illustrate her point, sitting next to Kugele is Larry Zettler, a fellow Greenhills High School alum born here in 1942. After leaving to serve in Vietnam, Zettler returned to Greenhills and was a police officer there from 1972 to 1996. He also has fond memories of the school, including the janitors — the only black people many of the students encountered until they left town. Two, Bloys Parrish and Clarence Paige, left a particular impression on Zettler. “I remember Parrish mopping up and down the hallways, singing while we played in the gym,” Zettler says. “It was a thing of beauty, listening to him sing. He was the nicest, most gentle man. So was Clarence. They were wonderful.” A number of other students from that time remember the duo, especially Paige, who was also a saxophonist and Jazz bandleader who commuted every day to work from Cincinnati’s West End. According to Cincinnati address directories, Paige lived on Mound and Charlotte streets when he worked at Greenhills from the late 1940s until he
Photo: Nick Swartsell
Greenhills apartments, 1938
photo: Library of Congress
Slow and Steady Changes
A yearbook page showing Greenhills maintenance staff photo: Provided
original housing. “And maybe they did look like barracks. To have a single-family home… that had been few and far between. But then, they started building them on Drummond Street in the mid-1950s. My dad was pretty unhappy about that.” The town narrowly avoided an even larger change in the intervening decade. After taking possession of the town’s common areas, the Greenhills Homeowners Corporation moved to open up the greenbelt — which now included a dam constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1950 to keep the Mill Creek Valley from flooding — to more housing development. “The greenbelt was sacred,” Zettler says. “When it was sold to the GHOC, the condition was the government would sell it for one dollar, but it could never be developed. It had to remain a pristine greenbelt. As the village began to advance, GHOC started showing interest in developing into the greenbelt. And the government stepped in and said, ‘no, no.’ ” The federal government fought GHOC’s plan all the way up to the Supreme Court, which finally ruled against developing the land in 1966. Zettler sees both the upside and downside of that. “It strangled the community in some ways,” he says. “We stayed constrained by the greenbelt.” Even with the greenbelt around its edges intact, however, Greenhills was changing at its core. “The supermarket, the drug store, they started changing hands,” Kugele says. “The store wasn’t a co-op anymore. In the early 1970s, the pharmacy changed ownership. That put a lot of people who had worked here for years out. My mom worked there for 25 or 30 years.” The changes happened slowly, longtime residents like Kugele and Noble say. But the past few decades have brought a shift — more mobility, more outside noise, less feeling tied to a single, isolated place like Greenhills. Noble, who still lives in Greenhills and rents some of the original housing she owns to young families, says the community is still intact, even if people
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retired in the mid 1960s. Earlier in his life, he led bands like Clarence Paige and His Syncopators and the Clarence Paige Orchestra, which was up to 10 pieces strong, often appeared on local radio and played regularly at the Mariemont Inn, the Cotton Club and other well-regarded local clubs. He also toured the region with other Jazz artists, including trumpet legend Bill Coleman, who in his memoir Trumpet Story recalled becoming interested in music around the same time as Paige when they were both growing up near Kenyon Street in the West End. The two also weathered racially-charged scrapes together as they toured West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. According to Coleman, Paige’s band was one of the two most well-regarded among black musicians in Cincinnati. After playing under Paige for a while, Coleman moved on to bigger national acts. He relocated permanently to France in 1948 to escape segregation, where he gained fame and eventually won the prestigious Ordre National du Mérite for distinguished contributions to cultural life. Paige was still playing when he took his job at Greenhills, even performing at school dances in the 1950s. He and Parrish were exceptions to Greenhills’ almost entirely white landscape. “The thing is, those were the only black people I ever saw until I got my first job,” Kugele says. “See, that’s how it was here.” Zettler agrees. “Oh, me too, until I went into the Army. And was that the government, on purpose? I imagine so. That was the times we were in. But they were good to the kids.”
In 1963, as Zettler was serving in Vietnam and Kugele was getting her first job after graduating from Greenhills High School, big changes had started to come to the town’s cozy, sealed-in bubble. Some were shocking and immediate. Around 9:30 p.m. on a hot August evening that year, 15-year-old Greenhills High School student Patty Rebholz was walking home from a dance at the town’s American Legion Hall. She never made it. After a frenzied search, police found her at 5:30 a.m., strangled and beaten to death, in the backyard of a house across the street from where her boyfriend, 15-year-old Mike Wehrung, lived. Wehrung was immediately a suspect, and after questioning him, police felt sure they had the killer. But a county juvenile court judge, Benjamin Schwartz, intervened, making Wehrung a ward of the state and sending him to military school in North Carolina. The case became a national fixation, but remained unsolved for decades. Then-Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen reopened the Rebholz case in 2000, and Wehrung stood trial for allegedly murdering his high school sweetheart. But a jury found him not guilty, in part due to a lost deposition from 1963 in which a witness placed Wehrung in his own living room at the time of the murder. The case remains unsolved. Longtime residents like Zettler, who worked the case as a police officer when he returned from Vietnam, and Kugele, whose younger sister was very close friends with Rebholz, say it forever disrupted the calm, sealed-off atmosphere in Greenhills. “It shook the community,” she says. “People started locking their doors then. My sister was in school at that time — she would say it wasn’t fun anymore. Someone’s been killed, brutally, viciously.” Other shifts were more gradual: the development of new, single-family homes in Greenhills started in the 1950s and accelerated in the proceeding decades after the federal government sold the town. “People used to say to us, ‘Hey, you live in those barracks,’ ” Kugele says of the
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Students file into the Greenhills Community Center in 1938
Photo: Library of Congress
aren’t bound to it in the same way they used to be. “I still see a lot of the old times here,” she says. “But I don’t think there is the same openness that there used to be. How do you explain it? People aren’t as secluded out here now. We were secluded, we knew it, but we didn’t think about it that way.”
A Slow Walk Toward Diversity
Kathy Y. Wilson’s senior photo
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By the mid-1960s, racial shifts were also taking place, albeit very slowly. The 1960 Census shows Greenhills with zero black residents, but a few trickled in and by 1970, when Greenhills’ population hit its peak of about 6,100 people, there were 10 people of color living there. Seery, the English professor who grew up in Greenhills and moved back with her husband in 1965, remembers one of the community’s first black families moving into one of the community’s newer sections the following year. “He was an engineer with GE,” she says of the father in the family. “There was terrible uproar about it at the time. They were threatened. A family prayer group I was in decided to be a support group for them and speak up for them. It became a big issue. I didn’t realize until that time how much prejudice there would be in the community. I still have these mixed feelings about this community that I loved and the people I knew and the lack of welcome for this family.”
Integration inched along over the next decade. By the 1970s, the NAACP had named Greenhills, along with a large number of other local districts, in legal action aimed at Cincinnati Public Schools around segregation. In 1978, the Greenhills-Forest Park School District drew up a voluntary plan to integrate Greenhills High School with neighboring Forest Park High School, both of which were run jointly by the local school district. The next year, more than 100 black students from Forest Park found themselves on buses bound for Greenhills. Greenhills’ neighboring town had been privately developed after the federal government sold off excess land it bought when planning Greenhills, and over the years had become home to a sizable black population, including some displaced from Cincinnati’s West End during slum clearance programs in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Kathy Y. Wilson remembers the final day of eighth grade, when she and the other students who would be going to Greenhills were packed into the Forest Park Middle School gym and told the news. Most were not happy. “Because we were 13-year-old adolescents who thought we were big time because we were leaving eighth grade, someone said something defiant about it, and it was like a ripple effect, we all started in,” she says. “But they gave us these letters for our parents, and I think they had had it all planned out, the bus routes and everything. It was a big deal.” Despite her early trepidation, Wilson, who later became an award-winning journalist, columnist (for this publication and others), author and college educator at the University of Cincinnati, credits the experience with launching her career as a writer. “They made a way for us,” she says. “They hired a black woman as an assistant principal. I feel like they bent over
backward for us. Another black person might feel differently. But I thought it was the bomb. Because of my AP English teacher, I started studying transcendental meditation. She introduced me to Emerson and Thoreau. She introduced me to James Baldwin. Miss Arnold — I still give her credit for everything about my intellectual growth as a writer. Other than my mother, she was the first person to tell me, ‘Kathy Y. Wilson, you’re a writer. Don’t you know?’ ” There were hard moments, including an incident in which a white student slammed a locker just above her head and called her a racial slur as he walked away and another in which a guidance counselor tried to dissuade Wilson, a straight-A student, from going to college. But overall, Wilson says she didn’t experience the racial tension at Greenhills she might have expected. “It ignited me. It really did. And everything that goes along with it, even teaching, I think I got that from Greenhills,” she says. “Now, my experience could have been completely different if my father had been in a house in Greenhills. I can’t guarantee it would have been as welcoming. Busing is different than housing.” The year after Wilson entered Greenhills High School, the Census counted 23 black residents among the roughly 5,000 people living in Greenhills. In the decades since, however, many more have moved to the community. Today, the town’s central shopping strip features a black-operated barbershop and beauty salon, and five-year estimates from the American Community Survey suggest about 13 percent of Greenhills’ 3,600 residents are black. That’s about half the proportion found in Hamilton County overall, but it’s way up from just 3 percent a decade ago.
Crumbling History, Hope for the Future? If the social forces defining Greenhills have been dynamic and shifting in the past few decades, the sturdy, simple structures workmen built 80 years ago seem more permanent. But they, too, are
Apartments in Greenhills photo: Nick Swartsell
municipalities, Greenhills — which brings in only about $2 million in revenue a year — is smarting from state cuts to local government funding. It’s also dealing with a declining population and the simple fact that much of its housing stock is 80 years old. “I sympathize with the village,” Richardson says. “Unfortunately, we have a lot of empty land now sitting and I don’t think they’ve really found a developer to build the new housing.” But Richardson and other preservationminded Greenhills fans have applauded a move by the village to hire John Senhauser, a former chair of the Cincinnati Historic Conservation Board and a professional architect, to design new housing that will fit in with the neighborhood’s aesthetics. But challenges linger. Suburbanminded homebuyers generally want bigger properties than those on offer in Greenhills’ historic core. And those looking for smaller digs have shown a continued preference for living in larger, denser cities like Cincinnati — the very places Greenhills was designed to provide refuge from, and where bars, restaurants and employment are easy to get to today. As a result, Greenhills has found itself in the middle of two trends sprinting away from its core design. Richardson, however, argues it doesn’t have to be that way. Many of the amenities young people are looking for in cities — walkability, close-knit communities, historic features — are here in Greenhills, with the added benefit of a bevy of green space and low prices. “I know right now we’re struggling, but I really hope we attract some young people,” he says. “You’ve seen the revitalization of places like Northside. What if Greenhills was next? We’re such a great walking town.”
The other greenbelt towns offer differing illustrations for the fate of the model briefly taken up by the federal government. Greenbelt, Maryland, for example, still contains a co-op grocery, pharmacy and restaurant, the New Deal Café, and nearly all of its original structures remain intact. It has also partially overcome its segregated past. Currently, Greenbelt is home to about 23,000 people — 41 percent of them African-American, though most of the town’s black residents live outside its historic core. While some preservationists see Greenhills’ legacy in structural assets that need to be saved, others have a broader, more philosophical take on the importance of the New Deal-era village. As housing gets less affordable and as the nation continues to struggle with income inequality, racial strife, deeply pressing environmental issues and the fragmentation of civic bonds that knit together communities, some wonder if there are modern lessons to be taken from planners’ experiments in Greenhills. Perhaps more now than at any time in the past eight decades, the questions asked in the curious film The City are ringing again. “It wasn’t the utopia I thought it was growing up,” Seery says, “but yes, it worked. And so I reflect all the time, what is the Greenhills of today? What would it look like? Would it be accepted at all? We’ve had public housing, but not community building. There’s such a need for that, but I don’t know that we’re in the mentality to accept the kind of diverse community building that would embrace everyone.”
Greenhills’ public pool photo: Nick Swartsell
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subject to the march of time. Kugele can’t forget the day she saw the apartment on Cromwell Road where her mother lived out her final years demolished. They joined other buildings in the C-Block on Chalmers Lane, which were also torn down. “I drove down there and I saw the staircases,” she says of the apartments on Chalmers. “The stairs to the second floor just out there in the rubble. I thought, ‘Someone take those.’ The wood still appeared solid. They’re from 1938, and they were still standing. I couldn’t believe they tore those down.” In the early 2000s, the village government took control of the properties on Chalmers and Cromwell, which officials say had badly deteriorated. But repairing them would have cost an estimated $4 million, money the village has said it doesn’t have. So, after trying in vain to sell the structures, the village razed them in 2017. It wasn’t the first swath of demolitions. A decade ago, Greenhills officials moved forward with a plan that required the demolition of 52 apartments from the original village, saying they were beyond repair. Those buildings were on the National Register of Historic Places, but that alone didn’t save them. Those demolitions triggered efforts to get Greenhills listed as a National Historic Landmark, which affords extra protections to historic structures. Preservationists won that status for the original core of Greenhills in 2017 — months before the buildings on Chalmers and Cromwell came down. “Unfortunately, at this time, there isn’t really a plan to preserve these buildings,” says Richardson of the Greenhills Historical Society. “We thought, since we are a National Historic Landmark now, we thought maybe this would stop. Well, unfortunately, six months later, they tore down 26 more units (on Chalmers and Cromwell).” Richardson acknowledges that the situation is complex. Like a lot of smaller
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STUFF TO DO Ongoing Shows VISUAL ARTS: Paris to New York: Photographs by Eugène Atget and Berenice Abbott Taft Museum of Art, Downtown (through Jan. 20) VISUAL ARTS: Mamma Andersson: Memory Banks Contemporary Arts Center, Downtown (through Feb. 10)
WEDNESDAY 09
CLASSICAL: Classical contemporary string quartet Brooklyn Rider plays Memorial Hall. See interview on page 22.
MUSIC: Neal Francis brings some old-school Soul to MOTR Pub. See Sound Advice on page 35.
THURSDAY 10
MUSIC: Shaggy 2 Dope of the Insane Clown Posse
PHOTO: COURTESY MAGNOLIA PICTURES
makes a stop at the Blue Note Harrison. See Sound Advice on page 35. ONSTAGE: The Second City: It’s Not You, It’s Me Comedy troupe The Second City heads to the Queen City for a three-week run on the Playhouse’s stage of It’s Not You, It’s Me, a comic send-up of human relationships — think missed connections, breaks-ups, blind dates and more. “Their hilarious, razor-sharp style brings sell-out crowds every time they visit,” says Playhouse artistic director Blake Robison in a press release. “This new production will offer bright comedy to shine on January’s dreary days.” Read an interview on page 21. Through Jan. 27. Tickets start at $50. Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, 962 Mount Adams Circle, Mount Adams, cincyplay.com. — MAIJA ZUMMO
EVENT: Taft House Party The Taft turns happy hour into a nostalgic night of wholesome ’90s fun with a night of games, Perler bead crafts (those bright, melty beads that look kind of like ditalini pasta) and an adult hot chocolate bar at this Thursday House Party event. Play classic board games, take a “What Do You Meme” gallery tour and compete for prizes in games and caption contests. There will also be a DJ playing music from the 1980s and 1990s, along with snacks from Fire On High organic food truck. 5-8 p.m. Thursday. Free admission. Taft Museum of Art, 316 Pike St., Downtown, taftmuseum. org. — MAIJA ZUMMO VISUAL ART: I'll Be Your Mirror at Visionaries+Voices Visionaries+Voices presents I'll Be Your Mirror, a group exhibit of "reflections, refractions and the angles we
can't see," according to the show statement. The art will run the gamut between sculpture, video and photography, all with the mission of providing new ways to see yourself and others. Opening reception: 5-8 p.m. Thursday. Exhibition reflection: 6-9 p.m. Saturday. Free. Visionaries+Voices, 3841 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, visionariesandvoices. com. — MAIJA ZUMMO COMEDY: Tony Rock Growing up in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, Tony Rock realized quickly that he needed to develop a sense of humor. “I had to, to stay alive,” he says. “On a daily basis I’d see a dozen characters — and I emphasize the word ‘characters.’ One minute I’d be fighting for my life; the next I’d be laughing hysterically. There’s a lot of drama in the city and I took it all in.” Younger brother to
comedian Chris Rock, Tony didn’t just follow in his older brother’s footsteps. “Jokes are like the family business,” Tony says. Though the whole family has good sense of humor, only Chris and Tony have pursued it professionally. “My little brother Kenny is hilarious,” Tony says. “But he just wants to do comedy for the girls.” 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 7:30 and 10 p.m. Friday; 7 and 10 p.m. Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday. $20-$50. Funny Bone Liberty, 7518 Bales St., Liberty Township, liberty. funnybone.com. — P.F. WILSON LECTURE: Arts of the Islamic World The Cincinnati Art Museum hosts Dr. Christiane Gruber, professor of Islamic Art at the University of Michigan, for an evening lecture that explores Islamic manuscript paintings from the 14th century onward. The
images and motifs rendered create a picture of artists and thinkers who represent the Prophet Muhammad and his “individual traits, primordial luminosity and veiled essence” via symbolic and creative works ranging from the naturalistic to abstract. Associated exhibit, Collecting Calligraphy: Arts of the Islamic World, is on display through Jan. 27. 7-8 p.m. Thursday. $10; free for members. Cincinnati Art Museum, 953 Eden Park Drive, Mount Adams, RSVP by calling 513-721-ARTS, cincinnatiartmuseum.org. — MAIJA ZUMMO
FRIDAY 11
CLASSICAL: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons While the lack of any real punch of winter weather may make it feel like we haven’t truly experienced all four seasons here in Cincinnati CONTINUES ON PAGE 18
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FILM: Shoplifters Cincinnati World Cinema is screening Shoplifters, winner of the 2018 Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, through Thursday (Jan. 10). The Japanese film, written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, tells the story of a family who uses petty theft as a way to deal with a life of poverty and pragmatic desperation. CityBeat film critic tt stern-enzi named it one of his favorite films of the year, saying: “We are all born into the family of Man, but writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda…posits that the more powerful bond truly uniting us comes when we choose, with open hearts, those we’re willing to let inside. There was no better expression of this lesson in 2018.” 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. $10 advance; $15 door. Cincinnati World Cinema, 719 Race St., Downtown, cincyworldcinema.org. — MAIJA ZUMMO
Shoplifters
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FROM PAGE 17
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yet, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is bringing Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons to the stage at Music Hall, with spring, summer, fall and winter personified by the violin strings of musician Benjamin Beilman. Richard Egarr conducts the show, which also includes Bach’s Orchestral Suit No. 4 and Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. $29-$115. Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Over-theRhine, cincinnatisymphony. org. — MAIJA ZUMMO
SATURDAY 12
M O N D AY : 9 A - 6P T U ES D A Y -FR ID AY : 9A - 6: 30P S A T U R D A Y : 9A - 6P C L O S E D S UN DA Y S
FRIDAY 11
EVENT: Cavalcade of Customs The 59th-annual Cavalcade of Customs car show returns to the Duke Energy Convention Center for a weekend’s worth of customs cars, classics, hot rods, trucks, motorcycles and more. If you like shiny paint jobs, chop shops and pin-up girls, you’re probably going to like this show. Celebrity guests WWE superstar Kevin Owens, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., John Schneider (aka Bo Duke from Dukes of Hazzard) and hot rod designer Dave Kindig will be there at certain times throughout the weekend; a pin-up girl contest takes place on Saturday (with prize money); and all weekend long, check out pedal cars built by automotive students in the Pedal Car Challenge, save on auto parts and supplies from KOI, watch various live demos and check out generations of sprint cars, bobbers, customs and more. 3-10 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. $19; $7 kids 6-12; free 5 and under; discounts available at KOI stores. Duke Energy Convention Center, 525 Elm St., Downtown, koiautoparts.com/cavalcade. — MAIJA ZUMMO
VISUAL ART: Camp Crawl: Camp Washington Second Saturdays Every second Saturday, head to Camp Washington for a neighborhood crawl to explore the various galleries and studio and performance spaces that are transforming this former industrial enclave into a cultural and artistic
destination. This month, you can swing at the Swing House (1373 Avon Place) or see the Invisible Labor exhibit at Wave Pool (2940 Colerain Ave.), Abduction at Anytime Dept. (3025 Colerain Ave.) and Ral Buldhar: A Dungeons and Dragons Art Show (2868 Colerain Ave.). 6-9 p.m. Saturday. Free. For more info, visit facebook. com/wavepoolgallery. — MAIJA ZUMMO MUSIC: International Blues Challenge Showcase Fundraiser Show your support this weekend for the Blues artists selected to represent Southwest Ohio at the 2019 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee. Also a fundraiser to help the artists with travel costs, the event features the band winners from the Dayton and Cincinnati Blues Challenge competitions — the Doug Hart Band and Johnny Fink and the Intrusion, respectively — who will perform on the Southgate
House Revival’s Sanctuary stage. In the venue’s Lounge area, solo/duo Challenge winners Allen Talbott and Lil’ Red and the Rooster are set to perform. The four acts (representing the Cincy Blues and Dayton Blues societies) head to Memphis later this month for the IBC, where they’ll compete against artists from all over the world. It marks a return to the IBC for Johnny Fink and the Intrusion; the band also competed in 2016 and 2017 (Fink was a competitor in the “solo/duo” category in 2017). 8 p.m. Saturday. $5. Southgate House Revival, 111 E. Sixth St., Newport, southgatehouse.com. — MIKE BREEN
SUNDAY 13
MUSIC: Veteran Punks U.S. Bombs play the Southgate House Revival. See Sound Advice on page 36. MUSIC: The students from School of Rock Mason pay tribute to local musicians during Cincinnati Tribute
PH OTO: M EG AN WAD DEL
SUNDAY 13
EVENT: Cin City Reptile Show If you didn’t get a puppy (or a hippopotamus) for Christmas, head to the Cin City Reptile Show for something slightly scalier. This monthly reptile show brings together collectors, vendors and breeders to present thousands of exotic reptiles, amphibians, morphs, inverts and supplies, all in one place. Whether you are looking to add a bearded dragon or ball python to your pack of family pets or scorpions and spiders to observe from afar, the show will most likely have what you’re looking for — or introduce you to the person who can help you find it. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. $7; free kids under 10. Sharonville Convention Center, 11355 Chester Road, Sharonville, cincityreptileshow.com. — MAIJA ZUMMO
- Our Homage to Local Bands at the Woodward Theater. See Spill It on page 33.
ONSTAGE: Fiddler on the Roof Broadway in Cincinnati brings Fiddler on the Roof to the Aronoff with a new production featuring fresh movement and dance from Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter, based on the original staging by Jerome Robbins. The Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical tells the “heartwarming story of fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, and the timeless traditions that define faith and family.” The story follows Tevye as he tries to maintain his Jewish cultural and religious identity in 1905 Imperial Russia as three of his five head-strong daughters attempt to marry for love instead of tradition in a world where the Tsar is evicting Jews from the village. The orchestra brings hits like “If I Were a Rich
WWW.BESTOFCINCINNATI.COM TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Man” and “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” to life in this celebratory masterpiece. Through Jan. 27. Tickets start at $31. Aronoff Center, 650 Walnut St., Downtown, cincinnatiarts.org. — MAIJA ZUMMO EVENT: Winter Sky Class Beginner astronomers can flock to the Observatory for a casual class led by Dean Regas as he tackles easy topics to keep you looking skyward. Spend two hours this Tuesday discovering the constellations of the winter night sky. Learn about Orion, Taurus and more and see them with your naked eye and the Observatory telescopes, weather permitting. 7-9 p.m. Tuesday. $15; $12 members. Cincinnati Observatory, 3489 Observatory Place, Mount Lookout, cincinnatiobservatory.org. — MAIJA ZUMMO
YOUR WEEKEND TO DO LIST: LOCAL.CITYBEAT.COM
WHISKEY • CIGARS • FOOD & LIVE ENTERTAINMENT
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OSCAR EVENT CENTER JUNGLE JIM’S FAIRFIELD
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COMEDY: Jeff Dunham Passively Aggressive Tour Ventriloquist and comic Jeff Dunham is bringing his cast of characters to BB&T Arena. Dunham’s Passively Aggressive Tour features his handcrafted dummies like Walter the Grumpy Retiree, Bubba J the redneck, Peanut the purple creature and assorted borderline racist/non-PC characters like Achmed the Dead Terrorist and Jose Jalapeno. Despite some pandering stereotypical humor — or because of it — Dunham has been called “the most successful comedian working in America” by The New York Times Magazine and was named Pollstar’s No. 1 comedy tour in North America for three years in a row. 3 p.m. Sunday. $49.50$155; $10. BB&T Arena, 500 Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, Ky., thebbtarena. com. — MAIJA ZUMMO
TUESDAY 15
BEST OF CINCINNATI 2019
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‘It’s Not You, It’s Me’ Wants You to Laugh at Love
ARTS & CULTURE
The Second City’s touring company offers a new format for the modern dating thinkpiece at the Playhouse BY JAC K I E M U L AY
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s January plods on, humans everywhere find themselves smack dab in the middle of what is facetiously known as “cuffing season” — the period roughly between November and March where colder air blows in, killing From left: The Second City’s Sarah Dell’Amico, Griffin Wenzler, Olivia Nielsen, Terrence Carey, Asia Martin and Chuck Norment. the desire to go out for fun and instead motivates people to lock PHOTO: TIM SCHMIDT down a romantic relationship; Netflix-and-chill dates ensue. This is where the Mighty Mighty BlueCo. Dell’Amico is one of The Second City’s the mix. (Second City is even listed as a the cast can put a modern spin on the (or Blue Company) comes in. The touring “veteran” performers, having performed producer of SNL.) material. On tour and on the mainstage, troupe hails from the famed Second City with them since 2014. She only recently “And, of course, (the sketches) are supthis also means they can adapt material Chicago. For the uninformed, The Second joined the touring Mighty Mighty BlueCo. posed to be funny,” Madison jokes. based on how audiences respond. City is an improv theater that first formed in February of last year. Madison has been directing shows with “We have the youngest company and the in 1959 and has gone on to become a The Second City has two main The Second City for around a year and a most diverse in The Second City,” Madison renowned force in up-and-coming comedy. companies of performers: the residence half. Though The Second City’s material says. “And they are really impressive — Famous alums include some impressive stages that produce shows on the main is often improv-based, Madison’s role as a the way that they rewrite and form new names: Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, stages at The Second City’s space in director is to select the theme and sketches sketches brings a fresh perspective; you Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert and Aidy Chicago, and the touring companies, used in the shows she directs. can tell it’s their voice. They’re making it Bryant have all once graced their stage. which provide newer performers with When Madison aims to put a show their own.” In this tour — which blows through the chance to hone their skills and learn together, she says she wants people to see For instance, one of Dell’Amico’s Playhouse in the Park Jan. 10 through the ropes with tried and tested material themselves in the sketch and be able to sketches will be featured in this particular 27 — audiences can expect a 90-minute they take on the road — the latter of which laugh. show, an experience she describes as “freecomedy sketch show dubbed It’s Not You, comes in the form of the aforementioned “This time of year can be kind of a buming.” After all, it’s her baby. And she feels It’s Me. The traveling team is made up of six BlueCo. mer for some people,” she says. “So (It’s Not gratification for being able to experiment young comedians: Terrence Carey, Sarah “A big part of the touring company is that You, It’s Me) is my way to kind of leave a with the material more. Dell’Amico, Asia Martin, Olivia Nielsen, they are being groomed for the residence mark. Here’s all of the hard things that can The only constraint when updating older Chuck Norment and Griffin Wenzler. It will stages,” says Molly Todd Madison, the be difficult to talk about and here’s how we material for contemporary audiences is to explore relationship hardships that range show’s director. Madison explains that can find a way to laugh at it.” stay true to the writer’s original intention, from the frustration of missed connections although the touring companies’ shows Because the show is made up mostly of Dell’Amico explains, out of respect for to pure unadulterated heartbreak — all are mainly comprised of archived material archived material, some sketches have to their words. through the lens of the next generation of from previous Second City writers and be edited either for a modern audience or “Comedy is always changing because the comedy writers and performers. performers, It’s Not You, It’s Me will feature to make sense within the context of the world is always changing,” she says. “We’re “This show is a lot about relationships several new sketches written by cast show’s theme. commenting on the world around us.” and the different dynamics of relationmembers. “Our material is tested,” Madison says. The Second City – It’s Not You, It’s Me ships,” says cast member Dell’Amico. “It’s Calling Saturday Night Live Fans: It’s Not “Since we are using a lot of old archive will be onstage at the Playhouse in the a new year, and I think love should be You, It’s Me will follow a format roughly pieces, there’s a lot of stuff that we’re Park’s Shelterhouse Theatre (962 Mount a thing that (people) carry within their similar to the show, featuring mainly reaching back five, 10, 15 years.” Adams Circle, Mount Adams) Jan. 10-27. hearts and their mind and their souls. three- to five-minue comedy sketches with But that time gap coupled with improv’s For more info/tickets: cincyplay.com. Love somebody and love yourself.” a few improv sets and games thrown into spontaneous nature means that her and
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Brooklyn Rider Makes Cincinnati Debut BY A N N E A R EN S T EI N
Push back the onset of postholiday funk: The wildly inventive string quartet Brooklyn Rider makes its long-overdue Cincinnati debut with two appearances on Jan. 8 and 9, sponsored by Chamber Music Cincinnati. Brooklyn Rider has been at the forefront of pushing artistic boundaries since its founding in 2004, having collaborated with master musicians in every genre from Yo-Yo Ma to Joshua Redman and Béla Fleck to Martin Hayes Brooklyn Rider and Anne Sofie von Otter. (Their latest album DreamPHOTO: ERIN BAL ANO ers with Mexican Jazz singer Magos Herrera was named one of NPR’s best Classical albums of 2018.) musical scale).” Beethoven wrote the work Those collaborations are a natural after recovering from a near-fatal illness. extension of how the group’s co-founders “It celebrates the return of his creative — violinist and composer Colin Jacobsen spirit,” Colin says. “Taking that as a jumpand his brother, cellist and conductor ing-off point, we asked five composers to Eric — experienced music growing up. respond to the idea of healing in music and Their parents were professional musicians it’s been wonderful to see their responses.” and frequently hosted chamber music The composers are Matana Roberts, gatherings that took on an atmosphere of Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, jam sessions. Caroline Shaw and Du Yun. Shaw and The brothers both attended Juilliard and Yun are Pulitzer Prize winners, but that founded The Knights in 2000, an orchestral wasn’t a factor, nor was featuring all female collaborative that embraces contemporary composers. culture and honors classical tradition. (The “When we started putting names on the brothers are artistic advisors and Eric table, they were people we wanted to reach serves as conductor.) out to for the first time as well as others we Four years later, Brooklyn Rider was wanted to continue working with,” Colin launched. says. “The relationships we had with the Coming from varying cultural other two members — violinist Johnny backgrounds, each composer touched on a Gandelsman and violist Nicholas Cords different topic. For some, he notes, it was a — went back a number of years before we personal illness. Others, like Roberts, took committed to the idea of Brooklyn Rider,” “an overtly political direction.” She used our Colin says. “Doing any sort of quartet is a nation’s border crisis as a representation huge commitment. In addition to a sense that society needs to heal. of aesthetics, knowing where you want Brooklyn Rider will perform the worldto be going is 90 percent and the last 10 premiere of Yun’s untitled work. “Her piece percent is the most difficult: program will relate to mental illness in China, a planning and rehearsals.” subject that’s taboo there,” Colin says. Michael Nicolas replaced Eric in the “She told us there isn’t even a word for it in quartet in 2015 after he left to pursue a Chinese.” conducting career. The Beethoven quartets, especially Opus Brooklyn Rider’s first appearance in 132, continue to resonate with musicians Cincinnati was “Notes From a Library” at and audiences as much for the powerful The Mercantile Library on Tuesday, Jan. 8. emotions conveyed as the music itself. The program consisted of Brooklyn Rider’s “It transcends its time and place,” Colin earlier works, including one of Colin’s says. “Opus 132 taps into a long history of compositions, and pieces with some of the music. Every time you play it, you have a Balkan, Persian and Middle Eastern influwindow into what it means to be a human ences that Colin says they love to perform. being on this planet. In a very divisive On Jan. 9, Brooklyn Rider moves to political climate, in a difficult world, Memorial Hall with a program focusing on there’s a need to come together and music healing, inspired by Beethoven’s Quartet is one of the avenues that one can look to No. 15 in A minor, Opus 132, a bedrock of for healing throughout the centuries.” the string quartet repertoire, which will be Brooklyn Rider performs at Memorial performed in the second half. Hall 7:30 p.m. Jan. 9. Tickets/more info: The quartet’s third movement carries a memorialhallotr.com. dedication from Beethoven: “A holy song of thanksgiving from a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode (a seven-tone
FILM
Women in Film Helps Bridge the Funding Gap BY G A R I N PI R N I A
Laure Quinlivan interviewing Jonathan Boeckling P H O T O : P R OV I D E D BY L AU R E Q U I N L I VA N
fight for access, from the government to business. It’s no different in film. Generally speaking, we’re in the minority.” Nationally, a report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that women made up only 8 percent of directors on the top 250 films of 2018, which is down 11 percent from 2017. Locally, Kristen Schlotman, the executive director of Film Cincinnati, says that “in 2011 about 1/10th of film crews were women; now it’s over a third.” While this might sound promising, men have directed most of the film and TV projects that receive tax incentives through the film office. “For some reason, film is not considered an art form here like it is in other places,” Quinlivan says. The Greater Cincinnati Foundation — which invests in projects across the region — does not fund films. Comparatively, the Cleveland Greater Foundation does fund film. One of Quinlivan’s initial sponsors for Cincinnati LEEDS the Nation was the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance, which helped her obtain funding from Frisch’s and the Stephen H. Wilder Foundation, the latter of which has a $24,000 yearly budget to fund documentaries. For the national push of the doc, local donors Green Umbrella, Green Energy Ohio, Kraft Electrical and Feldkamp Enterprises donated. Cincinnati’s chapter of Women in Film now has almost 100 members — both men and women. And in October 2018, the group hosted a “how to fund your project” panel discussion featuring local and regional nonprofits, which took questions from inspiring filmmakers. “The event was an important first step in trying to change the equation,” Quinlivan says. “I don’t know if it’ll change, but I think talking about it and making people aware of how things are, is a good way to start.” For more info on Women in Film Cincinnati and upcoming events, visit wifcincinnati.org.
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In producing independent films, filmmakers are first given the task of actually raising funds toward their project, which is often brought in through a patchwork of venues. Laure Quinlivan, a board member of the nonprofit Women in Film and a former Cincinnati City Council member, is no stranger to this process. She found it tricky to fund her 26-minute indie documentary Cincinnati LEEDS the Nation. The film is about the Cincinnati Police Department’s District 3 headquarters on the West Side, which became the first net-zero energy police station in the United States in 2015. Early on in the fundraising process, PBS offered to air her doc on local PBS affiliate CET as long as she raised the money to produce it herself. It took her a year to raise all the funds and CET aired the film in November 2017. So far, the doc has had four local screenings. During this year’s Earth Day in April and National Police Week in May, the National Educational Telecommunications Association will distribute her film nationally to public TV stations, which she says will be good exposure — but that deal came with a catch. “I had to raise more money,” she says. “They had me change the name of the film so that it has a broader appeal beyond Cincinnati. And I had to pay someone to do station relations.” The new title in question? Blue Goes Green: Net Zero Police Station. Additional edits — changing the title card in the video — were also made, as well as paying NETA to put it on their satellite. “I’m always raising money just to get it seen,” she says. “It’s OK, because I never wanted to do it to make money, anyway. Documentary work is not a money-making venture.” Quinlivan says she’s raised “in the hundred-thousand-dollar range” for the film so far. Women in Film was originally founded in Los Angeles in 1973 by Tichi Wilkerson Kassel and didn’t come to Cincinnati until 2016 when Quinlivan shepherded a chapter. At the time — while working on Cincinnati LEEDs the Nation — she had begun to connect with other locals creating documentaries independently in Cincinnati. As an organization, Women in Film provides resources — be it a network, scholarship or events — and also works to address gender disparities within the industry. The stated goal is to advance creative and professional development of women in the region working in film, television and digital media. “I was starting to meet other women who did documentaries. And we just thought, ‘Yeah, we could use a chapter here just to support women in the industry,”’ Quinlivan says. “Women have had to
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Cincy Native KiKi Layne Chats ‘Beale Street’ BY M AC K E N ZI E M A N L E Y
KiKi Layne — who stars as Tish in the new Could Talk is told through the prism of love. film If Beale Street Could Talk — has been “Once I read the script and then read the a bit of everywhere lately, including in a novel, I was blown away about how — at its 12-page spread in Vogue alongside Stephan core — it’s this really beautiful love story. James (who plays Fonny in the film) and But because it’s James Baldwin, there’s cracking it up on the Late Show with a lot of truth woven in to it about issues Stephen Colbert. like mass incarceration, police brutality But the 26-year-old Cincinnati-native and just overall issues related to race,” came home for the holidays, where Layne says. “I thought it was so powerful — we chatted with her about Beale Street, the combination of those things — but it’s which was released Christmas Day. A the love that triumphs.” 2009 graduate of the School for Creative Layne says that although the character and Performing Arts, her role in the of Tish and her are very different, she felt Barry Jenkins-directed film is being hailed as her breakthrough performance. Initially, Layne says, it was seeing the names of Jenkins and James Baldwin that drew her to the script. (Beale Street will mark Jenkins’ first film since Moonlight, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture.) It has already racked up nominations (and a supporting actress win for Regina King, who plays Tish’s mother) at the Golden Globe awards, Stephan James and KiKi Layne in If Beale Street Could Talk scored a fresh 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and PHOTO: COURTESY ANNAPURNA PICTURES garnered Oscar buzz. For the uninitiated: The film, based on Baldwin’s 1974 novel of the an initial spiritual connection — through same name, explores black love in 1970s her, she says she learned the strength of Harlem, where Tish is engaged to Fonny, vulnerability. an artist whom she’s been friends with “Hollywood has had a very limited offersince childhood. She becomes pregnant, ing for roles for actresses who look like me,” but their plans of a life together are she says. “I definitely want to be a part of derailed when her fiancé is arrested for a breaking out of those limitations and out of crime he didn’t commit. those stereotypes of what a dark-skinned The film itself is vibrant, poetic and actress — with my skin tone and texture moving; it wields lush colors that meld of natural hair — are capable of and what to each flare of emotion. The viewer sees roles are deemed appropriate for us.” flashes of the story, which is mostly told Beale Street is a part of that movement. through woven flashbacks and presentSo, she says, is her next project, Native day events. In one moment Fonny is lit by Son. (It will have its world premiere at harsh florescent light, separated from Tish the Sundance Film Festival Jan. 24.) The by glass. The injustice here is felt wholly, images we consume are everything, as the pair peers at one another with both she says; only having the same kind of love and despair. representation affects self-image. In the next breath, the young couple is “I definitely want to be mindful of that shown holding hands under the city lights as I continue my career,” she says. “I know — leaning, laughing and smiling together that little black girls are watching, and like one of Fonny’s sculptures. Jenkins that’s something that I pay attention to.” knows how to compose characters within Layne goes on to say she’s a frame. Every color, slant of light, music thankful to live in a time where and angle feels carefully orchestrated to movies like Blackkklansman, Black evoke feeling. Panther and Sorry to Bother You are being It’s a story of inequality, discriminacreated. tion and violence that contributes to the “I think for a long time Hollywood — and institutionalized racism that black commedia overall — presented it as if there munities face juxtaposed with portrayals was only one way to talk about the black of love, family, loyalty and determination. experience, so I’m definitely very thankful But like Moonlight and Medicine for Melto be at a time in Hollywood where all of ancholy, Jenkins’ first film, If Beale Street that is being challenged.”
TV
The Most-Anticipated TV of 2019 BY JAC K ER N
The future is bright, and so are our screens. Here are the shows I’m most looking forward to in 2019.
New Series
See also: Another miniseries that was supposed to be done for: True Detective (Sunday, Jan. 13, HBO); serial killer thriller Mindhunter (sometime this year, Netflix); feel-good episodic anthology High Maintenance (Jan. 20, HBO); and looking way, way ahead: Fargo. It was thought that the third season of this crime series, based on the Coen Brothers classic, would be its last. For round four, Chris Rock is set to star as a crime boss in 1950s
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Alex Hibbitt: Rhizome
Alex Hibbitt (Athens, OH) constructs complex modular and suspended sculptures of cast porcelain intersected with cut felt shapes that explore ideas of complexity, connectivity, and the relationships between 2-D, 3-D, and the virtual environment. Exhibition Sponsor: Barbara and Gates Moss Gallery Talk with Alex Hibbitt: Wed., Dec. 5 at 7 p.m.
Synthetica
The artists in Synthetica explore new applications for commercial products in constructing their unique visual language: Tyler Bohm, Susan Byrnes, Matt Coors, Jeffrey Cortland Jones, Marc Leone, Tim McMichael, Bruce Riley, and Paige Williams. Exhibition Co-Sponsor: Mu Sinclaire and the Sinclaire Family Foundation Gallery Talk with the Artists: Sat., Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. Susan Byrnes: Untitled (Viscosity Series), 2018, pigmented cast polyurethane rubber, 24 x24 inches
NOVEMBER 30, 2018 – JANUARY 27, 2019 Admission is
Aronoff Center for the Arts / 650 Walnut St., Cincinnati, OH 45202 / www.WestonArtGallery.com 2018-19 Season Sponsor: Dee and Tom Stegman The Alpaugh Foundation The LaBoiteaux Family Foundation
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Black Monday (Jan. 20, Showtime) takes a humorous approach to revealing what — or who — sparked the 1987 stock market crash that rocked the world, centering on a group of outsiders (Don Cheadle, Andrew Rannells and Regina Hall) who infiltrate Wall Street and shake up the one-percent. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and God feels fine. That’s what’s happening in Miracle Workers (Feb. 12, TBS), when God (Steve Buscemi) checks out, leaving the fate of Earth hanging in the balance. Luckily, two lower-management angels (Daniel Radcliffe and Blockers’ Geraldine Viswanathan) swoop in to save the planet. Based on the titular memoir by Lindy West, Shrill (March Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi in Miracle Workers 15, Hulu) stars Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant as a PHOTO: COURTESY OF TBS journalist, girlfriend, daughter to sick parents, roommate to her best friend… and a fat woman, but Kansas City, Missouri. In an effort to ease that’s not what she’s trying to change. tensions between a rival Italian crime Could be one of the better attempts at body family, the patriarchs decide to swap sons. positivity in media in a long time. What could go wrong? With writing set to start soon and production likely in fall, we probably won’t see it premiere on FX until Another Chapter 2020, but at least it’s something to look If you’re a fan of Black Mirror, by now forward to as some of our favorite shows you’ve likely checked out Bandersnatch, (Veep, Broad City, Unbreakable Kimmy the interactive, choose-your-ownSchmidt) end for good this year. adventure film (which really felt more like a game) that premiered on Netflix just Final Seasons before the new year. As you contemplate A beautiful exploration of the modern the terrible decisions you made for poor family, Transparent will end sans Stefan, know that a potentially lighter star Jeffrey Tambor following sexual season of sci-fi mindfuckery is coming harassment allegations — and I think the sometime this year. talented cast can handle that. The season While Stranger Things might feel like will include a feature-length musical a Halloween show, its just-announced episode that creator Jill Soloway has third season will premiere on Netflix on described as a mix of Jesus Christ Superstar, the Fourth of July. It’s set in the summer La La Land, Flight of the Conchords and of 1985, will involve a new shopping mall Yentl. Due on Amazon this fall. in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, In the fourth and final season of Sam and… that’s about all we know. Since Esmail’s brilliant psychological drama Eleven connected with her “sister” Eight/ Mr. Robot, we’ll find Elliot (Rami Malek) Kali last season, I’m hoping we’ll meet contemplating a move that could reverse Nine and Ten. Five/Nine, a Fight Club-esque hack-attack Big Little Lies was initially sold as a oneintended to destroy financial records and off miniseries and told a complete, stellar redistribute wealth that had, oh, a few story. I’m certainly excited to see what the other consequences. Like much of this Real Housewives of Monterey have in store story, the premiere date remains a mystery, this season. The murder mystery plot really but it’s coming sometime this year. drove Season 1, so it will be interesting to Game of Thrones. April. HBO. Duh. see where the drama will come when it debuts this summer on HBO — likely from Contact Jac Kern: @jackern Meryl Streep, who plays the slain Perry’s mother.
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FOOD & DRINK Food Trend Predictions for 2019 What you can expect to see on your plate this year according to analysts and local chefs BY M A I JA Z U M M O
P
eople love a forecast — whether it’s for this weekend’s weather or the unfortunately real fashion prophecy that we’re all going to be wearing low-rise boot-cut jeans again this year like it’s 2001. But one thing people love more than an #OOTD is photographing their food, and here’s what major media outlets and analysts like Forbes, Whole Foods and Supermarket News are predicting we’re going to be ingesting and posting in 2019.
Designer Greens — After all the romaine lettuce/e. coli drama of 2018, shoppers are looking for atypical greens like celtuce aka celery lettuce aka a plant that looks like celery on the butt with lettuce hair. But fancy greens go beyond that: If you want to try some local designer greens, aquaponic microgreenery Waterfields grows and sells tiny greens like arugula, cilantro, chervil, cabbage and even edible flowers out of its East Price Hill warehouse, which show up in dishes at local restaurants including Karrikin Spirits Co., Salazar and Eighth & English. You can also visit Local Food Connection at ohiovalleyfood.com to order a variety of greens from a variety of local farmers year-round. Oat Milk — It’s the hip vegan milk made by soaking oats in water and straining them; you drink the strained part. OG Swedish company Oatly started the oat milk craze abroad about 25 years ago, but it has made it overseas and Quaker Oats is introducing an oat milk to the American market this year. If you want to try oat milk in a latte, Collective Espresso serves one at its Northside and OTR cafés, as does Brick Coffee Company in Norwood.
Orange Wine — This super funky wine — which is truly orangish in color — is made with grapes that keep their skins on during the fermentation process. The wine is less processed, has no additives and tastes kind of like kombucha (to the human being
Other Trends — You can also expect to see flavors from the Pacific Rim (the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.) ranging from dried fish and pork sausage to tropical fruits; Keto/ Paleo/“Pegan” (paleo + vegan) fats like MCT Oil; fake meat snacks like vegan jerky; and an overall move toward Earth-friendly packaging. We also asked local chefs what they thought diners might see at restaurants this year. Here’s what they had to say.
David Kelsey, Executive Chef
Metropole at 21c Museum Hotel Cincinnati What are you expecting to see in the 2019 food and beverage world? A return to the familiar. In general, I think diners will seek out familiarity in their dining experience. Sometimes people just want to have a delicious meal without having to think their way through it. If they want to be truly challenged, I see them turning to more ethnic cuisines. What are you hoping to see in the 2019 food and beverage world? Less waste or using more of what is typically wasted. Restaurants tend to throw a lot of usable trim in the garbage. It has been a focus of our kitchen to maximize every component of a product.
Anthony Sitek, Chef/Owner Crown Republic Gastropub
What are you expecting to see in the 2019 food and beverage world? An emphasis on convenience in the entire dining experience. Diners often go with what they know and what is easily accessible to them. We are finding that in our customer’s busy world, we have to provide an oasis of hospitality. Delivery will also be more prominent, and you may even find fine-dining restaurants adopting the trend. Locally sourced, “farm-to-table” will start taking precedent among more restaurants. What are you hoping to see in the 2019 food and beverage world?
Gaze into this crystal ball and you shall see a lot of CBD PHOTO: SHUT TERSTOCK.COM
Overall experience. Not everyone can be “fine dining” and when you have the “momand-pop” restaurants doing everything in house, people taste that freshness, quality and time that goes into the food. We can only hope that people appreciate that and go for the local places rather than chains. Any other random musings? Definitely Hemp, CBD and other cannabis trends. Also, other health trends being blended in with cocktails and menu items, such as activated charcoal, turmeric, matcha, etc.
Caitlin Steininger, Chef/Owner
CWC the Restaurant, Station Family BBQ
What are you expecting to see in the 2019 food and beverage world? I predict that comfort food will remain king. Food with family roots, food made with love, food that fills every part of you will be what will drive kitchens. Talented classically trained chefs will take precision and techniques to dishes their grandmothers served them. Flavors and scents that evoke memories of home will be what chefs continue to create. What are you hoping to see in the 2019 food and beverage world? I also predict that Cincinnati will start being respected as a food destination and a place not to be missed. Chefs like Jose
Salazar and Ryan Santos are leading the charge with James Beard recognition. Christian Gill is representing on the Food Network. We have a lot of amazing talent and a point of view unlike any other city.
Clint Walker, Executive Chef
Court Street Lobster Bar
What are you expecting to see in the 2019 food and beverage world? I think we’re going to see more pop-up kitchens in 2019. They give chefs (or restauranteurs) a chance to try something new and bring an entertainment vibe to the food experience that can be hard to replicate for your everyday diner. What are you hoping to see in the 2019 food and beverage world? I am really happy to see more chef-driven alcohol/beer brewing like Karrikin Spirits Co. I think that is going to be the next wave of “wow” — chef-driven menus, restaurants and breweries. There’s been a trend of brewery food to be very pub-driven, and I think that diners are wanting something a bit more spiritual, emotionally driven, something with soul, or simply more of the chef’s vision.
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CBD — It won’t get you high but CBD or cannabidiol is a compound extracted from the marijuana plant that’s supposed to help with everything from pain and anxiety to cancer symptoms. It’s popping up in everything from food products to tinctures. Locally, you can find it in Queen City Hemp’s tinctures and fizzy flavored CBD Seltzer. According to Forbes, even Coca-Cola is looking to get into the CBD game with some infused beverages.
writing this). If you want to try the trend, OTR’s Please generally has at least a bottle or two from which to choose; LouVino has a flight of rosé and orange pours; and Pleasantry focuses on natural wines as part of its mission statement, which includes orange.
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THE DISH
New and Now Restaurants to Try BY C I T Y B E AT S TA FF
Station Family + BBQ
Karrikin Spirits Co.
Branch and Night Drop
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PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER
PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER
Station Family + BBQ
The team behind Wyoming’s CWC the Restaurant — chef Caitlin Steininger, her sister and front of house Kelly Trush and their business partner Karen Klaus — have expanded their empire with a second neighborhood eatery. The new Station Family + BBQ opened Dec. 7. “Station Family + BBQ is the place that Caitlin, Karen and I — the three of us as business partners — that we want to go with our kids,” Trush says. “Collectively, we have 10 children with ages ranging from 4 to 14 and this is the place that we want to go to where we, as adults, can connect and have space for our children and kind of camp out if we want, but also have really good food. In our neighborhood.” The food menu, created by Steininger, features five main proteins smoked on site, plus seasonal sides and desserts. Right now, the menu lists proteins from Cincinnati sausage to brisket, pulled pork and salmon available naked (by the quarter pound) or as a platter ($8.50-$12.50), served with two sides. Sides include macaroni and cheese, homemade apple sauce, braised greens and caramelized onion gratin. The building that houses the eatery, well known in Wyoming as the former Sturkey’s restaurant, has been completely renovated. Guests can get traditional table service in
the old Sturkey’s bar area — which they did keep — or move to the dining room for a more casual, modern take where you can walk up, order and then have a seat at a communal table to wait for your food to arrive. Or head to the game room for pingpong, shuffle board or wall games. The bar menu features signature cocktails — the current crop is named after the construction crew with options like “The Bearded Man,” with Disaronno, fruit and simple syrup — beer and wine on tap, bottled beer and a special collaboration brew with Valley Vineyards made especially for Station Family. “(The beer is) called 1908, which is the year the building was built to be the fire station for the neighborhood,” says Trush. The restaurant is open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday, with Friday lunch and Saturday brunch hours. Brunch features Steininger’s twist on familiar dishes, like goetta made from smoker scraps, and clever cocktails. Station Family + BBQ, 400 Wyoming Ave., Wyoming, cincystation.com.
Karrikin Spirits Co.
Karrikin Spirits Co., a “grain to glass” distillery and restaurant located in Fairfax, opened its doors to the public on Dec. 6. The distillery, named for the
“compounds found in the smoke of a forest fire that stimulates dormant seeds to sprout,” is a one-stop-shop for a variety of housemade spirits and beverages like vodka, gin, agave, rum and fruit brandies as well as hard sodas, non-alcoholic sodas and beers. Guests can order craft cocktails, wine and various flights at Karrikin’s bar or even purchase bottled spirits to take home. In addition to beverages, the restaurant — helmed by chef Jared Bennett, formerly the executive chef of downtown’s Metropole — offers a menu of sharable plates with dishes like charred beets and fromage blanc, butternut squash spaetzle and day boat scallops with rutabaga and quinoa. The dining area includes two formal spaces on either side of the kitchenbar, which has a view of the wood-fired grill, and a lounge area with an eclectic grouping of chairs and couches upon which guests can sip, dine and hang out. The team behind the distillery comes from across the Queen City and includes — among others — Jeff Hunt, founder of MadTree Brewing; Mike Florea, former executive chef and operating partner at Maribelle’s eat+drink; and Eric Baumann, former vice president of Moerlein. Karrikin Spirits Co., 3717 Jonlen Drive, Fairfax, karrikinspirits.com.
Branch and Night Drop
The team behind The Littlefield has opened a new concept in East Walnut Hills in the former Art Deco Central Trust Bank Building at the corner of Woodburn and Madison avenues. Branch is the restaurant portion of the space and is located upstairs while Night Drop, the bar, is located downstairs. Both have a focus on local art with mosaics, chandeliers and murals created by Cincinnati artists. The menu at Branch is overseen by executive chef Shoshannah Anderson and offers a self-proclaimed mix of “classic and contemporary American with ethnic influences” as seen in dishes like Israeli chickpea salad, a lamb and beef burger with tomato jam and the Fra’Mani Italian sandwich. Branch is open seven days a week for dinner and for brunch on Saturday and Sunday. Head bartender Giacomo Ciminello, formerly of Sundry and Vice, oversees the drink menu and cocktails run the gamut from drafts to house to classics with options including the themed Cosigner (Fernet Branca, Cappelletti and soda) and Revolving Credit (gin, fennel, lemon, blackberry and egg white). Branch and Night Drop, 1535 Madison Road, East Walnut Hills, eatatbranch.com.
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CLASSES & EVENTS WEDNESDAY 09
Cincy Top 10 Food Tour — Enjoy a tasty sightseeing tour that stops by 10 Cincinnati landmarks and five restaurants the city is famous for. The jaunt includes lunch, an all-day streetcar pass and a three-hour tour. Tasting locations include Taste of Belgium, Graeter’s, Skyline, Holtman’s and more. 10 a.m. $49 adult; $39 children. Leaves from Taste of Belgium, 16 W. Freedom Way, The Banks, Downtown, riversidefoodtours.com.
THURSDAY 10
Date Night: Winter Pasta — This hands-on date night lets couples — or best friends — make pasta from scratch. Learn how to make fresh pasta, roll out dough and make sauces to dress each dish. The menu includes winter squash carbonara, sweet potato ravioli with caramelized onions and thyme and a farm-fresh kale, lemon and pecorino salad. 6:30-8:30 p.m. $125-$150 per pair. Turner Farm, 7400 Given Road, Indian Hill, turnerfarm.org. Taft House Party — Head to the Taft for a happy hour featuring classic board games, a “What Do You Meme” gallery tour and a DJ spinning records from the 1980s and ’90s. There will also be an adult hot chocolate bar and local food trucks for food and drinks. 5-8 p.m. Free. Taft Museum of Art, 316 Pike St., Downtown, taftmuseum.org.
Intro to Indian Cooking — In this class you’ll learn how to make basmati rice, yellow daal, aloo fry and a mango lassi — all dishes rooted in India’s vegetarian tradition adapted to today’s kitchen and lifestyle. Get hands-on experience learning how to cook Indian food. 6-8 p.m. $50. Findlay Kitchen, 1719 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, findlaykitchen.org.
SATURDAY 12
West Side Brewing Second Annual Chili Cookoff — If you didn’t register by Jan. 9 to submit your chili to win, you can still win by tasting everyone’s chili and rating them to choose a winner. There are hot and mild categories and everyone must use beer as an ingredient. Awards will be given to first, second and third place winners. Each person in attendance can sample chili entries and rank their top three. There will also be guest judges. Winners will be announced at 5 p.m. 1 p.m. Free admission. West Side Brewing, 3044 Harrison Ave., Westwood, facebook. com/westsidebrewing. January Wine Dinner at The Transept — Drink vino from Oregon’s Willamette Valley while enjoying four
Truffles and Bubbles — This hands-on workshop invites attendees to roll and decorate truffles. The evening starts with a chocolate tasting followed by a ganache recipe you can make at home. Led by Sherri Prentiss, founder of Velveteen Chocolate, you’ll leave with a box of your own chocolates and enjoy bubbly while you work. 5:30-7 p.m. $55. Findlay Kitchen, 1719 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, findlaykitchen.org. Automatic Drip Brewing Class — La Terza coffee roasters teach guests how to make a great cup of coffee at home. Learn the history of the automatic drip coffee brewer, learn about the science behind extraction, get tips and tricks for optimizing your home coffee brewing and experience a side-by-side comparison of a Mr. Coffee-style machine vs. a Technivorm-certified brewer. 9:30-10:30 a.m. $15. La Terza Artisan Coffee Roasterie, 611 Shepherd Drive, Unit 17, Lockland, facebook.com/laterzacoffee.
SUNDAY 13
Biscuits & Gravy: A Comet Brunch Comedy Showcase — Bombs Away! Comedy and The Comet have paired up for a special brunch. Three of Cincinnati’s top comics will perform after you eat. Brunch stops at 2 p.m.; comedy starts after. There will be also beer specials from Taft’s. 1:303:30 p.m. Free; brunch costs. The Comet, 4579 Hamilton Ave., Northside, facebook. com/bombsawaycomedy.
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Delicio and Urban Artifact Beer Pairing — This
Brewer’s Table at Moerlein Lager House — Take a seat at the Brewer’s Table to enjoy an evening of chefprepared food paired with Moerlein beers. The theme is “cooking with coffee” and the featured beer is an Irish Cream Coffee Porter. The chefs have created coffee-inspired dishes to pair with the porter, along with a Baltic Porter, Seven Hefeweizen and Beer Da Tiger. 7-10 p.m. $16. Moerlein Lager House, 115 Joe Nuxhall Way, Downtown, moerleinlagerhouse.com.
different courses. The evening starts with hors d’oeuvres in the kitchen followed by a first course of lobster bisque or salad, a second course of salmon, crab or lamb belly and a third course of pinot noirglazed veal osso buco or sage gnocchi. Dessert is a dark chocolate torte. 6-10 p.m. $115. The Transept, 1205 Elm St., Over-theRhine, facebook.com/ thetranseptotr.
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FRIDAY 11
dinner features six Urban Artifact beers paired with dishes from Delicio’s kitchen. 6:30-8:30 p.m. $25. Delicio Coal Fired Pizza, 3701 Montgomery Road, Evanston, facebook.com/ deliciocoalfiredpizza.
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Date Night: Couples at the Grill — Couples will learn to grill the perfect filet mignon in this hands-on class at Jungle Jim’s. Learn to make Cajun barbecue shrimp, grilled filet with horseradish butter, potato gratin, carrot and zucchini ribbons and mini Nutella bites. 6-8:30 p.m. $150 per couple. The Cooking School at Jungle Jim’s, 5440 Dixie Highway, Fairfield, junglejims.com.
Most classes and events require registration and classes frequently sell out.
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MUSIC Knowing Better Writer/musician Peter Aaron reflects on his new Richie Ramone book and his own storied Cincinnati past BY B I L L F U R B EE
“F
radio outlet WAIF. Those “industry” inroads put him in contact with labels and bands looking to book shows in the area. “I figured, ‘I wanna see these bands, so I guess I’m gonna have to do it,’ ” Aaron says of his booking beginnings. Aaron booked groups like Pussy Galore and The Fluid with partner Dan Reed at Corryville’s CJ’s Down Under. He then ventured out on his own at The Plaza, a Clifton Heights club located on West McMillan, part of a block eventually demolished and replaced by University of Cincinnati dorms. “(The Plaza) was the first place I booked the Flaming Lips at, and Dinosaur,” Aaron says (yes, that was before Dinosaur added the “Jr.” for legal reasons). “Then I worked with (fellow local booking legend) Bill Leist in the last days of the Jockey Club, which led to working at (Newport’s) Top Hat, where I booked Mudhoney on their first tour and White Zombie.” He also booked a relatively-unheard-of band named Nirvana a few times in 1989 and 1990. “They were supposed to play Top Hat, but had broken up and cancelled that first tour,” Aaron says. He brought the band back later in 1989 for a rescheduled date at Murphy’s Pub in Clifton Heights. The following year, Aaron and Leist were booking at Shorty’s Underground near Bogart’s on Short Vine and they brought Nirvana back for their final Cincinnati show. Aaron has estimated the attendance at the Murphy’s appearance at around 30; the Shorty’s show fared slightly better, drawing, in his estimate, approximately 80 fans. After about a five-year run of booking at clubs, Aaron says, “I was tapped out. I wanted to concentrate on making my own music.” Aaron’s Chrome Cranks starting taking shape around 1988, although it didn’t initially come out as he heard it in his head. After the band’s co-founder Bill Weber went to recording school in New York, Aaron decided to make a move. “I eventually couldn’t see any other way to do it,” Aaron says of his relocation to New York City to launch The Chrome Cranks in earnest. “I’d worn deep ruts in terms of making anything happen (in Cincinnati).” The Chrome Cranks maintained a robust touring schedule and “went hard and heavy for about five years straight after moving to New York, and never really took a break,” Aaron says, adding that the
Peter Aaron PHOTO: JEN KIABA
venture ended “like a lot of bands do — we were sick of each other. That was ’98.” With the band over, Aaron found himself at another crossroads. “I was left with, ‘Who am I? What am I gonna do now?’ ” he says. “I used to do fanzines and writing had always come naturally to me.” Aaron picked up some fanzine assignments and took a couple refresher courses at New York University, which led to newspaper and editing work. He says he felt writing books was the next logical step and eventually was contacted by a friend who worked at Backbeat Books. In 2013, he wrote If You Like the Ramones...: Here Are Over 200 Bands, CDs, Films, and Other Oddities That You Will Love and a few years later Backbeat published his overview of The Band. Then Aaron received word that Backbeat had been trying to find someone to help out with Richie Ramone’s autobiography. “It’s Richie telling the story,” Aaron says of I Know Better Now. “I’d never done a book like this before. It was a long adventure and Richie’s one of those people who plays it close to his chest — he’s not a big talker. I felt like it was a real journey for him, in terms of opening up. Once he started doing that, he really got into it and came out with a lot of great stories.” Aaron’s not finished reflecting on his time in Cincinnati. Chicago’s HoZac Records, the same label behind several recent Chrome Cranks reissues, has asked him to curate an upcoming compilation of early Cincinnati Punk recordings. “I’ve got tapes of stuff that was never released, so I’ve been trying to get that
transferred (digitally),” Aaron says. He says the project will likely feature bands like 11,000 Switches, The Customs and Dennis the Menace, plus material from ahead-of-its-time local label Hospital Records and much more. “The starting point will be 1975, which is when Bitter Blood’s ‘Picnic,’ an almost Proto Punk record, came out,” Aaron says. “That’s an amazing single. They started out in the late ’60s as Bitter Blood Street Theatre, just a way-out band.” Aaron pauses to consider the scope. “Should I take it to ’83, when things changed up to Hardcore?” he wonders. “Or ’85, with the first Wolverton Brothers? I’ll have to see how it shakes out, time-wise, but now HoZac is interested in splitting it into two volumes, which should make it easier. I’ve wanted to do (something like this) forever. I tried to do a cassette version back in the late ’80s, but I just had too many other projects at the time. Hopefully this is a good time to do it.” Lately, Aaron has also been enjoying positive reviews for his latest band project, Young Skulls, which includes Chris Turco of Trans Am. Rife with energetic crackle, dense, organ-backed Garage riffs and howling vocals driving meters into the red, the group’s new 7-inch release for Slovenly Recordings recalls the promising, raw energy of a young Murder City Devils or an intensified, harrowing Hentchmen. The dust cover on I Know Better Now notes, “Richie Ramone ain’t no footnote.” Neither is Peter Aaron. In whatever role he may next appear, making or archiving sounds that have shaped the world as we know it, we’re all better for it.
J A N . 0 9 -1 5 , 2 0 19 | C I T Y B E AT. C O M
or a couple years, I was a bitter guy with a day job that I didn’t want,” says Peter Aaron by phone from New York. That was after he’d spent a handful of years booking young bands like Nirvana and Mudhoney at small clubs around Greater Cincinnati, and then leading his own influential Blues Punk outfit The Chrome Cranks to international acclaim from an adopted home base in the Big Apple. Aaron eventually quit that day job. Now, his latest book — written about and with Punk icon Richie Ramone — can be found in a bookstore near you. I Know Better Now: My Life Before, During, and After the Ramones was published in late November by Backbeat Books. “The Ramones were one of those bands you never got sick of,” Aaron says. “They were a band that people loved in Cincinnati, just like everywhere else.” During his years booking bands in the Queen City, Aaron (then going by Pete Wegele) was there for the Ramones’ most notorious local gig. “It was a big deal when they played at (Newport’s) Jockey Club” Aaron says. That appearance in 1986 was caught by an over-capacity crowd that included members of Metallica, who happened to be passing through town and heard about the gig at the notorious Punk venue. In I Know Better Now, Richie recalls how singer/ guitarist James Hetfield expressed to him, casual beer in hand, a frustration that his own band couldn’t write songs with quite the same punch that Richie was able to. Aside from his recent writing career, Greater Cincinnati music fans may recall some of the shows that Aaron had a part in bringing to the city during the late ’80s and early ’90s. After moving from New Jersey to Cincinnati with his family in 1982, a teenage Aaron quickly set out to gauge our region’s Punk community. “The first thing I did was, find out where Punk Rock was,” Aaron says. “I’d go to Mole’s Records, saw flyers for Toxic Reasons and The Repellents and then thought, ‘I’ll be OK out here.’ ” Between sojourns to Boston for college, Aaron would return to Cincinnati, even strapping on a bass guitar to play Punk shows around town with Sluggo between his freshman and sophomore years. He also started doing the Suburban Muckraker fanzine and a show for local community
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SPILL IT
School of Rock Mason Salutes Local Bands BY M I K E B R EEN
BY M I K E B R EE N
R. Kelly Doc Makes Waves
Despite numerous sexual assault allegations against R. Kelly, the singer has remained wildly popular. But the recent documentary miniseries Surviving R. Kelly may have shifted the tide of public perception with its deep dive into the disturbing allegations. Producer dream hampton said the lack of participation by Kelly collaborators like Jay-Z, Lady Gaga and Celine Dion (who were offered a chance to respond in the doc) was indicative of how Kelly has been able to get away with the alleged abuse. “It’s not because they support him, it’s because it’s so messy and muddy,” hampton told the website Shadow and Act. “It’s that turning away that has allowed this to go on.”
Music Movies Win Globes
Aside from Rami Malek’s starring turn as Freddie Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody received lukewarm-to-freezing-cold reviews from critics. But that didn’t hurt box-office returns for the movie about Queen’s rise to Rock superstardom — it’s the highestgrossing musician biopic of all time. It also didn’t hamper Bohemian Rhapsody’s reputation in the eyes of award voters. Well, at least in the eyes of the notoriously odd “tastemakers” behind the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded Rhapsody its Best Motion Picture – Drama trophy for 2019. Another critically divisive music-centric film, Green Book (about Jazz pianist Don Shirley), won the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy award. Both films’ stars also fared well — Malek won Best Actor in a Drama and Mahershala Ali (who played Shirley in Green Book) won a Best Supporting Actor award.
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MASTERING OUR UNIVERSE: A TRIBUTE TO DAVE DAVIS
Kid Rock’s Butt OKed
Kid Rock’s efforts to ingratiate himself with Nashville continue… awkwardly. After being denied the grand marshal role at a Christmas parade because he called Joy Behar a “bitch,” Rock’s latest wrangling with Nashville officials had a happier ending. Nashville’s city council voted to allow a 20-foot neon sign at the singer’s new downtown bar/restaurant, Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk & Rock n’ Roll Steakhouse. Some members of the council objected to the sign featuring a giant guitar because, as The Tennessean eloquently put it, “the base of the instrument is intentionally shaped like a woman’s buttocks.”
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This Sunday (Jan. 13), students from the benefit are $8 in advance (via cincyticket. School of Rock Mason will pay tribute com) or $10 at the door. The show begins at to music made by Cincinnati artists 7 p.m. (the School’s “History of Punk” show from various eras at the Woodward is Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Woodward). Theater (1404 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, Visit mason.schoolofrock.com and woodwardtheater.com). Proceeds from mrccinci.org for info on both local music the “Cincinnati Tribute - Our Homage organizations. To Local Bands” will go to the East Walnut Hills nonprofit Music Resource Center Cincinnati, which shares similar motives and goals with SoR, providing educational resources for teens interested in the various facets of modern music, from recording to performance. Mason, Ohio’s School of Rock branch regularly presents themed showcases in area clubs that feature classes of students performing the music they learned in a particular “semester.” In 2018, after learning the ABCs of Former Cincy band Pearlene to get School-of-Rock-cover treatment performing and/or playing, School of Rock-ers have PHOTO: SEAN HUGHES done overview retrospectives of genres like Soul, Indie Rock, Blues, Reggae and “Yacht Rock,” Kim Taylor Release Concert as well as single-artist tributes to the likes Singer/songwriter Kim Taylor is gearing of Rush, Guns N’ Roses, Black Sabbath, up for the release of her latest album, Songs Green Day, Queen and others. of Instruction. Taylor announced the SoR Mason has close ties to Cincinnati’s project last spring with a crowd-funding original music community. The school has campaign. Due Feb. 22 on all major digital instructors from local bands and students platforms, Songs of Instruction is Taylor’s have gone on to form their own original first full-length since 2013’s Love’s a Dog. acts that have become active in the area Since then, Taylor has pursued acting and club scene and beyond. Bands of students formed a duo project with Boston singer/ have also performed at local events like the songwriter Todd Thibaud called Water and MidPoint Music Festival and Cincinnati Sand. Taylor recently announced that a Entertainment Awards. new Water and Sand album is also in the The artists getting the tribute treatment works, marking the follow-up to their 2016 include The Afghan Whigs, Bootsy Collins, debut full-length. Taylor is also returning Buffalo Killers, Electric Citizen, Foxy to China in 2019; the singer’s song “I Am Shazam, The Greenhornes, Heartless You” became an unexpected hit there, Bastards, The Hiders, Pearlene, The leading to multiple Chinese tours in 2018. Raisins, The Sundresses, Tweens, Ahead of Songs of Instruction’s release, Vacation and Wussy. Taylor released a mesmerizing new single, Some of the original artists behind the “The Hard Way” — and its accompanying songs will not only be on hand to hear their music video — late last year. work being covered — they’ll also be active Taylor will be performing an early participants. hometown release celebration with a “Members from several of the bands will full band this Saturday, Jan. 12. Advance be sitting in with kids to play on their songs, tickets for the 7 p.m. performance at including members of Electric Citizen, downtown’s Christ Church Cathedral were Pearlene, Wussy, Tweens, The Sundresses, free and sold out quickly, but you can still The Hiders and Vacation,” says SoR sign up to be on a waiting list and receive Mason’s owner and general manager Tim an email should any tickets become Garry. “They have already rehearsed with available. our students. It has been great to connect Visit Taylor’s Facebook page (facebook. them with our musical community. They com/kimtaylorsongwriter) for the latest are thrilled to have us engaging with and ticketing and album release updates. covering their music and I think seeing the kids working on their music reminds them Contact Mike Breen: of when they were starting out.” mbreen@citybeat.com. Tickets for SoR’s Taste of Cincinnati
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Thursday • Blue Note Harrison
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Cincinnati area Insane Clown Posse fans won’t have a chance to see the Rap duo any time soon, but this week area Juggalos can experience half of ICP. Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J — who founded ICP in Detroit 30 years ago — are each on solo tours that will wind through different parts of America until Feb. 15, when the pair rejoins forces in New Orleans for a special Mardi Gras edition of its Juggalo Weekend fan fest. That same day, the anticipated new ICP album Fearless Fred Fury (the “fourth jokers card of the second hand”) is being released. The duo’s individual tours are actually hitting some of the same cities/venues — hardcore Southwestern Ohio fans can catch Violent J (with Esham) in Dayton,
J A N . 0 9 -1 5 , 2 0 19
Though you may have never heard of him before, Chicagobased singer/ songwriter/organist Neal Francis is in the midst of a major comeback. And given the momentum he’s built up going into 2019, there’s a good chance you’ll have heard of Francis by the time the year is over, particularly if you’re a fan of classic Funk, Soul and R&B and the new generation of artists reinterpreting it. The 30-year-old developed a love for Boogie Woogie piano as a child and, by 18, he was touring across the U.S. and in Europe backing various Blues artists (including a son of the legendary Muddy Waters). In 2012, Francis joined Chicago Funk act The Heard, which was in the middle of building up its reputation on the national touring circuit. But within a couple of years, addiction issues intervened and Francis found himself out of the band and evicted from his apartment. After being hospitalized for broken bones resulting from an alcoholinduced seizure, Francis decided to clean up his act. Francis’ newfound solo career has run tangential to his recovery. With a vintage sound shaped by self-avowed influences like Dr. John, Leon Russell, Allen Toussaint, The Meters, The Band and Billy Preston, Francis has spent the past couple of years working toward the release of new music and building a crack 10-piece backing band. Last year, Francis completed work in L.A. and Chicago on his debut album and played his first show, quickly scoring a deal with preeminent booking agency Paradigm. Between increased touring in 2019 (including several dates with Los Lobos), Francis is gearing up for the release of his debut full-length this summer. But before then, Francis’ debut single is slated to drop on Karma Chief Records, a subsidiary of powerhouse old-school-styled Soul music indie label Colemine Records, which is based in Loveland, Ohio. Francis’ vinyl 45 for Karma Chief features the tracks “These Are The Days” and “Changes, Pt. 1” and is due imminently. (Mike Breen)
11:30am-5pm Hours: 11:30am - 6:00pm
January 11 2015
Neal Francis
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MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR THESE ‘DON’T MISS’ EVENTS
U.S. Bombs P H O T O : U S B O M B S . B A N D C A M P. C O M
MARCH 2019 BEST OF CINCINNATI 2019 WWW.BESTOFCINCINNATI.COM TICKETS ON SALE NOW
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Ohio at Oddbody’s on Jan. 25, then see Shaggy 2 Dope (with Ouija Macc) at the same club on Jan. 30. Shaggy (whose tour comes to Newport this week) released his third solo album, F.T.F.O.M.F. — which stands for “Fuck the Fuck Off Motherfucker,” obviously — on ICP’s Psychopathic Records in 2017. It topped the Billboard independent label chart when it was released and is Shaggy’s best-selling solo effort to date. It also received some relatively positive critical acclaim (relative in that ICP never gets a fair shake with critics) due to the rapper and DJ Clay’s creative co-production work on the album. In a recent interview with Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Current, Shaggy (real name: Joseph Utsler) said that on his current tour he’ll be performing ICP material (though nothing from the new album) alongside his solo work. In the same interview, he also addressed an incident involving Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, which put Shaggy in the music headlines in 2018. While a viral video appeared to show the rapper muffing a dropkick attempt on Durst as he performed, Shaggy says he was just messing around after telling his friends he’d dropkick Durst if he got close enough. Shaggy — who has participated in many pro-wrestling events over the years — says he did the move correctly, but it looked bad because an unaware Durst didn’t “sell it” like an actual pro wrestler would have. “But straight up — if I really wanted to dropkick his ass off, he would’ve went flying ’cause he was not prepared for it whatsoever,” Shaggy added. “He had no idea it was coming.” (MB)
U.S. Bombs with Total Chaos Sunday • Southgate House Revival
Veteran Punk band U.S. Bombs has a history almost as tumultuous and frenetic as their genre. Since their 1993 formation in Orange County, California, the band has played as a quartet and a quintet,
recorded about a dozen studio albums and featured nearly two dozen different members, including notables Jonny “2 Bags” Wickersham (Social Distortion), Jack Dalrymple (One Man Army) and Zander Schloss (Circle Jerks). The only constant in U.S. Bombs over the past 25 years has been vocalist/pro skateboarder Duane Peters, who has periodically shelved the band for side projects and personal and professional sabbaticals. Three years ago, he announced the break-up of U.S. Bombs via Instagram, citing 2013 as the band’s actual year of demise; last year, after failed negotiations to reunite the longstanding lineup of guitarist Kerry Martinez, bassist Wade Watson and drummer Chip Hanna, Peters assembled a brand-new group and recorded the just-released Road Case, their first album of new material in 12 years. From the onset, U.S. Bombs has espoused an old school brand of Punk, a raw blend of The Clash’s political awareness (The Clash being Peters’ primary influence; just last year, the new lineup recorded “Death or Glory” and “Straight to Hell” covers), The Ramones’ swagger and The Sex Pistols’ aggression. The group has notched a number of interesting benchmarks along the way. In the late ’90s, U.S. Bombs became the first signing to Tim Armstrong’s Hellcat imprint through Epitaph Records. Soon after, the band did a stint as the house band for Jim Breuer’s season-long hosting gig on Comedy Central’s stand-up showcase, Premium Blend. Their first Hellcat release, 1997’s War Birth, was their biggest selling album but it was also the last for guitarist Chuck Briggs, who left the band for health reasons (he died shortly thereafter from the HIV virus, contracted through intravenous drug use). Peters also struggled for years with substance abuse problems, although he has by all accounts been sober since rehab in 2007. Peters’ Punk passion has never been in question, but his volatility could be a mitigating factor in the band’s steady turnover. Long known as The Master of Disaster, Peters famously robbed a 7-Eleven twice in one day, did several years of hard time and, in 2014, he pleaded guilty to a felony domestic violence charge. Peters remains as vigorously misanthropic as ever; in a recent tweet, he posted, “Wishing everyone Real Love! Even Tho I Can’t stand most of you! 99%!” Maybe not what you’d expect from a skateboarding pioneer, but exactly what you’d expect from the incendiary frontman of U.S. Bombs. (Brian Baker)
LISTINGS
CityBeat’s music listings are free. Send info to Mike Breen at mbreen@citybeat.com. Listings are subject to change. H is CityBeat staff’s stamp of approval.
WEDNESDAY 09
ARNOLD’S BAR AND GRILL - Todd Hepburn. 7 p.m. Piano/Various. Free. BLIND LEMON - Tom Roll. 7:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free. CAFFÈ VIVACE - Blue Wisp Big Band. 8 p.m. Big Band Jazz. CHRIST CHURCH GLENDALE - Ricky Nye. Noon. Blues. Free.
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THE GREENWICH Brandon Coleman Quartet. 8:30 p.m. Jazz. $5. KNOTTY PINE - Dallas Moore. 10 p.m. Country. Free.
THE MAD FROG - Hip Hop Open Mic. 9 p.m. Hip Hop MERITAGE - Sonny Moorman. 7 p.m. Blues. Free.
H
MOTR PUB - Neal Francis. 10 p.m. Soul/ Funk/Blues. Free.
SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (LOUNGE) - Ray Vietti with Alex Salcido. 9 p.m. Acoustic. Free. STANLEY’S PUB - Otis and Mike Beaty. 9 p.m. Southern Rock/Blues. Cover.
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URBAN ARTIFACT Tooth Lures a Fang with Sorry Eric and J. Stout. 9 p.m. Indie/Pop/Rock. Free.
THURSDAY 10
BLIND LEMON - Mark Macomber. 7:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free. BLUE NOTE HARRISON - Shaggy 2 Dope. 7 p.m. Rap. $20.
CAFFÈ VIVACE Spherical Agenda. 7:30 p.m. Jazz.
COMMON ROOTS Common Roots Open Mic. 8 p.m. Open Mic. Free. THE GREENWICH - Phil DeGreg & Friends: Brazilian Jam Session. 8:30 p.m. Brazilian Jazz. $5.
MOTR PUB - Reverent with John Bender and Human Program. 10 p.m. Experimental/Electronic/ Various. Free. NORTHSIDE TAVERN Karaoke Fantastic. 9 p.m. Various. Free. PLAIN FOLK CAFE - Open Mic. 7 p.m. Various. Free.
H
SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (REVIVAL ROOM) - Bloom. with What If When We Die, We Scatter? 8 p.m. Alt/Rock/ Various. $8, $10 day of show.
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STANLEY’S PUB Musha x Kusha and The Inturns. 10 p.m. Psych/ Indie/Rock. Cover. URBAN ARTIFACT - Troy Gallagher, Stella, Smoothy and Ralph. 9 p.m. Rock/ Various.
FRIDAY 11
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ARNOLD’S BAR AND GRILL - Maria Carrelli Band. 8 p.m. Bluegrass/ Americana. Free. BLIND LEMON - Billy Otten. 6 p.m. Acoustic. Free. BOGART’S - Cardi B Vs Nicki Minaj Club Dance Night. 9 p.m. Dance/Hip Hop/DJ. $8.
Cincinnati Indie Rock band Tooth Lures a Fang’s January residency at Urban Artifact continues Wednesday.
BROMWELL’S HÄRTH LOUNGE - Steve Schmidt Trio. 9 p.m. Jazz. Free.
p.m. Acoustic Rock. Cover.
H H
CAFFÈ VIVACE Crackpot Theory. 8:30 p.m. Jazz.
GALLAGHER STUDENT CENTER THEATRE - Igor Butman and Moscow Jazz Orchestra. 8 p.m. Swing/Jazz. $5-$35.
JAG’S STEAK AND SEAFOOD - My Sister Sarah. 9:30 p.m. Rock/Pop/ Various. Cover. JIM AND JACK’S ON THE RIVER - Michelle Robinson Band. 9 p.m. Country. Free.
KNOTTY PINE - Kenny Cowden. 9 p.m. Acoustic. Free.
KNOTTY PINE - Wayward Son. 10 p.m. Classic Rock. Cover.
THE MAD FROG - EDM
THE MAD FROG - The Honeysuckles and more. 9
PHOTO: PROVIDED
MANSION HILL TAVERN Blue Ravens with Gary Bass. 9 p.m. Blues. Cover. MARTY’S HOPS & VINES Over Easy. 9 p.m. Soft Rock. Free.
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MOTR PUB - Kid ESP with Blue Chairs. 10 p.m. Post Punk. Free.
NORTHSIDE TAVERN - Big Hit, Molly Sullivan and Wavelette. 10 p.m. Indie Rock. Free.
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NORTHSIDE YACHT CLUB - Crafter, Voices in Vain, Daywalker and The Obnoxious Boot. 8 p.m. Hardcore. $6.
PIRATES DEN (WESTERN HILLS) - Saving Stimpy. 9 p.m. Rock. Free.
PLAIN FOLK CAFE - The Redemptioners. 7:30 p.m. Roots. Free. THE REDMOOR - River City. 6 p.m. Pop/Dance/Various. Cover. RICK’S TAVERN - The Menus. 10 p.m. Rock/Pop/ Various. $5.
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SCHOOL OF ROCK MASON - School of Rock Mason History of Punk Show. 7:30 p.m. Punk tribute. $6, $8 day of show.
SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (LOUNGE) Beasts of Joy. 9:30 p.m. Acoustics/Roots/Various. Free. STANLEY’S PUB - Terrapin Moon. 10 p.m. Grateful Dead tribute. Cover.
TOP CATS - Nave Netoow with Maggy and The Cosmonauts. 9 p.m. Indie/ Alt/Comedy/Various. WASHINGTON PLATFORM SALOON & RESTAURANT - John Zappa Quartet. 9 p.m. Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).
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WOODWARD THEATER - Night of Stars featuring Ben Levin, Bob Margolin, Philip Paul, Johnny Fink, Ricky Nye, Bob Corritore, Bekah Williams and more. 7:30 p.m. R&B/ Blues/Various. $15-$50 (King Studios benefit).
SATURDAY 12
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ARNOLD’S BAR AND GRILL - Kyrstal
Peterson and the Queen City Band. 8 p.m. R&B/Soul/ Funk/Various. Free. ARONOFF CENTER FOR THE ARTS - Elvis Tribute Artist Spectacular featuring Shawn Klush, Cody Ray Slaughter, Ryan Pelton, The Blackwood Quartet and The Fabulous Ambassadors Band. 8 p.m. Elvis tributes. $22.75-$78.75.
BROMWELL’S HÄRTH LOUNGE - Steve Schmidt Trio. 9 p.m. Jazz. Free.
J A N . 0 9 -1 5 , 2 0 19 | C I T Y B E AT. C O M
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Thursdays. 9 p.m. DJ/ Electronic/Dance. Cover.
CAFFÈ VIVACE FrenchAxe. 8:30 p.m. Jazz
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THE AVENUE EVENT CENTER - Lil Durk. 10 p.m. Hip Hop. $30-$60. BLIND LEMON - Sal & Joya. 9 p.m. Acoustic. Free.
H
TOP CATS - Brass Owl, Chalk Eye, Blessed Black and It Takes A Thief. 9 p.m. Rock/Various. Cover. URBAN ARTIFACT Resonator with The Wastemen and Watchfrogs. 3 p.m. Rock/Various. Free.
WASHINGTON PLATFORM SALOON & RESTAURANT Ron Jones. 9 p.m. Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).
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WOODWARD THEATER - Cincinnati Tribute - School of Rock Mason’s Homage to Local Bands. 7:30 p.m. Cincinnati music tribute. $8, $10 day of show (benefit for Music Resource Center Cincinnati).
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WYOMING CIVIC CENTER - Bourbon, Blues & BBQ featuring Ricky Nye Inc., Wild Mountain Berries and J Dorsey Blues Band. 7 p.m. Blues/Various. Free.
SUNDAY 13
Hip Hop star Lil Durk appears Saturday at The Avenue Event Center. PHOTO: PROVIDED
THE COMET - Lizzie Anne, Tyler Strobl and Brea Shay. 10 p.m. Singer/Songwriter. Free.
C I T Y B E AT. C O M |
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FOLEY’S IRISH PUB Acoustic Pete Blues Trio. 7 p.m. Blues/Rock/Americana/ Various.
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THE GREENWICH - Radio Black. 9 p.m. R&B/Soul/ Dance/Hip Hop. $10. JAG’S STEAK AND SEAFOOD - Airwave. 9:30 p.m. Dance/R&B/Jazz/Pop/ Various. Cover. JIM AND JACK’S ON THE RIVER - StrangeLove. 9 p.m. Rock/Pop/Various. Free. KNOTTY PINE - Naked Karate Girls. 10 p.m. Pop/ Rock/Various. Cover. LUDLOW GARAGE - The
Stranger. 8:30 p.m. Billy Joel tribute. $17.50-$35.
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LYDIA’S ON LUDLOW - Ma Crow & Co. 7 p.m. Bluegrass/Americana. Free.
THE MAD FROG Baked Prophecy Tour with EazyBaked and Prophet. 9 p.m. EDM. $15.
H
MADISON THEATER - Signs of Life (10th Anniversary Show). 9 p.m. Pink Floyd tribute. $20, $25 day of show.
MANSION HILL TAVERN - Chuck Brisbin & the Tuna Project. 9 p.m. Blues. Cover. MARTY’S HOPS & VINES - Lisak and Rowe. 9 p.m. Acoustic Rock. Free. MOTR PUB - Red Samantha. 10 p.m.
Alternative Rock. Free. NORTHSIDE YACHT CLUB - Revenge Season with 30 Nights of Violence, Treason, Inferious and Coldcase. 8 p.m. Metal/Hardcore. $10, $12 day of show.
H
PLAIN FOLK CAFE Missy Werner Band. 7:30 p.m. Bluegrass. Free. RICK’S TAVERN - Top This Band. 10 p.m. R&B/Dance/ Pop/Various. $5.
SCHOOL OF ROCK MASON - Cincinnati Tribute - School of Rock Mason’s Homage to Local Bands. 7:30 p.m. Cincinnati music tribute. $6, $8 day of show. SILVERTON CAFE - Night Owls. 5 p.m. Rock/Pop/ Dance. Free.
SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (LOUNGE) - Sean Whiting. 9:30 p.m. Blues/ Roots/Rock. Free.
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SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (SANCTUARY) International Blues Challenge Showcase/ Fundraiser featuring Johnny Fink and the Intrusion, Doug Hart Band, Allen Talbott and Lil Red and the Rooster. 8 p.m. Blues. $5.
STANLEY’S PUB - Electric Son and The Generics. 10 p.m. Funk/Rock. Cover. THOMPSON HOUSE Projekt: Alex. 8 p.m. Alt/ Metal/Various. $10.
H
TOP CATS - The Ape Tones with Vandalia, Mike Bandanna and In2itiv3. 9 p.m. Rock/Alt/Various. Cover.
H
URBAN ARTIFACT - Honey Combs & Combo Slice, State of Calamari and Maya Lou and a Uke. 7:30 p.m. Acoustic/ Roots/Rock/Various.
MONDAY 14
BLIND LEMON - Ben Armstrong. 8 p.m. Acoustic. Free. THE GREENWICH - The Flying Circus Big Band. 7:30 p.m. Big Band Jazz. $5. KNOTTY PINE - Open Mic. 9 p.m. Various. Free. MOTR PUB - Winter Ring with Ishmael. 9 p.m. Indie Rock. Free. NORTHSIDE TAVERN Northside Jazz Ensemble. 10 p.m. Jazz. Free.
BLIND LEMON - Jeff Henry. 8:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free.
STANLEY’S PUB - Jazz Jam. 9 p.m. Jazz/Improv. Free.
CAFFÈ VIVACE - Classical Revolution. 3 p.m. Classical/ Various.
TUESDAY 15
THE COMET - The Comet Bluegrass All-Stars. 7:30 p.m. Bluegrass. Free.
ARNOLD’S BAR AND GRILL - Cheryl Renée. 7 p.m. Blues. Free.
KNOTTY PINE - Randy Peak. 10 p.m. Acoustic/ Various. Free.
BLIND LEMON - Nick Tuttle. 8:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free.
MOTR PUB - Teddy and the Rough Riders. 8 p.m. Country Rock. Free. NORTHSIDE TAVERN Classical Revolution. 8 p.m. Classical/Various. Free.
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NORTHSIDE YACHT CLUB - Nesh and Binary and Lashes. 9 p.m. Metal/Hardcore
SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (SANCTUARY) - U.S. Bombs with Total Chaos. 8 p.m. Punk Rock. $15.
CAFFÈ VIVACE - Pamela Mallory & Wayne Yeager. 7:30 p.m. Jazz. CROW’S NEST - Open Mic Night. 8 p.m. Various. Free. LATITUDES BAR & BISTRO - Latitudes House Band and Open Mic. 8 p.m. Various (open mic at 11 p.m.). Free. THE MAD FROG - House Music. 9 p.m. EDM. Free. STANLEY’S PUB Trashgrass Troubadours with Bobby Mcgee. 8 p.m. Bluegrass. Cover.
STANLEY’S PUB - Open Jam. 9 p.m. Improv/Various. Free.
SEE CITYBEAT.COM FOR FULL MUSIC LISTINGS AND ALL CLUB LOCATIONS.
PUZZLE
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AC R O S S
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takes possession of the personal property. Extra Space Storage hold a public auction at the location indicated: 8080 Steilen Drive, Florence, KY 41042 on January 15th, 2019 at 12:15 pm. Unit 217, Unit 409, Unit 640, Unit 736, Unit 1007, Unit 1104, Unit 1120, Unit 1503, Unit 2102, Unit 2307, Unit 2520, Unit 2610, Unit 2704, Unit 2711, Unit 2716 The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures. com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property. Extra Space Storage will hold a public auction at the location indicated: 525 W 35th St, Covington, KY 41015 on Tuesday January 15, 2019 at 1:30 PM. Unit 02124, Unit 04111, Unit 02330, Unit 03206, Unit 04101, Unit 02121, Unit 06127, Unit 06104, Unit 03115, Unit 05135, Unit 06116 The auction will be listed and advertised on storagetreasures. com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
Extra Space Storage hold a public auction at the location indicated: 7 Sperti Dr Ste 100, January 15, 2019 at 1:15 PM Unit 1042, , Unit 1107, Unit 1110, Unit 2147, Unit 1405, Unit 1115, Unit 1054 The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures. com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder More Local Numbers: 800-777-8000
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Notice is hereby given that Extra Space Storage will sell at public auction at the storage facility listed below: 5970 Centennial Circle, Florence, KY 41042, 859-408-5219, January 15th, 2019, 12:30 pm Unit 818 The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures. com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
J A N . 0 9 -1 5 , 2 0 19   |   C I T Y B E AT. C O M
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