FEATURES

Illustration by Lars Leetaru

Didn’t this city used to have streetcars? And weren’t those streetcars replaced by modern, efficient buses? What is the sense of bringing back an outmoded form of transportation?
—Irate and Overtaxed

Dear Irate and Overtaxed:
Are you two victims of urban outrage or one? Is one of you Irate but fairly taxed and the other Overtaxed but OK with it? Just curious.

Cincinnati did indeed used to have streetcars. If you are not too irate or overtaxed to travel to the flamboyant city of San Francisco, you may ride actual, historic, nonpolluting streetcars just like the ones we traded in for loud, unpleasant diesel buses. The San Francisco transit system has acquired vintage cars and even painted them to look like streetcars from other cities. Number 1057—canary yellow with green stripes along the body—commemorates Cincinnati Street Railway Co., which transported its last passenger in 1951.

The reason behind “bringing back an outmoded form of transportation” is the recent and fairly widespread discovery that one city’s outmoded form of transportation is another city’s key to neighborhood redevelopment. Portland, Oregon, for example, found that installation of streetcar rails from the city center into the forlorn, semi-industrial Pearl District led to billions of dollars of new investment in what is now a repopulated and rather expensive neighborhood. Sleek, quiet Portland streetcars are now developing even more areas along the burbling Willamette River. It is believed, among thoughtful Cincinnatians, that a streetcar loop running from the theoretical Banks to the already-here-and-ripe-for-conversion Brewery District north of Findlay Market might be a sensible step in a long range strategy to reverse the city’s population and tax base losses. Young people whose irate and overtaxed years lie ahead of them seem not to find the automobile-dependent reaches of the metropolis quite as beguiling as their elders do. Indeed, they seem to find the idea of residence in a remade city neighborhood served by a convenient streetcar quite appealing. But they want the real thing when it comes to transit. Fake old-timey streetcars on rubber tires do not fool anyone with half a wit.

People keep telling me this is a great basketball town. So how come there’s no professional basketball team?
—Crosstown Cynic

Dear Cynic:
Dr. Know thinks you have incorrectly chosen your nom de plume. All of Dr. Know’s truly cynical acquaintances believe that there is nothing more professional than big time college basketball, an enterprise in which Cincinnatians have invested heavily for over half a century. Perhaps you mean to say a National Basketball Association team? There was ensconced at Cincinnati Gardens from 1957 to 1972 an NBA team called the Royals, an organization cursed with wanderlust. The restless Royals came to Cincinnati from Rochester and left Cincinnati for Kansas City, where they became the Kings prior to moving on to Sacramento, where they at last put down roots. Dr. Know’s dreamier, less cynical friends continue to believe that the Royals will one happy day return. Were they to do so, they would certainly find that loyalties to the current pros have only hardened since 1972 (just ask Nancy Zimpher) and their prospects would be as gloomy as the Royals’ onetime home in Roselawn.

I’ve lived in Illinois, California, and Indiana, but this is the only place where I’ve heard people call a wake or a funeral a “lay out.” The expression seems more suited to a buffet supper. Am I being overly sensitive?
—Delhi Mourner

Dear Mourner:
While Dr. Know believes that most Cincinnatians call a funeral a funeral, and call the communal casserole hour after the burial a wake, he is aware that some natives do refer to the socially awkward display of the corpse between what citizens with southern roots solemnly refer to as passing (death to the rest of us) and the actual funeral or memorial service as a “lay out.” (Visitation is the term preferred by undertakers—or, as they call themselves, funeral directors). Dr. Know avoids the phrase “lay out” because it makes him think of a trampoline maneuver and/or federal expenditures. But he wants you to rejoice in this use of the term since it incorporates correct use of the verb “to lay,” which is in danger of merging completely with “to lie.” He would like for you to say to yourself at every opportunity, “Grandpa always said he would appreciate having a bit of a lie-down when it came time for his lay out,” to help you remember the distinction.

Dr. Know is Albert Pyle. He is not a real doctor, but he is executive director of the Mercantile Library. Curious about the city’s peculiarities? Click here to submit your question.
Originally published in the March 2009 issue.