ILLUSTRATION BY LARS LEETARU
I live in Oakley at the end of Mt. Vernon Avenue. A friend says she remembers an old news story about all the houses on my block being “imports”—they originally had been in a different neighborhood but then all got hoisted and moved. To my street! Is this true? Is it even possible? —HOME SWAPPED HOME
DEAR SWAPPED:
Where goes the neighborhood? The Hamilton County Auditor shows your block on Mt. Vernon Avenue as having a dozen houses built between 1900 and 1919 (yours was built in 1910). But wait. The Doctor is looking at a detailed street map from decades later (1937), and it displays this entire block as empty—not a single house. Insert the theme from The Twilight Zone here.
The answer: If you’ve ever enjoyed a meal at Oakley’s Bonefish Grill or admired a necklace at nearby Wm. Effler Jewelers, you just might have been sitting in your own living room’s original location. Your house and its neighbors used to dwell along Madison Road and Wasson Road, but in 1977 they were replaced by the sprawling Hyde Park Center—one of several Oakley/Norwood businesses that pretend they’re in Hyde Park. Instead of the displaced homes being demolished, they were individually dragged to Mt. Vernon Avenue, then rehabbed and resold. Just imagine the Realtor’s ad for your block: “New look, same great termites!”
Central Parkway is getting redesigned yet again. It’s a wide street because, of course, it started as a canal in the 1800s. I got to wondering: Did Cincinnati consider other routes for running the canal through town to the Ohio River? Maybe Seventh Street or connecting to the Mill Creek? Something else? —ROUTE CANAL
DEAR ROUTE:
Surely you jest. You actually wonder if deciding where Cincinnati’s canal went—making property values explode all along its banks—might possibly have involved an ugly power struggle that delayed its completion for years? Have the Doctor’s history lessons on these pages taught you nothing?
Cincinnati had lots of newspapers in 1825, all funded by competing cabals of property owners. They printed lofty editorials—completely objective, mind you—explaining why the best possible canal route just happened to be the one that best lined their sugar daddy’s pockets. Along with the “upper” and “lower” options (we couldn’t find anything more specific), there was a proposal to run the canal vertically, straight down between Vine and Elm streets. Yes, Cincinnati almost had a neighborhood called Beside-the-Rhine. You will not be surprised to learn that the winning canal route, today’s Central Parkway, did not open for another four years, and even then it only ran to Main Street. As for Central Parkway’s pending redesign now, do not worry. It’s being carefully considered by a distinguished cabal of property owners.
When I go to my eye doctor in Blue Ash, I pass some kind of large government building. There’s a U.S. flag out front and another flag I don’t recognize, but no sign. Sometimes there’s a really, really long line of people outside. Other times, nobody. It’s all very mysterious. What is it? —HOMELAND INSECURITY
DEAR HOMELAND:
Not to make you nervous or anything, but you are probably referring to the U.S. I******tion Office, which also seems to be a Department of H******d S******y facility, located at 9**** R*** Drive. It apparently provides various i******tion services, some of which may be, um, unwelcome to the recipient. That is to say, part of the facility seems to be a j***.
We found a site saying it’s open to the public only on T****** and T******* mornings, so that might explain the occasional long line of people you see outside. Another website about the facility had reviews (as if the place was a restaurant), saying things like, They treat you like s*** . . . . There were a lot of children there, and not to have a bathroom is inappropriate. . . . Officers are rude and very racist. Nothing about the desserts.
To summarize: The Doctor knows nothing whatsoever about any building at this address, and at the slightest suggestion will happily deny it’s even there. Burn this magazine after reading.
Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here.
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