Street Smarts: Something About Mary

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URBAN PLANNING
Cincinnati philanthropist Mary Emery founded Mariemont to be a national examplar (so that’s where the restaurant name comes from). Landscape architect John Nolen led Emery’s charge to create a self-sufficient, working-class community integrated with its surrounding landscape. In 1923, Emery broke ground with a silver spade. While her death and the Great Depression kept the full vision from becoming reality, the work was not in vain: the American Planning Association chose Mariemont as one of the nation’s 10 Great Neighborhoods in 2008.

ANCIENT APPEAL
Centuries before Mary Emery set her sights on the area, present-day Mariemont was the site of a Native American settlement. A series of archeological digs have dated it—at what’s called the Madisonville site, now near the swimming pool—to the late Fort Ancient period. Apparently it’s now thought to be one of the largest settlements around. An ancient earthwork believed by University of Cincinnati anthropology professor Ken Tankersley to be the largest serpent mound in the world—over twice the size of the Great Serpent Mound in Adams County—weaves along Miami Bluff Drive.

For more on shopping Mariemont, see the March 2014 Intersection story.

Originally published in the March 2014 issue.

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