Illustration by Lars Leetaru
The May issue of Cincinnati Magazine had a nice pictorial of new apartments in a part of Over-the-Rhine that used to be called Filmer’s Row. Was Cincinnati a Midwest branch of Hollywood long ago? Was there even more location filming here than happens now? —AAAND, ACTION!
DEAR AAAND:
Cincinnati was once Hollywood’s “Midwest branch” only in the sense of storing and distributing the thousands of giant reels that theaters projected, rewound, and returned. These “film exchanges” originally operated in downtowns in U.S. cities, but soon were banned because their offices kept exploding. Literally.
Early film was insanely flammable (“They might as well store dynamite in the building,” said Cincinnati’s building inspector), and several tragic incidents forced the exchanges to move away from downtown. Cincinnati’s companies clustered near Central Parkway and Liberty Street, earning the nickname “Film Row.” And so those new apartments in our May issue once had more movies inside them than 1,000 Netflix & Chill subscriptions.
Check our February 2023 issue for the bizarre story of when Cincinnati did flirt with becoming “The Hollywood of the Midwest.” A grand plan in 1915 for turning 100 acres into a lavish movie production facility turned out to be a grand fraud. Today, though, as Hollywood increasingly avoids Hollywood itself when filming, Cincinnati has become a director’s destination. Lots of movie star sightings, but without the explosions.
When I see old pictures of the original Fountain Square, they show the fountain in the middle of a block-long oval. The shape is absolutely nothing like a square. So why wasn’t it named Fountain Place or Fountain Park or something else? Who decided to call it a Square? —BENT OUT OF SHAPE
DEAR BENT:
In 1870, when the Tyler Davidson Fountain was under construction almost 5,000 miles away and its arrival in Cincinnati was less than two years away, Cincinnatians were already describing its future home as Fountain Square. That’s who decided on the name: Just about everybody. City officials were calling it Probasco Place, after its wealthy benefactor, and sneered at those who described it as “so-called Fountain Square.”
But the people had spoken. As a separate argument, the fountain itself had its own identity crisis, sporting names like The Genius of Water, Davidson Monument, Probasco-Davidson Fountain. A major rehab in 1969 finally gave the setting an agreed-upon moniker: Fountain Square Plaza. It even had some right-angle corners.
If the original name still bothers you, try cruising past Oakley Square sometime. Or St. Lawrence Corner. Or, for that matter, Kings Island. Note that all of these destinations have names that do not match their shapes, because most people are fine with the idea that a communal gathering place’s name can be irrespective of its geometric perimeter. Picky, picky!
In front of the famous pavilion at Mt. Echo Park are two long concrete platforms, flat and triangular-shaped. You can sit on them like benches, but they look like they were pedestals for two cannons or something else originally. What are those things about? —CANNON FODDER FOR THOUGHT
DEAR FODDER:
Hmm. The Doctor shares your squint. Those concrete platforms are easy to sit on and enjoy Mt. Echo Park’s glorious view of the Ohio River and Northern Kentucky, but their odd triangular shapes do suggest something like a pair of cannons that may have been perched there at one time—perhaps awaiting a glimpse of Confederate soldiers approaching the river. This was a real possibility during the Civil War.
The flagpole nearby has a plaque saying that “cannons on Price’s Hill defended Cincinnati from Confederate attack in 1862,” and the Price Hill Historical Society has an old map showing “a battery of cannons near the park that defended the city.” But there’s no specific mention of the two mysterious platforms that spark your curiosity. We’ll just have to wonder and imagine.
The Doctor feels strongly, however, that several cannons were probably stationed over at the Incline Public House, defending that giant broadcast tower.
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