ILLUSTRATION BY LARS LEETARU
I think Cincinnati’s love affair with Fiona the hippo has gone too far. I have nothing against her, but Fiona the Musical is just too much. It made me wonder, was there ever another animal in Cincinnati Zoo history that the city went this crazy over? —HARAMBE DOESN’T COUNT
DEAR COUNT:
The Doctor thanks you for noting the unique exception to your own question. And, yes, in 1931 the Cincinnati Zoo received an animal who was mega-loved to a highly disturbing degree. Trigger warning for Harambe fans: It was a gorilla. Her name was Susie.
Most disturbing from today’s perspective is how gleefully and cluelessly Susie was mistreated her entire life, and even beyond. After her parents were killed, she was captured by poachers and sold to French explorers at six months. After being paraded around Europe and America, at age 4 she was caged at our zoo and “welcomed” with a frightening fireworks show.
Susie drew huge crowds, as she’d been “trained” (don’t ask how) to eat meals with a knife and fork. She got her own musical (Pas de Susie), beating Fiona by decades. After Susie’s death in 1947, her skeleton became a display at UC until a fire in 1974 destroyed all evidence of her lifelong abuse. If it’s any consolation, a hunter who went to Africa to bring back a mate for Susie was killed by a lion.
I read a story about the sad decline of the magazine Sports Illustrated. One paragraph said they’d hired a high school senior to cover the Cincinnati Bengals for free! Even though I obsessively follow local sports, I never heard about that. How did Cincinnati media miss this mini-scandal? —WHO DEY WHA?
DEAR WHA:
The facts are these: In 2019, Sports Illustrated was sold to a corporation that promptly fired 40 percent of the staff. Reporting then came from a patchwork of inexperienced people, some of whom were not even people—they were AI-generated.
The Cincinnati Bengals, at least, got assigned a human reporter named Sam Ouhaj. Cynics might nitpick that Sam was only 17, that he lived in upstate New York, and that Sports Illustrated paid him nothing—not even a free swimsuit issue. Sam said later that nobody asked his age or whereabouts when he’d submitted some sample writing (checked by his English teacher). He wrote Bengals blurbs for about six weeks. The magazine benched him when the truth emerged. (See? They do still have standards!)
After scouring Cincinnati sports reports from the autumn of 2019 and conversing with several local reporters, the Doctor—to his complete and utter astonishment—hereby scoops everybody in Cincinnati sports with this story. It happened four years ago, but you saw it here first! Next up: We hear Pete Rose is in some kind of trouble.
Your column often refers to historical maps, so I’m hoping you can help me. I’ve inherited an old artistic-styled Cincinnati map and can’t determine its value. A few online sales show it, but the prices vary by thousands. What’s a good source around here to appraise an old map? —ROAD NOT TAKEN
DEAR TAKEN:
You are in possession of “A New and Accurate Map of Cincinnati,” which at 82 years old is neither new nor accurate. But the map has its charms. Completely hand-drawn, it does not include every street but does display amusing little drawings of the city’s neighborhoods and landmarks. The Cincinnati Zoo illustration even shows Susie (see above).
The map was co-created by John Becker, husband of Marion Rombauer, who later steered her mother’s Joy of Cooking cookbook to the very top of America’s food chain. Mr. Becker and his partner Stuart Ball created the map in hopes of replacing lost income from their otherwise enfeebled careers—it was 1932, the Great Depression. The lithograph modestly succeeded at its original price of $2.50.
A recent online framed version went for $3,333. Identical replicas, however, have appeared in local stores for $125. In other words, while the Doctor deeply appreciates the historical value of detailed old maps, he has no idea what dollar value a stylized incomplete map deserves. Neither, apparently, does anyone else. Good luck.
Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here.
Facebook Comments