Illustration by Lars Leetaru
I‘m sad about what’s happened to Frisch’s. I read that one of their first restaurants was on “Main Avenue in Norwood.” I tried finding that street, but I can’t. I know there’s a Main Avenue Creamery from UDF, another Norwood icon. But where is that, and where was Frisch’s? —BUDDY OF BIG BOY
DEAR BUDDY:
Let us solve this problem methodically. We assume you looked at a map of Norwood and noticed that only two major roads run through it. One is popularly known as The Lateral, which did not exist when the Frisch family opened their restaurant in the 1930s, so it can be discounted.
That leaves only one road—a very long, diagonal avenue. You might even call it Norwood’s “main” avenue. Montgomery Road, which extends for miles past both ends, was called Main Avenue inside Norwood, and even that seems unofficial (maps from the 1930s call it Montgomery Avenue). By the 1950s, when just about everyone was calling it Montgomery Road anyway, the change seems to have become official.
Frisch’s Café was at 4736 Main (now Montgomery), roughly where a La Rosa’s now sits (poke in the eye!). “Main Avenue Creamery” is a UDF brand of ice cream honoring their original store on the same street/road/avenue. They have never made tartar sauce.
Some residential neighborhoods in Cincinnati have signs warning about “Children at play.” I support that, but why do the signs show kids wearing clothes from the 1920s? The boys are wearing knickers! I bet today’s kids never even heard of knickers! Can’t the city afford modern signs? —SIGN ME OUT
DEAR OUT:
The Doctor can only imagine how many adult readers are, at this very moment, googling the word “knickers.” These signs seem to be just a tradition that refuses to yield. But city of Cincinnati officials plead innocent—they don’t post any Children at Play warnings (especially the insulting ones saying Slow Children). Traffic engineering studies show that not only do such signs have no effect, but their omnipresence in the absence of actual children can desensitize drivers. The city does post yellow warning signs in school zones (along with the required slower speeds), but the kids on those signs do not exhibit any head-scratching fashion statements.
The signs you saw are posted only in certain suburbs, which the Doctor confirmed when driving in Sycamore Township and St. Bernard. They aren’t so much a favorite of street departments as they are of parents who demand them. The belief that the signs work can be filed with myths like “a frog in slowly heated water will stay there until it boils to death.” Sorry if you’re just now finding that one out.
You recently wrote about the Rookwood Pavilion mall. I remember there was a guy who refused to give in to its developers for years, and I recall a photo of his house all alone in a huge empty lot. I’m curious: What store is now where that house once stood so stubbornly, and does he ever go there? —EVERYTHING BUT THE HOUSE
DEAR EVERYTHING:
The battle to which you refer was not against Rookwood Pavilion, nor its neighbor Rookwood Commons, nor anyone nearby in the tangled residential maze of Rookwood Drive, Rookwood Court, or Rookwood Place. (The Doctor empathizes with your confusion.) It was the development known as Rookwood Exchange that fought all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court for its God-given right to build yet another sprawling shopping center next to two other sprawling shopping centers. Joseph Horney eventually won that court case, sadly relinquishing for $1,250,000 the property he’d bought in 1991 for $63,900.
The Doctor found that aerial photo of Horney’s lonely home languishing in a vast undeveloped lot and overlaid a current view of Rookwood Exchange. Aha! The vanished home is now an “Epic Home,” because Your Home for Epic Tacos! is the slogan for Agave & Rye, the restaurant that occupies the house’s former footprint. We were unable to locate Horney himself for his evaluation of how epic the tacos might be.
Dr. Know is Jay Gilbert, radio personality and advertising prankster. Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here.
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