Illustration by Lars Leetaru
I love the scenes of Union Terminal in the new Superman movie! I also know that George Reeves from the original TV series had Cincinnati connections, but the stories I find are all wildly contradictory. Especially some weird Spring Grove Cemetery legends. What’s the truth? —GREAT GEORGE’S GHOST
DEAR GHOST:
It is easier to guess how Superman hides his business suit in his cape than it is to verify anything about actor George Reeves. The man who portrayed early television’s Man of Steel led a sad and blurry life. His birth, death, and even afterlife are in dispute. One of the few firm statements we can make is that his ties to Cincinnati were meager at best. His first wife was from here, but they met, married, and divorced in California long before his TV fame.
Reeves’s most extended stay in Cincinnati was about four months in 1959, as a corpse. His mother, doubting the Los Angeles coroner’s ruling that he’d committed suicide, sent his body here for a second autopsy. She planned to then bury him in a family crypt at Spring Grove Cemetery but there was no room, so the body languished in a vault until it was returned to California.
Rumors that Reeves’s remains remain here are false. However, his story does confirm one thing absolutely: Your identity can be made completely unrecognizable by wearing glasses.
Your July Sandwiches issue was delicious, except for one thing. Izzy’s Deli claims to have “The World’s Greatest Reubens,” but the very fact that a Reuben has cheese means it isn’t kosher! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan, but how can a kosher deli like Izzy’s serve Reuben sandwiches? —YOU DON’T LOOK JEWISH
DEAR DON’T:
Since 1901, David Kadetz proudly described his restaurant as “strictly kosher in every detail.” When David’s son Izzy inherited the business in 1931, he continued that tradition (pronounced tra-di-SHUUNN!) until he couldn’t. The restaurant had become popular with a general public who didn’t care about such exacting practices, so Izzy’s has been “kosher-style” since the 1970s. Still, some boundaries hold: No fried shrimp, no BLTs, and hamburgers are called Izzy Burgers, keeping the letters h-a-m off of the menu.
A major kosher violation is to combine meat with dairy. Therefore, the worst crime you can commit against a sandwich is to put cheese on it. For the serious shomer kashrut, a Reuben sandwich is—poor choice of words here—a cardinal
sin. Izzy’s resisted breaching this one boundary for a long time, but just as Hanukkah in the U.S. is now a time of gift-giving, “kosher-style” restaurants now routinely serve cheese on sandwiches.
Izzy’s not only brags about its Reubens, but their menu seems to offer cheese on just about everything. Not on their famous pickles, however. See? Boundaries!
In the CVG Airport’s subway tunnel, the video screen showing the wait times for the next train now includes a person using sign language. Why? What’s the point of a video with sign language when all the information is showing right there in big text already? —TRAIN SPOTS
DEAR SPOTS:
The words you are reading right now are in a language we call English or, as the British call it, “that American Abomination.” Blind and vision-impaired people often read our abominable words in Braille, which uses raised characters that represent each English letter and word. But American Sign Language (ASL) does not really mirror official Abominable English. A person who grows up with ASL as their primary language is not necessarily fluent in reading English. (Let’s be honest: Neither are many who can see and hear just fine.)
At the CVG Transit Tunnel (its official name), the ASL videos assist those who may have trouble with the texts. But they communicate more than just Next train in two minutes. The signers are also giving information about the various terminals, about which airlines are at which stops, warnings about those damn doors closing on your luggage, etc. The videos explain all the stuff you and I normally hear being spoken by the employees who are laying in the ceiling of each subway car. It’s a tough job.
Dr. Know is Jay Gilbert, radio personality and advertising prankster. Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here.
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