ILLUSTRATION BY LARS LEETARU
Like many generations of Cincinnatians, I grieve the closing of The Cupboard on Short Vine. I haven’t visited in a while, but the smell lingers (in a good way). The many stories I see now about the place, though, seem contradictory. Please give us a reliable timeline of that famous address. —ROLL ANOTHER ONE
DEAR ROLL:
First Sunlite Pool, and now this! Surprisingly, the humble one-story building at 2613 Short Vine was first built in 1935 as a modest Kroger. But it found its legs in 1940 as Corry’s 5¢ to $1 Store, selling bits of everything into the mid 1960s. Then, just as America welcomed Sgt. Pepper, hippies, and (ahem) WEBN, The Cupboard burst open with new and provocative delights crammed to the rafters. Navy engineers having to make use of every square inch in submarines clearly took lessons from the store’s staff.
Described variously as a “mod gift shop,” “head shop,” and “public nuisance,” The Cupboard was busted almost immediately, and then relentlessly. Two generations of family proprietors spent countless months and dollars in courtrooms fighting for your right to buy baby pacifiers shaped like penises. Also bongs, pipes, whippet N2O cartridges, raunchy toys, etc. Cincinnati Magazine published a deep dive into its history in February 2019 (“High Times at The Cupboard”) if you’d like to find out more.
Whether your opinion of The Cupboard was Whippet Bad or Whippet Good, you had to respect its long-term survival. Let us all raise a glass (pipe) to its cloudy memory. Or a gummy. Peace out.
I got one of those “free luncheon” invitations in the mail. It’s from a cremation service, and it’s being held at the West Chester Smokey Bones restaurant. A seminar about cremation at Smokey Bones! Please find out if this was intentional or clueless. —SMOKED OUT
DEAR SMOKED:
Readers who can easily find an answer to their question from an obvious source—such as the phone number on your mailer—will sometimes hesitate, perhaps lacking the time or the courage. They seem to assume that the Doctor has an abundance of both. Perhaps they are correct, because the Doctor called.
A thoroughly courteous and professional woman answered. Each of us played our roles well: She trying to direct the conversation toward registering for the luncheon, and the Doctor dodging her moves while playing coy about the real reason for his call. When we finally arrived at the awkward issue of a cremation seminar being paired with the name Smokey Bones, she revealed that she was just a call center employee in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She could only cheerfully guess that whoever conjoined the luncheon with the cremation company lacked the time or the courage to note the awkwardness.
So it goes. Be sure to let us know if you receive an invitation for a free seminar about erectile dysfunction being held at Dick’s.
Some time back you wrote about the Chatfield Memorial, a Walnut Hills site showing on Google Maps that doesn’t really exist. I drive past that corner daily (Columbia Parkway and Kemper Lane), and there’s construction going on now. Maybe something is finally happening? —UN-MEMORIAM
DEAR UN:
The Doctor regrets to inform you that you have things backwards: The Chatfield Memorial definitely existed. It was built in 1933 to honor Frederick Chatfield, a major supporter of Cincinnati park development who had died suddenly. Its benches and landscaping looked out on a majestic view of the Ohio River, but the 1938 construction of Columbia Parkway…well, it paved paradise, as they say. Our July 2018 column saw the Doctor trespassing inside the totally overgrown area and finding scant remains among the litter and mattresses. Despite the site’s abandonment many decades ago, Google Maps has displayed the name at Columbia Parkway and Kemper Lane since they launched in 2005…and won’t stop.
Your query sent the Doctor there again—readers seem to enjoy this kind of armchair sadism—but new apartment construction has now wiped away every trace of whatever may have once been there. The on-site workers never heard of any Chatfield Memorial and seemed unconcerned, apparently never having seen the movie Poltergeist. Try stopping by some afternoon and see what happens when you yell, “They’re heeeere!”
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