Illustration by Lars Leetaru
Please settle a bet. My fiancée insists that a UDF store was formerly on Fountain Square during the late 1980s or early ’90s. I can’t find any evidence of this, even though I’m a highly accomplished Google searcher (and a big fan of UDF ice cream). Please set her straight.
—UNITED DAIRY FORMER
DEAR FORMER:
The Doctor wishes his contract with this magazine had included a clause wherein he earns a percentage of each “settle our bet” submission. He would be driving an S-Class Mercedes instead of a Toyota Camry. As for your fiancée, you should hope the bet doesn’t involve the number of carats on her ring, because you have lost.
First of all, a true researcher looking for real answers would never rely on a puny worthless trifle like Google. No, this mystery required a trip to the downtown Public Library and a trudge through Cincinnati’s Yellow Pages. Each phone book comes in a sturdy fold-open box tied with a thin bow, which triggered the Doctor’s childhood trauma of learning to tie his shoes. Nevertheless, he persisted, looking between 1985 and 1995. The history of United Dairy Farmers locations has confirmed—in living yellow—that a UDF store briefly existed at 12 Fountain Square Plaza between 1989 and 1992. Why didn’t it succeed? That question vexed the Doctor throughout all four hours of his re-tying every box.
My great-grandfather, a Cincinnati dentist, saved his old newspaper ads. I have one from 1895 with a drawing of a smiling boy missing a tooth. The kid looks exactly like Alfred E. Neuman from Mad Magazine! It can’t be a coincidence. Was Cincinnati the originator of this iconic image? —WHO ME WORRY
DEAR WORRY:
Cincinnati can neither accept the honor nor deny the blame for Alfred E. Neuman and his usual gang of idiots. Yes, your great-grandfather’s ad from October 1895 shows a mop-topped, smiling, gap-toothed doofus who indeed bears a striking resemblance to the famous Mr. Neuman. The caption says, “I had my tooth extracted at New York Dental Parlors!” Beside him is a swollen-jawed miserable-looking fellow who laments, “I didn’t.”
Your great-grandfather was one of a team of dentists at New York Dental Parlors, a national franchise with Cincinnati offices on Fountain Square. His employer’s ad was far from unique; several different types of businesses published numerous Alfred variations. So many, in fact, that when Mad Magazine was sued by someone claiming the image to have been created in 1914, subsequent research revealed that Alfred’s fractured grin had appeared in countless ads and posters going back to the 1800s. No one could solidly confirm his origin. Case dismissed.
Sorry, but Cincinnati did not invent Alfred E. Neuman. We’re just the city responsible for the Charmin Toilet Paper Bears.
Now that Pete Rose has left us and he finally seems headed for baseball’s Hall of Fame (where he belongs!), will Google Maps finally let us see Pete’s boyhood home? His entire street is still inaccessible. You attempted to get this fixed sometime back. Please update us. —STEAL HOME
DEAR STEAL:
The Doctor can boast of resolving several Cincinnati mysteries and injustices. He has fearlessly debunked historical myths, corrected official signs, helped readers find lost ancestors, and on occasion has approached profundity. But regular readers know that the Doctor also, now and then, fails to live up to his mission.
One such embarrassment concerns fixing Google Street View, which normally allows anyone to “drive along” any street and see its buildings. Some homes may be blurred, but the streets themselves are navigable. Not so, however, with Braddock Street in Cincinnati; you can’t get there from anywhere. Is it because just one home on that street was where Pete Rose grew up? Is this fair to the block’s other residents? The childhood streets of other famous Cincinnatians aren’t blocked, so why is that one?
The Doctor has pestered Google Maps over this issue since 2019, with no response. He is beginning to suspect that his call isn’t important to them. Maybe after Cooperstown gives in—as of press time, they have not—Google will.
Dr. Know is Jay Gilbert, radio personality and advertising prankster. Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here.
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