For those seeking an urban environment with a funky blend of Victorian homes, eclectic and traditional businesses, a long tradition of community activism and one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Cincinnati, you can't go wrong with Northside. Home to the legendary 4th of July parade, the Northside Farmer's Market, Shake It Records, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Cincinnati, popular watering holes like the Comet and Northside Tavern and an active community council, Northside is all about preserving its strong grassroots heritage. One of Cincinnati's most walkable neighborhoods, Northside also features multiple green spaces, including Hoffner Park, the central site of numerous festivals.
Design Milk, an online magazine dedicated to modern design, highlights a new poster by Hayes Shanesy of Brush Factory design studio and printed by Northside's Cryptogram Ink. See the full posting here.
Utilizing the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s resources just got easier. At the beginning of February, the library released its latest service: Zinio. It enables anyone with a library card to download free magazines as soon as they hit the newsstands. “It’s really wonderful to be able to download magazines from the comfort of home,” says Sandy Bolek, Internet site coordinator for PLCHC. “We’re trying to meet the changing interests and needs of our customers, and there’s a tremendous interest in downloading everything out there.” With more than 650 titles, users will now be able to download as many magazines at a time as they wish. Plus they never have to return them. “I think there will be people who download maybe 20 magazines at a time, because how often can you walk into a library and have every single issue available for the taking that you can hang on to?” Bolek says. “So I expect that our interest and usage in magazines will go up significantly.” In the past month alone, PLCHC users have downloaded 16,396 magazines through the new service. Magazines aren’t the only downloadable materials the library offers, however. Free e-books, audio books and even music are all available to patrons as well. “You’re able to sit at home in your jammies at 11 at night and download music, e-books, an audio book or a magazine,” Bolek says. “We talk about being able to use the library any time, anywhere now, and I think people are increasingly expecting that in just about every service area.” According to Bolek, the library is on track to reach one million downloaded items by October, which is a huge accomplishment in terms of achieving its mission of “connecting people with the world of ideas and information.” “The nature of information has of course changed over the years and the decades," Bolek says. "Our collection has significantly expanded, but it’s still information. We’re supporting people’s reading interests, connecting them with books, connecting them with information, and the variety of ways we’ve been able to do that has really expanded.” Do Good: • Learn about Zinio, download the app for your smartphone or tablet and show your friends and family how to start downloading free magazines. • Sign up for a free library card so you can take advantage of the many resources the library has to offer. • Promote literacy by joining a book club, reading to children or taking them to library events. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
For the past month, Cincinnati Parks’ naturalists have been busy tapping sugar maples, collecting sap and boiling it down to produce real maple syrup. They’ve even taught the public how to make use of their own backyards to do the same. With March quickly approaching, maple season will come to a close, but not without celebrating what Explore Nature! program assistant manager Erin Morris refers to as “Maple Madness.” Maple in Mt. Airy and Pancakes in the Woods are “for those who maybe aren’t interested in doing it in their backyard, but for those who love the sweet success of the season, who want to taste that and who want to learn a little bit about the history,” says Morris. For decades, Cincinnati Parks’ representatives have worked to relay the importance of nature education to the public. “When we started in the 1930s, technology was pretty minimal—we only had vehicles in the last 20 years, so people were outside,” says Morris. “There was no air conditioning, and they’d often sleep outside during the summer season, so people were much more connected to the outdoors and natural experiences.” With a changing culture and a technologically oriented society, Morris says people have lost the connection with the outdoors. The Explore Nature! program aims to remedy that, however, and celebratory maple sugaring events are some of the ways in which it teaches people about the outdoors. At both maple events, participants begin with a pancake breakfast, where they enjoy the syrup that’s been produced by the trees surrounding them. They then go on to learn the story and process behind maple sugaring. Following breakfast at Maple in Mt. Airy, participants are immersed in the time period. They ride through the woods in a hay wagon to an area where naturalists dressed as Native Americans and pioneers teach about the first uses of maple syrup in the United States through taste-testing and hands-on experiences that explain photosynthesis and the ways trees provide nutrients for both humans and nature. “When people think of maple sugaring, they think of Canada because they have the sugar maple leaves on their flag, but Ohio’s been producing maple syrup since the Native Americans in the 1700s,” Morris says. “It’s getting back to our history in Ohio—and even history in Cincinnati—but also having that connection with local products.” Maple Madness events take place throughout the first two weekends of March. Do Good: • Register your family, friends or student group for Maple in Mt. Airy. • Enjoy pancakes cooked by celebrity chefs and learn about maple sugaring at Pancakes in the Woods at the California Woods Nature Preserve. • Like Cincinnati Parks on Facebook, and join and share their events with your friends. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
The City of Cincinnati has taken out the back-and-forth that can occur when residents try to reach them to report issues in their neighborhoods. At the Neighborhood Summit on Feb. 16, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls announced that the Cincinnati City Hall mobile app is available to the public. With the app, residents can look up trash, recycling and street sweeping days, and set reminders; locate and report problems by address; bookmark locations for quick reporting; and track the status of reports. City Hall mobile also has GPS, so users can report issues, even without an address. There’s even a searchable map with property owner information, which enables residents to see if a property is occupied or vacant. A few years ago, residents had to use the Yellow Pages to look up the number for city departments to file complaints, says Kevin Wright, executive director of Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation. The city then implemented a hotline for all complaints, but residents never knew the status of their reports. “It’s amazing how comprehensive the app is,” Wright says. “If you see a broken window, pothole, graffiti, hanging gutter or anything else that is physically wrong with your neighborhood, street or community, you can report it in an instant. It’s a great tool for neighborhood redevelopment.” The app can also be used as a community-organizing tool, Wright says. For example, if there is a property owner who historically hasn’t taken care of his or her property, social media can help organize a community and target the property to enforce codes until the property is fixed, which is what neighborhood councils and organizations like WHRF do. “We’re really putting power in the hands of the citizens of the neighborhoods,” he says. As with most tech programs, the app has room to grow, too. In the future, it could be linked with Facebook or Twitter, so your friends and followers will know who reported problems and where they are. Cincinnati residents can download the app in the Apple App Store or download it through Google Play. By Caitlin Koenig Follow Caitlin on Twitter
Four friends and homebrewers want to share the camaraderie they've developed around craft beer with more people in Cincinnati. Local attorneys Eric Palmer, Steve Sharpe, Kieran Hurley and Nick DiNardo are working to open the BrewKraft Collective, a place were craft beer lovers can meet up to share and create brews. Palmer describes it as a nanobrewery or craft beer community center. It will be part of the neighborhood, he says, and be a place that people can walk to and grab a Cincinnati-inspired beer. "It will be as locally focused as possible," says Palmer. "We want to use local ingredients. With beer, it's a little tricky finding hops, but we believe we can get some in the local area. We also want the beers to be locally influenced. We're working with different folks to come up with beers that are reflective of Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio." The partners are scouting locations, and Over-the-Rhine and Northside are at the top of the list. They're looking for a space that's 5,000 to 7,000 square feet that would contain the microbrewery, tasting room and learning center. "We want to be part of the neighborhood," Palmer says. "There are some really good [microbreweries] here, but they don't get a lot of street traffic. You have to get in your car and go to them." Palmer's been a homebrewer for 20 years, and he's been brewing with his friends for five. "We are passionate about brewing," he says. "We love doing it. There is still a demand in Cincinnati for craft beer that is not being met. We have some craft brewers here, but Cincinnati is behind Columbus and Cleveland. The small brewers around here can't keep up with all of the demand." A recent change in Ohio law that makes it less costly for small breweries to operate tasting rooms spurred the idea. "The law makes it easier to get beer in the hands of people who like craft beer, and makes it less expensive to get a license and taste beer on site," Palmer says. Plans are to open The BrewKraft Collective within a year. The partners are looking for investors and considering buying a property through the Hamilton County Land Bank, a new program aimed at cleaning up distressed and abandoned properties across the county. The BrewKraft Collective was a winner of Xavier University's third XLab entrepreneurship contest. University MBA students are helping polish the collective's business plan. By Feoshia H. Davis Follow Feoshia on Twitter
Going on maternity leave changed Gail Yisreal’s life in more ways than having a new baby to take care of. When she returned to work, Yisreal says she learned her position was no longer there, so she began to look for a different job. As wife and mother to a blended family of nine children, she might bake up to 11 birthday cakes in a year. But she hadn’t considered turning her knack for kneading dough into earning dough until she baked a wedding cake for a couple from her family’s place of worship. Not only did they like the cake, they suggested she start selling them. Listening to her fans, Yisreal founded A “Mother’s Touch” Cakes with the nurturing tagline, “Making fresh homemade cakes when you don’t have the time.” Celebrating her two-year anniversary as a registered business in August 2012, A “Mother’s Touch” features signature and custom made flavors of fresh, savory gourmet, organic and vegan cakes and cupcakes that are good—and good for you. “I didn’t know anything about decorating, so I took a class to learn more decorating skills," Yisreal says. "And I was shocked to find out that 95 percent of the cakes you buy are box cakes—because everybody wants the decoration. I started doing some research about the trans-fats and artificial ingredients, and I vowed that everything I baked would always be natural and from scratch.” After working as a waitress for two years and in management at Starbucks for six years, Yisreal developed a love for coffee. She jokes that most ex-Starbucks managers feel they know enough about coffee to create their own line, which she actually did for A “Mother’s Touch.” Having tried organic coffees with weak flavor profiles, she researched and found Dean’s Beans, a fair-trade pioneer that allowed her to design her own custom blends. Her signature A “Mother’s Touch” blend is made with Mexican and Indonesian beans and pairs with her carrot cake as an after-dinner coffee. “I’m really proud of my coffee and the fact that it really was custom blended for what I wanted to complement my desserts,” Yisreal says. And, true to her mission to serve natural, sustainable goods, she says that her blends are 100 percent organic, fair-trade certified and are shade grown. Being on the scene without a storefront hasn’t stopped Yisreal. Instead, she’s building her brand as the “cupcake lady” who networks everywhere and invites people to taste samples of her creations. Yisreal also tapped into hidden markets by hosting deals through social media. “I did a Living Social promotion last year, which was huge,” Yisreal says. “That first day, I think I got 1,500 hits on my website, and probably about 85 deals, which I thought was really good for people who didn’t know who I was.” And even though she sells more cakes today, the ease of transporting cupcakes built her clientele. “When I first came out, because of my financial situation, literally, cupcakes were paying my rent,” she says. After she and her husband separated, she remembers what it was like to go from making an annual salary of $60,000 to less than $20,000 a year. But she doesn’t do it all alone. “I have three almost-teenage girls; 12, soon to be 15 and 17, so they are my preppers,” Yisreal explains. “It’s hilarious because we’ll be in the kitchen and everybody has their big bonnets on, and they’re scraping carrots, mashing fruit, lining the liners. I have a girlfriend who I’ll sometimes sub-contract out to do deliveries. And if it’s a huge event—like for the Autism Foundation, I had to knock out 40 dozen cupcakes—I have two sisters, and at the time I had just split up with my husband so we were in literally an 800-square-foot apartment. The kitchen was all of maybe 150-square-feet, we put out six-foot tables and we were like an assembly line! It was hilarious, but we got it done. It was like an I Love Lucy episode!” By Mildred Fallen
Northside is known for its eclectic mix of restaurants and shops, but new projects focus on on adding to the population as well. “New developments are critical for the health of the city so that there is a stable population that supports small businesses,” says Cincinnati Northside Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation’s Executive Director Stefanie Sunderland. “There’s also a potential to increase business investment and generate increased tax revenue.” Two houses in the neighborhood will soon receive national attention on the HGTV program “You Live in What?” The program focuses on people who live in buildings that were originally built for other purposes, then converted to single-family homes, Sunderland says. One of the houses, located at 1760 Hanfield, was built in the late 1800s, and records indicate that the first business to occupy the building was a tinner. The redevelopment of the Hanfield property was done by CNCURC. The other house at 1615 Springlawn Avenue used to be Hogan’s Meat Market and was recently converted to a single-family home with a three-car garage. (There’s another house in Cincinnati on McMillan that will be featured on the program as well.) The biggest future project in Northside is a three part development that includes the Myron G. Johnson & Son Lumber Company site and the old Mergards Bowling Alley at Hamilton Avenue and Blue Rock Street, American Can Lofts at Blue Rock and Fergus, and a tract of land north of the lofts at the corner of Fergus and Knowlton. The Johnson building has been vacant since 2005, and the City recently awarded an RFP to Indianapolis' Milhaus Development for the project. Plans include a mixed-use development of several three- to four-story buildings on Hamilton that will provide retail or commercial space on the first floor with apartments above, several apartment buildings, possible town houses, and the redevelopment and repurposing of the historic railroad building in the area. In all, the project will yield up to 140 rental units. The American Can Lofts project was the conversion and development of a large, historic manufacture building by Bloomfield/Schon + Partners, which includes up to 110 apartments, with a long waiting list. There's also three large retail or commercial bays on the first floor of the building. The third piece of the project, which is owned by Bloomfiled/Schon, will provide 54 senior housing units and amenities, and is designed by the Model Group. CNCUR is also working on converting four rental properties on Witler into single-family homes. One of the houses is finished, and the other three are close to completion. “Our goal is to reduce blight through the redevelopment of vacant houses,” says Sunderland. “We’re working in areas that are seriously depressed, and have been impacted by foreclosures and abandonment.” With the near-completion of the infrastructure and road improvements along Colerain Avenue, the Virginia Place development will start to fill up, says Sunderland. The project includes 40 single-family suburban and neo-traditional houses that are being completed by a handful of builders. Groundwork Cincinnati was recently awarded grant money to work on the West Fork flood plain on the western side of the neighborhood. Before the grant, FEMA money was used to purchase and demolish the buildings located in the flood plain, pay for the relocation of homeowners, and naturalize the creek. “I think it’s important to repurpose what you already have instead of destroying green spaces,” says Sunderland. “It makes sense to recycle existing communities, rather than affect the environment and build new ones.” By Caitlin Koenig Follow Caitlin on Twitter
Cincinnati Parks’ Explore Nature! program will host its award-winning Ravine to Freedom event Feb. 10, allowing participants to walk along the same trail that served as an escape route for those using the Underground Railroad more than 100 years ago. “The Ravine to Freedom was recognized by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center as the only documented, undeveloped, local escape route,” says Kathy Dahl, naturalist at Laboiteaux Woods. It’s a 1.5-mile unpaved path that runs along Hamilton Avenue, up and downhill, through the College Hill and Northside neighborhoods. “College Hill was named because of the colleges here, so people were progressive in their thinking and more toward abolitionist views; however, the Farmer’s College—where Aiken [High School] and the College Hill Recreation Center are today—also had Southern students, so they had to be especially careful,” Dahl says. Dahl leads the tour and is well-versed in the history of the land, but it’s the stories, she says, that are so important. To help make those stories come to life, she conducts the tour in the winter—first because the leaves from trees are gone, so historical houses can be seen along the route—and second because the winter months were the primary times that slaves would make their escapes. “If you were field hands, you weren’t doing as much, so your absence may not be noticed as quickly,” Dahl says. “There were also the holidays in there where the owners would travel or go to parties; and at the same time, the Ohio River would freeze, so it was a land bridge—or an ice bridge.” To help others understand the history of the ravine, Dahl joined forces with local historian Betty Ann Smiddy to create a detailed map of the route and markers of interest along its way. “Cincinnati’s role—it was a battleground,” Dahl says. “We’re taught [about] the Civil War in history books, but it’s only a part of what actually happened.” Dahl says it’s important that people not only recognize the history of the town where they live, but that they experience it. “It was trying times, but when I discuss this, when I talk about these things on the hike, I try to show that there was hope,” Dahl says. “There were people who came together, and they were up against big odds.” Do Good: • Call (513) 542-2909 to register for the Ravine to Freedom Feb. 10 from 1 to 3 pm. • Volunteer to help maintain Cincinnati Parks. If you want to help maintain the grounds so that tours like Ravine to Freedom can continue successfully, you can request to volunteer at Laboiteaux Woods. • Connect with Cincinnati Parks by liking their Facebook page. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
The Original Makers Club is a fairly new startup from Louisville—it was founded in 2011 by photographer Josh Merideth— but it already has branches in Lexington, Cincinnati and Brooklyn. OMC is an aesthetically minded brand and publication that curates, highlights and looks to elevate the culture, society and local business scenes of cities. “A few years ago, Louisville was going through a similar revitalization to Cincinnati’s current one, which makes it a prime time to celebrate local culture,” says Mike Brady, managing partner and events director of OMC. Comprised of design-conscious, forward-thinking local businesses, Cincinnati’s branch of OMC has about 60 members, including A Tavola, Ensemble Theatre, Sloan Boutique, 21c Museum Hotel, 3CDC, Smart Fish Studio, 5 Dot Design, Bakersfield OTR, Paolo Modern Jewelers, Japps, 4EG, MiCa, Taste of Belgium, DIGS and Jaguar Land Rover. “We are less about adding anything than we are about showcasing the culture and talent that exists here,” Brady says. “We want to insure that those visiting the city get a real taste of her. We also wish that those currently living in Cincinnati are experiencing it to the fullest.” On Feb. 8, OMC is hosting its launch event for the Cincinnati branch. Members of OMC will be providing appetizers, drinks, music and neat things to look at—including A Tavola, 5 Dot Design, Marti’s Floral Designs, Parlour, Christian Moerlein, Matthew Metzger and Jaguar Land Rover. Besides the launch event, OMC is working on creating a mural with help from Artworks and hopes to co-host larger events like a Dinner Series, which would showcase member chefs and entertain a group of people in an exotic location in or near the city, Brady says. There are only a handful of tickets available for the launch event for non-OMC members, so get them while you can. By Caitlin Koenig Follow Caitlin on Twitter
David Rosenthal began his art career in a traditional setting, but he says it wasn’t the right niche. As an M.F.A. graduate and full-time professor in the University of Cincinnati’s fine arts department, he spent most of his time in the studio. While he enjoyed his work, he says he felt there was a divide and that too many people in the community simply didn’t connect with art created in that environment. “That whole practice was kind of centered on the idea that the artist was the creator, and that art happened in the mind and at the hands of the artist,” says Rosenthal. “And I wanted to get away from that idea.” So he set out to find a way to put art into the hands of a completely different demographic, and in 2009, Rosenthal founded Prairie, a nonprofit that works to gather artists together to create and explore ideas in non-traditional ways. Educational programming is one of Prairie’s primary functions, and through the New Voices program, Rosenthal aims to bring two groups together for the purpose of building an understanding of the human condition through art. The most recent collaboration: residents of City Gospel Mission’s Exodus Program—a long-term rehabilitation effort that seeks to help men who struggle with alcohol and drug addiction—and students from Milford High School. The program lasted 12 weeks and consisted of weekly excursions where the two groups came together to photograph the Over-the-Rhine community, discuss their work, talk about why it’s meaningful, and then reflect on the whole process. “I think that when art is put in the hands of people who don’t usually have that tool, it’s just incredibly powerful, because I think that somebody who has never had the opportunity to be expressive usually has a ton to say,” Rosenthal says. “When you combine that with another group of people who maybe does that on a consistent basis, like high school students who are involved in the arts, you can see these bridges forming, and barriers coming down—significant barriers. That’s all through the language of expression.” While Rosenthal is a facilitator in the process, he says he’s also an art-maker because of the “creative energy and problem solving” that he brings to the program. Part of his drive stems from his 15 years of art experience, but he says it also goes back to his undergraduate days when he studied history. “I think I really just became interested in social science—why people create the kind of institutions they create, how people relate to each other through those institutions, how they bring us together, divide us, create progress, get in the way of progress—that kind of thing,” he says. “I think really my curiosity is what happens when you introduce these expressive, creative tools into social situations.” Reactions from those involved in the program are positive. Rosenthal says the Milford students’ video reflections revealed changes that were both eye-opening and for some, even “life-changing.” “There’s always some kind of sheltering or inward-looking that happens at every high school because students are so busy, and that’s just the nature of the whole program—you do your work at school,” says Rosenthal. “So I’ve found that there’s lots of opportunities for students to get out and see the world and really kind of answer some of those questions that come up in their daily work about the world all around them, and I’m really happy to be doing that work.” Do Good: • Attend Prairie's upcoming exhibition "After the Fall," which is a collection of artists' work, built on the theme of female identity. The exhibition opens Feb. 9 and continues through April 6. Contact Prairie for more information. • Support art programs within your local school district. • Join Prairie in its misison to reach out to community organizations by getting involved with a local nonprofit. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
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