This Just Got Interesting

Everyone who thinks the Hillary/Rudy match-up is inevitable should slow down a bit. With Hillary dropping ideas like free cash for babies and the Religious Right ready to go third-party on us all, there's plenty of room for the unexpected. This could end up being one of the most interesting Presidential campaigns since 1912. Just thought everyone should be familiar with that election.

Urban Cincinnati [Part Three]

So the 1948 Master Plan, predicting that public transportation was the past and automobile traffic was the future, called for a superhighway that would connect the region. And the result is, in my opinion, what has affected the development of the city more than any other cause: Interstate 275. By the late 1930s, the government had proposed a system of superhighways. It wasn't until President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act in 1956 that the plan truly gained steam. In Cincinnati, construction on I-75 started in 1941 along the route of the old Miami-Erie Canal [another sign of changing modes of transportation]. Although planned in the 1940's construction of 1-71 didn't take off until two decades later.

Construction on I-275, a beltloop around the city, began in 1958 and wasn't completed until 1979 [I actually remember when I was a child, on trips out to Coney Island, seeing construction finished on the final piece: the bridge spanning the Ohio River at Kellogg Avenue]. The loop is between 84 and 86 miles long [depends on whose numbers you use], and is truly unique as it's the only business loop in the US to pass through three states.

Here are a few things to know when measuring the project's impact: I-275 is the longest continuous-looped expressway in the United States; no American city has a longer beltway. Not only that, it's the second longest in the world after a section of the Autobahn that encircles the city of Berlin. I guess we could brag that when our city planners wanted a loop they weren't going to wuss out and cut it short; they wanted the biggest they could buy.

What's truly fascinating is that no section of I-275 travels through an old neighborhood or town that predated the expressway; that means that all the areas that surround the expressway today was built after it's construction. There were some people who recognized the potential for profit the loop could bring. In the 1956, two years before construction on 1-275 began, Jeffrey Lazarus, owner of the Shillitos' department store chain, purchased 75 acres in Springfield Township in order to build a retail center there. Tri-County Mall continues to be one of the most profitable malls in the area.

What city planners failed to realize was that this beltloop was an invitation for sprawl; in fact, it actually encouraged it. People now had the option of taking advantage of the amnenities of a large metropolitan city without necessarily having to contribute to its tax base. 1-275 is the reason that the Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan area counts almost three-million inhabitants but the city proper only has about 300,000 people. To be fair, this kind of sprawl was taking place around the country. Magazines like Better Homes and Gardens began to present suburban living as the ideal.

When residents of the city flocked to the 'burbs, and their businesses went with them, the infrastructure of the city began to slowly deteriorate. And, on a personal note, the other thing that left with the businesses and people were churches. Traditionally, the city's largest churches were in the urban areas. But as middle/upper class parishioners left town, the congregations left with them. This ecclesiological sprawl could have been the nail in the coffin of the city's success.

Areas that were once affluent, areas that boasted large homes, were abandoned and soon became slums [the poor couldn't afford automobiles and, thus, couldn't leave the city center and public transportation]. Social-economic segregation became the norm and certain areas became the "bad part" of town. The public school system, already struggling, continued to decline rapidly. And while politicians and public officials offered various solutions to the problem, none of them worked.

And some who left the city would begin to spread a doctrine of fear about it. Wheras the phrase "suburban" was derived from "less than urban," the tables were now turned. So how did we get from this point to a renewed interest in urbanism? More on that in part four.

Information about the local interstate found at Cincinnati-Transit.

Urban Cincinnati [Part Two]

In the early twentieth century, despite a decline in growth as the country countined to spread west, Cincinnati was in decent shape. Sure, a corrupt political machine was in control of local affairs, but the city was still able to thrive. Even in the midst of the Great Depression [1925] the city released a master plan of the future, the first major American city to do so. During the tumultuous years of the Second World War city leaders began to anticipate the return of over 50,000 servicemen to the city; they felt they had to do something to steer the future of the city for their sake. They began to research in 1944 and, four years later, the 1948 Cincinnati Metropolitan Master Plan was released. This is the plan that made Cincinnati what it is today.

Here's what they came up with: even though their was an elaborate [and rather successful] street car system stretching as far as Lockland, city planners believed the automobile was the method of transportation in the future, making streetcars obsolete. Whereas a streetcar could get you within block of your home, an automobile could get you to your driveway. Planners reasoned that since the car was the future, people would no longer be limited by public transportation as to where they could live.

So the 1948 Master Plan suggested that areas near downtown should be prepared to become predominantly commercial and industrial; that the city core would be the place where people work. Then, residents could hop in their cars and go their homes outside the city. While fewer residents would seem problematic, city planners weren't detered because they would still be able to to receive tax revenues from these businesses. So they began the process to create a central business district.

A prime target of this was a community known West End, the area immediately west of the downtown area in which many slums were located. The Cincinnati Post comments that the plan included "tearing down the West End (now known as Queensgate) and reconfiguring the street patterns so as to merge six or eight city blocks into super blocks. Each super block was to be the home of a new multi-story factory. Fifty years later, no multi-story factory has been built because multi-story factories were not being built by manufacturers at the time the economic development department came up with this scheme." Portions of this area also became the route that Interstate 75 took through the Mill Creek Valley.

But the plan called for still one more construction project that, since its completion, has dominated our region. From John Emmeus Davis in his book Contested Ground [pg 123]:

“In the 1940’s, city fathers observed that the majority of residential housing was being built outside of the city proper. Far from being disturbed by such suburbanization, however, [the 1948 Master Plan] expressed a certain relief that so much land for development was still available in the city’s outlying areas. The only public intervention that was warranted was the construction of a multilane highway system to serve those areas”

This multilane highway system will be the subject of part three.

TV Thoughts

Last night we hosted an intimate gathering of The Office fanatics to watch the season premiere. I thought the second half hour was better than the first [did they try too hard at the beginning?] but having Meredith hit by a car to start the season was brilliant. I ask, though, how will a Pam/Jim relationship work over the long haul? At what point do they have a major relationship blow-up? You know it's gotta happen, otherwise it wouldn't be television. Still, if you're not watching this show, you're not in the cool kids club. As we were waiting for some late-comers to arrive before we started watching last night [again, DVR is Mc-awesome] we were lulled into watching Grey's Anatomy. Now I have never seen this show before [I liked it better the first time when it was ER, and the second time when it was Scrubs], but I'm always willing to give a show a shot.

I should've shot it in the head and put all of us out of our misery.

Besides finding many of the people annoying, I can't picture McDreamy without seeing the African Anteater Dance from Can't Buy Me Love. Seriously, I'm thinking that Survivor has more redeemable value than this crap. So you Grey's fans can look around your feet, because the gauntlet has been thrown down. Do your best to defend this mindless dribble as it's as nutritious as cotton candy.

*For some really compelling television, I still suggest checking out Ken Burns' The War on PBS. They're showing all the previous episodes this Sunday afternoon.

Urban Cincinnati [Part One]

One of the things I attempted to accomplish during Echo's second anniversary celebration was to explain how the landscape of the city has developed in the past 60+ years. And even though I went in-depth, there was still a lot of info I couldn't fit in during the time that I want to share here. Those Beit Carr readers who don't have Cincinnati connections might not find this information interesting, but I think it's rather relevant to our ministry here at Echo and essential to understand for all who chose to do ministry in our city. This information is the accumulative result of research I've conducted over the past few years and I'll do my best to cite the information whenever I can. That said, this isn't an academic research paper so I'm content to attribute some to "public domain." Cincinnati was founded in 1788, a military outpost in the Northwest Territory. For those true geeks, the original name given to the city was "Losantiville" a contraction of different languages and names. In relation to the mouth of the Licking River ["L" for "Licking" & "os" the Latin for "mouth"], it was opposite ["anti"] and a town ["ville"]. While the original founder of the city, John Cleves Symmes, thought that the North Bend or Columbia Tusculum areas would make a good place to start the city, the government chose to locate Fort Washington in the valley where downtown now lies. The most important geographical feature was a hill, between where 3rd and 4th streets are, that created a natural flood wall.As the nation expanded west, the city grew. By 1850, Cincinnati was the 5th biggest city in the nation. More furniture was manufactured in this city than any in the country. The "lower bowl" area [from river to Over-The-Rhine to the Mill Creek] made Cincinnati the most densely populated area in the United States. Basically untouched were Cincinnati's famous hills as no horse could really make it up the hill, making it an unviable option for inhabitation.

After the Civil War, the horsecar/street car system infiltrated the city, making transportation around town easy. And with the advent of inclines, trains were now able to get to the tops of the hills. This made expansion outside of the lower bowl possible and first ring suburbs [Clifton, Mount Auburn, and Walnut Hills] are established.

A few maps for you to illustrate this [click for larger image]:

This is what Cincinnati looked like around the turn of the 20th century. The pink lines are the street cars. You can even see some yellow lines that show the incline system. By the early 1900's, this is an expansive growing city. Areas of the lower bowl area became more dilapadated as people chose to move away from the city to build homes [sound familiar?]. Still, the city maintained a certain fluidity that could be described as "controlled sprawl."

Now let's look at the same map, this time with a close-up of the Walnut Hills area:

Streetcars dominated this part of the city. If you can see that northeast of Eden Park and just south of the cemetary [both in green] there's a rectangular train loop that ran in the Walnut Hills area. The original Walnut Hills Christian Church [the people whose church building Echo rents out every week], started over 125 years ago in this neighborhood. It’s first building was on Locust Street, now WH Taft Road, located at the top left area of the rectangle loop. So in regards to public transportation, it was incredibly accessible, right on a trolley line. Now the current WHCC building is located on East McMillan, at the bottom right corner of the loop, yes, right on the same line; you could get off the trolley and walk straight into the church building. That’s why, in the first fifty plus years of the church, it was one of the more affluent Protestant congregations in the city: nobody drove a car, everyone lived in the city, and they relied on public transportation to get them from place to place.

But it wasn't the advent of the car that changed the landscape here. There were other circumstances at work. Things didn't really begin to change until after World War 2. More on this in the next part of the series.

Maps from the Historical Atlas of Cincinnati Website.

Don't Look Now . . .

. . . but Brian Kelly is laying the foundation for a tremendous program at UC. Who could've imagined that they would sell out three [possibly four] games at Nippert, especially considering they average one a sell-out a decade? And just this afternoon they had Notre Dame's season starting QB transfer into the program. I know, the Irish are horrible this year but I really think Demitrius Jones could end up being the best UC QB since Greg Cook. Sure, Mark Dantonio began the building process but Kelly's the perfect personality to make program legit. If they can hang on to the coach long term, I think these guys could eventually make a BCS bowl game.

You Should Be Watching . . .

. . . the Ken Burns PBS documentary The War. If you do, you will be hard-pressed to disagree with Tom Brokaw that those Americans were indeed the Greatest Generation. I'm still catching up after DVRing the first three episodes but, if you want to start in tonight, they're showing D-Day. I'm sure they'll re-air it eventually, but it's absolutely riveting footage.

I can't imagine we could ever do that again.

Bandwagon Openings Now Available

So the Bengals lose another one and the city goes crazy. A 1-2 record doesn't look quite as bad compared to preseason playoff picks St Louis and New Orleans being 0-3. But in Cincinnati, it's cause for emotional distress. If you're unfamiliar with our town you might wonder why we're like this. Simple answer: The 1990's.

After beginning the decade with some strong teams we witnessed firsthand some of the worst football possible. Owner/GM Mike Brown had the football name but none of the capabilities of his father, the great Paul Brown. The Bengals would find ways to lose games. First round draft picks were useless: David Klinger is now in Seminary, Ki-Jana Carter was hurt before he played a game, Dan Wilkinson was "Big Daddy Bust," Akili Smith was drafted before Edgerrin James, Torry Holt, Champ Bailey, and Jevon Kearse. It couldn't get much worse.

The came Marvin Lewis.

It was a breath of fresh air. Carson Palmer, a complete quarterback, was drafted and has embraced the city. Despite not achieving complete glory, Lewis has yet to have a losing season. Bengals fans began sensing a change, some hope; we were no longer the biggest losers. And, if not for an unfortunate injury to Carson, perhaps we even get to the Super Bowl.

But then last year happened. Everything that could go wrong did. It had a certain similarity to the 1990's. People doubted a little but held out hope. And then this year begins at 1-2, with a couple of losses where nothing feels right, and Bengals fans are again manic. People want Marvin fired [interesting as the only constant during this time has been the inept leadership of Mike Brown]. But I'm here to tell you:

Things . . . Will . . . Be . . . Fine.

And you heard it here first: they will win this Monday night against the Patriots.

It seems inconceivable, but they will. The Patriots can be beat and this is the perfect opportunity, with the Bengals reeling, for it to happen. And if nothing else assures me of this, it was a simple gesture by Carson Palmer. After Glenn Holt fumbled away the kick-off at the end of the game when the Bengals had three time outs and a minute to drive for a score, you knew he was down. While Holt has become a surprise go-to guy in situations the past two seasons, this was a game changing mistake. But there goes Carson, right after Holt screwed the pooch, to console his teammate. Those Bengals fans who've watched this team for the past two decades will attest that we haven't had that type of guy here since . . . well, Boomer Esiason.

This ship will be righted. The Bengals will make the play-offs And 1-2 will be a forgotten memory. For this reason I am opening up seats on the bandwagon a little early. This way you can get some premium seating while all the late-comers will be hanging on the sides.

It'll be a nice ride, I promise.

Fantasy Football Is Crazy . . .

. . . and female readership automatically dissipates. Last night I was lamenting that, despite the fact that I had the second highest score in our league, I was going to take the loss. Apparently the guy I was playing happened to start Kevin Curtis, who caught three TDs for the Eagles yesterday. Because I had the Cowboys defense and Rex Grossman is no good, I ended up with a slim three point lead going into tonight- and he still had Deuce McAllister playing MNF. But since the Saints are the Ain'ts, I come out with a victory.

Yeppers, baseball takes more skill.

UPDATE: Monday morning I joked to Kelly that it was sick that I would have to hope Deuce got hurt so I could win my Fantasy game. She agreed. Of course I just saw where Deuce tore his ACL in last night's game and that's why he didn't get any points.

I am, indeed, a sick-o.

It's Back

After an almost three year hiatus the Holy Observer crew is back with all the fake Christian news worthy to print. If you're unfamiliar with the type of satire, notice such articles as "Mom achieves 100% VBS Coverage" and a news blurb about a Christian dating site shut down because a guy listed "Song of Solomon man seeks Ezekiel 23 woman" [funny considering you know the texts and that the guy confesses "I thought using Scripture was sure to get me a good woman"]. I thinks it funny.

Thirty Somethings

With Kelly finally turning thirty yesterday I guess we're finally "a couple in their thirties." I asked her if it's hit her yet and she's said it's starting to. I've decided to spend the rest of the week making age jokes to her.It's cool, though: I find old women hot.

Two

[UPDATE: the podcast of the entire service is now available at iTunes]

Last night we celebrated the completion of the second year of year of ministry here in Walnut Hills. Our actual start date was October 16 in 2005, but it was in September that we started our core gatherings. There was a good crowd of our "regulars" in addition to guests who came to celebrate with us. I was excited that Kelly's parents were able to come up and my parents even took a night off from their church to come and worship with us.

The worship gathering was pretty cool as we had a lot of people involved. Daesik, a native of Korea and a PhD student at UC's Conservatory of Music, opened up by playing the organ. It was rather cool to hear pieces of music over 500 years old as a prelude to our worship. Then Tye led worship assisted by his wife Andrea, along with Derek and Rachel. Derek, too is a student at the conservatory and played a jazz sax that was phenomenal. The four of them humbly led is in praising God.

One of the goals of Echo from our inception was to be a church that started churches in the city. While we haven't met that goal yet, we want to contribute as much as possible to urban churches in Cincinnati. This past year Abe and Joni Brandyberry started Covenant Church in Northside and they've been doing some amazing work there. Last night we had them with us to discuss their ministry and gave them a love offering so they can continue to make a difference in their community. I can't wait to see what God is going to do in this city because of Covenant Church.

But I guess the part I enjoyed the most was seeing all the people God has blessed us with. Echo was started when Aaron and Dorota Burgess joined Kelly and I to embark on this journey. And only Tim and Dale remain from our week one attendees [well, maybe Emily will come back from London someday to join us again]. But God has continued to bring us some incredibly talented people who share our passion for this city and His kingdom.

This is a good place to be.

Worth Thinking About

Are you in love with Jesus? HT: Between Two Worlds 

Ouch

Up to this point I've withheld any thoughts about Taser-gate. The plight of rambunctious Andrew Meyer, the University of Florida student who was tased by campus police during a John Kerry speech has been viewed by 2million+ on the interwebs. Apparently the phrase, "Don't Tase Me, Bro" is now sweeping the nation, destined to be a catch phrase that could soon rival "That's hot" and "Deal or No Deal."

There are a lot of first amendment questions being raised here but what blurs the line is that Meyer was a jerk. He felt that he was entitled to publicly insult a US senator while using some questionable language towards him. That in itself is more than reason for him to be escorted out. He refuses to leave, then forcibly resists, while acting erratic [stop and think about this for a second: this is done with a few yards of a former Presidential candidate and still very public figure. If this was 2004, Secret Service would've beat the living crap out of him and no one says a word]. As he's being ushered out he begins to cry like a baby, still physically resisting security which, eventually, leads to the tasing, apparently distributed by Meyer's bro.

There are probably very legitimate concerns as to when and how tasers should be used but human rights officials would do well to avoid this case as an opportunity to convince the country. There's no way they can make a martyr out of this kid, especially when a majority of the country would've tased him sooner.

I'm Smiling As I Type This

So check out this resume:

Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research Expert in Artificial Intelligence, specifically problem solving, knowledge representation, image processing, natural language, document classification, artificial neural network.

Research Professor in Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science.

Pretty impressive. I guess it's kinda unfortunate that when Dr. Scott Fahlman dies the only thing he'll be noted for is inventing this: :-)

Weekend Recap

Wednesday night is a little late to get this up, but we went non-stop last weekend enjoying two really cool events. The first was the Walnut Hills Festival. It resumed this year after a 15 year hiatus. It took place in the "rough part" of Walnut Hills but that didn't deter people from attending. Larry [good friend and our children's guy] and I helped out with odds and ends, running errands and managing the main stage. We received incredibly too much credit for little work. Talking with the lady who organized it, I think Echo will have a strong presence in helping out with it next year.

The second was my home church's 50-year anniversary. It was cool to reconnect with people that haven't seen me since I was a teenager [I think some were astonished that I found someone gullible enough to marry me]. I kept thinking what it will be like when Echo turns 50 but, then again, I might not be alive then.

This week isn't going to slow down, either. We have the Rett fundraiser Saturday and Echo's anniversary on Sunday.

We don't stop.

It's Not Kaelyn . . .

. . . but Dorota swore it was. All she said was that it was a Honda commercial and they showed a movie-like thing of her. Somehow we caught it tonight and both Kelly and I swore it was her. Click here and watch the 2nd commercial listed; she comes in about four seconds in. It's crazy. Somewhere, Kaelyn has a twin [or two?].

Update: Here's a screen capture if you can't see the video-

In The Meantime . . .

. . . while I formulate some of the longer posts lurking in my mind, I offer these t-shirts that are available to purchase here in Cincinnati. If you're not a local you might not find these interesting but those people familiar with the Nati must puruse and decide when we'll make a field trip to buy some. p.s. Some of them are PG-13 and not appropriate to wear to a Carmen concert.

Shot To The Groin

Let's sum it up: Reds lose. Bengals lose [horribly]. Fantasy baseball team loses in play-offs. Fantasy football team loses [um, because I picked up the Bengals defense].

And I still had a great day. Go figure.

Sucks To Be Roger Goodell

So Bill Belichick and the Patriots cheated and everyone waited for the commissioner to come down hard. He had to because he dropped the hammer all throughout the off-season. Just this month an assistant coach was suspended for five games for buying performance enhancing drugs [curious as the coach doesn't actually play the game]. In addition to all the other suspensions levied [Chris Henry gets eight games for a traffic violation?] Belichick's staff videotaping opposing coaches was previously caught, they were warned not to do it again, and yet they did it anyway. And there's still been no discussion about whether or not they were messing with the radio frequencies in the visiting quarterback's headsets.

The hammer had to fall. And yesterday it did.

But it was more like a toy hammer.

So there's a monetary fine and the lost of a first round draft pick. No suspension for the coach. About the cash, the Patriots are the 3rd most valuable NFL franchise worth about $1.2 BILLION. They made over $250 MILLION in revenue last year. It makes the combined fines of $750,000 look pretty weak. And as for the draft, the Pats traded with San Francisco last year and got their first round pick, meaning they'll likely get an even better position than what they normally had.

The new commissioner is looking pretty inconsistent right now. If you want to be the hard-dog, you gotta play the role even when it seems silly. I'm sure we're going to hear about this decision throughout the rest of the season. With this tumultuous first year, you gotta think that the Goodell era will be a relatively short one.

And who would've thunk this would be the year of the cheater?