Fountain Square in the Morning

"Progress" v. The Metropole Tenants Association (Part I)
I've been wanting to write about the coming conversion of the Metropole (located on Walnut between Sixth and Seventh) to a luxury hotel for some time. (Background: Enquirer; Streetvibes.) I've been reluctant to, for fear of what will appear in the comments. I don't want to feed the trolls who regularly comment in order to insult poor people. I also suspect, though, that the overwhelming part of our readership is fairly unsympathetic to the

Dear Gang of Five: It's Your Turn
Mayor Mallory didn't waste any time after Milton Dohoney issued his budget by passing the plan right to City Council, which will change on December 1st. So the message I took from this is: Gang of Five, it's your turn to govern, not grandstand. I'll be very interested in hearing the rhetoric from the likes of Ghiz and Berding and as of Dec 1st, Charlie Winburn.I'm surprised I've not heard anything from Berding. Just a month ago he was claiming people would flee Cincinnati if police were laid off. What will his plan be now? Dohoney's plan cuts really d

Playing Chicken, Part II
Well, it is no longer election season. Now we shall see who really will be honest and who will continue to grandstand on the City's Budget. The City Manager has announced his plan and it includes cutting 315 jobs, including 110 from the police department, and 47 from the fire department. So two departments (police and fire) making up 2/3rds of the budget will get only about 50% of the job cuts. I guess some might call that prioritizing public safety. I am sure the FOP's sock puppets will call it something akin to a nuclear bomb going off in the heart of the Westwood.I really h

Most Dangerous Cities 2009: Where's Cincinnati?
So, the same flawed group is out with another Most Dangerous list, this time for Cities, but Cincinnati didn't make the list. I for some reason didn't read this in any of the local media. Cleveland made the list, but not Cincinnati. St. Louis is #2, but no mention of it.I hope the local media learned that this website uses bad stats, but it would be good journalism to do another story about how Cincinnati is not on the list, but it incorrectly got on a worst "neighborhood" list by some bizarre misuse of data. I know not to expect the media to do follow-ups, but I hope they will and calling them out may guilt a

Cincinnati Unchained November 21st
This Saturday join your fellow Cincinnatians and support local independent businesses in the annual Cincinnati Unchained. From the press release for this year's event:On November 21, locally-owned businesses across Greater Cincinnati will urge area residents to support the city’s vibrant independent businesses by shopping locally-only. As part of Cincinnati Unchained, a shop-local event throughout Greater Cincinnati, participating businesses are asking residents to take one day to shop, dine out, and do other business only with locally-owned independent business.A place to start would be the