Philip Spiess

Lee Max:  A wonderful story of your motorcycle ride, well told!

Concerning Mr. Gallenstein:  I had him for 10th Grade Special Math, where he introduced us to the "New Math" (the class was supposed to be Geometry).  I never understood it, he could never explain it so I could make sense of it (I'm still a devotee of Tom Lehrer's song about the "New Math"), and that was precisely when I lost all interest in math.  I guess I didn't have a head for figures -- except figures of speech.

(And yes, Steve Levinson, Mr. Leeds was a classroom bully, throwing chalk and erasers at students.  That's where I began to lose confidence in my math abilities.  Judy Holtzer:  I'm not sure what you mean by Mr. Leeds  "inverting" a student, but when I was teaching 5th Grade History & Geography, I could not get any student to really understand that the Nile River did not run "uphill" -- it looked that way on the map!  Finally, one day I put the map of the Nile on the floor and held a particularly confused student upside down over the map.  "Now do you see?" I said; he claimed he did, but I'm still not sure.  Of course, I was teaching in a private school at the time. . . .)

Tina:  After our Christmas decorations have been put away, maybe I can get to my Cincinnati collection, and I'll report on Christopher Gist, an important and well-known early Cincinnatian.  And you have a nice final paragraph on what we can all still do at our age, rather than what we can't do.

Dale and Others:  Of course we swam in the nude at WHHS; boys did as well at the YMCA (except on Family Day -- although some unawares kid always came out naked into the pool room on those days, only to retreat in a panic when he realized all eyes were on him, particularly the girls').  I never quite got the argument for it -- supposedly a hygienic one -- because the girls in those days wore heavy woolen swimsuits, which seemed pretty unhygienic to me.  (There is plenty on this subject all over the Internet.)  As to Whitey Davis's "Periscopes up!", Dale, he also would comment, when having us open our eyes under water, "Pretend you're seeing Sally Rand over there on the other side of the pool!"  I think Jeff Rosen and I were the only two people in the class who knew who Sally Rand was (cf. the 1933 Chicago World's Fair and some 1920s and 1930s movies, notably Bolero, 1934).  Perhaps as a cultural historian I'll write more on this subject at a later date.

Dale:  I can see a coming Tweet from "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named":  "Folks, California is really going to pot!"

Mr. Lounds:  Those two classroom stories of yours are remarkable!  Thanks for adding them to what I feel sure is becoming an important WHHS written archives of our class's times and customs!  (And I, too, on one of my first solo experiences driving the carpool to WHHS, was halfway home on the school bus when I remembered the car.  I had to get off at Samuel Ach School and walk back to good old Walnut Hills to get the car.)  As to your mention of the Class of 1964's accomplishments:  at our 20th Reunion (1984), my wife (who hails from New England), on hearing the reports of what everybody was doing with their lives (we were not then yet retired, needless to say), remarked, "What a batch of over-achievers!"

Philip Spiess

Not to overload the posts, but I want to wish all a Happy New Year, and hope that it is, indeed, a good year for everyone.

I want to give a special historical shout-out to my friends the East Enders, as they've indicated themselves as such in recent pages above (at least I think what I'm about to write about can be construed as being in the East End):

The Torrence Road Suburban Railroad Station, at the foot of Torrence Road, between Columbia Parkway and Eastern Avenue (1907):  Not much is left here (I originally wrote this in 1978 for the Society for Industrial Archeology's Annual Meeting in Cincinnati that year, so nothing may be left at this point) of the suburban station on the Pennsylvania Railroad which served commuters in Cincinnati's East End and East Walnut Hills on the heights above.  The overhead walkway which formerly passed over the tracks is long gone, and weeds conceal whatever remains of the foundations of the former station house.

What did remain in 1978, though rapidly deteriorating even then, was the ornamental terra-cotta panel set into the wall in the hillside on the upper side of the tracks, just west of Torrence Road:  the panel was the work of the noted sculptor, Karl Bitter (architectural sculptor of works on Biltmore House, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Custom House, etc.), and was formerly one of a series of eight panels that decorated the dormers of the train shed wall of the old Broad Street Station in Philadelphia.  The panels represented the major cities served by the Pennsylvania Railroad.  This particular panel, marked "Cincinnati" along the bottom (hidden under debris in 1978), was removed to Cincinnati after the train shed was destroyed by fire at the Broad Street Station in the 1920s.  The panel depicts two early Ohio River settlers walking along, engaged in conversation (many dubious attempts have been made to try to identify these two particular pioneers).

The Torrence Road Suburban Station was the scene of social excitement in the 1920s (1930s?) when Alice Roosevelt Longworth (Teddy Roosevelt's oldest child, smack-talking "Princess Alice") and her husband, Nicholas Longworth, then Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives, disembarked from the train here to go up the hill to visit with Nick Longworth's sister, Maria Longworth (Nichols) Storer, founder of Rookwood Pottery, at her Grandin Road mansion.

Even in 1978 the ornamental panel was in very bad condition, deteriorating more with each passing year (possibly the work of vandals), so I'll be interested if anyone on site can report if anything at all remains of this little-known East End landmark.

Ira Goldberg

Greetings,all! Just to put a fine point on Dale's report, his fame arrived in little old Corvallis, Oregon's Gazette- Times today - picture and all. As to you, Tom Lounds, I recently dined with Joan Stanley, who lavished praise and respect upon you. If you need an addressed or phone for her, just message me. Love to connect you. 

Paul Simons

I want to add here as well that the photo of Dale in his garden of verdant expanded consciousness reminds me of the Genesis story in the science textbook called “The Bible” (which, incidentally Mr. Lounds and in fact the entire Cincinnati Board of Education inexplicably passed over in favor of some nonsense by that Darwin fellow) where God just got done creating this mess and, naively thinking everything is gonna work out fine, and, since it’s Sunday and the Bengals are not in the playoffs, decides to kick back, roll a fat one, and listen to gravitational waves.

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

What a treat for the New Year, to see you back among us Mr. Lounds. You were, and are, one of my all-time favorite teachers, be it high school or college.

I studied Human Anatomy with you (I'm petty sure that was the course name) and you can't imagine how many times I have told a doctor, "Well, according to what Mr. Lounds taught me..." Over the succeeding years, every time I have named a muscle or a bone, I have had a flashback to your class and that very cool textbook with the plastic sheets that layered muscles over blood vessels over skeleton.

Swim class was something else. I had forgotten the "Periscopes up!" quote but, upon reading it I remembered it clearly. My most vivid memory of swim class was being chilled to the point of shivering at times. I was a skinny little runt in those days, alas. I would be going into hypothermia before I ever hit the water. I'm pretty sure that Whitey had no such problem.

Bruce Fette

Phil,

As you were describing above, a specific terra cotta panel gradually fading, it brought back to me the memory of the "Incline".  And to calibrate all, Clifton Ave winds upward from downtown Cincy up to UC, and as it does so, there is a very steep hill on the east side of the street. At the top of that hill, is now a small park called Bellevue Park. When I was very young, my Gradfather Fette owned a mansion on Graham Steet at the corner of Elysian Pl, and my Dad would walk with me over to the top of this very steep Hill, then hold me by the arms and swing me around up there, so I have very vivid memories of this hill. My understanding is that at one time, the "Incline" went right up the side of this hill, probably before Clifton was paved.  While that is all I ever knew about this hill, I suspect Phil will know much more about the Incline and why the hill is called Belleview Cliff, perhaps even when it got that name.  What say Phil?

And yes, Sorry , I forgot to copy my Congratulations to Dale over to this server, and my Happy New Year Greeting, but here it is: Happy 2018 New Year to All.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Happy and fruitful 2018 to all!

Phil: Like you, Mr. Leeds held the hapless student upside down, I assume by the heels. 

Dale: Congratulations on achieving your goal. Living in Israel since 1969, I have not been following the issue, but I was given "permission" (after a long process following the recommendation of my pain doctor, which included seeing a psychiatrist, would you believe?) to try mj for chronic OA pain. Unfortunately, mj didn't help me. But, could I ask a favor? Could you  please explain why mj is prescribed for people with glaucoma (which I also have)? How does it help? Is it a beta-blocker like the drops I take? Thanks for explanation. MJ is not prescribed or mentioned to those with glaucoma in Israel.

Mr. Lounds: Your stories are wonderful, and fit right in with our ramblings on the Forum.  Just kidding, everyone!

Now back to cleaning out black holes of my house. I'm trying to downsize before moving from Beer Sheva, where I've lived since 1971, to Modi'in, so I can be closer to children and grandchildren. Modi'in, home of the Macabbis of Hannuka fame. I saw the family graves - awesome! I love archeology!

Thomas Lounds Jr.

First, I guess I need to thank Richard Winter for getting me back into the forum.  Believe me it is great to hear from so many of  you.  Yes, Ira, I would love to talk with Joan Stanley.  I believe you have my number. If not, let me know.  

A topic you may wish to discuss might be the march-no race -of technology in our lifetimes.  For example when I first went to P&G in the marketing department, we were doing marketing efficiency measurements ( e.g., cost per thousand) using slide rules.  Then we advanced to the old Monroe electrically-powered mechanical calculators.  Then to the giant Monroes which if you entered a certain problem , it would calculate to a certain entertaining beat. The next thing you knew everyone had a pocket calculator.

Switch to school.  Some of you may recall we never talked about DNA because it was only becoming more widely known in your early biological science years.  However, Look. at its significance now.  It and biology in general permeate our lives even more than they did then.  

I am sure you could have fun looking at the speed of development over the years in the field you first were introduced to at Walnut.  Maybe this is something we turn over to Phil, our historian emeritus.

Rick Gloeckler

Whoa Bruce, I grew up on Elysian Place...the 3rd house down from Graham St and spent my youth at Bellview Hill Park   The remains of the incliné were there and i am sure still are.  I took the # 10 bus from Inwood Park on Vine St to get to Walnut. Derek Dunn got on before I did and we rode the bus together for many years and became very best friends.  He used to laugh because I had to dodge a very notorious gang (the Vine Street Kats)to get to the bus.  I am sure Derek had his own challenges as well getting to school.  I miss him.  

Philip Spiess

Uh-oh!  I think I have my 2018 work cut out for me on this Forum!  Luckily, Mr. Lounds, the History of Technology (by which I mean all technology, not just information technology) was one of my studies in graduate school.  Needless to say, my response will be broken up into edible chunks, begining with a question to all of you -- how many everyday objects of your childhood, such as the glass milk bottle (delivered to the door), have now disappeared completely from your life (I mentioned snow tire-chains in an earlier post), or been transmogrified into a completely different form (such as the newspaper, now on line)?

But this post is for you, Bruce (and Rick Gloeckler)!  It is hard for me to imagine that much of what will appear below I wrote 40 years ago, in 1978, for the Society for Industrial Archeology's national meeting in Cincinnati.   (The meeting was to have been in Louisville, and the first half of it was, but I had convinced the Society's board of directors, through a slide lecture, that Cincinnati was by far the more interesting city, industrial remains-wise, and so the whole convention moved an hour and a half upstream.)

Although Pittsburgh still has two working inclines, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, one, once upon a time Cincinnati had five glorious inclined planes serving "the City on Seven Hills."  They were:

Main Street (Mount Auburn) Incline:  Built 1871-1872, with cabs; rebuilt 1878, with platforms; closed 1898; ascended Jackson Hill from the head of Main Street.

Price Hill Inclines:  Built 1873-1874, with passenger cabs; second inclined plane built adjacent to first in 1876, with platforms to carry freight, this side closing in 1929; operated by electricity from 1928 on; closed 1943; ascended Price Hill (a.k.a. "Buttermilk Mountain," because Mr. Price ran a temperance house at the top) from the western foot of 8th Street.  Its right-of-way may still be partially visible.

Bellevue (Clifton; Elm Street; Ohio Avenue) Incline:  Built 1876, with cabs; rebuilt 1890, with platforms; closed 1926; ascended Bellevue Hill (which includes Clifton Avenue Hill) from the head of Elm Street.  The large masonry piers which supported the incline's tracks over Clifton Avenue (just before it turns northward) are still there at the base of Bellevue Hill, and have been ever since I was a small child.

Mount Adams Incline:  Built 1874-1876, with cabs; rebuilt 1879, with platforms; engine house rebuilt 1891; in its last few years it carried automobiles (I rode on it, but was too young to remember); closed 1948; engine house demolished 1954 (I remember it); ascended Mount Adams from Lock Street, below 5th Street.  This was the longest running and most famous of Cincinnati's inclines; its passenger waiting station on Lock Street (by that time in ruins) was demolished about 1976; the incline's right-of-way was still visible below Rookwood Pottery last time I looked (circa 2003).

Fairview Incline:  Built 1892, with platforms; cabs installed on platforms, 1921; closed 1923; ascended Fairview Hill from McMicken Avenue.

The first four inclines were originally built for horsecars; the last was built for electric streetcars.  The cabs mentioned were enclosed carriages; the open-air platforms carried the streetcars and horse-drawn wagons, which drove onto them when they were in dock (thus the automobiles in 1947-1948).  All were of double, parallel track construction.  The moving platforms were designed to remain level with the horizon by means of an angular undercarriage; the high end of this undercarriage fit into a pit at the foot of the incline so that the platform's rails connected with the street tracks of the streetcar line.

This is enough for now.  I'll continue with the history of the Bellevue House, its beer garden, and the park in my next post.

Paul Simons

After reading Mr. Lounds' post I want to say a word or two thousand about the progress we've seen in technology, and the lack of it in other areas. This is only about the right-hemisphere stuff - the analytic, quantifiable stuff. When it comes to art, music, theater, literature and the like it appears to be more complex and I don't want to embarass myself trying to talk about it, beyond saying that it's just always been a part of the human psyche and the cave painting from 13,000 years ago is just as wonderful as what's on the wall at MOMA, and the drumming at the tribal dance back then was probably just as powerful as the Elvin Jones solo on The Best of Blue Note. 

Back in the 1960's we had the big stuff from skyscrapers to submarines, from cars to locomotives to rockets, that required enormous power and control to make and operate. We had TV, radio. We also had what in my opinion is one of the most important technologies of all, the ability to make optical devices - eyeglasses, microscopes, telescopes, still and moving picture cameras. We had sound and video recording - perhaps the most important - the means of keeping alive what had long since passed from this life. We had real medical ability including the introduction of the vaccine against polio. And we were beginning to actually see and reason our way back in space and time, back to the Big Bang, and to trace our own path from there to here, from then to now.

Lately, as Mr. Lounds noted, we've found a way into the most miniscule and it turns out the most useful areas - the integrated circuit which makes modern computers possible, the laser which with fiberoptics allows them to communicate with one another, and DNA which can lead to justice for the wrongly imprisoned. But even though all of these depend on absolute conformance with reality - absolute truth and nothing but or the thing won't work - we still harbor ideas, and elect leaders, who have no regard for truth and reality, including that of catastrophic climate change caused by us, unwittingly at first, but with full knowledge now. It's a sad conundrum, and a possibly lethal condition for a pretty highly evolved species.

Philip Spiess

I'd like to correct myself and also respond further to Tina Preuninger (Hisrich)'s comment about being related, many generations back, to Christopher Gist (post #3306).  In post #3323, I called Christopher Gist "an important and well-known early Cincinnatian."  He was not.

Rather, Gist was an important and well-known early Ohioan, having died some thirty years before Cincinnati was ever founded (1706-1759).  As a British citizen of the American colonies (he was born in Baltimore), Gist is famous as a surveyor and American frontiersman, being one of the first Europeans to explore the so-called Ohio Country (i.e., the Old Northwest Territory).  Having received training as a youth in surveying, possibly from his father, that became his career.  By 1750 he had settled as an adult in North Carolina, where he was a neighbor of Daniel Boone.

In 1750 the Ohio Company hired Gist to explore the area around the Ohio River as far as the falls of the Ohio (now Louisville, Kentucky).  The Ohio Company had been formed by several wealthy Virginia families, including relatives of George Washington, to purchase land from the king in order to sell it to settlers moving westward.  Gist provided one of the first and most detailed descriptions of southern Ohio and northeastern Kentucky that existed at that time.  In the process of doing so, he established good relations with the Native Americans of the region (Shawnees and Miamis, among others).

But his actvities and those of the Ohio Company alarmed the French, who were settling into the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions, and who claimed the Ohio Country for their own.  In 1753 they moved troops into the area and established several forts in western Pennsylvania.  Thereupon Governor Dinwiddie of the Virginia colony sent George Washington and Christopher Gist to Fort Le Boeuf to convince the French to evacuate the Ohio Country.  Did it work?  You bet it didn't!  Instead, the whole situation precipitated the French and Indian Wars, which raged through the area from 1754 to 1763.  But during the trip Gist twice saved Washington's life, first from an assault by a Native American, and second, by pulling Washington from the Allegheny River after he'd fallen off a raft. 

As many of you no doubt know, the French built a major fort, Fort Duquesne, at the headwaters of the Ohio River (now Pittsburgh), while Washington built a fort for Virginians, Fort Necessity, in what is now western Pennsylvania.  The stories of British General Braddock's defeat (1755) and his death at the hands of the French (with Washington having to take over command), the surrender of Fort Necessity to the French, and the ultimate victory going to the British for control of this portion of the American continent are well known.  Christopher Gist himself owned land near what is now Uniontown, Pennsylvania (not too far from Fort Necessity and the site of Braddock's Defeat), and began to build a town there, but the French burned all of the buildings.

Gist had been a member of the Braddock Expedition, along with Washington, and after the defeat he traveled into Tennessee, meeting with various Native American groups to enlist their help on the side of the British during the war.  It is unclear where he was during the final years of the war, nor which colony he died in, but he apparently died of smallpox.  His fame derives from his early detailed descriptions of the Ohio Country and his close friendship with George Washington.

But wait!  There's more!  Christopher Gist figures in a current computer game called "Assassin's Creed:  Rogue," which apparently has a Masonic Order complexion to it.  Now I'm not very familiar with computer games of this ilk, so I'll just give you what I can fathom of it, its gist, as it were.  According to an on-line description, it is "an open-world action adventure game, released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2014, and in 2015 for the PC."  "Rogue" follows the story of the Assassin [Dale Gieringer take note:  as you know, the words "assassin" and "hashish" are historically related] Shay Cormac, now turned Templar [don't even get me started on the history of the Templars!], who, between 1752 and 1760 is involved in the European Seven Years' War -- in America, the French and Indian Wars.  Christopher Gist, it seems, was a Mason (don't know if this is true), a latter-day growth off the old medieval Templar stem (as were the Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, etc.).  This is as far as I myself am going to take this (just a reporter here); the rest of you can do what you like with it.

And, oh, by the way, Happy New Year, Tina! 

Philip Spiess

I have promised Bruce Fette the history of the Bellevue Incline and Bellevue House Bierstube, but I will be happy to send this to him privately, seeing no other interest in it emerging from other classmates.  As Dave Buchholz noted three years ago, I am a "responder" to others' comments.

I have, I believe, revived some nice intellectual discussions and reminiscences among a number of us several times on this Forum, after it has flagged in participation.  It appears to me that many of you actually read it, but few now participate in its discussions, which is what the word "Forum" has meant from ancient Greek times to the present.  If no one else on this Forum is interested in joint dialogue, vignettes of Cincinnati history, or even well-remembered discussions of our youth in Cincinnati's varied neighborhoods and their activities, let me know, and I will turn my writing into other venues.  I do not wish to be the only classmate posting stuff on this Forum.

Jeff Daum

Phil, I and I think many others here, truly enjoy your postings- wit and depth along with breadth of knowledge. 

Nancy Messer

Phil - I agree with Jeff.  While I very seldom have something to add on any particular subject, I very much enjoy the dialogue.  I check the forum whenever there's something new and am always astounded by the information you provide.  I routinely wonder if you provide it from memory or whether you have to look things up. 

Dale Gieringer

  Phil -  

    Forum is a Roman term, not Greek.   The Greeks had their agora to hang out in, a similar kind of open market area.   More serious philosophers could also debate at the Stoa or Akademeia.   But it's appropriate that this be a forum, since WHHS discontinued teaching ancient Greek before our time.  

As for the Bellevue House bierstube, do I remember correctly that their was a two-level bar with live country music serving beer near that locale as late as the 1970s??

Philip Spiess

Dale:  You're quite correct.  And the Greek stoa, usually located on one or two sides of the agora, is considered by many to be the origin of the art gallery, as painted pine boards and curiosities were exhibited there in open gallerias; in Roman times, a similar structure at the side of the forum was known as the portico (though this can also mean "gateway").

The Bellevue House to which I refer is not the one of your memory, as the one at the top of the Bellevue Hill Incline (on Clifton Heights) had burned down in 1901.  Could the one you're thinking of have been in Bellevue, Kentucky?

Philip Spiess

Jeff and Nancy:  Although I appreciate your kind sentiments, my intent was not to fish for compliments, but to try to goad others into responding with their reminiscences.  Lee Max's story of his motorcycle ride, wonderfully told, was the sort of story I'm hoping that others of you can suddenly cull from your memories and be brave enough to share with the rest of us!  (I know all of us were -- and are -- as my wife has said, "over-achievers," and so I know that almost all of you have interesting stories to tell.  We're not young!  We ain't going anywhere but down the rabbit-hole of death, so let's share these stories while we can!)

Nancy:  Here's the deal:  Most of what I write is from memory, late at night and inspired and inspirited (as so many writers have been) by alcohol (my wife tells me not to do this).  But sometimes my memory says, "Wait a minute!  Are you remembering that correctly?" -- at which point I either say in my text, "if I recall," or I go to my copious library (circa 10,00 volumes in a modest-sized 1950s Rambler house -- my library is my glory and my wife's despair) to double-check a point or two, or perhaps check a quotation (or sometimes I am quoting from my own earlier writings or publications, which I usually note).  But yes, sometimes even that is insufficient, and I will use the Internet to see if I can be accurate in what I write -- I do try to be absolutely accurate (but it is in that order:  memory, library, Internet).  [In the case of my notes on Christopher Gist, my source was primarily my Cincinnati / Ohio library collection.]

And now I will, in the next post, taking up way too much space on this Forum, answer Bruce Fette on the matter of the Bellevue House.

Philip Spiess

The Glory of the Cincinnati Inclines:  At Post #3332, I gave a brief synopsis of the Cincinnati inclined plane railways, so I will not repeat it here.  Rather, I will take up what made them famous:  the restaurants / beer gardens / music halls at their summits (somewhat akin to the Paris cafes of Montmartre and Montparnasse, which emerged at a slightly later date -- yes, there were artists involved:  the Cincinnati Academy of Art in Eden Park was not very far away).

The most famous (distinguished) of these was the Highland House atop the Mount Adams Incline; it excelled in its food and beer, but above all in its orchestra, somtimes led by conductors who later led the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (such as Theodore Thomas, the Symphony's first conductor).  (The Highland House was located just to the east of the headhouse of the Mount Adams Incline.)  The Lookout House, another such resort, was located atop the Mount Auburn Incline.

But we are here to focus on (yes, Bruce) the second celebrated resort, the Bellevue House, atop the Bellevue Incline (a.k.a. Cincinnati & Clifton Inclined Plane R. R.).  It perched on the edge of the hill at the end of Ohio Avenue, and had a 400-foot-high rotunda, a double-decked wrap-around veranda that overlooked downtown and the Mill Creek Valley, and, on top of that, a crow's nest that had a view of the Ohio River Valley.  Dining, dancing, and drink were its major distractions.  (It burned down in 1901.)  The hillsides below, dropping almost straight down to the southern section of Clifton Avenue, are the fossil-permeated relics of the Terminal Moraine, the geological terminus of the end of the Ice Ages' gouge-out of the Great Lakes' basin, scouring the Ohio midlands to end at the Ohio River.

The land next to the Bellevue Hill Incline (east of it) was owned by Charles McMicken, prominent real estate speculator and Cincinnati businessman.  Steps from Elm Street passed his house, which was next to the Incline, just below Clifton Avenue.  When he died in 1858, he bequeathed $1 million to Cincinnati to found a university.  From 1875 to 1895 his home by the incline first served as McMicken Hall; then another structure was built beside it, the University of Cincinnati's first Academic Department.  From 1896 to 1917 it was the University's first medical college; commuters on the incline often complained that the medical students waved dismembered arms and legs out the windows of the school at passengers on the incline.  Next to the school was the Schoenling Brewery, where the freezer was used for both cadavers and beer.  From 1920 to 1925 the building became the University's Law School.  Thank God (we might say), the University eventually moved to the top of the hill and onto the east side of Clifton Avenue, where it has been (and expanded) ever since.

However, back to the hillside where the Bellevue House was:  it is now Bellevue Hill Park.  The park Pavilion, designed in 1955 by R. Carl Freund, features a cantilevered roof, bandstand, and three pergolas for dancing that form the pavilion's organic concrete canopy (which looks, to me, like a modern interpretation of the original rotunda of the Bellevue House, but, to my knowledge, no dancing has ever occurred there).  However, a recent addition on the hillside overlooking the city has been the Daniel J. Ransohoff Overlook Memorial; the late Danny Ransohoff (died 1993) was the uncle of our classmates Dick and David Ransohoff.  Daniel Ransohoff was, as his obituary said, a tireless booster of Cincinnati, a planner, a tour guide, historian, professor, well known as a photographer (particularly of social welfare situations; his work was shown at the Smithsonian Institution and at the Museum of Modern Art's Family of Man exhibit), and as a director of special projects for the United Way and the Community Chest.  A plaque in his memory overlooks the splendid view of downtown Cincinnati and the Kentucky hills in the distance.

Becky Payne (Shockley)

Thanks, Phil. This is really interesting! I missed your earlier piece about the Cincinnati Incline, but when I looked for it I couldn't find it. How might I do that?  Becky

Jeff Daum

I know we have a few motorcycle enthusiasts in our group.  I just finished an initial shoot of the Mecum 27th Annual Vintage & Antique Motorcycle Auction (there were over 1700 cycles!).  I particularly enjoyed studying the progression and technology changes from the very early 1900s through the present, as I viewed most of the cycles present.

If you would like to see more, (I have put up several hundred ) at http://www.daumphotography.com/Events/2018-Mecum-Motorcycle-Auction/

You can view them as thumbnails in the grid, or click on one to start the slideshow, or click on one, then click on the icon that looks like frames at the lower right of an image, and choose the size to view at (up to 4k).  Hope you enjoy.

Rick Gloeckler

Philip,  thank you for the info on the Bellview Hill Park and incline!!  Grew up there. You mentioned Schoenling Beer and couple of places that were part of my childhood.   My grandfather, Henry Gloeckler, sold his ice business to the Schoenlings (Schoenling Beer) and was an original stockholder in their brewery.  When I was a senior, I went to the brewery and bought about 30 Schoenling Beer T-Shirts.  While there I was permitted to have a few pops in the taproom (I was 16 at the time so they told me take it easy). I subsequently distributed the beer T-Shirts out to friends at Walnut Hills....where we later held a "beer shirt day".  Beer Shirt Day was simply  wearing a white dress shirt over the beer T-Shirt, which showed thru.  Mr Luedeke (Assistant Prinpicipal) apparently didn't want to celebrate Beer Shirt day so he grabbed me in the hallway. Apparently, some of my buddies revealed who the purveyor was of the Schoenling Beer Shirts.  Once in his office,  i was dismayed to learn that he had taught my father at either Clifton or Schield school.  He didn't buy my story about beer and German heritage.....my grandfather had been president of the ACL American Citizens League from 1930--1947 and beer always flowed freely at their festivities while i was growing up.  We mutually agreed that Beer Shirt day was a one time event.  Thanks again for all of your historical/informational posts.

Bruce Fette

Phil,

I for one, love to see all the traffic on this forum, even though about half of what could be here is suppressed for practical reason.

I have just learned far more about inclines and Shoenling beer, and was completely unaware on the Bellevue Park that Phil describes.

As I previously mentioned, my Grandafther owned the house on the corner, at least when I was very very young. I remember his house and pushbutton light switches and the on button had pearl inlay. I also remember his player piano, and the piano rolls. I probably played this in a very childish way (probably they didnt like me playing it as fast as possible). It was only as I remembered that his house was there, that I also realised that he was the engineer of the steam plant for UC. And a Great uncle on the other side of my family taught steam plant engineering (and published a book on the topic), which probably explains how my Dad met my Mom.

Jeff,

As for Motorcycles, the guy who just sold my bikes, Sean,does restorations in Mesa Az. I saw an Indian just like your photo in his shop when I was there over Thanksgiving. He was also working on an incredible restoration of a really old and bad looking Harley from really long ago. He said that he had all the parts he needed - just amazing.

By the way, if anyone needs an all aluminum Moitorcycle trailer, I am sending the one I made over to him soon.

There is much I wish I could tell you about the path leading to todays technology, but I think this is not really the right forum for that story. And I wish I had the photos to illuminate the story, but alas they faded from the sun.

Philip Spiess

Becky:  The original post on the Cincinnati inclines is Post #3332 (January 4, 2018), nine posts back on this Forum (if you scroll upward) from the one on the Bellevue House (Post #3341).  I must say that the entry on the inclines gives just the bare-bones information on them, and not some of their more dramatic lore, such as the day that the cable broke on the Price Hill Incline, causing the platform with its freight load of wagons, animals, and people to hurtle down the hill, impaling a poor horse at the bottom on his own wagon poles, and throwing a hapless farmer into his wagon-load of manure (probably saving his life).

Rick and Bruce:  Thanks for your input; that's just the sort of reminiscence material I was hoping to encourage.

And thanks, Jeff, for your photographs:  color and design and art are needed as well as history.

Becky Payne (Shockley)

Thanks so much, Phil. I found it! This stuff is really fascinating - I will try to follow more closely from now on!

best,

Becky