Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Paul - thank you for the burger driller laugh

Lee and Steve - My uncle Bobby had 2 brothers. Max was their father. His brother Gene was in the Gentry Shops business with Bob. There was a falling out along the way and eventually Bob started a new clothing business in downtown Cincinnati catering to local celebrities and others with more stylish clothes.  I think he was involved in boxing and restaurants,some involving Jeff Ruby.  I was long gone by then and don't know the details. 

As far as I know his younger son Jim has a clothing store in downtown Cincinnati now. My cousin Max has an advertising printing business and my cousin Nancy is deceased.  

Steven Levinson

Thanks, Barb.  The family history brings a lot into focus.

Dale Gieringer

Those of us living on the western side were deprived of ethnic cuisine.  The nearest exception would be LaRosa's pizza, the closest thing to an acceptable pizza in Cincinnati.  I didn't visit the Mandarin until after having dined at Chinese restaurants on the East Coast, which seened much superior.  The restaurants I really enjoyed - and now miss - in Cincinnati were the German ones - Grammer's, Lenhardt's, and most especially Mecklenburg Gardens, where we used to quaff 3.2 beer amidst the grapevines, and where I relished my first cannibal sandwich (alias beef tartare).  

Steven Levinson

Lenhardt's schnitzles were Da Bomb.  Mecklenburg's was for special occasions.

Philip Spiess

Mecklenburg Gardens was the oldest of the several famous Cincinnati German restaurants, being founded in 1865.  It suffered first through a bad fire in the late 1960s and then through a period in the 1970s [?] when it was serving non-German food -- practically health food (it seemed to be owned at that time by Hippies) -- and nouvelle cuisine, but it's long since gotten over that!  Its Biergarten was where I would take out-of-town college friends in the summer in my undergraduate and graduate days (there and to the Wiedemann Brewery roof garden in Newport, Kentucky, overlooking downtown Cincinnati).

Grammer's was founded in 1872; among its specialties were "Three Cheese and Herb Strudel," "Chicken Paprikash," "'Hungarian' Beef Goulash," and the best Schmierkase in Cincinnati (though that produced commerically by Coor's Dairy on Gray Road in Winton Place was highly respectable, too).

Lenhardt's was the "johnny-come-lately" of Cincinnati's top German eateries, being founded in 1955; it was actually Austrian-Hungarian cuisine, rather than German.  As Steve Levinson rightly points out, their house specialty was Schnitzel.  The regular menu offered 10 different kinds of Schnitzel, which I'm going to list to make Steve's mouth water:  Schnitzel au Naturel (Naturschnitzel) (served in its own juices); Wiener Schnitzel (fried in egg and bread crumbs); Schnitzel a la Parisienne (fried in egg so the crust was like a fluffy omelet); Holsteiner Schnitzel (served with a fried egg and anchovies on top); Sailor Schnitzel (served with fried ham and melted Swiss cheese on top); the Hungarian Paprika Schnizel (made with onions and paprika); Kaiser Schnitzel (served in a delicate cream sauce with lemon zest and capers); Italian Schnitzel (made with Parmesan cheese and garlic); Rahmschnitzel (topped with crumbled bacon and chopped onion, and "bubbled" in sweet cream); and St. Moritz Schnitzel (Swiss Chalet Schnitzel) (breaded veal filet stuffed with ham and Gruyere cheese).  Lenhardt's also served a favorite dish of mine, Sauerbraten with potato pancakes and applesauce, but I don't recall ever ordering it there, because my Grandmother Goepp made the best Sauerbraten in Cincinnati (she made it with ginger snaps).

Paul Simons

Thanks Barb and all for the memory refresh. The Mecklenburg’s liverwurst sandwich - on large-diameter rye with mustard and onion - was the template for all my subsequent liverwwurst sandwiches and only about 53 years after encountering it for the first time I remember it like yesterday. Cincinnati can’t be uniquely cosmopolitan among mid-size American towns but it seemed to be at the time. It was to some extent a microcosm of the ideal of the melting pot both regional with the Kentucky and West Virginia and places in the deep south influences and international - Jews, Germans, Chinese and more. Izzy Kadetz king of Corned Beef to Mecklenburg’s to The Tom House to Empress Chili to Boccegaloupo’s Oyster Bay Restaurant where I had my first and still best fried oyster sandwich and this is just food - next would be music from Music Hall downtown to R&B joints going up Reading Rd to real country music played by real country people at bars on Montgomery Rd in Norwood to jazz at the Mahogany Hall downstairs bar in Mt Adams the town wasn’t too bad at all. Even The Hub and The Wheel - downtown busines peoples’ lunch places, with beer of course, precursors of the “food courts” at malls which are probably headed for extinction- it was “all good”.

Dale Gieringer

Let me add there's now a delightful German pub in Covington called Wunderbar, in the Oktoberfest part of town that developed long after we graduated.  Not run by Germans, but authentic native Kentuckians. They have a scrumptious selection of sausages, sides, and beers.  When I visited  a year ago, the patrons ran the gamut from baby boomers like us to families to young couples.  The music was good too, at least to my dated 60s-70 taste.  Sehr gemütlich!   I look forward to revisiting it for our reunion (fingers crossed).     

 https://www.facebook.com/wunderbar.covington.3/

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Phil, I had to look up  Schmierkase but you probably knew that would happen. 

Paul - liverwurst at Mecklenburg's? My father must have had it when he was in the Seabees because it was a foreign thing to us.  He worked 1/2 days on Saturdays and brought it home for lunch sometimes. I learned to love it. I think he also had Spam but we never had that at home.  He was raised in a kosher home but we never were.  

Jeff Daum

One restaurant that was always reserved for special ocassions enjoyed by my family, was the White Horse Tavern in Coventon KY. https://www.nkytribune.com/2016/06/our-rich-history-popular-white-horse-tavern-part-of-gourmet-strip-destroyed-by-fire-in-1972/

Paul Simons

A question for the assembled multitude - Phil mentioned one in Covington but does anyone remember any other Cincinnati area brewery taprooms? I have a dim memory of touring a brewery, seeing the shiny stainless steel tanks, and winding up enjoying the delightful product in the taproom. Maybe it was even in the “OVER THE RHINE” part of Cincinnati!! Burger? Weideman? Schoenling? Any memories? Of course we all remember the Reds games on the radio - the Burger Baseball Network 

Dale Gieringer

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

I can't say which one of the Big Red Machine was my favorite, I loved them all, but it was "Little Joe" for whom I named the first  puppy I had to myself, that wasn't the "family dog".  After getting my own apartment, the puppy was given to me after my friend's dog, Mollie, had an unexpected litter. In keeping with using the letter "M", as my friend used for all of her dogs (Mollie, Magoo, and Mabel), and since this pup was the runt, but cute as any puppy I had ever seen, and could run faster than his larger litter mates, he became Morgan! 

 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Watching the local news about providing voting for physically or visually challenged voters with ADA approved voting booths, I noticed Mike Lichstein and his wife Toni. Mike said that didn't need to use the special equipment. He went inside to vote and his wife helped him!! 

Jeff Daum

Ann, thanks for posting the picture of Mike.  My recollections of Mike, were that he never seemed to need or want concesions due to his blindness.  I still remember his adroitness in signing my Remembrancer.

Steven Levinson

Not only did Mike L. not need or want assistance because of his blindness (except my elbow between classes), my recollection is that senior year at WHHS, the UC College of Medicine contracted with him to produce a braille computer, which he did.

Jerry Ochs

If this doesn't cheer you up, nothing will.

David Buchholz

And at a reunion some years ago when we were all asked to say a few words about ourselves Mike stood up and said, "I was David Schneider's first patient."

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

I remember Mike saying that.  It was hilarious!! 

Philip Spiess

Paul:  The brewery you describe sounds like the Schoenling Brewery's modern plant (I was never there, but I remember what it looked like from the outside).  I believe it was on Central Parkway.

The Weidemann Brewery I mentioned was in Newport, not in Covington.  You could sit on its rooftop and imbibe good beer, as well as scarfing down platters of meat and cheese, all to the accompaniment of music from the Delta Queen steamboat's calliope, docked at the Cincinnati Public Landing.  The steam calliope was loud enough, even from across the river, to make it sound like the Delta Queen was chugging down Monmouth Street in Newport, even as we were chugging down beers.  [I was once, circa 1974, invited to play the steam calliope at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, summer home of the Ringling Brothers Circus.  It was a disaster:  the steam from the calliope steamed up my glasses, so that I could not see the keyboard; to open the steam valves you had to attack the keyboard with a heavy and severe downstroke of your hands (which precluded any attempt at the graceful playing of music); and thus you could make no attempts at runs, grace-notes, or other such embellishments in your performance.  On top of that, given the volume of a steam calliope, I broadcast my mistakes for two miles in every direction.  The management firmly transferred my efforts to a compressed-air calliope in the museum (much easier to play), for which I was eternally grateful.]

And no one has yet attempted to answer my previous Trivia Question:  What was the theme song associated with Waite Hoyt and the Cincinnati Redlegs Burger Beer Baseball Network?

Jon Singer

Whitey Davis had completed his second paddle strike against my backside.  There had been an interruption between the first and the second as I pleaded for mercy. He felt my transgression( trying to win a quarter bet with Rick Lindsey that I could climb thru the basketball hoop and net on the first day of gym senior year) warranted two swats.  I limped back to the stands.  I stood next to Mike.  Spontaneously he said, "Singer, I couldn't see it, but it sounded bad."  As on other occasions, he exhibited great perception.

Becky Payne (Shockley)

Phil: I never knew that you performed on steam calliope at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo! (Did you list that on your resume? And did you credit my mother for your keyboard instruction??) Sorry it was such a tough gig, but I'm glad you didn't permanently injure your hands...

Paul Simons

 Thanks for that information Phil. Yes there’s nothing like widespread distribution of erroneous musical tones to create a lasting double-digit deficit in the voting for Steam Calliope Player Magazine’s “Riverboat Steam Calliope Player Of The Year” contest, and that’s no erroneous information. Many people are saying that, very fine people. Now isn’t Central Parkway what Over The Rhine overlooks? I mean looks over? I mean provides a vantage point from which visibility is available? I can’t say for sure because it could run counter to my sincerely held religious beliefs about Central Parkway and whether people who have already caused multiple fatal accidents because of multiple instances of DUI should be driving on Central Parkway at all. Legally speaking again I can’t comment for the above reason although you shouldn’t infer that I necessarily condone drunk drivers responsible for multiple vehicular homicides continuing to drive on Central Parkway. Also neither Central Parkway nor vehicular homicide are anywhere in the Constitution. We had better stick to steam calliopes unless you’re intending to use one to perform a medical procedure in which case I have already answered that question on July 23rd. 

Jon I’m with you 100%. One of those teacher/coaches - maybe named Bailey, maybe named Philbin - I can’t remember which - paddled me, hard, at the front of the room for talking quietly with one other classmate. If the Statute of Limitation hasn’t run out I suggest a class action lawsuit of at least $20 million against them and the entire Cincinnati Public School System. There are now about 7 million millionaires and 614 billionaires in this country and I am not a member of either group which is obviously the fault of the school system in Cincinnati and its egregious dependence on paddling to enforce silence during extremely boring classes taught by athletic coaches pretending to be teachers. 

Back to Phil - I don’t know but here’s a link to a Reds World Series game with Waite Hoyt doing the play-by-play: https://youtu.be/zHfvmXqft0E

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Jerry: Wherever (not to mention WHYever) did you dig up that campy video of the two bimbos cavorting at the pool and singing a Yiddish ditty that must be well over 100 years old? It was hilarious! And filmed in Israel.....

Richard Winter (Winter)

Posting this photo as a test -- working to help Dave Buchholtz with some issues he has been running into as he posts his outstanding photos to this message forum.

For anyone interested, this is a bracelet designed and fabricated by Jan Stigberg, my wife, who is a contemporary craft jeweler.   

Philip Spiess

Becky:  Your mother wouldn't want to have acknowledged my playing on the steam calliope (when you hit a "clunker," it clunks!).  But my playing on the compressed-air calliope, smaller and capable of being controlled, would have done her teaching proud.

Paul:  Central Parkway does indeed overlook the "Over-the-Rhine" district; the parkway runs behind Music Hall.  "Over-the-Rhine" was so called because of all the Germans and German beer gardens there, and because it was on the old Miami & Erie Canal (nicknamed the "Rhine").  When the canal bed was covered over [see my Post #4476 (1-12-20)], it became Central Parkway.  If I'm remembering the Schoenling Brewery correctly, it was a bit further north, on the east side of Central Parkway; plate glass windows looked out on the parkway, and you could see stainless steel tanks behind them..

As to Waite Hoyt, that was him all right on your posted baseball game, but the game was apparently sponsored by Chrysler and Gillette, not Burger beer (that was the "Gillette Blue Blades" theme song -- "To look sharp, every time you shave . . ." -- playing in the background).