The organizers of the Cincy Stories event series will be presenting their second installment on Tuesday, May 5 at MOTR Pub. This time, the event will feature five speakers:
“Cincy Stories is about intimately connecting to our neighbors and just sharing stories like people do in their living rooms or around their dining room tables,” event co-founder Shawn Braley told UrbanCincy in January.
Due to the large crowd attending the first Cincy Stories event, tomorrow’s event has been moved to the main stage at MOTR Pub. The event will begin at 7 p.m. and will also feature live music from The Part-Time Gentlemen.
While this TED Talk was first delivered by James Howard Kunstler in 2004, virtually all of it still holds true today more than a decade later.
In the speech Kunstler, an outspoken critic of suburban sprawl, discussed the idea that designers and officials have seemed to largely forget how to properly design public spaces, which he contends should be thought about more carefully as spaces created and framed by buildings.
Instead, he says, that America’s suburban sprawl has been the “greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.” He goes on to say that suburbia is largely not worth caring about by anyone, and is the reason why those areas of the United States continue to fail to deliver on any of the promises they originally touted following the end of World War II.
The nearly 20-minute talk includes a variety of colorful comparisons and striking examples of how poorly designed America’s suburbs are. The ongoing argument throughout the course of the speech, is that these places are not places worth fighting for; and that our armed men and women fighting for American freedoms deserve better.
“We have about, you know, 38,000 places that are not worth caring about in the United States today. When we have enough of them, we’re going to have a nation that’s not worth defending. And I want you to think about that when you think about those young men and women who are over in places like Iraq, spilling their blood in the sand, and ask yourself, “What is their last thought of home?” I hope it’s not the curb cut between the Chuck E. Cheese and the Target store because that’s not good enough for Americans to be spilling their blood for. We need better places in this country.”
As planners throughout North America continue to spend exhaustive amounts of time reviewing said curb cuts, total signage area and other rather trivial details, Kunstler argues that the bigger picture of building proud communities is being missed.
While the New York native does not discuss Cincinnati in his talk, he very well could have. While most regions have their fair share of poorly designed suburbs, Cincinnati has become infamous for having some of the worst in the United States. Suburbs that are so bad, in fact, that even The Enquirer editorial board recently published an opinion urging the move away from such badly designed communities.
Get a first look at The Woodward Theater this Friday at Pints for Paint, a launch party and fundraiser for Cincinnati’s newest live music venue and event space.
The idea is simple: Invite the community to drink beer and use the funds to buy paint. Proceeds from beer sales, sponsored by Christian Moerlein Brewing Co., will help the owners pay for cans of paint and other finishing touches in the 101-year-old theater.
The newly renovated Woodward Theater, located at 1404 Main Street, will officially open for its first rock show on November 10 with a performance from Grand Rapids indie band The Soil & The Sun.
The Woodward Theater [Jake Mecklenborg]
In an interview with UrbanCincy, co-owner Dan McCabe explained that Pints for Paint is “how Main Street does things. It’s a bootstraps, grassroots effort.” McCabe, along with co-owners Chris Schadler and Chris Varias, also own MOTR Pub across the street at 1345 Main Street.
The restored theater will serve as a multi-use event space that can accommodate up to 600 people. MOTR is also developing a new catering menu for The Woodward with plans to make MOTR the exclusive caterer for events held there.
Though it will be primarily used as a rock venue, McCabe emphasized that the space will be available to the community for private events, parties and speaking engagements. The Woodward also plans to offer a “steady diet of film programming” — a nod to the theater’s 1913 film house origins.
Complementing MOTR’s 150-person capacity venue, The Woodward’s music lineup will showcase local and nationally touring independent bands that are better suited for a larger stage. The hope is to help bands that have used MOTR as their entry point into Cincinnati eventually graduate to larger crowds at The Woodward. Visitors will eventually be able to purchase tickets for Woodward shows at MOTR, or get them online at CincyTicket.com.
Ticketed shows at the Woodward will cost anywhere from $5 to $15 and will typically end around 11pm.
The venue’s biggest asset, McCabe says, isn’t its size, the number of taps, or even the unique beaux arts-style space — it’s Over-the-Rhine. Being uniquely integrated into the neighborhood, he believes that this makes the venue perfectly poised to become the region’s entry point into the historic neighborhood. As the Woodward books larger acts that attract visitors from outside the region, McCabe points out that those visitors are going to arrive in town ready to explore, shop, and eat in OTR.
Dan McCabe Discussing The Woodward [Travis Estell]
Early Tour of The Woodward [Travis Estell]
Early Tour of The Woodward [Travis Estell]
McCabe also sees The Woodward as a catalyst for new businesses on Main Street. “Main Street really is an accessible corridor in Over-the-Rhine. Anybody with new ideas, new concepts, there are probably like-minded folks who want to join in and make things happen.”
Main Street’s openness to possibility and infusion of new visitors is what will, in theory, help drive the opening of new storefronts.
The process to get to this point has not come easily. Owners first began researching the purchase of the building in 2011, just one year after opening MOTR Pub across the street. The group then began pursuing financing in 2012, but it wasn’t until the Cincinnati Development Fund stepped in that the theater was able to secure their SBA loan and purchase the building in 2013. They finally began renovation work in May 2014.
While Pints for Paint will help fund the final finishing touches before the opening, McCabe makes it clear that renovations won’t stop at a few coats of paint.
“It’s not ‘Boom! We’re done.’ We’re going to continue to invest in that building. We’re going to continue to build once we get this thing up and running,” McCabe says. In addition to continuing improvements to the acoustics, an upstairs bar is in the works. They are also interested in bringing back the theater’s marquee, although a new one will need to be fabricated.
Still, when asked what Dan McCabe is most excited about, he responds, “People spilling beer.” He and co-owner Chris Schadler have been working side by side to painstakingly replace the hardwood floorboards. “As I’m on my hands and knees working on that stuff, my vision of beer getting dripped on it…that’s success.”
Pints for Paint will take place at 6pm this Friday, November 7. Early attendees will receive an exclusive Pints for Paint commemorative pint glass, and MOTR Pub will cater appetizers until 7pm.
Serving as event partners, The Enquirer will also have archived photos detailing The Woodward’s history. MOTR will host the after-party for a free show by The Yugos and Lux Deluxe.
There has been a lot of hype about what will or will not happen with the land surrounding the new MLK Interchange. Just earlier this year city officials and Uptown leaders began discussing the early concepts of what they believe will become a hub of medical research and technology facilities that would transform the area. Will a major donation to build a new state-of-the-art neuroscience center be the initial spark? More from The Enquirer:
Mueller and institute Director Dr. Joseph Broderick said their hope is that the gift, the foundation’s largest ever, pushes the institute into the front ranks of neuroscience and makes Cincinnati a world center in the study of the brain and nervous system.
After much research and travel around the country to study other neurological care facilities, the institute – along with university and UC Health leaders – crafted a proposal for a new building to centralize institute functions, now scattered across the UC campus. The gift also will expand research, Broderick said, with patient care at the center.
Cintrifuse tapped a high-profile Silicon Valley exec to fill its CEO role the other month, and now they’re looking to see how they can grow the two-year-old startup incubator into something that starts churning out big successes. So, which of their member startup companies will be the first to make it big and produce hundreds of jobs locally? More from The Enquirer:
So the pieces are in place for Lea, who has built companies from the ground up and is hardly intimated by the huge expectations. She shares them. The new CEO won’t be happy with Cintrifuse simply being a force in the region or state. Lea expects Cintrifuse to deliver on its local promise while taking on a national profile.
“I have a real sense of urgency to build on the foundation that’s been created. (The business community) had a vision, they assembled a team, they’ve got these assets together,” she said.
“And now I need it to go a lot faster and be a lot stronger and more visible. Cintrifuse has a structure and it’s very organized. We should be able to go fast.”
The organizers of the Cincy Stories event series will be presenting their second installment on Tuesday, May 5 at MOTR Pub. This time, the event will feature five speakers:
