One of the best, and lesser-known, events in Cincinnati is Balluminaria. The annual event helps kick off the holiday season festivities at Eden Park, and will take place this year on Saturday, November 21 from 4pm to 6pm. The “balloon glow” event has grown in popularity over the years according to park officials, and now coincides with the opening of the Holiday Flower Show – a must see for any family – at Krohn Conservatory.
In addition to the balloon glow there will be costumed carolers, clowns, and concessions all around Mirror Lake for Balluminaria 2009. Those attending are encouraged to bring their cameras along to capture the incredibly beautiful scene of the hot-air balloons surrounding Mirror Lake.
Cincinnati’s new tallest building, the Great American Tower at Queen City Square, continues to climb upward as it now appears to be over the half-way mark in terms of total height. Meanwhile, The Banks is climbing above street level, the new street grid continues to develop, and the underground parking garages that will lift the development out of the flood plain are pretty much completed for phase 1 of the billion dollar mixed-use development. The first of the multi-floor residential buildings with street level commercial space should be rising within the coming weeks.
Here are a series of pictures taken over the last week or so of some of the progress being made on both developments happening Downtown. Aside from the few taken from the upper deck at Paul Brown Stadium, they are mainly a street view of where things stand these days.
The Great American Tower at Queen City Square continues to rise. The tower will eventually become Cincinnati’s tallest skyscraper and be the new headquarters for Great American Insurance and the Frost Brown Todd law group. The tower is currently about 25 stories up from the ground and will continue to rise over the coming months.
On a recent vacation, I had the opportunity to visit Portland. No not the west coast Portland that everyone is talking about in regards to Cincinnati’s Issue 9, but rather the east coast Portland. During a week spent mostly in mid-coast Maine, I took some time to drop in on Portland to see what that city had to offer. With a metro population of 230,000 it is rather small compared to what we are used to here in Cincinnati, but it is home to one quarter of all residents in Maine. I honestly was not expecting too much, but was rather surprised by what I found.
Being a coastal town, I did think that this would be a city center full of shops and dinners that catered to Maine tourists and took advantage of their geographic location. I had pictured lobster flavored beer and lighthouses on doormats. But, much to my surprise what I found instead was a city block after city block of eclectic shops and independent restaurants. As I spent my evening wandering around shops and stopping off for dinner and drinks, I thought “this is exactly what OTR could be given a chance” and an UrbanCincy post was born.
The biggest thing that jumped out was that Portland seemed to have was a unified vision of what they wanted in this area. It could have been tacky t-shirt shops and chain restaurants. They could have promoted tear-downs and rebuilds to bring a more modern feel to the town. Instead funky shops, boutiques, and art galleries lined the street and used old buildings that had clearly been in downtown Portland for quite a while. While I was there on a Wednesday night in what is the start of the off-season, there was a good amount of people out and about enjoying themselves.
If nothing else Portland, Maine has an identity, and that is something that our area desperately seems to be searching for. It is my opinion that with a streetcar, a successful Banks project, and continued development on the river in Northern Kentucky we will have one that is appealing to long time residents, local college students, and outsiders that may consider Cincinnati as a place to live. The photos above are a small sampling of the establishments around downtown Portland.
On Tuesday, September 1 I took a stroll through Over-the-Rhine. It started with a private tour of the soon-to-be Neon’s Unplugged off of Main Street. From there I hit up Coffee Emporium with one of Cincinnati’s best photographers and the authority on Cincinnati transit – Jake Mecklenborg.
While at Coffee Emporium we were joined by the likes of Mayor Mallory and much of the Taking the Stage cast. We would have grabbed some photographs, but we both seemed to think that would be creepy and decided to enjoy some coffee and conversation instead.
From there Jake and I walked the neighborhood capturing much of the new energy and activity taking place. In the collection of photos below you will see Gateway Quarter businesses, new Vine Street streetscaping, Trinity Flats infill project, City Home townhouses, and a bunch of other scenes from around the rapidly changing neighborhood. To view all of the photos with additional narration visit my photo thread on UrbanOhio here.
After that I hit up a cocktail hour of sorts at Soapbox’s new digs in the Gateway Building on Vine Street where we met with a lot of really great people with great ideas for Cincinnati. Following those good times I ended the day in OTR at Lavomatic for some drinks with a couple of UrbanCincy’s finest writers – David Ben and Jenny Kessler. Great day.
Balluminaria photography by Jayson Gomes
