Groovy vibes in downtown Cincinnati
If I’m talking like a hippie, you know this is serious.
Walking home at around 10.15 after a really great dinner with friends at Palomino on Friday night, it could not escape my notice that downtown was buzzing. (No, I wasn’t on anything!) There were lots of people soaking up the light show on Fountain Square, fireworks were going off at the baseball stadium, and there was a band playing poolside on the roof of The Gramercy. The streets were reasonably populated with calm but excited crowds having a pleasant wander around this safe, clean, beautiful city. Everyone seemed to be feeling really good; I know I certainly was.
Sometimes I get annoyed at people in Cincinnati for not realizing how lucky they are to live in such a fantastic place. If you’ve never been anywhere else in your life, you might not know just how much Cincy has going for it. (Start comparing this city to Chicago or New York and you don’t sound clever; you sound provincial.) I really hope some of those people who were downtown tonight were trying it out for the first time, having heard the buzz about how much is happening. I’m sure they’ll be back.
At which point the most cynical urbanists will start kvetching about how they were downtown before downtown was cool, how none of the newbies can truly appreciate their surroundings, how the suburbanites moving into ‘our turf’ are driving up property prices, etc…
Until then, I’m loving the downtown life. It’s good to know I’m not the only one.
Filed under: Life
Great to hear…downtown’s greatest challenge (as you have highlighted previously) has been the removal of crime and even the perception of crime.
Downtown has really been hopping on weekends for the past few months now, and there have been minimal instances of bad behavior. This is great news, but I agree with your previous sentiments that the City can not rest on its laurles and think all is better.
Quality of life crimes need to continue to be addressed with these increased crowds. Keep the drunken foolishness down to a minimum and continue to make downtown a better place for after-dark fun and also the residents who live down there.
Quick Fact: The recent State of Downtown report cites a 16.1% drop in Quality of Life crimes over last year…and an 11.4% drop in more serious crimes over the same period.