They've already played each other at Red Bull Arena, and Cincy gave Metro a hard time, before our boys escaped with a 1-0 win. But, so far, in 11 League games, they've won just twice, including their home opener, 3-0 over Portland on March 17.
Kendall Waston -- not "Watson" -- of Costa Rica,
defender and the team's 1st-ever Captain.
They may sometimes dress like Barcelona, but they play like crap.
Cincinnati is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to set your clocks back.
Tickets. Since they're a brand-new team, there is no record of attendance, and the novelty hasn't worn off yet, and tickets may be tough to come by. Fortunately, this is soccer, and seats are set aside for fans of the visiting team. In Cincinnati's case, in Section 215, in the upper deck of the closed end of the horseshoe, in the southeast corner. Tickets are cheap: $15.
Getting There. It's 641 miles from Times Square in New York to Fountain Square in Cincinnati, and 629 miles from Red Bull Arena to Nippert Stadium.
This will be Memorial Day Weekend: Availability will be less than normal, so fares may be higher than normal.
Flying may seem like a good option, and don't let the fact that Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport is in Florence, Kentucky fool you: It's just 13 miles southwest of downtown, a little closer (and in the same direction) than Newark Airport is to Midtown Manhattan. And if you order now, you can get a round-trip nonstop ticket on United Airlines for under $500.
Greyhound's run between the 2 cities is not good, a 16-hour ride that costs $310 round-trip (but it can be dropped to $184 with advanced-purchase) and forces you to change buses in either Cleveland or Columbus. The terminal is at 1005 Gilbert Avenue, less than a mile northeast of Fountain Square. Take the Number 11 bus to get downtown.
Amtrak's run to Cincy is problematic as well, as it only offers service out of Penn Station to Cincinnati, on the Cardinal, every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, and it'll be nearly 19 hours, from 6:45 AM until 1:31 AM outbound and from 3:27 AM to almost 9:58 AM back. At least it'll be cheap by Amtrak standards, $249.
Union Terminal, now also a museum and shopping mall, is at 1301 Western Avenue, about a mile and a half northwest of downtown. And you'd have to walk 5 blocks to Linn & Clark Streets just to get to the closest downtown bus (Number 27).
In the 1970s, Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting owned
Hanna-Barbera Productions, producers of the cartoon Super Friends.
Union Terminal became the model for the Justice League's headquarters.
As Ted Knight did the voice: "Later, at the Hall of Justice... "
If you decide to drive, it's far enough that it will help to get someone to go with you and split the duties, and to trade off driving and sleeping.
You'll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike. Take it to Exit 14, to Interstate 78. Follow I-78 west all the way through New Jersey, to Phillipsburg, and across the Delaware River into Easton, Pennsylvania. Continue west on I-78 until reaching Harrisburg. There, you will merge onto I-81. Take Exit 52 to U.S. Route 11, which will soon take you onto I-76. This is the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the nation's 1st superhighway, opening in 1940.
The Turnpike will eventually be a joint run between I-76 and Interstate 70. Once that happens, you'll stay on I-70, all the way past Pittsburgh, across the little northern panhandle of West Virginia, and into Ohio all the way to the State Capitol of Columbus. Then leave I-70 at Exit 99 and get on Interstate 71 south to Cincinnati.
If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and 15 minutes in New Jersey, 5 hours and 30 minutes in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in West Virginia, and about 3 hours in Ohio. That's about 10 hours. Counting rest stops, preferably halfway through Pennsylvania and just after you enter Ohio and around Columbus, and accounting for traffic in both New York and Cincinnati, it should be no more than 14 hours, which would save you time on both Greyhound and Amtrak, if not flying.
Once In the City. Founded in 1788, Cincinnati was named by Arthur St. Clair, then Governor of the Northwest Territory. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization that was a tribute to George Washington, then called "the New Cincinnatus." Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was, like Washington, a farmer who had previously led his country, in his case ancient Rome, into battle, and was called back to lead the nation as a whole in 458 BC. He defeated the Aequi in battle, and then, just 16 days after he took charge, resigned and retired to his farm.
Germans, including "Pennsylvania Dutch" (including some Amish, and many remain in Ohio) were among the first settlers, which explains why the city had a strong brewing tradition, and why the 1882 version of the Cincinnati Red Stockings founded the original American Association, known as "The Beer and Whiskey League" because, unlike the National League, they refused to prohibit the selling of alcohol in their stadiums.
Even in the early 20th Century, sportswriters would refer to that team's spiritual (if not lineal) descendant, the Reds, as "the gingery Germans of Zinzinatti." Like Notre Dame's nickname of "The Fighting Irish," the nickname no longer has much ethnic relevance; unlike "The Fighting Irish," however, it's not still used.
Cincinnati is one of the smallest markets in the major leagues, with the city being home to just 299,000 people. If you count Tampa and St. Petersburg as one city, that would make Cincinnati the smallest in Major League Baseball. The metropolitan area is home to only 2.2 million people, making it the 2nd-smallest, ahead of only Milwaukee. However, if you count nearby Dayton, then it jumps to a little under 3 million. That makes it 24th in MLB, and 21st in the NFL.
Cincinnati also got hit hard by "white flight": It was 84 percent white in 1950, 72 percent in 1970, 61 percent in 1990. Today, it's 48 percent white, 45 percent black, 3 percent Hispanic and 2 percent Asian.
Despite this, and despite having lost their NBA team in 1972 and never regained it, Cincinnati has never been in serious danger of losing either the Reds or the Bengals. While the Reds were targeted by cities looking to get into MLB in the 1950s and '60s, the city was proactive in stopping them, and the construction of Riverfront Stadium made sure the teams were set to stay for the rest of the 20th Century. The construction of replacements for Riverfront, one for each sport, has made sure the teams are set to stay for at least the 1st half of the 21st.
In spite of the city's willingness to drink, it's one of the most conservative cities in America, home to the Taft political family that has now seen 5 straight generations achieve high office. Alphonso Taft was Attorney General under Ulysses S. Grant. His son, Charles Phelps Taft, was a Congressman who owned the Philadelphia Phillies and later the Chicago Cubs. Another son, William Howard Taft, was Secretary of War under Theodore Roosevelt, was elected to replace TR as President in 1908, and became the only President also to serve on the Supreme Court, as Chief Justice no less. His cousin, Kingsley Taft, was Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.
His son, Robert Taft, was a power in the Senate, so conservative he was known as "Mr. Republican" in opposition to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, serving as Majority Leader at the time of his death in 1953. Another son of William Howard, Charles Phelps Taft II, was Mayor of Cincinnati in the 1950s, and became known as "Mr. Cincinnati." Robert's son, Robert Taft Jr., served in both houses of Congress. Another son, William Howard Taft III, was U.S. Ambassador to Ireland in the 1950s. William III's son, William IV, was a Deputy Secretary of Defense, and his wife Julia was an Assistant Secretary of Defense. And Robert Jr.'s son, Bob Taft (Robert Alfonso Taft III), was Governor of Ohio in the 2000s.
Cincinnati's conservatism is reflected in the Reds' long-standing policy banning facial hair, considerably stronger than that of George Steinbrenner in liberal New York, who at least allowed mustaches.
And if you watched the TV show WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82), you noticed that station owner Mama Carlson (Carol Bruce) only made the switch from "beautiful music" to rock and roll in 1978 because the station was losing money, and even her son, Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson (Gordon Jump), while willing to manage a rock station, was hopelessly square -- though not as square as newsman Les Nessman (Richard Sanders). Things hadn't changed much in the century or so since Mark Twain remarked that if the world came to an end, it would take Cincinnati 20 years to notice.
Vine Street is the street address divider between East and West, with the North-South streets' addresses increasing as you go north from the Ohio River. The "beltway" is Interstate 275, and it goes into Kentucky and Indiana, as well as Ohio. The sales tax in the State of Ohio is 5.75 percent, rising to 6.5 percent in Hamilton County, including the City of Cincinnati.
The Tyler Davidson Fountain, a.k.a. "The Genius of Water," is located in Fountain Square, 5th & Vine Streets. Henry Probasco, a Cincinnati businessman, had the statue and fountain made to honor his late brother-in-law and business partner.
It was dedicated in 1867, with a base reading, "TO THE PEOPLE OF CINCINNATI," and is turned off in the Winter, being turned back on for the Reds' Opening Day. It can be seen in WKRP's opening sequence, although a renovation led to its being moved elsewhere in the square in 2006.
ZIP Codes for Cincinnati start with the digits 452, and the Area Code is 513. Cincinnati does not have a subway: Construction of a system began in the 1910s, but was abandoned in the 1920s, and occasional attempts to try again, using the existing tunnels, have never gotten anywhere.
The city has since decided to go above-ground, and, since September 2016, the Cincinnati Bell Connector (naming rights sold to the phone company) heads north from downtown into the Over-the-Rhine region, and south across the Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky.
It has been extensively remodeled, so that it has few of the difficulties of being an old stadium, but also none of the look and atmosphere of one. The address is 99 W. Corry Blvd., at Backstage Drive, on the UC campus, about 2 miles north of downtown. Number 17 or 19 bus. If you drove in, parking is $15.
Nippert Stadium. To the north, Campus Recreation Hall.
To the east, Fifth Third Arena, Gettler Stadium (soccer),
and their regrettably-named Marge Schott Stadium (baseball).
To the south, the Corbett Center for the Performing Arts.
and their regrettably-named Marge Schott Stadium (baseball).
To the south, the Corbett Center for the Performing Arts.
To the west, the student center and the bookstore.
On November 29, 1923 (Thanksgiving was then on the last Thursday in November, not necessarily the 4th Thursday), the Bearcats were playing their annual Thanksgiving Day game against Miami University, then as now their arch-rivals. It rained hard all the way through, and the field was called "a sea of mud" in a newspaper.
The 1923 Cincinnati-Miami game
The Bearcats won the game, 23-0, but lost a player. James Gamble Nippert, a center and a prelaw student, was cut on the leg by someone's spiked shoes. There was no game film, so no one was ever able to tell who did it, or even which team. The wound became infected, and, in those days before antibiotics, he was doomed, and died of his Thanksgiving Day wound on Christmas Day.
Dedication plaque
The Bengals played their 1st 2 seasons, 1968 and 1969, here. When FC Cincinnati were founded in the United Soccer League, the 2nd tier of American soccer, it set up shop at Nippert. They intend to play there through the 2020 season, hoping to open a new stadium in the city's West End in 2021.
The playing surface has been artificial since 1970, and runs (more or less) north-to-south. Seating capacity is listed as 40,000 for football, but FCC tarps off some sections, and lists capacity as 33,250.
FCC played South London team Crystal Palace there on July 16, 2016, losing 2-0. The Red Bulls have played there before, in a 2017 U.S. Open Cup Semifinal, coming from 2-0 down in the 2nd half to force extra time, finally winning 3-2. The U.S. national team will play Venezuela there on June 2, as a warmup for this year's CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Concerts have been held there, starting in 1973 with The Edgar Winter Group and later Grand Funk Railroad. In 1975, it hosted the Ohio River Rock Festival, including Aerosmith, REO Speedwagon and Styx. Other concert performers have included Michael and Janet Jackson (not together) and Britney Spears. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech there on October 16, 1936. Soon-to-be-President Barack Obama held a pre-election rally there on November 2, 2008.
Food. Being in Big Ten Country (but not in the Big Ten Conference), where tailgate parties are practically a sacrament, you would expect a Cincinnati stadium to have lots of good options. The arrival (if only temporary) of FCC led the University to boost the concession stands.
They serve Cincy favorites such as Skyline Chili (that weird hybrid of chili and spaghetti, plus chili dogs), LaRosa's Pizza, Queen City Sausage, United Dairy Farmers and Frisch's Big Boy. Since this will be a professional sporting event, not a collegiate one, beer is sold.
Team History Displays. As the saying about London's Chelsea FC used to go, they ain't got no history. That's not quite true: They began in the United Soccer League in 2016, and had their bid for an expansion team approved last year. They went out with a bang, winning the USL's regular season title.
With their entry into MLS, there is now a cross-State rivalry, one which takes Southern Ohio out of the Columbus Crew's "market," which still includes Cleveland, and possibly, overcoming their States' usual antipathy toward Ohio, Pittsburgh and Detroit.
On June 13, 2017, FCC, then in the United Soccer League, played the Crew in a U.S. Open Cup match. Columbus fans heading down from the capital to the Queen City of the Midwest saw a sign at the side of the road on Interstate 71, reading, "HELL IS REAL."
The sign is real.
The Crew and their fans didn't go to Hell, but they did come home 1-0 losers in a game that meant far more to Cincinnati's fans. (Cincy got all the way to the Semifinals, losing to... the Red Bulls, who then lost the Final to Sporting Kansas City.)
Columbus and Cincinnati will play their 1st regular-season MLS "Hell Is Real Derby" on August 10, in Columbus. They will face each other in Cincinnati on August 25.
In the USL, FCC had a rivalry with Louisville City FC, a carryover from the college football rivalry between the Universities of Cincinnati and Louisville, who play for a trophy called the Keg of Nails. The soccer teams played for a trophy called the River Cities Cup. Each team won it 4 times, with 2 draws. It is unknown if it will ever be played again, but, for the moment, it can only happen in an exhibition game (what the rest of the world would call a "friendly," but it ain't so friendly) or in the U.S. Open Cup.
The Cincinnati Bearcats have won 14 Conference Championships: The Buckeye Athletic Association in 1933 and 1934; the Mid-American Conference in 1947, 1949, 1951 and 1952; the Missouri Valley Conference in 1963 and 1964; Conference USA in 2002; the Big East Conference in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012; and the American Athletic Conference (essentially, the successor league to the Big East) in 2014.
They've been in 18 bowl games, splitting them. Their 9 wins: The 1946 Sun Bowl, the 1949 Glass Bowl, the 1997 Humanitarian Bowl, the 2004 Fort Worth Bowl, the 2006 International Bowl, the 2007 PapaJohns.com Bowl, the 2011 Liberty Bowl, the 2012 Belk Bowl, and the 2018 Military Bowl. Their only bowl games that have been, at least traditionally, played on New Year's Day have been the 2008 Orange Bowl and the 2009 Sugar Bowl, both of which they lost.
They also have a ring of honor, with 13 honorees, including uniform numbers, although these are not considered retired: 1950s players Gene Rossi (28, quarterback), Bill Shalosky (29, guard), Dick Goist (62, running back) and Jack Lee (16, quarterback); 1960s player Greg Cook (12, quarterback); 1970s players Tom Marvaso (5, safety) and Mike Woods (30, linebacker); 1980s players Reggie Taylor (30, running back) and Danny McCoin (8, quarterback); 2000s players Jonathan Ruffin (16, kicker), Gino Guidugli (8, quarterback) and Kevin Huber (47, punter); and 2010s player Shaq Washington (19, receiver).
Stuff. The University, not FC Cincinnati, owns Nippert Stadium, so they don't have their own team store in the stadium. Their team store, at least until the West End Stadium opens, is downtown, at 43 E. 4th Street. Souvenir stands are located throughout the stadium.
As a new team, there are, as yet, no books or videos about FC Cincinnati. Their badge shows a lion, so their mascot is a lion,
During the Game. Because of their Midwest/Heartland image, Reds and Bengals fans like a "family atmosphere," in which you would be fine, unless you were wearing Cleveland Browns gear. You can throw that out the window: With UC's rivalries with Miami University and the University of Louisville in football, and with crosstown Xavier University in basketball, being rough, some of these fans will be really into it. But if you stay in the assigned section, and don't antagonize anyone on your way in or out, you should be fine.
The logo, which suggested a name for the mascot
The team doesn't have a regular National Anthem singer, instead holding auditions for it. The team badge shows a winged lion, and it suggested a name for a mascot: The tail is a G, the back is an A, the shoulder an R, and the front legs a Y: Gary the Lion. A lion is a common enough mascot, especially in English soccer, but "Gary"? It would make more sense for a team in Indiana, since that State has a city named Gary.
Gary the Lion
The supporters' groups sit in "The Bailey," the enclosed south end of the stadium, which makes sense, since it's the student section at UC games. From our area, fans of the Mets, Knicks and Islanders may be pleased to see that the team's colors are orange and blue.
The largest group, in Sections 133, 134 and 135, reflecting the city's German heritage and the legends of German soccer, calls themselves Die Innenstadt, meaning, roughly, "the Inner City." But their slogan is, "We come from all over. We welcome all. And we march for Cincinnati." And, like the Reds and the Bengals, they do take in fans from Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southern Indiana. (In the days before World War I made being German a target of abuse, newspapers tended to call Reds fans "the Gingery Germans of Zinzinnati.")
Another group, trading on the Lion image, is The Pride. There's also The Bridge, named for the John A. Roebling Bridge over the Ohio River, which Roebling built in 1867, and inspired his design for New York's own Brooklyn Bridge; The Briogaid, an Irish-themed group; Hangar 937, a group of fans from nearby Dayton, named for that city's Area Code; and the Queen City Firm -- named for, but not being, a hooligan firm.
Like many other English-language soccer teams, they borrow a song from Depeche Mode: "When I see you, Cincy, I go out of my head! I just can't get enough! I just can't get enough!" To the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In," they sing a cleaned-up version of a traditional English soccer chant:
Oh Cincy is! (Oh Cincy is!)
so wonderful! (so wonderful!)
Oh Cincy is so wonderful!
It's full of Orange and Blue in The Bailey!
Oh Cincy is so wonderful!
After the Game. The campus and downtown should be safe, but take the bus back downtown. Don't walk. Cincinnati does have a bit of a crime problem. In 2001, there was a race riot there, something rarely seen in America since the 1960s until the recent rash of police brutality protests in cities like St. Louis, Baltimore, Cleveland and Dallas.
If you want a postgame beer, you may be out of luck, as it'll be a bit of a walk to get off campus. There's a Starbucks (if you're liberal) and a Chick-fil-A (if you're conservative) just to the north of the stadium. Three blocks south is Calhoun Street, which has a Panera, a Buffalo Wild Wings, a Chipotle, a Jimmy John's, and boozier options.
I can find no references to well-known postgame bars, or to places where New Yorkers gather in or around Cincinnati. The sites that usually list bars for football fans in exile don't seem to have references to where Yankees, Mets, Giants or Jets fans go when they live near Cincy. In contrast, Phebe's, at 359 Bowery at East 4th Street, is New York's home for fans of the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals.
If you visit Cincinnati during the European soccer season, which is now coming to a close, the main "football pub" in town is Rhinehaus, 119 E. 12th Street and Clay Street, in the neighborhood called Over-The-Rhine, or OTR, just north of downtown. Bus 19, or Streetcar to Washington Street.
Die Innenstadt meets at Mecklenburg Gardens, 302 E. University Avenue, in the Corryville neighborhood, east of the campus. Bus 46 from downtown. The Pride meets at Top Cats, 2828 Short Vine St., 7 blocks west of Mecklenburg Gardens. There's also a notable "football pub" across the Ohio River, in Covington, Kentucky: Molly Malone's, at 11 E. 4th Street. Bus 33.
Sidelights. Cincinnati may have only 2 major league teams now. One of those, the Reds, has usually been respectable, but hasn't won so much as an NLCS game for 26 years. The other, the Bengals, has been a joke for most of the last 20 years, even when they've had good regular seasons. But it's a pretty good sports town, and here's some of the highlights:
* West End Stadium. This is the working title of FC Cincinnati's new stadium. Ground was broken last December, and it is hoped that it will open in March 2021, in time for a new MLS season. It is expected to have about 26,000 seats.
The approximate address will be 1441 Central Avenue, which had been that of Willard Stargel Stadium, the now-demolished home field of Taft High School. About a mile northwest of downtown, and about 3/4 of a mile east of the site of Crosley Field.
Computer depiction of the proposed finished project
* Great American Ball Park. The Reds have played here since 2003. The park's official address is 100 Joe Nuxhall Way, named for the 1950s-60 Reds reliever and longtime broadcaster who died in 2007. Officially, the streets around it are 2nd Street (3rd base) to the north, Broadway Street (left field, and, no, that's not "Broadway," it's "Broadway Street") to the east, Mehring Way/U.S. Route 27 (right field) to the south and Main Street/Joe Nuxhall Way (1st base) to the west. Extending from the 1st base side is Pete Rose Way.
Great American Ballpark, with U.S. Bank Arena next-door
* Site of Riverfront Stadium. The home of the Reds from 1970 to 2002 (known as Cinergy Field from 1996 onward) and the NFL's Bengals from 1970 to 1999 was across Main Street from its baseball replacement, bounded also by 2nd Street, Mehring Way and Vine Street.
Riverfront was a pioneer in artificial turf, the 1st outdoor stadium in either MLB or the NFL to have it, and the 1st to host either league's postseason on it. It switched to real grass for its last 2 seasons, 2001 and 2002.
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is now on the site. And just beyond it is the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, opened in 1866 and named for its designer, who used it as the basis for his greatest achievement, the Brooklyn Bridge. The bar and restaurant district on the Covington, Kentucky side of the bridge is known as Roebling Point.
* Paul Brown Stadium. Opening in 2000, and named for the legendary coach of the Cleveland Browns and the founding owner and coach of the Bengals, This 65,000-seat stadium has also hosted the University of Cincinnati (including its entire 2014 home schedule while Nippert Stadium was being renovated, thus the Bengals returning the favor of UC letting them play there in their 1st 2 seasons), Ohio State, and Miami University of Ohio.
* U.S. Bank Arena. Formerly known as the Riverfront Coliseum, this building went up across Broadway from Riverfront Stadium (and can be seen from Great American Ball Park) in 1975, and has hosted minor league hockey ever since, including the current Cincinnati Cyclones.
The University of Cincinnati basketball team played home games here from 1976 to 1987 -- though, contrary to what I had posted in previous years, rivals Xavier University never used it as a home court. It hosted the NCAA's hockey Final Four, a.k.a. the Frozen Four, in 1996. Elvis Presley sang there on March 21, 1976 and, just before his death, on June 25, 1977.
Unfortunately, the arena is best known for the tragedy of December 3, 1979, when 11 fans were killed and 26 others were injured, when fans rushed in for "festival seating" for a concert by The Who. This event was immortalized shortly thereafter in an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, ordinarily one of the funniest situation comedies of its time.
It's unlikely that Cincinnati will get a new major league team for this arena anytime soon, partly due to its being a typical 1970s arena, with 1 level of concourse for 2 levels of seating, and not enough skyboxes; and partly due to Cincinnati's market size. The metro area would rank 22nd in population among NBA markets, and 19th in the NHL.
The closest NBA team is the Indiana Pacers, 113 miles to the northwest; the Cleveland Cavaliers are 249 miles to the northeast, the Chicago Bulls 296 miles to the northwest. The closest NHL team, representing the entire State of Ohio (including Cincinnati and Cleveland, normally bitter rivals), is the Columbus Blue Jackets, 107 miles to the northeast; the Detroit Red Wings, 260 miles to the northeast; the Nashville Predators, 274 miles to the southwest; the Pittsburgh Penguins, 288 miles to the notheast; the St. Louis Blues, 350 miles to the west.
* Crosley Field site. Three different ballparks were at a location bounded by Findlay Street, Western Avenue, Liberty Street and Dalton Avenue, a convenient location for teams coming into the city through the Union Terminal: League Park from 1884 to 1901, the elaborate Palace of the Fans from 1902 to 1911, and the 3rd from 1912 to 1970. First named Redland Field, appliance executive Powel Crosley renamed it for himself when he bought the Reds in 1934.
Photo possibly taken during the 1961 World Series,
since the path for the Expressway has been cleared.
Here, the Reds won the Pennant in 1919, 1939, 1940 and 1961, winning the World Series in 1919 and 1940. The Yankees clinched World Series wins here in 1939 and 1961. Bush Stadium, the former home of the Triple-A team in Indianapolis, stood in for it and Comiskey Park in Eight Men Out, the film about the Black Sox scandal.
Best known as the first big-league ballpark with lights, in 1935, it had an infamous incline, a.k.a. the "terrace," that was trouble for left fielders; a building behind left field with an ad for the Superior Towel and Linen Service, nicknamed the Laundry Roof, which was torn down in 1960 to make way for Interstate 75 and a rerouted U.S. Route 52, the Mill Creek Expressway; and a right field bleacher section known as the Sun Deck for day games and the Moon Deck for night games.
The "terrace," and the "laundry roof" before its demolition in 1960
Crosley was also home to an NFL team named the Cincinnati Reds in 1933 and '34. There was also a Cincinnati Celts, pronounced with a hard C unlike the Boston basketball team, that played in the NFL from 1920 to 1923, but they were a traveling team, playing no home games.
The Beatles played there on August 21, 1966, and, in one of the ballpark's last events, the Cincinnati Pop Festival was held there on June 13, 1970, featuring Iggy & the Stooges, Mountain, Grand Funk Railroad, Alice Cooper, Traffic, Bob Seger and Mott the Hoople.
Note the terrace in left field, and the Sun Deck in right field
The park was demolished in 1972. An industrial park now stands on the site, a 15-minute walk from Union Terminal. The Number 27 and 49 buses will get you Linn and Findlay, a 7-block walk (counting I-75) from the site.
* Blue Ash Sports Center. A replica of Crosley Field was built in 1988 in suburban Blue Ash, complete with a few original seats. The field's dimensions are the same, and it includes a left-field terrace. The scoreboard shows the correct information (and advertising signs) from the last game, a 5-4 Reds win over the San Francisco Giants on June 24, 1970. The light towers don't look the same, but they are in the right places.
There is, however, no laundry roof behind left field or Sun Deck behind right field. Edd Roush and Ted Kluszewski are dead, and Frank Robinson and Johnny Bench won't show up -- although Pete Rose might, if you offer him enough money.
As for the original 1869 Red Stockings, they played at the Union Cricket Club Grounds, a field with a stand for about 4,000 people. The Union Terminal was built on the site, so if you do come into Cincinnati by train, you're already on the birthplace of professional baseball. 1301 Western Avenue. Bus 1 from downtown.
* Fifth Third Arena. Formerly the Myrl H. Shoemaker Center, the new home of the UC basketball team is adjacent to Nippert Stadium. It seats 13,176 and opened in 1989. The baseball stadium is also adjacent, and it's named after former Reds owner, cheapskate and Nazi sympathizer Marge Schott. Apparently, the University thought her money was as good as anyone else's. Then again, they also stood by coach Bob Huggins for years, despite his recruiting violations and drunken driving.
Currently without an NBA team, a recent New York Times article shows basketball allegiances around the country. Since most people in Southern Ohio would rather vote for a Democrat than support a Cleveland-based team, the Cavaliers are not popular here, not even with the now-ended return of LeBron James. The Miami Heat, Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls were the top 3 choices in that article, although the Heat have no doubt fallen off dramatically without LeBron.
A recent Business Insider article shows the most popular hockey team in each State. Although the Columbus Blue Jackets, as you might guess, lead Ohio, neighboring Kentucky is led by the Nashville Predators, and neighboring Indiana by the Chicago Blackhawks.
It's 109 miles from downtown Cincinnati to Ohio State, 82 miles to the University of Kentucky, 103 miles to the University of Louisville, and 130 miles to Indiana University. And it's 52 miles from downtown Cincinnati to the University of Dayton, whose 13,435-seat University of Dayton Arena (I know, not a very imaginative name), opened in 1969, has hosted more NCAA Tournament games that any other building: 119. (No Final Four has ever been held in Ohio, and none probably ever will, unless they end up putting a dome on Paul Brown Stadium, FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland, or Ohio Stadium in Columbus.)
Elvis sang at the University of Dayton's old Fieldhouse on May 27, 1956, and at its "new" Arena on April 7, 1972; October 6, 1974; and October 26, 1976. He also sang at the Hobart Arena in Troy, 77 miles north of Cincinnati and 23 miles north of Dayton, on November 24, 1956.
The Dayton Triangles were an early pro football team, playing from 1913 to 1929, first in the Ohio League -- winning the title in 1913, 1914, 1915 and 1918 -- and then from 1920 to 1929 in the NFL. They were named for Triangle Park, at the confluence of the Stillwater and Miami Rivers, where they erected a 5,000-seat stadium. The Jim Nichols Tennis Center is now on the site. 2424 Ridge Avenue.
But from 1923 onward, they only won 5 games, as the better players didn't want to go to a city as small as Dayton. (Green Bay, the only surviving small city from the NFL's early days, had... other forms of entertainment to lure players.) Then they became... a New York team, being bought by Bill Dwyer, owner of hockey's New York Americans, moved to Ebbets Field and becoming the NFL version of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Through a convoluted series of transactions, today's Indianapolis Colts are descended from the Dayton Triangles, though not officially recognized as such by the NFL. In other words, if the Colts tried to put up banners saying "World Champions 1913, 1914, 1915, 1918," the NFL wouldn't count it.
In 1856, the 1st university owned and operated by African-Americans was founded: Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio, about 60 miles northeast of Cincinnati, 20 miles east of Dayton, and 60 miles southwest of Columbus. Central State University, another historically black college and university (HBCU), was founded in Wilberforce in 1887.
Central State is currently in NCAA Division II. Wilberforce has dropped all the way into the NAIA. Wilberforce won the National Championship of black college football in 1931. Central State has won it 8 times: 1948, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1992.
* Spring Grove Cemetery. If you're a visiting Met fan, you won't care about this. But if you're a visiting Yankee Fan, Spring Grove is the final resting place of Yankee Hall-of-Famers Miller Huggins (a Cincinnati native who played for the Reds) and Waite Hoyt (who broadcast for the Reds.)
Also buried there: Several Generals of the American Civil War, including Joseph Hooker; 4 U.S. Senators, including Salmon P. Chase; 3 Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, including Chase, who served as Chief Justice; Nicholas Longworth, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and husband of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt; several members of the Taft family, including both of President William Howard Taft's parents, Alphonso and Louise, and his brother, Mayor Charles Taft II; Charles Fleischmann, founder of the yeast company that bears his name; Bernard Kroger, founder of the supermarket chain that bears his name. William Procter and James Gamble, founders of the Cincinnati-based company that bears their names, and several members of their families, including Nippert Stadium namesake James Gamble Nippert.
4521 Spring Grove Avenue. Number 20 bus to Winton Road & Froome Avenue, then a left on Gray Road.
Weeb Ewbank, the only man to coach the Jets to a Super Bowl win, is buried at Oxford Cemetery in Oxford, home to his alma mater, Miami University. (Not the one in Florida -- this Miami came first.) 4385 Oxford Millville Road, about 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati.
Cincinnati isn't a big museum city, but it is a Presidential birthplace, very nearly a Presidential birthplace twice over, and a Presidential burial place. The William Howard Taft National Historic Site, where the 27th President of the United States and the 10th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was born and lived the first 25 years of his life, is at 2038 Auburn Avenue on the north side of town. The same Number 43 bus that would take you to Cincinnati Gardens would take you there.
The tomb of William Henry Harrison, the 9th President, who famously won the Battle of Tippecanoe (near Lafayette, Indiana and Purdue University) against Indians (not the Cleveland variety) in 1811 and died only a month after becoming President in 1841, is 16 miles west of downtown in North Bend.
A 10-minute walk from the Tomb is a house at Symmes & Washington Avenues, where "Old Tippecanoe" lived, and his grandson Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President (1889-93), was born. The Number 50 bus will get you within 2 miles of these sites.
The 1856 Democratic Convention was held at Smith and Nixon's Hall. (There is no connection to the family of President Richard Nixon.) The Renaissance Cincinnati Downtown Hotel is on the site today. Former Secretary of State James Buchanan was nominated for President, and he won, but his Administration was possibly the most disastrous in the nation's history. 36 E. 4th Street at Walnut Street.
The 1876 Republican Convention was held at Exposition Hall. Ohio's sitting Governor, Rutherford B. Hayes, was nominated for President, and "won" the election in "The Fraud of the Century." But the Hall had a bad roof, and was replaced. Cincinnati Music Hall opened in 1878, and, in 1880, the Democrats held their Convention there, nominating Civil War General Winfield Scott Hancock, who lost an incredibly close race to Congressman James Garfield. Music Hall still hosts concerts. 1241 Elm Street at 14th Street, downtown, across from Washington Park.
As I mentioned, the Underground Railroad Museum is on the site of Riverfront Stadium, between the ballpark and the football stadium. Since Cincinnati was on the north side of a river between the free State of Ohio and the slave State of Kentucky, it was a major point on the Underground Railroad. The Cincinnati Museum Center is on the grounds of the Union Terminal.
The Cincinnati Art Museum is at 953 Eden Park Drive, in Johnston Park. The Taft Museum of Art is closer to downtown, at 316 Pike Street. The Number 1 bus will take you to each of them.
The tallest building in Cincinnati is the Great American Tower at Queen City Square, at 660 feet and opening in 2010. 301 E. 4th Street. It surpassed the Carew Tower, a 574-foot Art Deco building at 441 Vine Street, which had been the tallest in town since 1931. (No, it wasn't named for Baseball Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew. Joseph T. Carew had operated the Mabley & Carew department store on the site.)
The transmission tower seen at the beginning of WKRP in Cincinnati belonged to the city's NBC affiliate, WLWT-Channel 5, even though the show was on CBS. The tower has since been dismantled. The building shown as the home of WKRP and referred to on the show as the Osgood R. Flimm Building is the Cincinnati Enquirer Building at 617 Vine Street, just off Fountain Square, so it was (and remains) a media center in real life.
The show was created by Hugh Wilson (who also wrote the opening theme song, sung by Steve Carlisle, and directed the Police Academy movies), and was based upon his experiences working in advertising sales at an Atlanta Top 40 station, with the Gary Sandy character of Andy Travis based on himself. The New WKRP in Cincinnati, which ran in syndication from 1991 to 1993, featured some of the original characters, while the others were each brought back as guest stars at least once.
Cincinnati did have, and still has, a radio and a TV station with the call letters WKRC. CBS owns it now, but didn't when WKRP was running. WKRC's AM frequency is 550.) In 2008, an unrelated independent TV station in Cincinnati, WBQC-LD, took advantage of local nostalgia for the sitcom, promoting its conversion to digital broadcasting by rebranding as "WKRP-TV in Cincinnati."
As far as I can tell, the only other TV show set in Cincinnati has been Harry's Law, starring Kathy Bates as lawyer Harriet "Harry" Korn, which was recently canceled after 2 seasons. There was a series titled John from Cincinnati that ran on HBO in 2007, but it was set in Southern California.
On The West Wing, White House Press Secretary, and later Chief of Staff, Claudia Jean "C.J." Cregg is from Dayton, Ohio. So is her portrayer, Allison Janney. So is Martin Sheen, who played the President on the show, Jed Bartlet.
Aside from Eight Men Out (filmed, as I said, in Indianapolis), the best-known movie set in the city was Rain Man. A few other movies had scenes filmed there, including the sports-connected films Summer Catch (the final scene, where Freddie Prinze Jr.'s character makes his big-league debut at GABP and gets taken deep by Ken Griffey Jr. on his very 1st pitch), Seabiscuit and Mr. 3000.
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Cincinnati calls itself the Queen City of the Midwest, and thinks of itself as a good, solid, family town. Read: They'd rather slit their economic throats and condemn their women to no say in if and when to have a child than vote for a liberal for national or Statewide office. Although they have elected mostly Democratic Mayors including, in 1977, Jerry Springer. (No joke.)
But it's a good sports town, and an FC Cincinnati game is well worth the trip.