Margo Warminski, Preservation Director

(From the Cincinnati Enquirer, Sunday, January 17, 2010)

Fire. The shadow that stalks vacant buildings, burning dreams to ashes.

As hell broke loose on Elm Street Friday night, the word was that the Moerlein Bottling House was hopeless. But now it looks as if it can be saved. And that’s good news for all of Cincinnati.

It’s hard to see hope in smoldering debris. But other historic icons have come through the flames and lived. Covington’s Odd Fellows Hall, Over-the-Rhine’s own Kauffman Building: Both were carefully pieced back together so they could be anchors of revitalization.

Cincinnati’s rich history is its greatest untapped opportunity.  Over-the-Rhine’s Brewery District is the largest concentration of 19th-century brewery buildings in the country. Clyffside, Jackson, Hudepohl, Moerlein: the great hulks of brick and stone looming over the street beckon new investment. Look at the former Kauffman Brewery on Vine Street, which is now live-work lofts. Ironically, a new owner had already begun working on the Bottling House before the fire.

The template for revitalization is already in place. The District’s innovative zoning allows people to live, work, shop and worship side by side as they have for 150 years. This allows entrepreneurship to flourish and preserves jobs where they are most needed. Findlay Market, with its local vendors and farmers, drew 700,000 visitors last year. The reborn Rookwood Pottery relocated on Race Street, around the corner from the market.

The Moerlein Brewery and its neighbors also are a tremendous opportunity for heritage tourism. In the words of Mike Morgan, director of the Over-the-Rhine Foundation, “Cincinnatians often seem to underestimate the scale and value of our historic assets and the impression that they make on others.” Authenticity sells, as the yearly Bockfest crowds know. Travel writer Arthur Frommer sees great potential in the neighborhood, in the blocks of unaltered 19th-century buildings that tell how immigrant communities built our nation.

And there’s another reason to cheer the renewal of OTR. Reusing buildings like Moerlein is the ultimate recycling. The pioneering Over-the-Rhine Green/Historic Study (http://otrfoundation.org/greendevelopment_infill.php) demonstrates how OTR is poised to be the greenest neighborhood in America: dense, walkable, mixed-use, transit-friendly. A 19th-century neighborhood for the 21st-century, with room for everyone.  If built, the streetcar will make it even greener and more livable. And the line will go right past the brewery.

We don’t need to invent the neighborhood of the future; it’s already here.

Let the rebuilding begin.

Margo Warminski is Preservation Director of the Cincinnati Preservation Association and Field Representative, National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Cincinnati Preservation Association is a private, nonprofit, membership organization that serves the Greater Cincinnati community as the recognized resource and catalyst for the preservation of historic cultural resources through education, advocacy, and technical support. Historic cultural resources include architectural and archeological sites, historical public art and monuments and landscapes.

342 West Fourth Street
Cincinnati, OH  45202
513-721-4506
margo@cincinnatipreservation.org