Random Photographs, Thoughts, and Tales | April 2025
It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these on a monthly basis, but April 2025 has been an interesting time.
Not a bad time.
Nor a great time.
More like the kind of time where you get some really good Chinese takeout, but the order doesn’t come with a fortune cookie (and in my opinion that’s worse than getting a physical fortune cookie completely devoid of a paper fortune (which has happened to me three times in life (so far))).
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The Great Salt Pile of Camp Washington:
Technically, this is the neighborhood where the City of Cincinnati stores its road salt, but it also hasn’t snowed here in a while.
Long may it reign.
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Sherman & Lammi at the Meeting Hall..
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Nice try, Bob.
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Cincinnati Flood 2025:
Just .17 feet higher than the 2018 version, but still more dramatic than usual.
Shadow of the Roebling Bridge on the Ohio River.
Not the worst thing to have happened to a Tesla recently.
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Porkopolis Square.
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Downtown Cincinnati.
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The building on the right is known as “Atrium Two” and 16 years ago I made some photographs from one of its balconies.
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The dreams of the late 1990’s are alive in the Queen City.
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Fountain Square, Cincinnati:
Cincinnati’s main urban plaza is currently shifting identities into a new chapter as “The Fountain District.”
If they expanded the “Fountain District” by a few blocks in each direction, they could just call it “downtown.”
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Portrait of Andy Gasper, PHD.
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I made this photograph to remind myself that I need to look into that sign atop the parking garage on the right.
The Cincinnati Reds’ Great American Ballpark is on the left and the text partially obscured by the fence (mounted on the side of the stadium) reads: “ROUNDING THIRD AND HEADING FOR HOME.” This quote was the sign-off phrase for beloved pitcher-turned-broadcaster and all around wonderful human being: Joe Nuxhall.
If you ever want to know more about “The Old Lefthander,” no one tells the story better than the legendary John Kiesewetter.
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E 4th St, Downtown Cincinnati.
This particular photograph isn’t anywhere near as dramatic as a similar one from back in 2017, but I mainly shot it as a reminder to go back and document this cool sign:
See notes from 4/17/25.
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The Times-Star Building. Cincinnati.
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“The song “Real World” by Matchbox 20 is written from the perspective of a man who travels back in time to visit a Circuit City store at the company’s peak in 1998 even though he knows it’s going to be disappointing (because now he’s now 36 and not 9), but he still makes a point to create a paradox by buying the single on cassette tape because, wow, what a great song and souvenir.”
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Cincinnati Public Library.
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Downtown Cincinnati.
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Pendery Alley, Downtown Cincinnati.
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Lately the general consensus on the Cincinnati’s Taste of Belgium chain seems to be fairly negative as the company faces a series of location closures and lawsuits. Still, I appreciate that their Over-The-Rhine location has never fixed this sign after it once caught fire and got scorched a few years back. If you’re not a local Redditor who fancies themselves a food snob, Taste of Belgium is perfectly serviceable.
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Cappel’s Building Bus Stop, Downtown Cincinnati:
Just a unique collection of graffiti at a street corner with a heavily trafficked transit stop.
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Cincinnati Athletic Club Mural:
I need to do some digging on this thing. In the meantime, I’m enjoying Visual Lingual’s post and appreciating that there are other people who notice this kind of stuff.
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The Hyatt:
I don’t know if this hotel is any good, but I appreciate the Hyatt brand for a few random reasons:
20 or so years ago, my Uncle Bob bribed a security guard at (what 14-year-old-me remembers as a) Hyatt in Detroit to take us up the service elevator so that we didn’t have to wait in line with a bunch of convention attendees.
I once stayed at a decent hotel in Oakland that was “by Hyatt.”
I like the design of this particular building and hope it endures for centuries to come.
There used to be a cool “sculpture park” nearby that I once did a story about.
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Blue manhole, downtown Cincinnati.
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“The Banks” in downtown Cincinnati—the one area of town that could truly benefit from an Outback Steakhouse.
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Paul Brown Paycor Stadium:
The Bengals recently signed a deal to give this place a facelift and ensure that they stick around for at least a few more years. While the team and its family ownership have been a joke for decades, I’ve never hated this building. I think it looks great from the outside and truly hope that the city’s NFL team will one day be something locals can truly be proud of.
Supposedly, this iconic escalator will be removed in the stadiums’ forthcoming renovations. I’ve personally loved this architectural feature ever since the place opened in 1999 when I was ten. I get it, though: the Bengals are tired of television cameras zooming in on fans departing en masse every time a game is ending poorly.
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What’s left of Queensgate II.
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7th St., Downtown Cincinnati.
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Cincinnati Transit Map:
Over the course of a weekend, I got briefly obsessed with metromapmaker.com. I wanted to make a simplified version of Cincinnati’s more frequent transit lines, but in the style of a traditional “metro” system one might see in other cities. What’s shown here is an attempt to simplify current and future routes that exist across multiple transit agencies and brands. For example, the green line seen below (the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky’s Southbank Shuttle), is presented here as a simple loop with the stops in order. Whereas, in the real-world, the route and its map shows every curve and turn in what I feel is an overly detailed manner. In my opinion, a user can deduce their destination quicker in this version without having to know extraneous information that might just confuse them. By eliminating the overly-detailed map directions and naming stops after common destinations, the route feels may feel less intimidating for riders to use.
I’m not saying my design is the best (or that I’m even qualified to make one) and ultimately, even if all the local services operated under the same banner/structure, users will still be faced with the political realities of American public transportation. In Cincinnati for example,, the “bus rapid transit” lines won’t actually be very rapid, the streetcar has its operational issues, the airport express bus sits in interstate traffic, and the purple “Metro+” line takes longer than most local lines let alone a car.
All that to say, I’ll still support and use public transit, but you do occasionally get stories like this next one…
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“Sorry, Ya’ll, I’m Lost:”
My car was in the shop and Lammi doesn’t own a personal vehicle, so we’d decided to take a 20-minute bus ride a friend’s pizza place.
“Sorry, ya’ll, I’m lost,” said the driver from beneath a baseball cap that featured a digital display with the phrase “Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky” scrolling across it.
The poor guy had apparently missed a detour and become marooned on some one-way streets that required a supervisor to assist him in reversing course. Several passengers took off walking in the pouring rain, while we were lucky enough to have a friend come pick us up. No idea whatever happened to the bus.
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Asian Food Fest 2025, Downtown Cincinnati:
Where else can you get a bánh mì waking taco while drinking officially purchased beer (and not Coors Light from home) as a DJ plays Juvenile‘s “Back That Azz Up” crossed with the theme from PBS’ “Arthur?”
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8th St., Downtown Cincinnati.
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Downtown Cincinnati.
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Egypt in Smale Park as seen through a smudged iPhone camera
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Back with more stories soon. Also checked a bunch of stuff off “the list.”
Since 2007, the content of this website (and its former life as Queen City Discovery) has been a huge labor of love.
If you’ve enjoyed stories like The Ghost Ship, abandoned amusement parks, the Cincinnati Subway, Fading Ads, or others over the years—might you consider showing some support for future projects?
