Thursday, April 12, 2007
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
 A short guide to interesting Cincinnati things online.
Photo courtesy of here.
This morning, I was looking at the latest offerings from , a blog featuring the photography of Kevin Lemaster. Lemaster travels the City, taking shots of various neighborhood buildings and then uploading them to online galleries (like this one, for an example). Today, Lemaster posted , about a new web project designed to bring the streets of Cincinnati alive. And just like that, I found myself on an exploration of Cincinnati, hyperlinked!
The road-based web project, CincinnatiRoads.com, is a project by Andy Woodruff and Ethan Hahn. Their welcome page explains their project succinctly: “[W]e decided to document the streets of Cincinnati in a fairly straightforward way—we’d take videos from a car, driving down every street in the city, and present them in an interactive map.” And that’s just what they did—so make sure your browser has the latest version of Flash installed and check out the project.
From their modest collection of links, I found DuckCreek.org. The site is nothing new (a message at the top says they moved to new servers in 2004), but I had never stumbled across DuckCreek.org before.
I found this link about the “one-lane brick tunnel” noteworthy, largely because I have often seen the tunnel from I-71 and wondered what it was. The site even offers this QuickTime 360-degree panorama from the inside of the tunnel.
Next up, I found CincyImages.com, a place where you can purchase photography of Cincinnati scenes. Personally, I found the difference between two shots of The Genius of Water significant. Here she is, in her old location, with a collection of anonymous downtown buildings behind her. And here she is again, in her new location, with the 5/3 Bank logo right behind her.
The CincinnatiRoads.com link page also reminded me about Space513.com, an interactive, animated map of Cincinnati.
Next, my morning experience of Cincinnati, hyperlinked, led me to Cincinnati-Transit.com, a page that archives “the history of and future plans for the city’s transportation infrastructure.” The site contains photographs and sometimes historical essays about parts of the City—like this offering about the original Fort Washington Way.
From Cincinnati-Transit.com, I found my way to Cincinnati Streetcars, Interurbans, and Railroads. This site features this detailed map, as well as pages like this one, documenting places in Cincinnati where you can still see exposed street car rails.
The pathways one can take on the information superhighway to discover old Cincinnati roadways and railways is a collision of worlds!
You can check out CincyRails.com for the history about active rail-lines in the area. Or how about the Cincinnati Transit Historical Society? They have a fleet of old buses, which have been known to make appearances around town. You can even check out some guy’s kayak adventure down the Mill Creek.
My early morning mouse-clicks have reminded me how many things are hiding around each corner of our City, waiting simply for some fresh eyes to help us see our environment from a fresh perspective.
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