For the first time in years, summer Sunday nights are quieter in Corryville and Eden Park. Corryville business leaders, though, say the situation still needs work.
It’s a warm, overcast early July Sunday afternoon in Eden Park. A crowd of younger people — many teen-agers, a few who look to be in their twenties, nearly all black — are enjoying a corner of the park called Twin Lakes.
Twin Lakes has picnic tables, lots of trees, playground equipment, plenty of benches and a panoramic view of the Ohio River next to a strip of parking. Most folks are either hanging out, flirting, showing off or listening to thumping car stereos or a public address system broadcasting African Perspectives on WAIF (88.3 FM). A few older men are playing chess on public tables off to the side. Combined with some other adults there, they add a mature flavor to the crowd, which seems to be a few hundred people — small for a summer Sunday.
By 9 p.m., the crowd is gone, and a different, more racially mixed collection of people is milling about in a much quieter atmosphere.
At about the same time, a younger, also mostly black, laid-back crowd is gathering on Short Vine in Corryville.
Like in Eden Park, orange cones are blocking access to Vine Street, and about the same number of officers are keeping an eye on things. Traffic isn’t light but isn’t heavy enough to create gridlock.
A few well-dressed young men lean on their cars. Groups of girls and guys huddle together, checking each other out. Most people shuffle around or stand on corners.
By now, most Short Vine businesses are closed, including Subway and Sudsy Malone’s, both of which would be open at this hour in the winter. Several white people pass through the crowd, a few with slightly concerned expressions on their faces.
Political Football
For years, crowds of young, mostly black people have gathered in Eden Park on Sunday afternoons and early evenings. Later, another crowd — with some of the same people — gets together on Vine Street in Corryville.
Politicians, business owners and residents have been in a tug-of-war on this issue since about 1994, when Eden Park area residents began complaining about cruising cars and heavy traffic in the park and Short Vine came to a virtual standstill.
Since then, the crowds have varied in size and intensity but have returned every summer at some point. Many come from outside Cincinnati, including Dayton and Lexington.
A few commissions and task forces have searched unsuccessfully for a compromise solution. Police first closed Twin Lakes to traffic, but that was seen as singling out a mostly black crowd for different treatment. Then police turned Eden Drive, the street used to reach Twin Lakes, into a one-way road. Finally, police began using cones to keep people from doing a 0.6-mile circle in and out of Twin Lakes, instead forcing drivers into a 3.5-mile loop around the park. That remains the traffic control method used today.
Several years ago in Corryville, police closed Short Vine to all traffic and used cruisers and horses to block and move the crowd. But that forced activity into nearby neighborhoods.
“The reality is we just weren’t prepared to deal with that situation,” said Cincinnati Police Lt. Mark Hildebrand, who has participated in or supervised police coverage of Short Vine on Sunday nights for about five years.
In recent years, police have been trying to be less intimidating and more accommodating. Each spring for three years Hildebrand has passed out fliers saying the young people were welcome on Short Vine, as long as they don’t litter, block entrances and so on. Police now use orange cones to block the street instead of flares and cruisers and treat the crowd as a legitimate public gathering rather than a crowd problem.
But the police still close Vine Street to traffic for any sizeable crowd. And Corryville business owners, who had asked for Short Vine to be closed, realized they made a mistake when customers also stayed away.
Last year, following the lead of a task force report, the University Village Association (UVA), a Corryville business group, considered starting a Short Vine festival with a $5 admission that would be good for food or drinks. But they abandoned the idea after a lawsuit was filed on behalf of activist Nathaniel Livingston, who said the festivals would discriminate by charging people to stand on a public street.
This Year’s Model
The latest plan comes from the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission (CHRC). Drawing from a variety of old recommendations, CHRC Director Cecil Thomas proposed trying to keep Sunday crowds in Eden Park longer to decrease crowds in Corryville. That would happen by:
· Closing all vehicular entrances to the Eden Park except Gilbert Avenue;
· Providing a portable platform at Mirror Lake for young people to set up their own entertainment, drawing people from Twin Lakes to a different part of the park;
· And closing Eden Park at midnight, one hour later than usual, among other ideas.
Cincinnati City Councilwoman Alicia Reece, the latest politician to tackle the Sunday crowd issue, asked Thomas at a May 28 council committee meeting to get reactions to his plan from the community and business groups it would affect. But the Cincinnati Recreation Commission and the city’s Safety Department didn’t respond before city council began its summer recess June 28, so the plan is in limbo by default.
And some who did respond — including the Mount Adams Civic Association and Cincinnati Parks Board — were concerned the plan would cause more problems in Eden Park.
But Thomas isn’t totally disappointed. The whole point of his proposal, he said, was to get all the community councils and business owners to take a hard look at Corryville and to work together as a whole rather than as a collection of neighborhoods looking out for their own interests.
“The biggest problem is that Corryville somewhat gets the shaft (with the current crowd control methods),” Thomas said. “Right now, Corryville is screaming by themselves.”
The Real Problem
John Barnwell, chairman of the University Village Association, is convinced the Sunday street closings are the cause of declining business on Short Vine. A couple dozen businesses have closed or left the area in the last five years, including Wizard’s Records, Pizza Hut, Perkins and Jupiter’s video arcade.
“The perception, again, is what kills us,” said Barnwell, who owns the Holy Grail Brewery and Grill on West Charlton Street just off Vine.
Barnwell believes previous news reports of and public encounters with the crowds have had a cumulatively negative effect on area businesses. People see police on the street or hear about it in the news, he said, and choose not to come to Short Vine any day of the week.
The latest business to leave the street is Mole’s Records, a fixture on Short Vine for 26 years. But Mole’s owner Dean Newman isn’t moving because of the Sunday night problem, said store employee Ric Hickey.
Newman is buying the building that once housed Ozarka Records. That store, located at 111 Calhoun St. for a couple of decades, closed several months ago after the death of its owner, a friend of Newman’s. The relocated Mole’s might open the first week of August, Hickey said.
Besides, he said, Mole’s closes at 5 p.m. on Sundays, “so it really doesn’t affect us.”
Hildebrand, though not an economics expert, is also skeptical about the connection between the Sunday crowds and closing businesses. He wondered aloud if Perkins, formerly located at the corner of Vine and Corry streets, closed because of crowds or bad management.
Despite the negative perception, the truth is that Corryville is pretty peaceful, Barnwell said.
Although the gatherings at both sites have been associated with some fights, litter and disturbances, they’ve both been uneventful this year. For a few years, the CHRC’s community relations monitors — the eyes and ears of the organization — have been defusing verbal disputes before they escalated into fights.
Police have mostly handed out parking tickets in Eden Park and have arrested only a few people in Corryville, mostly for driving with expired licenses, according to Hildebrand. And, Barnwell pointed out, Corryville has never been a hub of violent crime, the biggest local problem being car break-ins.
The bottom line, Barnwell said, is that he wants police to keep Short Vine open as long as possible and to keep a low profile. Maybe, that way, people will see just a crowd rather than a crowd monitored by the police.
But Hildebrand isn’t eager to open Short Vine because he believes it would relapse into the traffic jams of the mid-1990s.
Losing Popularity?
But there might not need to be a plan if current trends continue.
On Sunday, July 9, Thomas spent some of the evening at what appears to be a new hot spot: Club Ritz, at the corner of Seymour Avenue and Reading Road in Avondale. The club is actually two venues — one for ages 18-20 and one for ages 21 and over.
“(It seems as if) that’s their place to hang out now,” Thomas said.
“(The Eden Park crowd) seemed to be much bigger then than it is now,” said David Crowley, owner of Crowley’s Pub in Mount Adams. “I think it’s something that will die a natural death.”
Hildebrand agreed, saying he wouldn’t be surprised if the kids abandoned Short Vine for another hangout in three years.
But if the crowds don’t go away, one long-term resident doesn’t ever expect to see a solution come from city council.
Tom Hadley of Mount Auburn, who lived a few blocks from Short Vine from 1986 to November 1999, has watched a parade of well-meaning council members observe the scene on Sunday nights. But after exploring the issue, he said, they all discover it’s complicated, emotionally charged and has little potential of helping their political careers, so within a few months they move on to other issues.
Reece is the latest council member to tackle the crowd issue. In the spring, she prodded fellow council members to work on a plan for the summer. Now that summer’s here, Hadley wondered how much longer she would stay on it.
As of press time, that wasn’t clear. Reece didn’t return phone calls seeking comment on the issue. ©
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2000.
