April 2009

Margy Waller
Vice President, Arts & Culture Partnership, Fine Arts Fund

We live in a vibrant, thriving place. We should be both grateful and also actively promoting more progress via a streetcar that will support our arts and change the way we feel about the place we live and work.

As a recent returnee to this city where I grew up, I’m thrilled by the nightlife, the new construction and renovation downtown, all of the retail options in walkable places, and the fun our arts and culture community offers every day.

There is so much going on here that I honestly can’t keep up. One of the first weekends after moving into my new place, I went to three different plays. Unless it was during a visit to New York City, I can’t remember ever doing that anywhere.

Last week, in an unscientific poll, I asked a bunch of friends what they like about our arts. A number of people told me they most enjoy those events that provide a chance for social interaction along with the in-person, live experience.

Me too.

A couple weeks ago, the Fine Arts Fund and our “Young Friends” organization hosted a party at the Contemporary Arts Center on a Friday evening. This party coincided with the Tara Donavan exhibit – a fantastic installation of sculpture made of everyday things like pins, toothpicks and plastic straws.

The partygoers that night were a diverse group who talked and ate and drank – and ventured up the stairs to see the exhibit. (See the photos at www.fineartsfund.org/what_they_wore_February_20). When the upstairs floors closed a couple hours into the party, the viewers were still not ready to leave.

On another night this year, my father and his wife hosted a house concert in their Clifton condo. They invited a few friends for wine, cheese, and some short pieces on piano, harpsichord, and clarinet. Before and during the music, the performers talked about the “reed routine” of wind players (pretty amusing, really), the harpsichord-maker, and the personal story of one of the composers. After the music, most of us hung around talking – and the conversation drifted into local issues.

One of the hot topics of discussion after the house concert was the proposal for a streetcar line from the river to Over-the-Rhine to our own neighborhood of Clifton. (See the route at www.cincystreetcar.com/route.html.)

A streetcar would multiply the excitement of our center city. It would travel right through the Over-the-Rhine arts district that started long ago with buildings like Music Hall, the Emery, and the music of beer gardens, and now includes the Art Academy, Ensemble, Know, and New Stage Collective theaters, plus the galleries and art venues of Main Street. Soon, the new School for Creative and Performing Arts will expand the offerings there.

The streetcar would also connect the Freedom Center and stadiums on the river, travel through the downtown past the Mercantile Library, Fountain Square, the Aronoff Center, Contemporary Arts Center, the courts and county office buildings – before arriving in Over-the-Rhine. It would then travel up the hill to our major job center in Uptown and the student neighborhoods of Clifton.

It’s hard to think of a better way to get the students, faculty, and staff down the hill and into the galleries, theaters, music venues, restaurants – and Findlay Market too. We’re looking for a way to retain recent grads in this area – a streetcar option will add significantly to our city’s appeal for job-hunting young people.

Imagine this scene from a few years in our future:
After the workday, you head to Fountain Square on a warm evening where you meet friends. You all decide to stop in at the Contemporary Arts Center to see a new exhibit and show a newcomer one of the coolest buildings anywhere. After a walk through the fourth and fifth floors (where you run into three people you know) and back down the awesome steps inside the building, you all decide to head over to Nada to share a pitcher of sangria and some sliders.

>Then, you walk a few steps to the streetcar, because the evening isn’t over yet! The streetcar takes everyone up to Over-the-Rhine where you head to Know Theatre on Jackson Street (or the Ensemble on Vine, Music Hall on Elm, etc.). After the show, some of you stop in at Lavomatic for a drink and dessert. Everyone takes the streetcar back to 4th Street to pick up your cars and drive home. That is, except those of you who have moved to Over-the-Rhine – where there is now an indie restaurant district on Vine Street, you can walk to Findlay Market any time you like, Washington Park is a neighborhood gathering spot on nice evenings and weekends, and you ride the streetcar to work.

Naturally, there are questions about the cost of the streetcar investment. Just days after our house concert conversation, the leaders of Agenda 360 – a regional planning initiative – highlighted the concept of a streetcar in their announcement of the community plan for our future. www.cincinnati360.com/report/transportation.asp

And a mere few days later, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory gave a passionate endorsement of the streetcar saying:
“Now, we have done our homework and the benefits of a Streetcar system are clear… When a city puts rails in the ground, economic growth follows. The exact same thing will happen right here in Cincinnati. We expect to see at least $1.4 billion in economic impact in the first phase, alone. And that will give us additional resources to put to use in our neighborhoods all across the city… Streetcars must be a part of Cincinnati’s future and we will fight to make it happen.”

The mayor has a thing for progress.

And there’s another factor to consider, one that goes way beyond the economic benefit: the arts and culture of our community and a new streetcar provide us with joy of place. We love our hometown for what it offers and the way it makes us feel. The experiences we share inspire us – we create and innovate in response. We’re moved to act in the civic interest by the things we learn about each other and ourselves.

A streetcar and the arts both provide benefits to everyone in the region. And both deserve (and require) broad support. Proponents of each recognize their shared goals and values. We should all actively promote the benefits to everyone – including those who will ride the streetcar to visit our venues, as well as those who will enjoy the fruits of our regional progress.

The payoff from these public investments in our community–pride and joy–is priceless.
Margy Waller works at the Arts & Culture Partnership of the Fine Arts Fund. These opinions are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer or its leadership or of Express Cincinnati. To learn more and participate in the conversation, go to www.fineartsfund.org/blog.