By Steve Ramos

Before it became the city's top entertainment district, Main Street was home to arts entrepreneurs intent on establishing a new gallery strip. Artists often move into long-neglected neighborhoods in search of inexpensive spaces to live and work. Yet, walking along Main Street on a recent afternoon, past bars and restaurants, it's difficult to remember a time when art (or more specifically, art galleries) was the area's prime tenant. So much has changed.

With the opening of a county-funded parking garage, Main Street might be ripe for further expansion. More bars. More nightclubs. More restaurants. More residents. Such growth would not be such a terrible thing. Unless, as the artist community wonders: Will additional growth spell the end of Main Street's gallery scene?

The buzz of activity inside Suzanna Terrill's gallery is a welcome sight. It's a Wednesday afternoon, and Terrill keeps busy with a roomful of clients and artists. Weekdays are frequently quiet, far removed from the popular Final Friday gallery walks, but today Terrill enjoys the burst of activity. Looking down the street, past the darkened windows of bars not yet open for evening business, Terrill's gallery is proof positive that a thriving city neighborhood can't live on nightlife alone.

"I don't see a lot of traffic from the bar scene," says Terrill, who opened her gallery last August. "People don't come down from Barrelhouse. But people do walk by, they come in, look and are exposed to art. They become comfortable with coming into a gallery."

Terrill admits: She's contemplated the idea of Main Street becoming too expensive for its original art pioneers. Cincinnati artists have seen it happen before. Walk down Fourth Street and see the result of higher rents on a once vibrant downtown gallery district. It was once what Main Street is today, although little has become of Fourth Street. Increased rents forced the galleries out. Now, Fourth Street, a quiet block of empty storefronts, stands as a symbol of ill-conceived urban renewal. The fear, especially for local artists who rely on Main Street galleries, is that it could happen again. "The only way that will happen is if the landlords get really greedy, and the artists move out," says Terrill.

Here is a distinct arts landmark in a city filled with many impressive arts icons. Sure, Music Hall, The Cincinnati Art Museum and downtown's Aronoff Center are more appropriate for picture postcards. But for visual artists, Main Street's galleries make an impact greater than any Music Hall performance. They are homes for working artists: a series of low rise buildings along an Over-the-Rhine street, bordered by the nearby work spaces in the Pendleton Art Center.

The fact that they were built with an entrepreneurial/arts spirit is all the more impressive. Initially, there was little city money. Corporate banks stayed away. Only recently, once the neighborhood secured its footing as an entertainment hot spot, has civic support arrived through streetscape improvements and a large parking garage.

The purpose of the garage is two-fold: parking for county employees during the day, and evening and weekend parking for Main Street bars and restaurants. Its impact on Main Street's galleries is debatable. Inside Base Gallery, an artist cooperative, member Tom Weast knows higher rents would make it difficult for Base to remain on Main Street. Already, Base has collaborated to display artwork at DV8 nightclub. Cross promotions with the Main Street businesses hint at the possible synergy between art and entertainment, if business leaders suddenly interested in Main Street are sold on the idea.

"It certainly can't hurt to have more people down here," says David Gregory Smith, owner of DesignSmith gallery, at Main Street's northern edge. "There are people who will come into my space who are not particularly interested in the art. They come down for the bars, say 'Hey this is really cool' and they go into Base, come here and buy a chair. I think that's synergy that can work."

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