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Photo By Jymi Bolden
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Beth Sullebarger at the Emery Theatre
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A group of neighborhood men linger along the 12th Street sidewalk. Trash litters the pavement. It's a warm weekday afternoon, and the block between Race and Vine streets in Over-the-Rhine has the depressing appearance of a ghetto eyesore.
There are rundown storefronts, a corner bar and carry-out stores stocked with beer and wine. A sign hangs above a single doorway: "Sleeping Rooms for Rent. One Person Only. Ring Bell."
Still, there's an urban vitality to 12th Street that's undeniable: constant foot traffic, the buzz of cars and mingling noises from open apartment windows.
But things change, even in Over-the-Rhine. Sometimes for the better.
As part of our annual State of the Arts Issue, CityBeat is proposing an arts avenue that begins at the corner of Sixth and Walnut streets, future site of the new Contemporary Arts Center, and extends north along Walnut, past the Aronoff Center and the Main Public Library. (See "Cincinnati Tees off on the Arts" on page 24.) The avenue would end at the block between 12th Street and Central Parkway, site of the now-shuttered Emery Theatre. It's an idea that's been brought to life in Philadelphia. (See "The Philadelphia Story" on page 27.)
A walk along 12th Street shows added potential to extend the avenue into "The T," an arts address unique to Cincinnati. Here are visible signs of Over-the-Rhine's cultural tenants: Memorial Hall and Music Hall at 12th and Elm; Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC) at 12th and Vine; the Emery Theatre at 12th and Walnut; the strip of Main Street retail galleries near 12th; the current School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) at 12th and Sycamore; and further east to the Pendleton area, the location of artists' studios, design firms and the Art Academy's glass and metal studio, River City Works.
Already a number of arts projects look to change the face of 12th Street further. A new SCPA is planned adjacent to Music Hall. Efforts to renovate the Emery Theatre continue. The Art Academy of Cincinnati is researching Cincinnati neighborhoods, including Over-the-Rhine, for a possible new location.
The street has the potential to become the avant-garde district of Cincinnati's cultural community. Away from the Aronoff Center's mainstream programming, ETC and Main Street galleries continue to offer adventurous fare. While local business leaders and City Hall movers and shakers squabble over riverfront development and subsidized funding to lure a Nordstrom department store, a cultural district is taking shape in Over-the-Rhine.
"I think a dialogue needs to happen. Our beef is not with the SCPA. We support a lot of what they're doing over there."
- Drop Inn Center Director Pat Clifford
It's been almost three years since Cincinnati Pops Conductor Erich Kunzel first announced his plan for a Greater Cincinnati Arts & Education Center (GCAEC) to be built adjacent to Washington Park and Music Hall as a replacement for the current SCPA. Original plans called for a campus setting that would include a community arts center, an expanded Washington Park band shell and a 1,500-seat performance hall.
But Kunzel's plan set its sights on the Drop Inn Center's 12th Street location, and a showdown was inevitable. Drop Inn Center co-founder Bonnie Neumeier and the center's director, Pat Clifford, led staff and supporters to challenge Kunzel and the GCAEC. Additional protests came from local artists Dale Hodges and Barbara Wolf, who formed a grassroots coalition to show that many members of the arts community were united in support of the Drop Inn Center.
A tentative compromise at a Jan. 31 meeting allowed the Drop Inn Center to remain at its current location. News of the center's significant victory broke in a March 25 newspaper article announcing the GCAEC's scaled-back plans.
Meanwhile, there are ongoing questions SCPA Principal Jeff Brokamp will need to answer. What are the advantages of placing a new SCPA next to Music Hall? Is there adequate money to finance a new building at a cost of approximately $60 million? More importantly, will final blueprints allow the Drop Inn Center to remain adjacent to the school?
The decision-making has shifted from Kunzel and his GCAEC volunteers to Cincinnati Public Schools. The project has been downsized from a campus environment to a single school building to house grades K-12 with a student body of 1,100-1,800.
Throughout the conflict, SCPA instructor Camilla Warrick and her Room 208 writing class have followed the events and offered their own reporting. It's surprising how nobody asks for SCPA students' opinions. The Washington Park debate is far from over. Warrick's SCPA students have plenty of reporting ahead.
"The impact of housing on the Emery is huge. Housing really makes this project viable."
- Cincinnati Preservation Association and Emery Center Corporation Executive Director Beth Sullebarger
A lot has happened since CityBeat first brought attention to Emery Theatre renovation plans with a September 1997 cover story. Later, in April 1998, CityBeat detailed the conflict between Emery Theatre interests and Kunzel's plans to build a performance space as part of a new SCPA.
At that time, the SCPA project had momentum, strong business support and, most importantly, a popular figurehead in Kunzel. The Emery's prospects looked bleak by comparison.
Approximately two years later, construction crews are busy at the Emery site. The former OMI-College of Applied Sciences building will become 62 market-rate apartments with a three-floor garage for interior parking. Better yet, revenue from the apartments will ease the costs to operate a renovated theater. Now it's Kunzel's dreamlike SCPA campus that looks derailed.
Once Hamilton County voters decided not to build a new Reds ballpark at Broadway Commons, a renovated Emery Theatre emerged as the potential centerpiece of an expanded Over-the-Rhine entertainment district.
On June 22, 1999, the University of Cincinnati's board of trustees agreed to a long-term lease of the facility to the Emery Center Corporation (ECC), which then selected an Indianapolis-based developer, Mansur, to carry out a $9.7-million renovation plan for the old classroom portion of the Emery complex. A combination of city of Cincinnati funding, historic tax credits, state money and corporate support made this portion of the restoration project possible.
Apartments in the Emery should be ready by early 2001. The plan is to complete theater renovation by 2004.
Informal interviews, frequent tours and specific survey groups have helped build an arts community consensus for renovating the Emery. An operating pro forma assembled by CCM Professor Alan Yaffe envisions 300 days of use annually, broken down into 175 days on the main stage and 125 days on a sixth-floor black-box theater.
Key resident companies would be SCPA, Cincinnati Opera and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. The American Theatre Organ Society, which single-handedly kept the Emery's doors open for more than a decade with classic movies and Wurlitzer organ concerts, would remain.
At a Feb. 16 meeting sponsored by the ECC, it was announced that the Emery Theatre would attract an annual audience of 150,000 and $2.5 million in ticket sales. The financial impact on Over-the-Rhine itself would be $3.5 million. The goal is for the Emery to be more affordable to local arts groups.
Already there are ripple effects from Emery construction. Nearby, the Hale-Justis building is being converted into 30 luxury apartments by a local developer.
The emotional attachment for the Emery Theatre is clear. In 1908, Mary Emery's $500,000 donation to the Ohio Mechanic's Institute, later known as the Ohio College for Applied Science, funded the facility whose design was based on Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. Built by Samuel Hannaford's architectural firm, the theater opened on Jan. 6, 1912, with a performance by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the direction of legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski. After the CSO relocated to the larger confines of Music Hall in 1936, Broadway shows, Eleanor Roosevelt and the New York Ballet graced the Emery's stage.
Throughout the 1960s, The Children's Theatre set up shop at the Emery. The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra presented a series of concerts there throughout the 1970s, while Cincinnati Ballet dancers rehearsed in a fifth floor practice space.
Now, after years of little use, all that remains is the necessary financing before the entire building is brought back to life. A request for $5 million from the 2000-2001 State of Ohio budget was recently rejected. Eleven years ago, approved state funding for the Emery shifted to University of Cincinnati's DAAP building after the Emery agreed to set aside its plans to house a relocated Contemporary Arts Center. The move allowed the Aronoff Center project to move forward.
There are plans to approach Cincinnati City Council this month for the $2 million necessary to continue Emery Theatre restoration.
The Emery is the "pivot" in CityBeat's proposed "T," two arts corridors connected at Walnut and 12th streets.
Later this month, when thousands of Taste of Cincinnati revelers fill Central Parkway, they won't believe their eyes when they see the Emery. Its worn exterior has been revitalized. Once Cincinnati's most glaring symbol of status quo inactivity, this quiet giant is alive and kicking.
"Convenient parking has become a serious issue with my clients. A lot of them are older and aren't comfortable walking a great distance. Parking will be a major factor for where I choose to move."
- Marta Hewett, owner/operator of Marta Hewett Gallery
There have been showdowns on Main Street before.
Before it became the city's top entertainment district, Main Street was home to arts entrepreneurs intent on establishing a new gallery strip. Here was a typical case of urban renewal: Artists moved into the street's long-neglected buildings in search of inexpensive spaces to live and work, and a subsequent wave of bars, nightclubs and restaurants threatened to bring the growing gallery scene tumbing down.
The latest threat to Main Street galleries is the gold rush of Over-the-Rhine Internet companies that have turned the street into "Digital Rhine." The dot.com list of start-up companies that call Over-the-Rhine home is impressive, and local venture capital firms are busy attracting additional start-ups.
What was once a desolate neighborhood with a small handful of retail galleries is turning into a sizable business community. The building at the junction of Main and 12th streets has become Digital Rhine's official ground zero.
Earlier this year, Marta Hewett, the first gallery owner to set up shop on Main Street, sold the building to a venture capital firm. She plans to keep Marta Hewett Gallery at its Main Street location until the end of the year. By that time, she hopes to have moved elsewhere, maybe a street level space in the Emery Theatre.
Dot.com start-ups are increasing the rents in Over-the-Rhine. But it's important to remember that Main Street was built with an entrepreneurial spirit. 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 new parking garage.
But if the growth of Digital Rhine follows bullish predictions, Marta Hewett won't be the last retail gallery to leave Main Street. The hope is that departing galleries find new homes elsewhere in Over-the-Rhine.
"The impact of increasing the cultural component in Over-the-Rhine is that the area might give Cincinnati a lively neighborhood where arts flourish amongst housing and entertainment. We should advocate for a vital Over-the-Rhine. Build a new SCPA. Renovate derelict buildings for artists and simply take a chance that Over-the-Rhine will become a vital neighborhood again."
- Over-the-Rhine-based architect and documentary filmmaker Steve Gebhardt.
While the Aronoff Center's Backstage Entertainment District struggles to attract new tenants, Over-the-Rhine's arts and entertainment community continues to develop. It's proof that a cultural district often runs on the spirit of a few entrepreneurs.
Some of the projects are personal. Certainly, Emily Mazzeo didn't think about urban renewal when she converted her 12th Street apartment into the free gallery space Sanctum Sanctorum for a 1998 performance piece.
Tucked between the Emery Theatre and a new SCPA, Mazzeo's gallery is the type of emerging art that makes 12th Street so eclectic.
Back on the block between Race and Vine streets, watching the crowd outside Jordan's Carry-Out, it's easy to see that change is inevitable.
There have been no special taxes targeting Over-the-Rhine development. No major news coverage, either. Watching riverfront development dissolve into political squabbles, the idea of crossing "The T" with 12th Street makes more and more sense. ©
