Just Around The Corner

Just around the corner from Jeff Ruby's Precinct (featured in last week's Heavy Artillery posting "Fat Tuesday, Done Properly") is the Schmidt Recreation Complex.  125 years ago, during the wild and woolly years of National Pastime warfare between the National League, the American Association and the Players League, the city of Cincinnati fielded two major league teams, both then identified as the Cincinnati Reds (today, the AA club is better known as Kelly's Killers after its infamous manager Mike Kelly).  The AA version of the Reds played their home games in a little ballpark in the east end of the city, hard on the banks of the mighty Ohio River, called the East End Park.  This ballpark was featured years ago at the ol' web page in a blog post about Cincinnati's abandoned major league ballparks.  Below is a photo (ripped from the pages of Wikipedia, here) of the East End Park from the turn of the twentieth century.

Today, the area looks likes this (below; in yet another photo absconded from the same Wikipedia page):

What's that old saying?  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  To that point, in my examination of these two photos, I wondered if any of the buildings in the foreground of the first photo are still standing today.  With the able assistance of Google's Street View function, I have determined that some of them have survived.  To wit:

 

 

Here is the link to Google Street View which gives you an up-close look.  If you know anyone (in addition to me, of course) who has an interest in visiting such long-forgotten places, these images give you a better perspective on how and where the old ballpark was situated.

Below is a colorized version of the first photo used for a postcard from that era.  It might give you better detail of the old black-and-white image and of the three structures I've highlighted:

With the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues in full swing, Major League Baseball is also just around the corner.  As is the Kentucky Derby.  My favorite author on the sport, Steve Haskin, has an interesting and informative essay in The Blood-Horse titled "Welcome to the New Kentucky Derby."  He writes of the ways in which horse racing in general and the Kentucky Derby in particular has changed over the past 50 years and explains how this evolution serves as a contributing factor to the longest-ever span of time without a Triple Crown winner.  It isn't a long piece, so don't be intimidated by the webpage's great length; Haskin's column has elicited more than 150 impassioned comments to date.

One thing that isn't just around the corner is the 2015 Breeders' Cup.  If you are curious as to ticket pricing and availability for this year's event, held for the first-ever time at historic and picturesque Keeneland, click here.

Roll the credits!

Fat Tuesday, Done Properly

On the occasion of My Dear Elderly Mother's birthday this year, her granddaughters were away at a skating competition and thus were unavailable to celebrate on that special day.  After kicking around some ideas for where to have a belated birthday dinner, Lou settled on someplace none of us had ever dined; The Precinct.

Above is a low-light photo of the gold-embossed (but neon-pink illuminated) logo found on The Precinct's leather-bound wine list.  Perhaps wine volume is more accurate.

Uncertain of the drive-time and parking situation, I arrived with My Dear Elderly Mother half an hour before our 6:30pm reservation.  Lou and his gang were running late relative to me but on-time for dinner and so, once escorted to our corner table, I snapped a few photos with the Android S9000.  One of the birthday girl hiding behind her menu.....

..... and one of the immediate surroundings.

The Gotham City villain's lair tilt of the above photo is on account of; a.) there being a couple seated at right in my camera's lens and my hope to not draw attention to the fact that I was taking a photo of where they were sitting, and b.) my surreptitious goal of not appearing to be a hayseed from Reily Township.  For those of you who don't know, The Precinct has long been a fine dining destination for Cincinnati's athletic, social, cultural and political luminaries, as well as culinary attraction for the Tri-State's visiting dignitaries.  The food truly was great [Lou and I each opted for "The Brennaman" (me: "How can I not get The Brennaman?"  Lou:  "I know, right?  I have to get The Brennaman.")], the service unparalleled and the atmosphere was dignified without being pretentious.  The Precinct is expensive and so you rightly have an expectation that the totality of experience will be exemplary.  Jeff Ruby's Precinct is superlative.  In a perfect world we'd have caught glimpse that evening of some Cincinnatian of note, such as Tanya O'Rourke or Anthony Munoz or perhaps been graced with a tableside visit from Jeff Ruby himself, and I would have preferred Coca-Cola over its vile competitor, but while locally there may be a few dining options which might rival The Precinct, none could be said to surpass The Precinct.

Once Lou and his crew were seated, he snapped a photo of me next to one-half of the Disney XD Girls:

For a better, non-tilted look at The Precinct, here (below) are a selection of photos from the restaurant's own website (found here):

 

 

For our party of seven, the staff pushed together the two tables you see along the far wall, under the three-dimensional pop art of the old-time police constabulary in the photo immediately above.

Here is an exterior of The Precinct, ripped from the information superhighway:

The building in which today The Precinct is housed, as you might have gathered, was originally a Cincinnati police station.  The structure was built in the 1890s and was designed by architect Samuel Hannaford, also the architect of Music Hall.  Found in one dusty (but interesting) corner of the world wide web is this image (below) of a turn-of-the-century postcard of Police Station No. 6:

Today the main entrance, just as it was then, can be found adjacent to the turret.  The wait staff gave us a brief history of the facility, and one thing that puzzled us at the time was this bit of information; we were seated where the police kept their horses (surprisingly coincidental) as there didn't appear to be any logical way for them to ingress or egress.  Later examination of the postcard above indicates that we were seated in the wing you see at far left, next to the gaping maw of an entrance no doubt utilized by horse and Paddy Wagon alike (I can use the P-word because I'm half Irish).

Big Brother Lou picked up the check for our lavish meal.  It's good to be the king!

The Precinct stands sentinel over the intersection of Columbia Parkway and Delta Avenue.  The nighttime drive from there back towards downtown Cincy affords one a stunning view of The Queen City from around a bend in the mighty Ohio River. 

Roll the credits!