Gentrification of the West End is just getting started | Opinion
It's been said sports is a people's distraction from the problems of the day. It has been for millennia. It doesn't, for a minute, mean the issues don't exist or have been (re)solved.
There's been a trade. In order to get the bright new TQL stadium smack dab in the center of town, parts of the West End have been obliterated.
Gone from the West End is the unique soul food cooking of Monica Williams and her Just Cookin' restaurant. Gone is the historic State Street Theater, which was most recently home to the State Street Church. Gone is the flock.
Gone are the residents and residences of Wade Street. At least three of the prior tenants are no longer with us. Gone from the West End are Jehovah's Witness' building and flock. Gone from the West End is the Revelation Baptist Church and it's congregants. Since 1928, the congregation has worshiped in the historic synagogue known as Ahavath Achim, built in 1865 at 1556 John Street. This historic building is no longer standing.
Cincinnati Public Schools traded the old Stargel Stadium, for a new one on the other side of Ezzard Charles Drive. Taft High School appears tiny in the shadow of TQL Stadium. It's ultimate fate in the West End has yet to be determined.
Gone from the West End is Tri-State Wholesale Building Supply. Gone from the West End is Fast Eddy's Auto Repair. Gone from the West End is the Cincinnati Ballet.
Threatened is Liberty Tire, also in the shadow of TQL stadium.
The long-term fate of Cincinnati Police Department District 1 headquarters is unknown, also resting on prime real estate a stone's throw from the soccer stadium. Historic Music Hall performances and rehearsals have been impacted by the noise of the fans during games.
All this so fans who don't live in the area can have a fun experience. The area is soon to be populated with hotels, breweries and restaurants that the remaining neighboring residents can ill afford to patronize.
The West End, home to approximately 9,000 low- to moderate-income residents, is being encroached on one block at a time. This is not an exercise of lifting a poor neighborhood up. This is about easy prey. The haves displacing the residences, businesses and places of worship of the have nots. Make no mistake, the takeover is not nearly complete.
The next time you cheer on the winning team remember the cost to the community.
In a most recent development, the city has issued an apology for the devastation and destruction imposed upon the West End community through past actions many years ago. However, at the same time, skirting responsibility for the city-sanctioned development of a 26,000-seat soccer stadium and ongoing related development in the very same neighborhood.
And now the fate of St. Joseph Catholic School, serving the West End for more than 170 years, is on the chopping block. When will the demise end?
Lew Ebstein lives in Montgomery and is vice president of Neighborhoods United.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Gentrification of the West End is just getting started | Opinion
