DAYTON/COVINGTON KY
Apr. 10 • May 20 2019
I had to skip all Roads Scholaring for 4 months because of bad health. Happy now?
4/10 - This was a pre-bubbling to the May outing, but I just had to get this. This is northeast on Biz KY 8 (Fairfield Avenue) at Foote in Bellevue. What caught my eye here is the truck at the center of the photo for something called Unfi. My jaw hit the ground when I saw there was a business called Unfi, because when I was in 8th grade, unfi was the opposite of fi, like when a classmate wrote that a class was "unjust, uncool, and unfi." Barely visible behind the truck is the facade of the old Marianne Theater, which became the target of a luxury condo plan in late 2019. That gentrification boondoggle has so far been rejected because it was so unpopular.
5/20 - Northeast on Manhattan Boulevard in Dayton. I've said enough in other venues about the mess created by the Manhattan Harbour development, made up of gobs of luxury housing on the Ohio River floodplain. The mansions here show how we've lost the riverfront. I'm also waiting to see who's going to be on the hook when a flood damages these homes.
Manhattan Boulevard grazes the floodwall trail. The sign says the road is closed ahead except for construction trucks. But construction trucks wouldn't use this road, because it would have disturbed the mansions they built. Instead, they drove through town and spread dangerous dust onto cars and houses.
Looking over to Cincinnati from the floodwall trail. The path ascending the hill straight ahead is the remnants of Hazen Street. US 52 runs across the bottom of the photo. The trees right around Hazen had been removed, revealing where it crossed the railroad and climbed to US 50 (Columbia Parkway).
East on 4th, which carries Biz KY 8, which becomes KY 6335 as it turns right onto Mary Ingles Highway. The sign warns of a rough road, which was in fact closed a couple miles ahead in a controversial decision. The closure may be permanent.
North on Kenton at 3rd. The main item of interest here is the aging stop sign on the barrier, which looks like it's been dunked in the toilet many times.
East on 5th in front of Lincoln Elementary School. The ancient-looking sign says "PULL IN FORWARD ONLY." If this is anything like NKU's front-in parking rule that had no safety motive but was designed so parking stickers would be more easily visible, it's probably not that old, since that rule was seen as so reactionary when it was enacted. Then again, NKU's rule had its defenders, who were always the same loudmouths swaggering about how they wanted cops to beat vandals, and I got tired of being forced to listen to their hateful, anti-American garbage long ago.
If alleys are the people's roads, it's especially true in Dayton! This is southwest from Walnut on the alley between 4th and 5th. Like some other Dayton alleys, this alley is especially peopley, as it just has cobblestone ruts - which discourages high-speed vehicles from abusing it.
An obligatory Newport photo! Here we're on the KY 8 bridge, and this is looking north at what remained of Southgate Street. That includes the dirt path in the foreground where the pavement had been removed. Even before it was Southgate, that stretch apparently used to be part of Brighton Street.
In Covington, this is 4th (KY 8 west) at Scott (KY 17 south). The sign warns unauthorized parked cars will be booted! If they don't want a car to park there, why do they make it harder to drive it away? If you have a coolster comrade who has tools to remove a boot, booting is useless anyway. I'm not saying I have a friend who has these tools. I'm just saying if.
The speed limit sign has one of those unique Covington fonts I don't think I've seen anywhere else. This is east on 6th.
South on Madison approaching Pike.
East on 8th at Garrard. In the background is the Licking River floodwall. The riverfront had been slated for years as the site for a greenway or a walking and cycling path. Whenever plans are made for a greenway, it usually manages to get built sometime within the next 25 years or so.
Back in Newport! This is the other end of the razed part of Southgate Street. Southgate is coming in from the lower left and curves to form the dirt path straight ahead under the KY 8 bridge.