DAYTON and NEWPORT, KY
May 22 2008
This set starts off wimpy but gets more daring as it goes on. So read it and peep...
Out of range of this photo, a barely noticeable, nearly illegible sign down the levee a ways specifically prohibits bikes, but I've violated that Allowed Cloud fluently.
These antique traffic signs were right under my nose for years and I never noticed them until now! Actually the NO VEHICLES ON LEVEE sign couldn't be as old as it looks, because the levee wasn't there until the early 1980s. This is northwest on the Dayton side of O'Fallon Avenue, and these signs (except the newer-looking parking sign) use the signature Dayton font.
East on Dodd Drive in Dayton to show you the ruinment brung about by construction. The closure looks mighty permanent to me. Dodd Drive (at least in part) was built in the 1980s with the floodwall.
West on the mud-caked, flood-ravaged Dodd Drive.
This enticing dirt pile on Dodd Drive dwarfs the Peace Bike. Those antennas are actually radio towers in Cincinnati, well behind the mountain of dirt.
At James Taylor Park in Newport, the Licking River was up so high that it engulfed this sanitary sewer.
This is not a road, obviously, but some creepy, broken land at Taylor Park. Part of the 4th Street bridge (which carries KY 8) is barely visible in the background.
Here we're going under the 4th Street span - which is officially called Veterans Memorial Bridge (a name that should be used for it more). We're going south on a road behind the floodwall that's often roped off.
This bleak, empty area in the northwest corner of Newport was the site of a housing project before the city mercilessly shut that down mid-decade. Now it's just streets with no buildings. This is southwest on 3rd from Central. The Veterans Memorial Bridge is in the background on the left, and a new, futuristic skyscraper in Covington is seen on the right.
I see Cincinnati, I see Cincinnati! But the real focus here is this street in the former public housing site. I think this is northwest on Slaughter Avenue ("Up all night...Sleep all day...").
Still in the abandoned neighborhood, this is northeast on Southgate Street.
This graffiti decorates the floodwall near the 4th Street bridge. Those who wrongly insist graffiti like this is limited to larger cities would be surprised to learn this is in Newport, KY!
Looking east under the 4th Street span. The bridge was built in the 1930s.
I know these are supposed to be road photos, but by now the Peace Bike has turned just about everything into a road. This is south on the levee from the aforementioned bridge. Almost nobody goes back here. Ever. Also, everything from here on out is endangered if the unasked-for KY 9 project happens.
From the forgotten levee, this is obviously an abandoned road. Long, long, long abandoned! It may have been Lowell north of 6th.
Any graffiti that includes the phrase "pee in a cup" deserves a spot here. The levee hits this weird, secluded area that's behind a locked gate and may be part of a flat, inaccessible stretch of the levee that runs from north of 6th almost to 11th.
This too is looking behind that gate towards the isolated area. Don't ask how I got this photo.