{"id":2595,"date":"2022-09-01T10:26:22","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T17:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2595"},"modified":"2022-09-01T10:26:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T17:26:22","slug":"cincinnati-calling-for-old-fashioned-fun-in-a-little-big-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/lifestyle\/2595\/cincinnati-calling-for-old-fashioned-fun-in-a-little-big-city","title":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI CALLING FOR OLD FASHIONED FUN IN A LITTLE, BIG CITY"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"the<\/a>

Circa 1931, the Hilton Netherland Plaza Hotel remains, itself a timeless tourist attraction. (Photo by Harrison Shiels)<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Five freeway hours from Lansing I pulled into downtown Cincinnati at the border of Ohio and Kentucky on a summer afternoon. Visiting \u201cCincy\u201d was a very user-friendly, quick trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cCincinnati is a small town that has everything a big city has. It\u2019s easy to navigate. Now that you\u2019ve parked your car here, you\u2019re able to walk to the attractions,\u201d said Bob Louis, who met me in an attraction itself: the landmark, historic, Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Hotel. Louis has represented the hotel, which is authentically stylish but not snobby, for decades. \u201cWe get a lot of local people who bring their out-of-town visitors here just to show them our Palm Court Bar and have a drink or a bite.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hotel\u2019s fanciful, civic-chic setting had a \u201cGreat Gatsby\u201d aura to it. I felt as if F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s bow-tied Jay Gatsby should be sitting in one of the chairs with a fan blowing cold air over a bowl of ice on him while his butler brings him a telephone telling him, \u201cMr. Gatsby? Cincinnati is calling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 29-story, 561-room Hilton Netherland Plaza hotel opened in 1931 within Carew Tower – the first multi-tower complex in the United States, which pre-dates New York\u2019s Rockefeller Center. It\u2019s on the National Historic Landmark Register.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a French Art-Deco masterpiece. Our \u2018Hall of Mirrors\u2019 premier ballroom was modeled after the Palace at Versailles. It\u2019s got a beautiful, warm glow because there are 18-carat-backed gold mirrors,\u201d Louis revealed. \u201cAnd right here in Palm Court Bar these are 30-foot ceilings above Brazilian rosewood with 10 murals above that depict the French countryside and the pleasures in life: eating, drinking, poetry, music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louis admitted at least one of those pleasures takes place before the nearby football and baseball games. \u201cPeople come for pre-game drinks before our NFL Super Bowl Bengals kick-off. And we are the official hotel of the Reds \u2013 the oldest professional team in Major League Baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Reds Hall of Fame maintains a hotel display window with rotating authentic memorabilia including, during my visits, jerseys from 1940\u2019s.<\/p>\n

That morning I\u2019d spoken with Los Angeles radio and TV sportscaster Tim Neverett who was in town to call the Dodgers series vs the Reds after a long absence due to the pandemic. He even authored a book called \u201cCovid Curveball\u201d which examined the fan-less, 2020 Dodgers championship seasons during which broadcasters didn\u2019t travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very happy to be back in the \u2018Queen City,\u2019\u201d he said. And during the radio broadcast explained, \u201cWhen the Reds\u2019 ballpark was first built there wasn\u2019t a lot to do around it. But now there are lots of new apartments and with that comes restaurants, shops and bars.\u201d<\/p>\n

On my walk from the Hilton to what\u2019s called the \u201cGreat American Ballpark,\u201d I stopped in for a glass of wine at a local, classic favorite: the magnificent, dark-wood, cool, tiffany-glassed Jeff Ruby\u2019s Steakhouse\u2026with its tuxedoed waiters and $95 porterhouse prices. A Wagyu beef filet on the menu was $168. Tiger Shrimp cocktail: $8 per-piece.<\/p>\n

By contrast, beers in the ballpark were $3; hot dogs $2; and ice cream $1 since it was Tuesday! At that price I bought the usher a hot dog too and drank a couple too many beers. For fun I considered how many steamed hotdogs would I have to eat to equal the cost of a Jeff Ruby ribeye!<\/p>\n

Those prices and the ballpark feel were old school. Cincinnati loves being \u201cold-timey:\u201d The Reds jersey numbers are in a throwback typeface.\u00a0\u00a0The team mascot, \u201cMr. Redlegs\u201d is a character in knickers with a handlebar mustache. And the riverfront ballparks main feature is a turn-of-the-century centerfield steamboat with its two flame-belching smokestacks.<\/p>\n

The unique statue out front of \u201cHit King\u201d Pete Rose sliding headfirst into home plate is a hit with selfie-takers and better than the \u201cBig Red Machine\u2019s\u201d World Series star being in the Baseball Hall of Fame, anyway!<\/p>\n

Maybe just as on the other end of Jay Gatsby\u2019s line, Cincinnati is calling you!<\/p>\n

\n

Contact\u00a0Michael\u00a0Patrick\u00a0Shiels\u00a0at\u00a0<\/em>MShiels@aol.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0His radio program may be found at\u00a0MiBigShow.com\u00a0or weekday mornings\u00a0from 9-noon\u00a0on WJIM\u00a0AM 1240<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visiting Cincinnati was a very user-friendly, quick trip. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[948973,1023753],"class_list":["post-2595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-ohio","tag-hilton-cincinnati-netherland-hotel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2022\/09\/unnamed-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2597,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions\/2597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}