Motorists on Gilbert Avenue are greeted by an obelisk (right) and blue spotlight and backlighted letters on a pedestrian bridge spelling Cincinnati. (Jeff Swinger photos) | ZOOM |

        The latest components in Cincinnati's $2.1 million gateway program — a series of substantial architectural doodads on the edges of downtown — add function to form.

        A redesigned pedestrian bridge over Gilbert Avenue near the Greyhound bus station and an electronic information kiosk over a freestanding decorative brick facade at Seventh Street and Central Avenue are nearly complete.

        Designers hope to “tweak some colors,” says senior city architect Michael Moore. The message board for inbound traffic on Seventh Street will be operated by the Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau as soon as the Delta Air Lines building (immediately behind it) is complete this summer.

        Supported heavily by corporate cash and in-kind con tributions, along with a variety of tax sources, the program intends “to celebrate downtown” and “make it more aesthetically pleasing” with a series of 10 enhancements on its edges, said Bob Richardson, city architect.

        So far, there have been no gates, although that's not out of the question. The focus to date has been on sculptures, monuments, bridges, facades and landscaped boulevards — eye-catching, out-of-the-norm accents that offer a pleasant introduction to downtown.

Monument at Fifth and Pike Streets. | ZOOM |

        “Some are towers and monuments ... but there are also spaces” that have been given attention,” Mr. Richardson said. “We're fixing up the whole entry into (downtown) Cincinnati.”

        Apparently, it is working.

        Litsa Spanos, owner of Art Design Consultants, says downtown business owners and residents alike appreciate the effort. Her 10-year-old business on Pendleton Street is a stone's throw from the 5-year-old Over-the-Rhine bell tower, at Reading Road and Liberty Street.

        “I think that it instilled a sense of pride in our location in Over-the-Rhine,” she said, praising the structure. “There are not many new things being built to aesthetically add to the surroundings.

        “For the people (who) actually live here,” she said, “they feel like somebody's paying attention and doing something nice to add to the community.”

INFOGRAPHIC

Map of gateways

        They might not be as numerous or as outrageous as the artist-decorated pigs that peppered downtown and northern Kentucky last summer in the city's Big Pig Gig charity exhibit, but some of them are just as dramatic and just as impressive.

        One of them — along Fifth Street on the east side of downtown — includes a decorated pig in a hillside garden.

        Probably the most noticed “gateways” are the new bridges over Fort Washington Way (Main, Vine and Elm streets), the obelisk on Fifth Street at Pike and the bell tower, the first and largest in the series, in Over-the-Rhine.

Bridge over Fort Washington Way. | ZOOM |

        The red-brick bell tower, built in 1996 on a triangular base, features arched openings on all three sides and all three levels and three steeply pitched gables with permanent metal decorative banners. Bells are played periodically on an electronic keyboard. Neighbor Verdin Bell, the Corbett Foundation and the Over-the-Rhine Foundation contributed.

        “It stands out, but in a nice way,” Ms. Spanos, the corporate art consultant, said. “It sites in with the character of Over-the-Rhine ... I drive past it every day and look at it every day ... I still admire it.”

        The obelisk, which greets inbound Columbia Parkway motorists like an oversized traffic cop, includes water spilling over vertical gray granite slabs on its four sides. The design concept, says Mr. Richardson, was to memorialize the churches that formerly occupied the adjacent downtown blocks.

        Built with stainless-steel and cast-aluminum components, “It also picked up on the (twin towers) architecture of P&G,” said Mr. Moore, its principal designer.

        Procter & Gamble, Taft Museum, Western Southern Life Insurance and R.L. Polk Co. helped pay for construction and ongoing maintenance. Former P&G chairman and chief executive John Smale and his wife, Phyllis, funded the nearby garden, between the Interstate 471 and Columbia Parkway ramps.

        A block south on Pike Street, a smaller building-like skeleton was installed in an island at Fourth Street to accommodate promotional posters for the Taft Museum of Art. The Taft is in charge of its maintenance.

        A substantial contribution from the Scripps Howard Foundation was incorporated into the Fort Washington Way bridges work.

        Roughly one-third of the money spent on gateways has come from corporate and individual donors, Mr. Richardson said. The other two thirds came nearly evenly from the city and the state.

        The Reading Road bell tower and the soft-green Gilbert Avenue pedestrian bridge to Mount Adams announce “Cincinnati” in bold capital letters.

        On the bridge, they will be back-lighted at night as part of a lighting scheme that includes, at the west end, a cannon light — a barrel-sized cylinder that directs its beam skyward.

        All of the gateways are “at places off expressway ramps and off major (traffic) arteries,” Mr. Richardson said, “where most people enter the city.”

        New and reinvigorated traffic islands on Central Parkway near the Alms and Doepke Building and on Gilbert Avenue from Eighth Street to Eden Park Drive have new trees and other fresh landscaping. Safety screens have been updated on the Columbia Parkway and Gilbert Avenue bridges.

        “Generally, we have gotten very positive reaction” to the structures and landscapes, Mr. Moore said.

        “We have had many neighborhoods approach us (about ideas to) enhance the beginnings and ends of communities,” Mr. Richardson said. But, aside from an unspecif ied and postponed gateway at Fifth Street and Central Avenue, there are no more projects in the works.
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