Greater Ohio Policy Center has been engaged as a subcontractor on the planning team responsible for preparing a new comprehensive plan for the City of North College Hill. As part of the kickoff events for the new comp plan, GOPC was invited to join city officials and the rest of the planning team on January 20th for a driving tour of the city.
North College Hill is a city in Hamilton County, approximately 10 miles north of the City of Cincinnati. The city is approximately 1.8 square miles and has just under 10,000 residents. Follow along as we cover our favorite stops from the driving tour on this week’s blog!
Stop 1 – North College Hill Commercial Business District
We started the driving tour at the North College Hill Commercial Business District along Goodman Ave. The commercial business district includes a number of businesses, including the Roses Discount Story, a dance academy, and neighborhood favorites, like Fricker’s restaurant. The site was previously a 42-acre farm owned by Dr. Isaac Wise, a prominent Reform rabbi, editor, and author in the 19th century. Today, a city park remains on site on Goodman Ave.
Stop 2 – North College Hill Small Business District
North College Hill’s Small Business District includes several blocks along Galbraith Rd. west of Hamilton Ave. featuring several shops and restaurants, in addition to churches and the local elementary school. The small business district also features the famous North College Hill Bakery, voted the best bakery in Hamilton County.
Stop 3 – Clovernook Country Club
Next stop was the Clovernook Country Club, incorporated in 1923. The private club hosts an annual fashion show and the high school prom.
Stop 4 – Lake Nina
Located on the southwest corner of the city, Lake Nina Restaurant has been around for 60 years and is recognized for their fish logs. The lake also abuts the CareCore nursing home and the Lakeridge Banquet Hall. While the land around Lake Nina is contiguous with the rest of North College Hill, you have to leave the municipal boundaries to access the area by road.
Stop 5 – Various Pocket Parks
North College Hill has a number of recently-renovated neighborhood parks, including Dumele Memorial Park, which is named after Marshal Peter Dumele, a police officer who was killed off duty while interrupting a robbery in 1928. We also visited Veterans Park off of Betts Avenue in the southwest portion of the city.
Stop 6 – Savannah Avenue Business District
Also in the southwest quadrant is a small neighborhood business district on Savannah Ave.
Stop 7 – East-side Neighborhoods
North College Hill is bordered by the City of Cincinnati to the south, the City of Mount Healthy to the north, Springfield Township to the north and east, and Coleraine Township to the west. To get back to the section of the city east of Hamilton Ave, the bus went into sections of the City of Cincinnati. The eastern section of the city has a concentration of single-family homes, including ‘newer’ sections of development, like Ashmore Court.
Stop 8 – Clovernook Center for the Blind
The final stop of the day was to Clovernook Center for the Blind. The Clovernook Center, which offers rehabilitation and employment to individuals who are visually impaired, has been in operation since the early 20th century. The Clovernook campus includes the historic Cary Cottage, which was the home of Alice and Phoebe Cary, two well-known poets, and later became the first home in Ohio for blind women.
Bonus Stop!
If you’re in the area of North College Hill, be sure to stop by the Arlington Memorial Gardens in Springfield Townships to visit the grave of Fredric J. Baur. Dr. Baur worked for Proctor and Gamble in the 20th Century and invented the Pringles chip can. Dr. Baur died in Cincinnati in 2008 and requested for a portion of his cremated ashes to be buried inside of a Pringles tube. Read more about the site here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-of-frederic-j-baur
