Calhoun St. and Clifton Circa 2008

Mar 26

Uptown over a decade ago and some trivia about Arby's.

- Uptown Hardee's, 2008.

A few years ago, in 2016, some friends and I marched from OTR to Uptown in support of the very first FC Cincinnati match. Before heading into the stadium, we ended up linking with a bunch of other FCC supporters at this modern development of apartments, hotels, student housing, Starbucks, an Amazon storefront, Smoothie King, Chipotle, and just about every other chain imaginable (although French Fry Heaven never quite made it). It's all relatively new, part of an effort to redevelop the area around the University of Cincinnati. Nearly a decade earlier, though, I had been in the same spot photographing what previously occupied "U Square:" an abandoned Hardee's and Arby's. I ended up meeting a man named John (I think that was his name) who I walked and talked with. He later agreed to be photographed.

There's not much to these February 2008 photographs, they're over a decade old and not great on a technical or compositional level, but they hint at a subject matter that would eventually become a QC/D series known as 'Suburbia Lost.'

The Arby's was similar to an abandoned one later found in Blue Ash and that architectural style was featured on illustrated maps of the city in the 70s and 80s (probably sponsored by Arby's).

- Illustrated Arby's maps.

- Map details showcasing the "beef bunker" design style. As far as I know, this architecture style no longer exists in the city.

Bonus trivia: the guy who brought Arby's to the Cincinnati market was Bill DeWitt Jr., the man who helped get the riverfront arena built and tried to get the Cincinnati Stingers into the NHL.

I came across these frames while scouring an old hard drive for something else. It still feels weird that I'm now processing time and photographic work in large chronological increments. I was 18 when I made these images. I'll be 30 in a few weeks. I never did run into John again.