Queen City Underground: Over-the-Rhine

The Queen City Underground tours have become the talk of the town lately. From our condo we are literally a stone's throw [yes, literally a stone's throw --ed. note] from MiCA 12/v, where the tours depart and I'm not sure there's been a weekend this summer that we haven't bumped into a tour crowd or two when outside our place.

Last Saturday we decided to wander down there and take one of these much talked-about tours and see what it was like to take a historical tour of our own neighborhood. It's hard not to become a bit of a history buff living in OTR, so how much could you possibly learn?

Quite a bit, as it turns out. The tour departed from MiCA and headed north on Vine St., then stopped basically in front of our condo, where we learned about the colorful and rather fascinating history behind two buildings we pass every day and knew basically nothing about. After that we knew this tour was going to be awesome, and as we proceeded down Vine Street things got even better as we were taken inside an intact biergarten and into the 'underground' part of this tour.

I could go on and on about the tour, but I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't been on it. It's definitely worth the price of admission ($15) and is a great way to spend the morning or afternoon downtown and in OTR. We are planning on taking their Newport Gangster tour and Cincinnati Civil War tours next as we've heard those are just as good.

One thing I think we both felt was interesting about the tour was seeing the reaction of people who clearly hadn't been downtown in some time, and had possibly never been in Over-the-Rhine. The tours are doing a great job of bringing more people downtown and helping to change perceptions and attitudes towards downtown and Over-the-Rhine.


Queen City Underground tour: http://www.queencityunderground.com/
Newport Gangster tour: http://www.newportgangsters.com/
Cincinnati Civil War tour: http://www.cincinnaticivilwar.com/