Last night was Mt Adams 1st "Cinema in the City" of this season

The 2nd summer movie night series started tonight in our neighborhood. These are free movies that are shown at Seasongood Pavillion. The Park Board donates the space and neighborhood Civic Assoc secured about 16 sponsors.

We were fortunate that the humidity was considerably lower last night.

In my opinion this is the best movie of this year's series. The other 2 are: American Graffiti (1973) on Thursday July 22 and Wait Until Dark (1967) on Friday August 13th.

After dinner we walked up to Celestial so I could pull money from the 5/3 atm to buy raffle tickets at the movie. While there we saw that the adjacent Rookwood's deck construction has progressed nicely.

The design looks contemporary but still reflective of the history of this building.

The architectural firm is the same company as the architect who designed "Casablanca", the house adjacent to our garden. There is some rich history about that house too but I don't think it is appropriate for a public blog, even an unknown one.

From Celestial St we walked the 4 blocks down Ida Street to Seasongood Pavillion where the movies are shown. This next picture of movie night @ Seasongood is from last year as I did not take many pictures this year.

First thing we did when we arrived was purchase raffle tickets and pool passes. I bought 16 raffle tickets for $20 (and I was a winner!) and John bought our $10 each pool passes.

A little history about the pool: Mt Adams pool is managed by the Cincinnati Recreation Commission. The CRC like every division of the City of Cincinnati is feeling the pinch of budget cuts. Specifically CRC is under pressure to close pools and rec centers. In the last several years the Mt. Adams Moms have taken an active and so far successful role to organize our neighborhood in efforts to save the pool. In fact the Mt Adams Civic Association is trying to raise funds to re-model the pool house to use it as a community center.

This next picture is probably 5-6 years old. Anyhow the kid in the yellow shirt, Jack F. was last night's raffle announcer. When he called my winning Playhouse tickets I guess I concealed my excitement too much as Jack announced I should show a little more enthusiam as I walked to the stage to get the tickets. The other raffle prizes were Reds tickets (we have 20 game pkg), fishing lessons (I don't even know anyone to give this too) or a big screen tv (same as the fishing lessons).

The last time I went to the Mt Adams pool was July 17,1999. I remember because it was the day JFK Jr. died. I heard this news at the pool when I took visiting nieces and nephews there. By the way I also remember these nieces and nephew were unimpressed with the shallow pool but they were also not toddlers.

Although we have bought pool passes for the last 6 years we have never used itin that time. We fully expect that to change next summer. Along those lines here are a couple of pictures from the CRC's pamphlet which features Asian kids on the cover and index.

And that $10 pass buys access to a lot of rec centers and pools in town. So the movie started about 9PM. I've seen it before but for me it was fun to watch again for the scenery (French Alps and Paris), the clothes (Givenchy) and the 2 main characters.

Love the 3/4 length with gloves and the many pill box hats she wore as well. This movie came out in 1963.

Walter Mathau, James Coburn and George Kennedy were also in this movie.

Picture #3-5 were from Charade.

Hike around East Fork Lake

This past Saturday John and I drove out to East Fork Lake to hike the trail he is going to run in a race next month. Below is a picture of the shelter built in 2008 in memory of Matt Maupin. Also a picture of Matt Maupin who died at age 21. For most Cincinnatians he is the face of the soldiers killed in the Iraq war. He was captured after his convoy was hit by rocket propelled grenades in 2004. His parents kept his missing status in the press and a huge yellow ribbon campaign in his name developed all over town. His body was recovered in 2008. This shelter was built by the local community and his high school friends that same year.

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An Eastern Box turtle that was the path we were hiking.

You can't see it in this picture but a B-52 flew overheard while we were on this 2.5 hour hike. Lunken airport offers these flights to the general public ... something John is interested in doing in the future. This is the type of plane his father flew in when he was surveying in Europe after WWII. This year we gave each other Mother/Father's Day cards. Or more accurately "last one without baby" cards.

Today we attended SCPA's Open House

This morning John ran in the Redlegs 5K and I worked in the garden. We had talked about walking downtown to SCPA (School for Creative and Performing Arts) open house but did not have enough time and almost skipped it entirely. I'm so glad we did not. What a fascinating building and interesting school. SCPA is a magnet arts school and part of the CPS (Cincinnati Public Schools). This aerial shot is from Wikipedia's page on the school. Wikipedia describes SCPA as "one of the oldest and most prestigious art schools in the US". According to this site there are about 350 art schools in the country but this is the first one to "incorporate full range of art studies with complete college-preparatory academic program for elementary through High School." The building is 5 stories and takes up an entire block of Central Parkway. The L shape building has mostly academic classrooms in one wing and arts in the other. The circle at the point of the L are where the theatres are located. This building has 3 theatres. The smallest one, seats 120, is in the basement is called the "Black Box". The biggest theatre seats 750 and has a hydraulic lift for the orchestra pit. The next biggest theatre seats 350 and has state of the art acoustics. Interestingly the theatres seat more than their gym. A little history about this school. Pictured below is building SCPA is moving from which is on Sycamore Street. The school almost closed in 1996 after an unsolved arson and other personnel scandals. Erich Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Maestro, is credited with working with the community to build and finance this school in it's new location. Over $31 million was raised in private contributions and the building is named for the late Erich Kunzel who died of cancer in September 2009. Kunzel wanted to bring SCPA to Over-the-Rhine to help re-vitalize the city. The school originated in 1973 in this building on St Gregory Street in Mt Adams. This is the old Mt Adams Public School which now is residential condos.

SCPA's largest theater (I copied from their site.)

The Lunchroom.

View from the 2nd floor looking down to lobby entrance.

These student areas are in the corner of the L on each floor. The gymnasium.

Pictures from the art rooms.

One of the upper class man dance studios.

Photo of student dancers.

Since I finally asked if I could take pictures half way through the tour I wanted to go back to the Kindergarten rooms to get a few pictures before we left.

The staff was getting ready to lock up but a very nice man let us look around a few minutes.

The playground for the Kindergartners and 1st graders. That is Carew Tower in the background. Turns out the guy that let us take another peek was the principal, Mr Flowers. Really nice guy who told us they have 1350 students. In order to get your pre-schooler enrolled you need to apply a year in advance and there is an interview process. I read online that of the 1700 who apply approximately 60% will be asked to audition and about 250-275 ultimately accepted. The school is free to CPS students but open to students outside the city. If you live outside the city tuition in 2007 was $6400 in state and $9654 out of state. Approximately 10% of the students are tuition paid and some are international.

Below is a picture of the kindergarten room. These rooms have their own access to the playground and bathrooms in the classrooms. You can also see the camera in the middle of the room (in all classrooms) which is monitored in school main office.

The lowered sink to accommodate little kids.

This is a picture of the Gift Shop which apparently is run by Parent Volunteers who also have a dedicated meeting space adjacent to the store. It seemed like there was a lot of parental and we had at least one grandparent tour gude who was so proud of her family's connection with SCPA.

The Lobby.

Just outside the front doors looking down Central Parkway at Kroger Corporate Headquarters.

The temporary sign for the building name.

SCPA is also a significant partner for the World Choir Games which are going to be held in Cincinnati in July 2012. The event is the largest choir competition in the world and was formerly known as the Choir Olympics. It is held every 2 years for 2 weeks. Over 5,000 choirs from 90 countries compete in 300 events. Over 1/2 of the 200,000 + participants are children and young people under 25. This will be the first time the World Choir Games is held in the United States. The next host is Shaoxing, China July 15 - 26, 2010.