East v. West

Cincinnati has a natural east-west divide that natives take very seriously. West-siders tend to view east-siders as hoity-toity yuppies who value appearances above substance. East-siders tend to view west-siders as clueless proles unable to appreciate the finer things in life. And the always objectionable Marge Schott dismissed the stereotypes with: "The bills are on the east side; the money's on the west."

I am not a native and I have lived on both sides, so I claim impartiality. I have noticed that there are fewer independent restaurants with good food on the west side, but restaurants on the west side are much more reliably kid-friendly. Before Ohio passed its anti-smoking law, the west-side restaurants were also smokier. When we looked for a house to buy, it quickly became apparent that the most affordable family housing was on the west side. And once we moved in, I was exasperated how difficult it was to find some recipe ingredients at west side grocery stores. Bean sprouts and pate (I'm not sure how to add the accent mark) are not from Mars.

The significant element to the east-west divide is not cultural differences, which are really very minor, but the reality that east-siders and west-siders almost never cross the great divide of Mill Creek or Colerain Avenue or Vine Street to enter each other's neighborhoods.

My next door neighbor has lived in Cincinnati for sixty years and can tell me in detail about the history of a given house or empty lot, but ask him about any major landmark in east-side Hyde Park, and he looks baffled. My husband goes to a book group in east-side Clifton, and suggested that one evening they could meet three miles down the road at a west-side location. His fellow members decided against it because the west-side was "too far away and too confusing."

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Cincinnati cartoonist Jim Borgman drew a series of cartoons about Cincinnati's own east-west divide, imagining our wall being torn down so east-siders and west-siders could finally meet. And once they met, they joined together at last...

to rebuild the wall.