Please inform good communities or streets in clifton, cincinnati? (Cambridge: apartments, rental)

[yzy0510]

we are newer in clifton and plan to buy a house near by University of Cincinnati. But this city is so different. We are looking at houses in the following streets. Could any of you help identify if the following streets are safe?

Harvey Avenue? Erkenbrecher Avenue? Glendora Ave? and Bosley Street?

Thanks a lot!

[Matthew Hall]

What should we inform these streets of?

[yzy0510]

regarding safety. For example we want to exclude streets involving drug and crime, etc. Thanks!!!

[goyguy]

Harvey & Erkenbrecher Ave's are 100% out of the question. Some homes on both streets appear attractive, but the crime rate on Harvey is off the charts and much of its blocks are rundown. Erkenbrecher is marginally safer only because the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden property has one side of it as its southern boundary. CZBG is the #1 draw for visitors in the city, and nothing keeps people away better than a shooting or mugging. So the cops are highly visible during events after dark and never far away otherwise.
Glendora is only somewhat "quieter." It's in the midst of an area that was a popular location for UC students to live and/or party in, until about the '90s. Ever since then the number of hangouts has diminished as the crime rate has soared. Robberies on the streets around there take place at all hours of the day and night.
Out of all four of the streets mentioned, only Bosley is worth considering. But even its surroundings are sketchy to some extent. A longtime friend moved from his home on Warner St (the next block south) last August to another section of Clifton. Widowed since '09, his kids "heaved a huge sigh of relief that he was finally out of there." Infested with bad activity it's not. But things do happen. The population is a heavily transient and somewhat uncomfortable mix of Bearcat types and lower-income Appalachian and AA households, some of the latter being refugees from the aggressive gentrification efforts in Over-the-Rhine. I've never felt uncomfortable in that neighborhood at any time - my favorite place to stay on some visits is a B & B on nearby Ohio Ave. "You're not a slow-moving widower in his 80's who lives alone" I get reminded. When student apartments do get robbed and people do get held up on the street at times and elderly persons are better off elsewhere, none of that exactly speaks well for a community.
It's best to stay north of MLK Drive (better yet, Terrace Ave) and west of Clifton Ave.

[motorman]

Originally Posted by Matthew Hall

How does someone in Cambridge, MA have such detailed "knowledge"? To paraphrase Goyguy ,'Cincinnati is horrible, don't go there. I left and you should never go. You will be killed and hateful people will attack you.'

Matthew, this question has been posed numerous times, but the answer to it is nebulous, to say the least. The best policy, perhaps, is simply don't ask, but believe--believe that goyguy knows all and sees all--because maybe he does.

[Chemistry_Guy]

Goyguy's description was pretty good. When I was in college Glendora was a fairly nice street. It tended to have a lot of loud parties on the weekends and it was not difficult to buy pot on the street, but it was a typical college crowd. Starting in the late 90's but really picking up steam in the early 00's UC drastically changed their development pattern by building dedicated student housing off campus in the Stratford area. This took a lot of the college residential presence out of a lot of areas, including Glendora and to a lesser extent the streets south of campus as well (Chickasaw, Rohs, Victor, Flora, Bosley, etc.) In the area south of campus the void was filled by a mixture of different populations, and I would say that overall the neighborhood has held steady. The Vine street corridor north of the VA has not fared nearly as well.

Of the streets you mentioned I would agree that Bosley is in the most stable neighborhood. I don't know what your situation is, but if you are going to be working at UC for a long time you might look into renting until you can get the house you want. If you are going to be a grad student or postdoc for less than 7 years or so, I would also advise against buying for the short term.

[Sarah Perry]

Harvey & Erkenbrecher Ave's are 100% out of the question.

I don't know the area as well as GoyGuy and Chemistry Guy but I would 100% agree with this. To the OP, I hope you ignore some of the silliness being posted on this thread and pay attention to the postings with some substance. I, too, would recommend you rent in the area if possible and just observe the neighborhood for a year or so. A home purchase mistake particularly in this economy can be hard to recover from.

[wolden]

Originally Posted by yzy0510

we are newer in clifton and plan to buy a house near by University of Cincinnati. But this city is so different. We are looking at houses in the following streets. Could any of you help identify if the following streets are safe?

Harvey Avenue? Erkenbrecher Avenue? Glendora Ave? and Bosley Street?

Thanks a lot!

It would be helpful if you post your price range. None of those streets is as safe or nice as Clifton Gaslight area. Some of the streets you mention are in Correyville which, I at least distinguish from Clifton. Clifton admittedly has 3 sections, kind of spread out. Someone said go north of MLK, which is true, but not if it puts you into Avondale.

Keep posting ideas and I'm sure we will keep giving our opinions

I lived in Clifton Gaslight area for about 1.5 years.

[Vintrest]

As for Erkenbrecher, I can speak of this area since my wife and I looked at buying a property there in the 200 block a couple of years ago. The north side of the street in the 200 and 300 blocks have some of the grandest 1890's towered brick Queen Anne style Victorians in the city; albeit, many of them are faded from decades of rental use. A professor of molecular biology at UC and political activist arts patron anchors the two houses at the western end of Erkenbrecher and the Ronald McDonald's House is in the 300 block for families of patients at the Children's Hospital just across the street on the south side of Erkenbrecher. New development (apartments?) anchor the eastern end along Burnet. Things appear to get sketchy quickly just one street over (north) on Hearne but there's been a lot of recent demolition activity there. The biggest threat on Erkenbrecher is from Hospital expansion which could someday take out the remaining row of historic brick mansions. Given the proximity to the hospital, one would think some of these old Victorian mansions could be rehabbed for doctors and staff as well as creating a small historic district but I've seen no action in that direction. I took a lot of photos along Erkenbrecher (but will not link to them here) and still feel the area has potential but it's location along the southern boundry of Avondale makes future redevelopment likely. Originally the street was called Albany Avenue but was changed to Erkenbrecher to honor Andrew Erkenbrecher, a wealthy local businessman and major benefactor in the 1800's of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. His son once lived in one of the brick mansions in the 200 block of Erkenbrecher. Other prominent Cincinnati families lived in some of the other large brick homes. The property we were interested in was once the family home of the Carles who owned an important engraving business downtown for many years. My spouse and I would still consider buying one of the Erkenbrecher properties but it's location makes it marginally safe while even more unsafe transitional areas remain nearby. The long range future, assuming Children's Hospital does not eradicate Erkenbrecher's unique brick historic homes in an expansion, could be much brighter, IMO.

[wrightflyer]

Interesting information, and helpful too. My college aged brother just rented the lower floor of a house at the corner of Ravine and Ada. I'd have to say that the descriptions are pretty accurate. He currently lives at McMillan and Highland and that area makes his new place seem tame in comparison.

I also am curious about the exact borders of Clifton. It seems confusing and I have heard different boundaries.

Finally, I drove down Ravine to Central Parkway to downtown. There wasn't much to see once I got to Central Pkwy at the bottom of the hill. Then after finding Arnold's closed I drove back up Main through OTR and was surprised at two things. How well OTR looked along Main, and how quickly it went down hill after passing Liberty going up McMicken and Vine. Those buildings have so much potential with the history and topography! Still, I couldn't imagine trying to get loans for projects like that, even over 5 years. Whatever happens, it would take at least 10 to clean up those areas that are utterly abandoned.