• http://www.facebook.com/eric.ridenour Eric Ridenour

    so, a bit off topic, anyone know the history of why Liberty street is so wide? It’s an old road, and 100+ year old buildings are clearly designed to contour to it, but I assume at the time the buildings and that road was plotted out, that area would have virtually been the ‘burbs, and there would not have been a need for a 4-6 lane road.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1423530085 Aaron Watkins

      Liberty was once the northern boundry to the city, however this was not the case by the 1940s and 50s. At this point there was also a significantly greater amount of cars on the road. So they decided to widen Liberty as well as connect it to Reading road, when before it just went up the hill and turned into Highland Ave. They tore down all the buildings on the south side of Liberty to expand it, hence the lack of any street facing structures on that side. This is just off my head so don’t quote me on it.

      • http://twitter.com/davidheyburn David Heyburn

        Yes, I was going to say that it looks like the northern side of the street is the original street frontage, but the south side of the street is not. The buildings along the south side of the street address the perpendicular streets, not Liberty – leading me to believe that the Liberty Street facing streets were torn down.

    • John Blatchford

      It was expanded in 1957 resulting in the destruction of many buildings to accomodate more vehicle traffic. The city is now planning on making it much more walkable and pleasant to be around. A great article on this:
      http://www.building-cincinnati.com/2012/12/liberty-street-road-diet-other-changes.html

    • John

      It was expanded in 1957 resulting in the destruction of many buildings to accomodate more vehicle traffic. The city is now planning on making it much more walkable and pleasant to be around. A great article on this:

      http://www.building-cincinnati.com/2012/12/liberty-street-road-diet-other-changes.html