Cincinnati Gateway - Process

Cincinnati, like many river towns, has reclaimed its riverfront for recreational uses, creating sports facilities and waterfront parks throughout the downtown. To celebrate its bicentennial in 1988, an abandoned railroad yard and factory site was chosen as the location for its Bicentennial Commons Park. Situated at the eastern edge of downtown this riverfront site was be accessed by the major thoroughfare, Eggleston Avenue, which descended a steep hill down to the river. A competition was held to create a grand entry to the park that would celebrate Cincinnati’s history and be a terminus for the avenue.

Eggleston Avenue was built over the former Miami-Erie Canal which once flowed from Toledo, Ohio to the Ohio River in Cincinnati. This final stretch contained 12 locks built to negotiate the steep hill down to the river. Meat packing houses and other industries lined its banks. Following the shift to railroad and trucking the canal was gradually abandoned and then converted to a main storm sewer and covered over by the street.

Our proposal to the City was to create a dramatic gateway to the new park by constructing a "Canal Lock " modelled on the dimensions of a restoration of a surviving lock at Cincinnati’s Carrillon Park. Besides being literally over the site of an original lock we felt that its monumental scale dramatise entry into the park.

The high canal also lock enabled the construction of a raised "Levee" or "Serpentine Mound", to hide the park from visitors until they proceeded through the lock. Similarly, once inside the park, the visitor parking lot and adjacent streets were screened by the banks of the mound.

The lock and "Serpentine Water Wall" under construction. Because the former canal now serves as the main storm sewer for Cincinnati great care had to be taken to bridge over the buried tunnel. Since no contemporary city maps accurately plotted the course of the sewer the Corps of Engineers sent in a water diviner to locate its exact position. Using two bent copper rods the alignment of the waterway was plotted out on the parking lot with pebbles enabling us to determine where to sink pilings to support a bridge over the sewer.

The grand entry way in addition to referencing a lock becomes an armature for other elements of Cincinnati’s history. These include its famous "John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge" in downtown, (forerunner to his Brooklyn Bridge), its prominence as a riverboat center, now celebrated annually with a congregation of working riverboats at the "Tall Stacks Festival", and its fame as a pork packing center as represented by the "Flying Pigs". Beyond stands the "Flood Column" which bears the high water marks of the 200 years since 1788. At the one hundred foot level a notch in the column supports a large piece of driftwood left by some mythic millennia flood. A top the column sits the "Golden Ark", which contains a time capsule commemorating 1988.

The lock walls are clad in multi-colored brick mosaics. On one side is a cross-section route map of the Ohio-Erie Canal. On the other side, a pictogram of the "Seven Hills of Cincinnati", The hills serve as a Recognition Wall officially listing the many donors to the Greater Cincinnati Bicentennial.

The "Serpentine Wall", again clad in polychrome brick, carries a diagram of the "Cincinnati Arch" ,an arch of stratified rock upon which Cincinnati sits. Embedded in its lower layers is an array of ceramic fossils. Above, ceramic winged animals and bronze masks spout water, These and other elements were created by students specifically for the project at the University and Art Academy of Cincinnati. The imagery being inspired by artifacts at the city museum.

The "Levee or Serpentine Mound" stretches 500 feet at a height of 10 feet. Besides physically seperating the parking area from the park this elevated vantage point allows pedestrians to catch their first glimpse of the Ohio River as it flows between its leveed banks. Along the length of the mound a water course flows – itself an elongated abstraction of the Ohio River.

Cincinnati encourages the creation of water features that can be played in. The "Ohio River" is a canalized river, its channel dredged to nine feet in depth within a series of giant pools between each of 20 locks. Each lock and dam with their nearby township and elevation are indicated with brass inlays jutting into the water stream.

A bronze head based on a carved Indian pipe stem in the Cincinnati Museum spouts water into a four inch wading pool adjacent to the main lock entrance. A 16 inch high retaining wall in front of the pond is a favorite rendezvous for families.

Another bronze head pours more effusively next to the central stair up to the lock and raised walkway.

The "Serpent Steps" access the northern end of the mound. At the top is a steel tetrahedron with a child’s seating alcove. It represents the source for the "Ohio River" namely the confluence for the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh.

A diagram of the railings on either side of the "Serpent Steps". Where city codes require safety features opportunities are provided to weave these utilitarian devices into the narrative. In this case a reference to the famous Serpent Effigy.

The "Cincinnati Flying Pig". Four bronze winged pigs emerge from the smoke stacks above the canal lock. Cincinnati’s main industry in the 19th Century was pork packing. For a while it was the largest pork processor in the world and gained the nickname "Porkopolis". Proctor and Gamble made soap and candles from the pork fat left in the slaughter houses bordering the canal. The remaining blood and offal were swept into the canal and flushed down into the Ohio. Its resultant sanguine appearance earned it the appelalation of "Red River". So this choir of four phantom angelic porkers sing the praises of all their brethren who died so the city may prosper.

An engraving of the pig slaughter house "dis-assembly line". So efficient that Henry Ford visited Cincinnati to observe the mechanisms and process for his own factory lines.

Prior to the completion of the project a public debate arose over the prominent inclusion of the pigs amongst the thirty historical references in the work . Mayor Luken questinned their "appropriateness" as to representing his vision for a "modern" Cincinnati. This ignited a media blitz which ended several months later in a town hall meeting to debate "enshrining the swine". A full-size hog was let loose amongst the council members as well as several pink- ribboned piglets. After solemn debate a public vote was taken ending in a raucous victory for the pro-pig supporters.

Thus officially sanctioned the pigs got to fly, if only once, to their final resting places above the canal.

The hooplah over the flying pigs prompted its adoption by the media as an unofficial political symbol for the city.

With the approach of the Bicentennial celebrations the Flying Pigs appeared on merchandise throughout the city. From pewter collectibles, sterling silver lapel pigs to flying pig T-shirts and hats. Cincinnati went hog wild!

A year later school buses were delivering children to the "flying pig park".

Cincinnati recently launched its own marathon. Worried that few runners would be attracted to the event if it were called "The Cincinnati Marathon" or the "Seven Hills Marathon" or the "Queen City Marathon", the promoters called upon the mythic pigs for validation. Over 13,000 runners at the second race in 2000.