If you’ve ever driven north on Vine Street into Over-the-Rhine, you’ve seen Jim Tarbell in mural form. Wearing a tuxedo and tipping his top hat, he’s painted on the side of a four-story building larger than life.
Now Jim Tarbell, known as “Mr. Cincinnati,” is the subject of two books out now. One called Tarbell on Broadway and another called Tarbellpalooza. He joins us on Cincinnati Edition to discuss his time as a music promoter, restaurateur, politician and preservationist. We're also joined by curator of the book Tarbellpalooza Greg Hand.
The following tracks in this episode were composed by Blue Dot Sessions. Tracks include "Broken Rock Lament," "Ferus Cut," "Lina My Queen," "Feltham," and "Lost Shoe." Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License.
Other featured artists include Katie Laur, Jake Speed and the Freddies, and Lagnaippe.
Special thanks to Local 12 News, WCPO and the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library's Newsmakers archives for use of archives audio.
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Lucy May: If you’ve ever driven north on Vine Street into Over‑the‑Rhine, you’ve seen Jim Tarbell in mural form wearing a tuxedo and tipping his top hat. He’s painted on the side of a four‑story building larger than life. Now, Jim Tarbell, known as Mr. Cincinnati, is the subject of two books being published this month.
Lucy May: One’s called Tarbell on Broadway, and another called Tarbell Palooza. You’re listening to Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. I’m Lucy May. Mr. Cincinnati himself, Jim Tarbell, joins me in this recorded interview. Great to see you, Jim.
Jim Tarbell: It’s nice. Nice to be seen.
Lucy May: We’re also joined by the curator of the book Tarbell Palooza. Greg Hand, thanks for being here, Greg.
Greg Hand: Always a pleasure.
Lucy May: We are also going to hear from some folks who know Jim well.
Steve Rosen: My name’s Steve Rosen. I first got to know Jim Tarbell probably like quite a lot of people, who were just right around turning 20 in the late sixties and really interested in the music and everything happening by going to Lobo Garage. And he was a very visible person there. And although it was controversial because the music at that time was controversial
[Commander Cody, Ludlow Garage Performance Circa 1970]: We got any marijuana smokers in the audience tonight?
[Jim Tarbell, speaking to audience at Ludlow Garage Performance Circa 1970]: Let’s have a vote here, let’s take a vote. No, none!
Steve Rosen: There was some crucial support from adults because they were worried about their kids at that time. What with everything going on, the war, the assassinations, drugs...
[Commander Cody, “Seeds and Stems” Ludlow Garage Performance Circa 1970]: I’m sitting alone, Saturday night, I’m watching the late late show...bottle of wine, cigarettes, I got no place to go...
Steve Rosen: And they maybe sensed in him that he was a good, comforting figure for the kids and that also they really liked music and he knew music and he would be the guy that could bring them music. The Allman Brothers, when th ey were brand new. The Kinks, Bo Diddley, MC5. Alice Cooper, a local band, the Lemon Pipers. Santana, Iggy Pop and the Stooges. The James Gang, Joe Walsh was the guitarist for that. Taj Mahal, B.B. King. One of my favorites, the Incredible String Band, a British folk group that also had a touch of psychedelia.
[The Incredible String Band, “The Moment Is Now,” Ludlow Garage Performance Circa 1970]: This moment is different from any before it...
Steve Rosen: And then maybe the most amazing of all, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.
Wherever he went, whatever he seemed to do, he seemed to see not just a business, but a community that could be formed around whatever it was he was providing for him. In 1970, he was able to book a very young Neil Young, who already was popular enough to be at Music Hall.
[Neil Young, “Cinnamon Girl” Music Hall Performance 1970]: Ma send me money now, I’m gonna make it somehow, I need another chance...
Steve Rosen: And it was just a beautiful show. The crowd went crazy.
[Neil Young, Music Hall Performance 1970]: Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Thank you.
Steve Rosen: And nobody would stop clapping. Nobody would leave. And so to get them to leave...
[Jim Tarbell, Music Hall Performance 1970]:Uh look, look, wait a minute.
Steve Rosen: Tarbell finally came out...
[Jim Tarbell, Music Hall Performance 1970]: (Laughs) Far out.
Steve Rosen: And said, I promise you he will be back soon.
[Jim Tarbell, Music Hall Performance 1970]:We’ll do it again. All right, we’ll do it again, and as sure as you’re standing there, you can hold him to it.
Steve Rosen: And if he doesn’t do it soon...
[Jim Tarbell, Music Hall Performance 1970]:If we don’t do it again soon, we’ll all go together and The Garage will pay the plane fair and we’ll go to California.
Steve Rosen: I’ll rent an airplane and take you all to L.A. so you could see him there in a show. And that did quiet people. Well, it never happened. When I’ve talked to him, he says, I still dream about that. And if there was anything else I could do, it would be to have, he refers to it as a Tarbell Palooza and get Neil Young in here, maybe back to Music Hall to do that show for the people who wanted more. And I think that’s just a wonderful dream. It seems to me impractical, but I wouldn’t consider anything he wants to do impractical, actually.
[Jim Tarbell, Music Hall Performance 1970]:Uh look, look, wait a minute. Thank you all very much.
Lucy May: Never underestimate Jim Tarbell. That’s the message that I take away from that. So, Jim, talk about how your life as a concert promoter locally kind of started. Didn’t it start with the Hyde Park Teen Center?
Jim Tarbell: Oh, yeah. When I was 15, I was on my way home. My father had just died of a heart attack. My mother was working, wasn’t anything to go home to, so I had to hang around Hyde Park Square until one day the retailers said, “Jim, you know, sorry about your situation, but I think probably it’s not the best thing for retail to have you hanging around here, you know, you and some of your other guys.”
Jim Tarbell: I said, “Well, you know, why don’t we just make a way station for us? And I said, by the way, there’s a church right here next to the library. You were gonna tear it down for a parking lot. That’d be a great teen center.”
Jim Tarbell: And they said, “Ah, it’s too expensive.” So I went on my way and ended up, long story short, being in New England, pursuing my career as a doctor, which was just destined to happen except my chemistry and physics teacher said, “I don’t care what your bedside manner, professor said that it would be great. You can’t read, so I’m sorry, but you can’t be a doctor.” So I went to work as a commercial fisherman, which was the natural next step, you know, and I got this letter from Frank Cone, who’s the head of the Hyde Park‑Mount LA Teen Center. I said, “Oh, really? Read on, Tarbell,” and it said, “We are looking for an executive director of this new teen center, and somebody said you might be interested in being the director.” I said, “Excuse me. Did you check with the sheriff on this one or the psychiatrist?”
[Grateful Dead, “Born Cross-Eyed”]: It seems I have been here before...
Jim Tarbell: Yes, we, it’s all clear. And so I didn’t have any choice. You know, 10 years later, same idea, same building. They bought the same building, sitting there vacant the whole time. Well, that ran its course. I think when we brought the Grateful Dead there, that was pretty much a sign this isn’t gonna last very long. Once the parents find out about the Grateful Dead.
[Grateful Dead, “Born Cross-Eyed”]: Song commin' on, So pleasin' to see, come and gone, good-bye,
Jim Tarbell: It was a wonderful way to kind of wrap it up, but I wasn’t satisfied, and so I went out on a tear looking for the mythical Ludlow Garage. There was this big building sitting there, vacant, and I thought, “Well, what’s wrong with this, Tarbell?” And Turbo said nothing, I don’t think. I was getting ready to open, and then I got this note from the Clifton Town Meeting that said: “Excuse me, Mr. Tarbell. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. No, you don’t. No, you don’t. Not, Clifton Gaslight.” And I said, “Well, guess what? I don’t want a liquor license, so you’re just gonna have to take that trump card and put it somewhere else.”
Lucy May: Well, and Greg, before Ludlow Garage became this amazing concert venue under the direction of Jim Tarbell, what was it? A garage? I mean, is that what it was?
Greg Hand: That’s what it was. And it kept many of the attributes of the garage. The ramps where they used to bring the cars in were still active and very good for delivering equipment.
Jim Tarbell: Oh, yeah. The whole idea was to create the illusion of another era, another world, you know? And because this was an Alice in Wonderland come, alive sort of thing, then it was time to start the music. Santana was early on. There wasn’t really any money to speak of in the bank, and so it was kind of playing the whole thing by ear. But I did want to bring as close to state-of-the-art musicians as I could.
Lucy May: How did it get so expensive? I mean, you started out being able to get these impressive bands for a couple thousand dollars, but that didn’t last, right?
Jim Tarbell: Santana was $2,000. I still didn’t make any money, but kind of came close. I would usually get these bands on their way up. I tried to pay attention and speculate who might be coming ahead that I could get on their way up so they’d be affordable.
Lucy May: Because you weren’t charging a lot for tickets, were you?
Jim Tarbell: No, no. It was like two, three, and $4, you know. And Kinks might have had $7, ’cause the Kinks had already become a big deal in England.
Jim Tarbell: Back to Santana for a minute. This was in the very beginning of the garage, and it was $2,000. It played out. It didn’t make any money, but a year later I thought, “I wonder if, since I helped these guys get started, maybe they could repay the favor.” And I called ’em up to come back a year later, and it was $20,000 for the same band.
Jim Tarbell: That’s the way things were going. That’s why the garage, for all its wonder, was short-lived in a certain context.
Lucy May: That wasn’t about a year and a half or so that you kept it going? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It seems like only yesterday. Well, and it’s suppose people have such strong and fond memories. What kind of impact do you think he has had on the Cincinnati music scene with all this?
Greg Hand: Oh my goodness. It’s immeasurable. There’s an entire generation for whom Ludlow Garage is a touchstone, and everybody’s got their story about the first time they were at the garage and the impact various acts have had. When my kids hear that I was at Iggy and the Stooges at the garage, that becomes a point of wonder for them. You know, our dad did something cool. It’s incredible. And it’s like that, as I said, for an entire generation.
Lucy May: We are gonna continue this conversation after a short break, and when we come back: Jim’s restaurant era. This is Cincinnati Edition.
[The Stooges, “I Wanna Be Your Dog”]: So messed up, I want you here...
Bonnie Henry: My name is Bonnie Henry, and I had recently graduated from college. I had a teaching job with Cincinnati Public Schools and I made $7,000 a year, and it was really tough to live on. My boyfriend, who lived in Over the Rhine and knew Jim, said, “Well, you know, Jim Tarbell just bought a restaurant. Maybe you could go down there.” And I did right away. I just loved Jim, and I loved Arnold’s. I would often get there a little early because there were these really wonderful little shops across the street. My favorite was this tiny antique shop. One day I saw this antique print, and it was four horses, and I just fell in love with it. I just loved it. And every week I would go in and look at it, and there was no way I could buy it. And then one week I walk in and it’s gone. It’s not there, and my heart dropped, and I felt so sad. I was so disappointed. I could leave the shop, go to Arnold’s to start my shift, and there’s Jim behind the bar. And guess what he’s holding? The horse picture. I was shocked, but I was happy for him, but really I was really sad and disappointed because I loved it so much.
Well, a few months later, my boyfriend and I were married. Jim and Brenda were at our wedding. Guess what I got for a wedding present? I got the horse picture, and 48 years later that picture still hangs in our home, and I’m constantly reminded of his love and friendship. He’s very giving, very generous. That was one of the reasons it was so nice to work at Arnold’s. He was always fun, cheerful. He just made life fun.
Lucy May: This is Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. I’m Lucy May. Jim Tarbell bought Arnold’s in 1976 and later bought Grammars. We turn now to the restaurant chapter of his life. Jim Tarbell and Greg Hand, thanks for sticking with us. Of course, Greg, tell us a little bit about the history of Arnold’s. I mean, it’s the oldest continuously operating bar in Cincinnati, so tell us a little bit about the original owners and how Jim managed to maintain the character that the place has.
Greg Hand: The Arnold family actually were, pater familia was a carpenter, and if you look in some of the old city directories, Mr. Arnold was actually building billiard tables at various locations around the city and acquired that property or moved into that property. Was it 1861? I believe that’s the date on the window there, and it just passed on through the family, but that was a neighborhood that was hitting its prime.
Cincinnati took a long time to move from the river out to the hills. And so that wave was moving into Eighth Street around the time that the Arnold family moved in there, and it was just the right time to open a watering hole.
Lucy May: Jim, how important was it for you to maintain that historical feel of the place? I mean, you didn’t go in there and start ripping it apart to make it look new.
Jim Tarbell: Yeah, well, for one thing, I couldn’t afford it. I mean, so much of where I’m coming from, it doesn’t have any money. I had ideas, and I had a certain emotional parle vouz I guess. Most of it really just kind of came naturally, you know? That atmosphere was already there when I walked in; it just wasn’t being exploited.
Lucy May: But you did discover and expand it. Talk about how you kind of found the courtyard and the tree in the courtyard and the stage. I mean, you brought all that magic to the place yourself.
Jim Tarbell: Well, that was fun. Along the way, I actually hadn’t technically taken over ownership of Arnold’s, and I saw this space between the Arnold’s building and the building on the corner, which was a photography studio. About 10 feet into that space, that empty space was a barricade. And I thought, “Well, where does that go?”
So I went to Jack on the corner at the camera shop. I said, “Jack, is there something behind your shop that you can’t see from the street?” He said, “Well, yeah, there’s a space out there.” I said, “Oh, well, I’m trying to make believe there’s nothing important, but I would like to see it.”
So he took me out the back door of the shop. I couldn’t believe it. So I’m fighting and fighting and fighting to keep my lips sealed, my eyes closed, ’cause it was 40 feet square. It was open to the stars. And I said, “Jack, what do you do with this space back here?” He said, “Well, keep the garbage out here.” I said, “Well, Jack, I’ll take care of your garbage, and you can eat and drink free for the rest of your life.”
And on a handshake, he turned over that space to me. I didn’t give him any money. Whenever he wanted something to eat or drink, I gave that to him. It was nothing on paper.
I picked up a sledgehammer, and Tom Luke, bless his heart, if he were still living, could attest to this. I took that sledgehammer and I whacked a hole in the brick wall that goes into Arnold’s. And it did. Except for Tom Luke and the mayor at the time, coming in one day during that period just to have a drink or whatever and hitting his head on the ragged edge that I left when I whacked that hole between the two buildings, he didn’t hurt himself. And so that’s how it all came together.
Lucy May: Wow. So how did you get the stage from the Schubert Theater?
Jim Tarbell: Well, I once again didn’t have any money. One of the kids from the teen center, came forward to help out. He happened to be a student at the Playhouse in the Park, and he said, “You know, I’ll take care of that porch design for you.”
Greg Hand: So they’re tearing down the Schubert Theater.
Jim Tarbell: So along the way, the Schubert Theater’s being torn down, which was a big mistake. I saw them throwing out this four- foot-by-four-foot, four-inch thick hardwood flooring, which had been the stage of the Schubert Theater. They were throwing it out. I said, “Wait a minute, you mind if I just borrow a few of those?” That became the floor of the porch of Arnold’s outside. Amazing.
Lucy May: What made you take that leap into owning and running a restaurant and bar?
Jim Tarbell: I liked to cook, for one thing, but it was mainly having a gathering place. You know, my crazy friends, there were a number of people that had just been moving into town, and they were discovering the inner city. At that time, Cincinnati, as it has been time and time again, was a totally unique, wonderful place with a cultural background that just led to having a place like Arnold’s. A lot of us were vegetarian. I was sort of a light vegetarian, shall we say, but there were people whose diets were changing. You could always find what you were looking for. That was part of the goal of Arnold’s.
A certain level of music, and actually it was as diverse, and maybe even more diverse in the long run, than the garage, because it reached way back into time with Dixieland, traditional jazz, some folk things that I didn’t do at the garage or wasn’t able to do at the garage. And that all played out Arnolds became the penultimate of mixed everything you know in a good way.
It happened to be the oldest bar in the city which was not a problem for me that it had that kind of history. It felt like it wasn’t really behaving, it wasn’t really being developed with that kind of background. It was just a coincidence that when i went in there, there it was just sitting there waiting the price was such that it was affordable as long as my crazies, friends were interested in having a job. Which most of them were. And that was part of the glory of the whole thing was that this class act of a crazy bunch of people just happened ot be in the same place at the same time, all hungered for something that wasn’t out there at the time. In pieces maybe but not all under the same roof.
Lucy May: Well, we are gonna be back after another short break to discuss baseball on Broadway and Jim’s impact as a preservationist and politician. This is Cincinnati Edition.
Roxanne Qualls: My name is Roxanne Qualls, and I was the mayor of the city of Cincinnati. I knew Jim before I even got into politics, when he was the owner and restaurateur of Arnold’s. He was even then a very dramatic character.
Roxanne Qualls: And that was before he lost all his hair. He was a redheaded, major, like beard, everything, and made Arnold’s quite a destination.
[Dan Hurley, Newsmakers]: Impresario, restaurateur, bar, keep gadfly. And Vice Mayor Jim Tarbell.
Roxanne Qualls: He was very much an early advocate for making progress in development and taking care of people.
[Jim Tarbell, Local12 Newsmakers: Jim Tarbell, Melanie Bates (November 23, 1997)]: What’s the best idea is what makes the difference, what’s best for this community? If we’re gonna spend upwards of a billion dollars, the most money we’ve ever spent on any single project in our history, you know, we better get something out of it other than the same old stuff.
Roxanne Qualls: He really, really was thoughtful about the issues that came in front of council, and particularly about the people who were coming in front of council. But when he made a decision, you know, he really made a decision and became quite an advocate for it.
[Jim Tarbell, Local12 Newsmakers: Jim Tarbell, Melanie Bates (November 23, 1997)]: What’s so wonderful about Broadway Commons is that it addresses the problems that we have that we’ve been ignoring for such a long time, and that is the balance of influences within the inner city.
Roxanne Qualls: Over-the-Rhine was Jim’s baby, and it’s taken years and years and years for progress to be made in that neighborhood. But it was made, and he was really one of the major contributors to that progress and to creating the momentum.
[Jim Tarbell, Local12 Newsmakers: Jim Tarbell, Melanie Bates (November 23, 1997)]: If we don’t get back to some kind of balance and economic integration in the heart of downtown and let it behave like a neighborhood as it did historically when it thrived, then we’ve got a problem.
Roxanne Qualls: You know, as well as I do, one of the big challenges in this city, in this community, is the tendency of people to be less than enthusiastic, to put it mildly.
[Dan Hurley,Local12 Newsmakers: Jim Tarbell, Melanie Bates (November 23, 1997)]: In a story that has more plot twists than a daytime soap opera, the discussion over where to site the new Reds stadium took another turn. Last week, after months of demanding something sparkling new to rival the Paul Brown Stadium, Marge Schott suggested that the Reds, in fact, might prefer a refurbished Sycamore Field. The proposal has been welcomed by those seeking closure on this never-ending unseemly nightmare, but has been jeered by those who still believe Broadway Commons is the answer.
Roxanne Qualls: And Jim just counters that in every moment and instant when you have a conversation with him and when he talks about the city. I think that Cincinnati is gonna have to wait a long, long time before another Jim Tarbell comes along.
Lucy May: You’re tuned to Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. I’m Lucy May. We’re back with our recorded conversation with Jim Tarbell and curator of the book Tarbell Palooza, Greg Hand. So let’s start by talking about baseball on Broadway. This is where you and I first met, because I was, at the time, a new reporter at the Enquirer. I was covering the big debate about where to locate the ballpark, and you were immediately the first person people said, “You need to talk to Jim Tarbell about this idea for baseball on Broadway.” So tell us about that grand plan.
Jim Tarbell: Well, I had just been laboring with the fact that the Reds had decided to leave the West End, which seemed like such a perfect place for them, right in the heart of the neighborhood.
["In 1970, it was a golden era for Cincinnati sports," WLWT]: For Queen City sports fans, 1970 was a banner year, playing in what is being considered around the country as one of the best, if not the best, stadiums in the nation. Sparkling new Riverfront Sports Stadium.
Jim Tarbell: Anyway, it happened, they moved to the waterfront, and it was considered a better opportunity, better parking situation.
["In 1970, it was a golden era for Cincinnati sports," WLWT]: The new stadium rushed into shape in time to host baseball’s All Star Game back in July. It was built at the cost of some $44 million. It sits as a crown on the Queen City’s riverfront, a contrast against the downtown area.
Greg Hand: Was there a connection between baseball and Broadway in St. Paul’s? It was right across the street. Well, was there a noteworthy, is that where …
Jim Tarbell: The inspiration came from a noteworthy connection combined with my angst about baseball being on the river instead of in a neighborhood. I mean, for certain sports, it doesn’t make that much difference. For baseball, which is kind of a slow-moving game, and in the case of Cincinnati, it’s so much hometown. The first Major League Baseball program started in Cincinnati.
It’s just so intertwined with our history and everything. I mean, it’s not just baseball season, but it carries on throughout the year in certain ways. And so I just I grew up with that.
That’s where Peanut Jim came from. As a kid, I remember that was one of the big features of going to the game: having this wonderful brown-skinned man, a tall, handsome man in a top hat, roasting peanuts at the front door of the ballpark in the neighborhood.
[Jake Speed and the Freddies, 'Peanut Jim']: Peanut Jim was a peanut man, sold peanuts on a peanut stand. “Want a bag of peanuts?” Jim Would shout as he drove his peanut stand about he’s on the road again...
Jim Tarbell: So you learned about the neighborhood, which maybe not the neighborhood you grew up in. It was part of the experience. It was so healthy, and all of those things were welling up in me when I heard that the Reds were going to go on the riverfront again with a new one, and I immediately thought, “Oh no, you can’t.”
Jim Tarbell: It so happened that when I was living at St. Paul’s and becoming more familiar with that particular neighborhood, every morning I’d wake up and I’d look out the window of my bedroom and I’d see this 20-acre parking lot. The city planner in me would dream constantly about what else that could be besides the parking lot.
Jim Tarbell: When this came up, I thought, “What are you doing? Look, there’s a 20,acre parking lot sitting right outside the window here, right on Reading Road and the edge of Pendleton, Over-the-Rhine, downtown, right off the expressway. Come on. This is worth every ounce of energy, time, money, and energy I have.” I didn’t have any money, time, or energy.
Lucy May: You certainly had creativity though, because I remember all the creative ways that you really got people to consider that site.
Jim Tarbell: This is a new tune, God, and I just worked out. Good job.
[Audio from Ludlow Garage Opening Day Celebration, 2015]: This is a new tune Todd and I just worked out. (harmonica, Take me Out to the Ballgame)
Lucy May: You were such a showman.
[WKRC, Jim Tarbell in Opening Day Parade as Peanut Jim]: Jim Tarbell. He’s the guy with a smile waving from the side of a building on Central Parkway. And if you’ve ever been to the opening day parade, he’s always there too, in tails, top hat, and bow tie.
Lucy May: Wore the baseball uniform that you borrowed from your friend. You had the baseball cards.
[Audio from Ludlow Garage Opening Day Celebration, 2015]: All game one more time.
[WKRC, Jim Tarbell in Opening Day Parade as Peanut Jim]: If they wouldn’t let you march in the parade, why? You know, how could you not do it? It’s such a privilege. It’s such a treat.
Lucy May: Talk about everything you put into that campaign, ’cause it was a lot.
Greg Hand: You didn’t bring the cannon?
Jim Tarbell: No, I didn’t bring the cannon.
Lucy May: Were you there for the cannon? I read about the cannon. I’m not sure if I was actually on the site when the cannon was fired.
Greg Hand: Yes. I’m gonna ask Greg to weigh in on that too. Talk about some of that marketing, Greg. Some of the showmanship that Jim Tarbell brought to persuading people.
Greg Hand: I think showmanship is exactly the right word. The secret to marketing is showing the possibility of things.
[Dan Hurley, Local12 Newsmakers: Jim Tarbell, Eileen Enabnit, Ted Hubbard, Martha Kelly (July 15, 2007)]:Tarbell has held court for years on a plethora of topics from behind the bars of Arnold’s and Grammars when the public needed a little help imagining what he was talking about with Broadway Commons. Tarbell just painted the ball field on the parking lot and urged his fellow citizens to join the cause.
Greg Hand: That stroke of actually painting the parking lot with a baseball field to show you can do this, it fits, works.
[Jim Tarbell, Newsmakers]: If you like the idea, express yourself. Write a letter to the bank or the businessman, the biggest businessman, write a letter to city council. Write a letter to the city manager. Write a letter to Mrs. Schott.
Greg Hand: And dramatic things I mentioned firing off a cannon. Yeah, tell us more.
Lucy May: About that, for folks who don’t remember that.
Greg Hand: Who brought the cannon there?
Jim Tarbell: Oh, some crazy guy that was a cannon collector who thought that baseball and Broadway was a good idea.
Greg Hand: So you’ve got the cannon all lined up, and who was it? Was it the sheriff or somebody who showed up and said, “You can’t fire that cannon”? Yeah, but you had an official there,
Jim Tarbell: Change the names to protect the guilty.
Greg Hand: You can’t fire that cannon. And your question to the person with the badge was, “What’s the fine?”
Jim Tarbell: I don’t remember.
Lucy May: Didn’t they say $250?
Jim Tarbell: $250. Okay. Yeah. Whatever.
Greg Hand: And Mr. Marketer turned around and said, “Fire the cannon. We’ll cover the fine. Show must go on.” But those sorts of things really told the story.
Jim Tarbell: Think about what I was dealing with there, you know? The city’s favorite sport. I had this sense that kind of the fix was in about the Reds. They owned the property on the river. It was an uphill battle. I was convinced in my own head that this was such a perfect match to bring it back in the neighborhood again.
Lucy May: You used to say the hole’s already dug.
Jim Tarbell: Yeah, the hole’s already dug, and Mt. Adams is in the background. What more incredible background could you ask for than Mt. Adams? It didn’t take but five minutes to decide that it was worth whatever time, money, and energy I had. Once again, it didn’t give me money. The thing about that is, parenthetically, money is not always the solution. In this case, the amount of money spent on baseball and Broadway by the team was minuscule compared to the press it got. Not to feather anybody’s nest, but there’s a woman sitting here at this desk right now who, believe me, played a part that a journalist should play about being objective on this news item called Baseball on Broadway. Thank you, Lucy, so much for preserving the faith in his human nature. All of the roots of marketing were in sitting there waiting to be played, or Doug, wherever you want to use, because it just made so much sense.
Greg Hand: It was not enough, apparently, to overcome the trepidation of the suburbs about coming into the city.
Lucy May: Because ultimately there was a vote. You forced a vote. A vote in Hamilton County.
Jim Tarbell: It won in the city. 160,000 people voted in favor of Baseball on Broadway. Had it remained a city project, which is what it should have because it was city property, but it didn’t work for the Reds to leave it there. So a whole lot of things happened that ended up being a countywide vote. Well, you know, they just didn’t get it out there.
[Marge Schott, Archival Audio]: I’m so glad that we finally arrived at a memorandum of understanding toward a new stadium for the Cincinnati Reds. The important thing is to go forward and build the best major league baseball stadium in existence.
Jim Tarbell: Broadway. Where is that? Broad Pendleton? Where is that? And the baseball team had spent a million dollars on TV, and they were talking about, he heard that story about the baseball being in our neighborhood. Oh, that’s not a very good idea.
[Dan Hurley, Local12 Newsmakers: Michael Schuster, Jay Buchert (April 27, 1997)]: To talk about the wedge site we are joined this morning by Michael Schuster.
[Michael Schuster, Local12 Newsmakers: Michael Schuster, Jay Buchert (April 27, 1997)]: One of the things that people see is the image of our city is really the river and baseball really is part of that strong history we have and putting the reds down on the river makes a lot of sense it ties in the heritage of baseball and the city’s development.
Jim Tarbell: And so you spend a million dollars creating that kind of confusion. You get a no vote. You know, to do this event, it lost in the county. 160,000 people voted in the city. It won in the city. There were like another 100,000 people who voted against it in the county because they just didn’t get it legally. It lost. That was the end of that.
Lucy May: Well, let’s transition from there just into your passion and the love that you have for Over-the-Rhine, generally. Clearly, there’s your whole political career that we could talk about, but we’re running out of time, so we’ll tell people, buy the books. Buy the books so they can get all the inside information on that.
Jim Tarbell: Is there a book out there?
Lucy May: Not just one, but two.
Jim Tarbell: Oh, you guys must be crazy again.
Lucy May: Why? Why did you feel so strongly for so long that Over-the-Rhine needed to be preserved, that these buildings needed to be preserved? What was your vision for that neighborhood that we heard Roxanne Qualls talk about? She said Over-the-Rhine is Jim Tarbell’s baby. What made you want to nurture that neighborhood?
Jim Tarbell: I mean, there were a number of neighborhoods that in their own life fit into this category, but nothing like Over-the-Rhine, which was, for God’s sake, right in the center of the city. And for it to be sitting there… When I moved downtown, there were like 20,000 vacant buildings. It didn’t make any sense to me.
[“Hard Times in Cincinnati,” by Jake Speed and the Freddies]: Ladies and gentlemen, listen to my song, sing it to you, right but you might think it wrong, Just a little story about a middlewest town where one goes up, come right back down and it’s hard times in the city Cincinnati town...
Jim Tarbell: I grew up with that. My mother and father were both very involved in civic affairs, and they were very involved, and that always was brought forward to me. All that welled up in me when I came downtown. It didn’t take very long at all to realize that we were really short of the mark.
[“Visions of Vine Street,” WCPO]: Ultimately, this is only going to change when you’ve got people living in these spaces and taking ownership, and until their eyes are in the street and people are asking questions, “Hey, what are you doing here? You know, what’s happening?”
[“Hard Times in Cincinnati,” by Jake Speed and the Freddies]: And the rich folks sit high up on the hills, counting their cards and their dollar bills, they come downtown for a baseball game and then run right back to where they came and it’s hard times in the city Cincinnati town...
Jim Tarbell: It wasn’t just casual disregard; it was actually becoming political.
[“Visions of Vine Street,” WCPO]: He’s dedicated to urban living, doesn’t even own a car. Tarbell bikes to his job at City Hall. And on a street, many are afraid to walk, Tarbell rides like he belongs.
Jim Tarbell: That fixing it up was not a good idea. It's one thing to say, well, we know that there's a need for that. We don't have the money or whatever, but for it to become political, which it did, and have arguments as to whether it should be done and how it should be done, that was the hardest part of all that setup for me. I already knew that there was something wrong here. There was a prize that had been disregarded.
[“Visions of Vine Street,” WCPO]: Welcome to Vine Street, heart of the city, where many can see only abandoned buildings. Here, Tarbell sees opportunity.
Lucy May: Didn't you sometimes buy buildings and fix them up and resell them?
Jim Tarbell: Yeah. I mean, I know I didn’t make a bunch of money doing that. I didn’t make any money. I made money on one building on Broadway, which I thought at the time might be the place where we would end up living, because it was such an incredible building. We ended up, the owners passed away, and the building was available. For a short time, I did own it. We did own it, Brenda and I and other family.
[“Visions of Vine Street,” WCPO]: He and his family live in a historic building on Broadway, and he also owns a restaurant in Over-the-Rhine.
Jim Tarbell: Grammer's I had gotten involved in was one of those sleeping giants that was being dismissed as relevant in the grand scheme of things. And I had Arnold’s at the time, which was in that same category. I was not looking for another, just to be clear, folks, I was not looking for another restaurant. I was not that crazy. Except when the owners of Grammer's called me up and said, you know, our dad bought Grammer's and he was the Maury at Beverly…
Lucy May: Oh, the Beverly Hills Supper Club.
Jim Tarbell: So he was looking for a place to go. He was out of a job, and so were 30 more people under his sponsorship as a major. He bought Grammer's, and it was for sale.
Greg Hand: That made you a real stakeholder in Over-the-Rhine. Big time.
[“Visions of Vine Street,” WCPO]: Jim Tarbell is an authority on Over-the-Rhine. For one thing, he's the only Cincinnati politician who actually lives here.
Jim Tarbell: The joy that came with being part of rescuing Arnold’s came forward big time. So it happens that at the same time, they called me about taking over Grammars. Their father had died of a heart attack, and in the process of bringing Grammars back and making it more current without somebody with experience and energy, it just wasn’t going to happen. They called me and said, you know, we saw what you did with Arnold’s. Maybe you could do that with Grammer's. It was not too long when I realized that this was maybe not the smartest business decision I ever made, because the world really wasn’t quite ready for that part of town to do fine dining.
Lucy May: Well, let me ask you this, Greg. Jim has talked about these different businesses he’s owned. He’s joked several times, “I didn’t have any money.” It doesn’t seem to me, just from knowing Jim, I’ve only known him for close to 30 years, that he’s ever been into any of this for the money. It hasn’t been about the money. It seems like it’s been about other things. What do you think has been motivating Jim Tarbell in all these pursuits, all these activities, for all these many years?
Greg Hand: We haven’t used the word today, but this man is the consummate urbanist. When he talks about the voice directing him downtown, that really opened the rest of his life. Everything he has done has been related to what makes cities work. The things that make cities interesting, and the establishments and institutions he got involved in, are really, in many ways, the last of their kind.
Arnold’s isn’t just the oldest saloon in Cincinnati; it’s representative of a very important part of Cincinnati’s history. Grammer's is not just an iconic restaurant; it’s the remnant of an entire German culture in Cincinnati. These are all very symbolic institutions that indicate not only what cities are, but specifically what Cincinnati is. That title of Mr. Cincinnati really applies here, as somebody who saved or tried to save these iconic emblems of what makes Cincinnati, Cincinnati.
Lucy May: I have been talking with Jim Tarbell and curator of the book Tarbell Palooza, Greg Hand. We will have links on our website for where you can buy both books: Tarbell on Broadway by Buck Niehaus and Tarbell Palooza. Jim and Greg, thank you so much for your time today.
Jim Tarbell: Thank you. What a pleasure. Thank you.
Lucy May: You’ve been listening to Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. Our producer is Selena Reder, associate producer is Harper Carlton, technical director today is Ella Rowen.