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EXPLORING
KENTUCKY - October 2002 by Katherine Tandy Brown Catch a
Little Oom-pah at MainStrasse
Covering nearly five blocks, MainStrasse Village is a restored 19th-century German working-class neighborhood filled with ethnic restaurants and eclectic shops in renovated buildings connected by cobblestone walkways. Though just off the Interstate, the village is rife with well-kept Victorian and Italianate homes shaded by large old trees that buffer highway noise and provide a cool promenade straight down the town center boulevard. Leaving my vehicle in one of several free parking lots, I followed what sounded like the sweet strains of church bells straight to the clock tower, where a historic marker filled me in. Completed in 1979 and named in honor of then-Kentucky Governor Julian Carroll, the glockenspiel Carroll Chimes Bell Tower is a German gothic structure housing a 43-bell carillon. April through December, there’s an hourly mini-concert held on a small stage situated halfway up the tower face. The concert is followed by a lively enactment of “The Pied Piper of Hamlin,” with the folk tale’s complete cast of characters, including those pesky rats. Spellbound, I stood with a young mother and three small children, watching and listening quietly as the play progressed. “It doesn’t matter if you’re five or 95,” says Donna Kremer, administrative coordinator for MainStrasse Village, “people just stand there and gaze up at it.” The cornerstone of shady Goebel Park, the 100-foot-tall tower anchors one end of the promenade on Philadelphia Street. The Goose Girl Fountain on Main Street is at the other. Erected in 1980, that bronze landmark personifies a German Grimm’s fairy tale and also honors farmers who once raised geese around Covington. In the 1840s the town began to experience an influx of German immigrants, lured to the Cincinnati area by advertisements comparing the Ohio River Valley to that of the Rhine. For more than a century, families of German origin populated the neighborhood. Many of their descendants still do. The majority of MainStrasse’s buildings are pre-1880, and of the more than 800 structures, most are post-Civil War townhouses with varying ornamentation, from simple Greek Revival to ornate Gothic Revival. Because property taxes in Europe were based on the width of a dwelling, Germans had built narrow “shotgun” houses there. That influence is still evident in the community’s homes, all still occupied and best seen on a walking tour. You can pick up a map at the MainStrasse Village Association (MSVA) office right at Goebel Park. In the late 1970s, the City of Covington and the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau (NKCVB) initiated renovation and development after the area was designated a National Historic District. To date, projects have included construction of the tower, the fountain and the Northern Kentucky Visitor’s Center. The MSVA was formed to sponsor major festivals, events and walks, encourage and assist business and tourism, organize public improvements, and preserve history. “I think the people (residents and business owners) make Mainstrasse Old World Village,” says Sheree Allgood, director of communications for the NKCVB. “Obviously, there’s the architecture and interesting history. But the people here are committed to seeing this area grow and remain diverse. You don’t find shops like this anywhere else. I mean, where else could you find a dry cleaners with a coffee bar?” That would be Enzo’s Coffee & Dry Cleaners, where, says co-owner Heather Buckley, “You can drop off your cleaning and get a cup of coffee.” Or an Italian focaccia sandwich with an iced raspberry mocha. Yum! As I’d already done my laundry, I instead practically inhaled the best Salad Nicoise (with grilled yellowfin tuna and fat, tender stalks of asparagus) ever set before me at Chez Nora, located in a beautifully-restored 1878 Main Street structure owned by MainStrasse’s unofficial mayor, Jim Gilliece and his wife Pati. “MainStrasse is not just German,” Allgood says. “I think most people have the impression that they’re going to come and eat funnel cakes and bratwurst. And there are some great German restaurants, like the Strasse Haus and Wertheim’s. But actually, it’s more eclectic and artistic.” A number of historical markers in Goebel Park attest to the eclectic nature of MainStrasse’s past. One relates the sad tale of the only Covington native to be elected governor of Kentucky, after whom the park was named. Shot during a campaign debate in 1900, William Goebel was declared governor by the legislature but died four days later. Another tells of Margaret Garner, a slave who escaped with 16 others on a snowy January night in 1856 and crossed the frozen Ohio on foot. When captured in Ohio, she killed her small daughter rather than see her return to slavery, an event that became the focus of national attention in the issue of federal versus state authority. On a lighter note, still another marker honors songwriter Haven Gillespie, who penned “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and catchy tunes from my mother’s era, like “You Go to My Head.” In addition to providing history, the park becomes a village gathering place during several rollicking annual festivals. Among other cultural contributions, the Germans brought their love of beer and numerous brew recipes to their new American home. At one time, more than 30 breweries operated in the Cincinnati area. These days, MainStrasse celebrates suds during Oktoberfest, when some 175,000 revelers come to hear country music and rock’n’roll, shake a leg to polkas, chow down on hearty German and American food, peruse nearly 100 arts and crafts booths, and of course, tap countless kegs of brew. Activities are planned for kids as well and a huge ferris wheel looms over an amusement midway. Chosen in 2002 as one of the top 10 festivals in Kentucky by the Kentucky Tourism Council and as one of the top 20 events in the Southeast by the Southeast Tourism Society, the festival has held sway the weekend after Labor Day for 24 years. Legend has it that Oktoberfest takes place in September because hundreds of years ago, a Bavarian king annually celebrated his wedding anniversary the entire month of October. One year, flakes from an early snowfall landed in the festival beer and diluted it. So he decided to celebrate the month before instead. “Germans,” Kremer laughs, “do not like diluted beer!” They do like their wines, however, and first Spring wines are the reason for Maifest – another of the state Tourism Council’s top festivals – the weekend after Mother’s Day, when Goebel Park turns “All German, All Weekend,” with more food, entertainment, and arts and crafts. Visitors can park at a number of locations and hop aboard the Southbank Shuttle, which loops all year around Covington, Newport and Cincinnati. It’s free for festival transport, 50 cents otherwise. Except for the lack of Spanish moss and streetcars, the area’s atmosphere can transport you to New Orleans, with its tall, narrow homes and abundance of wrought iron fences, built to keep animals off lawns during river boat days, when stock was herded from boats through the middle of town. You can even sip on hurricanes while tappin’ your toes to Dixieland music on weekends at the Dee Felice Cafe right on Main Street. In early February, MainStrasse goes all out for Mardi Gras, with a Big Head parade where folks wear huge paper mache heads atop outlandish costumes on Friday night, a grand parade on Saturday, a bar hop and plenty of Cajun food. The village adores Christmas so much that it celebrates twice. In mid-July, Santa visits in his Bermuda shorts and all the stores have sales. Mid-November the holiday starts in earnest at a village-wide Christmas Open House, followed by a candlelight walk on the 30th from an ecumenical advent service to sing carols by candlelight around the Goose Girl Fountain. On December 6th St. Nicholas returns on horseback in full old-world garb with goodies for the children, who with advance reservations also can lunch with the jolly man at Wertheim’s Gasthaus Zur Linde. The array of annual events here is impressive and includes an outdoor antiques marketplace every second Sunday of the month, April through October (except September); Glier’s GoettaFest, when goetta, a traditional Northeastern German dish of beef, pork, oats and spices, is Americanized into pizzas, chili et al; and the 127 Corridor “World’s Longest Yard Sale” in August, which begins right here on Sixth Street Promenade and ends in Gadsden, Alabama. Whenever you come, the village can provide a trip back in time. “I think MainStrasse’s appeal for visitors is the trees and old buildings, and the feel that if you stand there long enough, you can almost visualize yourself back in 1900 waiting for the carriages to come down the street,” Kremer explains. “I think it’s that old-world atmosphere combined with the benefit of restaurants, shopping and parks. You can pretend for a little while. Then you can get back to the present with the tourist attraction part, the shopping and entertainment.” Visit www.mainstrasse.org
for complete info. Katherine Tandy
Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report. |
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Copyright 1996-2002, by Kentucky Business Online. All rights reserved. Editorial content
is copyright 2002, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
For
years while zipping north on I-75 on the way to Cincinnati, I’ve
wondered about a sturdy brick clock tower just off the highway in Covington.
It hovers above the trees, solid and proud, looking old worldly Bavarian,
with a gold flying goose weather vane as its crown. Curiosity finally
won out, and on a hot August morning, I stopped and was surprised to
find the tower standing sentinel over a neighborhood that could’ve
been straight out of Germany.