Route #1: Avondale

On Saturday we will run through Avondale. As soon as I started designing our route, I wished Avondale came later in our challenge. Not only is there a lot of ground to cover (Avondale is Cincinnati’s fourth largest neighborhood), but there is a complexity that I fear we will oversimplify. Alas, we have to follow  our (Kayla’s) ground rules, which say this challenge must be conducted alphabetically--or else!

We are starting from the place in Avondale that we know best--Burger King. The Avondale BK is the most convenient chain for Kayla to order her BK veggie burgers and sits in front of The Avondale Town Center on Reading Road.

From BK we will run North on Reading Road to Fred Shuttlesworth Circle where we will hang a left. As we make our way along FSC, we will pass the New Light Baptist Church, which Rev. Shuttlesworth helped found in 1966 after moving to Cincinnati from Birmingham, Alabama. 

Next we will head West and then South until we find ourselves along the perimeter of the Cincinnati Zoo. Turning East from the Zoo we will follow Erkenbrecher Avenue, a street that I initially included for its unique name, and then discovered that it is also known for its unique architecture.

Eventually, we will arrive at the landmark that most intrigues me on this route:  Fleischmann Gardens. I had no idea these gardens existed and they feature an evergreen maze! The land was a gift to the city from the Fleischmanns (of yeast fame). Julius Fleischmann was twice mayor of Cincinnati before he relocated to New York City, and ultimately met his demise on a polo field. For me Fleischman’s death by polo stands in stark contrast to the shooting deaths that have become tragically associated with Avondale in recent years. It's the kind of contrast that I expect to note in almost all of the neighborhoods that we run through during this challenge.

Around the corner from Fleischmann Gardens we will head down Knott Street which flanks the football field which serves as the site of the Peace Bowl football game--a police organized event intended to promote non-violence. Tragically, in the summer of 2007 Ernest Crear, age 19, was shot and killed as the Peace Bowl took place only a few feet away. In the wake of this tragedy, I recall the Avondale community's resilience as residents marched along the same streets for peace. This steadfastness led me to root for Avondale and hope that it would build on its strengths in the years to come.

As we loop back to the start/finish, we will make our way back to Reading Road. On the East side of Reading we will pass Cincinnati's Urban League, where Kayla and I both attended trainings in our non-profit days. The Urban League is a great gathering place for people doing community-based work. 

We will end the first of our 52 runs back in the Town Center Parking lot, hopefully with some new insights on what our run revealed about a neighborhood that we know very little about despite only living a short distance away.

-Donnie