The former Bellevue Brewery sits high up on a hill above Central Parkway, the former Miami and Ohio Canal. Ironically, this was originally the back of the building.

But of course, it might seem logical that industry would grow up along the canal, though I wonder how much utility the waterway really provided by the time the brewery was built. Maybe ice could be pulled off the canal in the winter, or brought down from up north?

It’s very interesting to see how brewery architect varied from city to city. It’s much more utilitarian here in Cincinnati, though still showing signs of the German Rundbogenstil, that Teutonic mixture of Romanesque and Renaissance Revival styles.

Of course today, the busy Central Parkway speeds by, and from what I understand, there is an unused subway tunnel under much of the right-of-way of the trafficway.

Houses cling to the cliff only feet from the brewery.

This might sound crazy, but I wonder down south in the heart of the city a revival of the canal might not be a bad idea. Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC was planned by L’Enfant to be a canal, and it was filled in after it became a cesspool, but today with better understanding of waste treatment, I wonder if a waterway would make a nice contribution to the urban environment. Potsdam, Germany has actually rebuilt many of its historic urban canals.

Of course, further to the east, Eggleston Avenue, which was the southeast right-of-way for the canal as it angled down to the Ohio River, is so butchered by interstate bridges that it would be pointless to extend it down there.