A Visit to Findlay Market

I promised more about Price Hill's bootlegger, George Remus, and there is more to come, but first I wanted to mention that I'm going to Findlay Market in downtown Cincinnati tomorrow. I go there pretty often to buy cheese and vegetables, fish and bread, and lots of other good stuff. But tomorrow I'll be there to sign copies of my book, The Collected Old Curmudgeon. Jerry Dowling, a well-known Cincinnati cartoonist, will also be there to sign his book, Drawing Pete. (The "Pete" in the title refers to another infamous Cincinnatian with Price Hill connections, Pete Rose.) We'd be delighted if you stop by to see us, we'll be there from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturday. But back to the market itself--it's more than 150 years old, and began when General James Findlay, one of Cincinnati's earliest settlers (and, not coincidentally, a character in the book I am writing now, Hastings Way) left money when he died to establish a farmer's market in the Liberties, an area just outside the city limits at that time. Now it's known as Over the Rhine, because of the German immigrants who lived there in the later part of the 19th century. The old canal that ran where Central Parkway is today was "the Rhine" to them. But Findlay Market is still going strong after all these years. It's especially a bustling place on Saturdays when there are lots of itinerant peddlers of vegetables and other wares around the permanent shops and stands down along Elder Street between Elm and Race. I'm looking forward to being one of the "attractions" instead of just a shopper tomorrow.