The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Alright, hit me with it.

I was born and raised on the east side. Married a west sider five years ago. Our housing compromise was NKY. Have since had 2 beautiful kids.

And now her plan is apparently almost complete.

For all sorts of reasons, we're looking at homes on the west side. Kids will end up in Catholic schools. She went to Mercy. All of her brothers are Bombers. Her parents are in Bridgetown by Visi - so we don't want to be too far from there.

What do I need to know and is divorce the best answer here?

We're considering St. I's and looking at all sorts of neighborhoods/roads. Would like to be in the $250K-$275K range housing wise.

Send me all of your tips. Sarcastic or not.

Pack up and leave in the dark of night after emptying the accounts.

You need a special handshake to get in over there. Used to have a requirement that you were related to someone who went to Elder and who was on the force at Districts 1, 3, or 5. Those requirements are waived if you like Burger Beer.

And you have to get used to driving to work in the AM with the sun in your eyes and then in your eyes again on the way home.

The term is Chevidiots. Of course first you'll need to learn the correct pronunciation of Cheviot which for some reason is "shiviot".

Hey Rath, it's a Purple thing, you wouldn't understand.

(I can't tell you how many times I have heard that in Elder country, which is where I live).

West Side is the best side. Nieces and nephews go to Visi which is a good school. Lots of newer development in the Oak Hills School district that can be had for your price range. Worst part is nothing is easy to get to over there. Ask Marcus. I believe he belongs to St. Ignatius.

We're going to build a wall and make the East Side pay for it.

I have been to the West Side a couple of times. Everything looks the same over there. Hills and ranch houses made out of brick. Strip malls with bdubs, goldstar, and laundromats. I got lost on Glenview Mireway in Winston Hills.

On the west side, when the acorn falls from the tree it bounces towards the trunk. Tough to find a good restaurant, tough to find a wall street journal, a decent croissant or someone
who is not interested in the High School you attended.

(03-01-2017 03:50 PM)JPBearcat3 Wrote:  Alright, hit me with it.

I was born and raised on the east side. Married a west sider five years ago. Our housing compromise was NKY. Have since had 2 beautiful kids.

And now her plan is apparently almost complete.

For all sorts of reasons, we're looking at homes on the west side. Kids will end up in Catholic schools. She went to Mercy. All of her brothers are Bombers. Her parents are in Bridgetown by Visi - so we don't want to be too far from there.

What do I need to know and is divorce the best answer here?

We're considering St. I's and looking at all sorts of neighborhoods/roads. Would like to be in the $250K-$275K range housing wise.

Send me all of your tips. Sarcastic or not.

Have you reminded her of that? You meant "she" doesn't want to be too far from there. Up to you but when you give in hard to get that back. If she is awesome all is good though.

(03-01-2017 03:50 PM)JPBearcat3 Wrote:  Alright, hit me with it.

I was born and raised on the east side. Married a west sider five years ago. Our housing compromise was NKY. Have since had 2 beautiful kids.

And now her plan is apparently almost complete.

For all sorts of reasons, we're looking at homes on the west side. Kids will end up in Catholic schools. She went to Mercy. All of her brothers are Bombers. Her parents are in Bridgetown by Visi - so we don't want to be too far from there.

What do I need to know and is divorce the best answer here?

We're considering St. I's and looking at all sorts of neighborhoods/roads. Would like to be in the $250K-$275K range housing wise.

Send me all of your tips. Sarcastic or not.

In your price range i would pick madeira

Lived on both sides of Cincinnati. Like the whole highschool obsession, I never understood the "picking sides" garbage either. Most complaints from either side are exaggerations of a particular personal issue or a regurgitated myth they think is funny.

All I remember thinking all the time when I visited family on either side of the city was how much our whole region had to offer. And made me very proud to be from Cincinnati and not be from Columbus, Kentucky, or Indiana.

(03-01-2017 11:19 PM)Bearcatbdub Wrote:  I have been to the West Side a couple of times. Everything looks the same over there. Hills and ranch houses made out of brick. Strip malls with bdubs, goldstar, and laundromats. I got lost on Glenview Mireway in Winston Hills.

Actually one of the neat things about the west side is the houses are NOT cookie-cutter. I agree about the Oak Hills SD; you can go to any catholic school (HS) and you're bound to be in a good parish for grade school. You want to avoid those west side neighborhoods that have CPS as their public schools as their public system for resale value of your home.

Visi absolutely dominates in sports, of course each grade has 4-5 teams so there "A" teams are stacked. I do think Marcus is at St I's. They are a good school (most the Catholic Schools are good academically). I'm in Colerain Township and the children in my area can go to either St James or St John's Dry Ridge, both solid schools.

Depending on your experience some schools are considered "big schools" and others "small schools" this comes into play for sports mostly.

Football (thru 8th grade): http://leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=gcyl

Baseball: http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=cincywbc

Basketball: http://wbcbasketball.com/

I agree it a pain to get anywhere, my personal theory is since the neighborhood goes back to cart and buggy there is no easy connection to the interstate system and most of the roads wind and inter-twine. I don't have it so bad in Colerain, easy access to both I-74 and I-275. But where your in-laws are can be quite challenge to get anywhere quickly.

Crew is absolutely right, the houses on the west-side are not cookie cutter at all, which is a great thing IMO. Now some of the newer subdivisions out by Rybolt and off Bridgetown are, but for the most part the west side isn't that way.

We were at St. Ignatius for several years but just in the last year have switched to Victory. While St I's is a good school and has really good facilities, it was just too big for us and the traffic and getting in and out of there drove us crazy.

We lived in the OH school district for 3 years but moved out to Miami Heights in the Three Rivers School District and we absolutely love it out there. It's far less crowded out that way and our property taxes are considerably lower and the school district I believe now has higher ratings than OH. When it comes to catholic schools kids out this way go all over since St. Joe's in North Bend never opened a school. Kids just on our street alone go to Visitation, Victory, St Al's (Saylor Park) and St Jude.

I would recommend taking advantage of several school's open houses and decide from there. We went to 5 different ones before we decided. Some schools absolutely fit a family's particular needs better than others. I know it's a good school, but we personally did not like Visitation all that much when we went to their open house. We loved Victory. They have brand new updated facilities and we liked the size of the school (500-600 kids) more than the ones in the 1000 range. Since we work downtown and east of the city, we actually found it was much easier for us being in Miami Heights to just hop on U.S. 50 and drop them off in Delhi and go through Price Hill to work. Saved us time rather than navigating through Bridgetown and Rybolt to 74 and then heading downtown.

(03-02-2017 08:36 AM)The T-Shirt Wrote:  Lived on both sides of Cincinnati. Like the whole highschool obsession, I never understood the "picking sides" garbage either. Most complaints from either side are exaggerations of a particular personal issue or a regurgitated myth they think is funny.

All I remember thinking all the time when I visited family on either side of the city was how much our whole region had to offer. And made me very proud to be from Cincinnati and not be from Columbus, Kentucky, or Indiana.

Same here. A big issue is the media plays into it and creates a perception that doesn't really exist. I lived in Anderson for several years when I first married because my wife was from over there. There really isn't much difference at all between the two sides of town. There is no question 99% of it is completely exaggerated and people being totally misinformed.

Most of the catholic schools are very good and I reiterate to just make sure you aren't in Cincinnati Public School district as it definitely impacts your house value (Though on the other side, you may get more house for your money and if you are sending them to catholic schools anyway, it may not matter). Unfortunately I'm in Covedale (Which has a great elementary school), but in CPS so we definitely will feel the house price crunch when we sell in a couple years as our kids get to middle school age.

Personally I don't feel like it is all that bad getting around. Lots of different ways to get to the same destination (Go down Glenway or cut down the back streets and reach the same destination in the same time). The sun delays can be impactful on some days depending on where you are heading. But shooting down 50 to Mehring way for games is perfect (Or 50 to get to downtown). Miss all the traffic and had plenty of times we would leave 20 minutes before a game and be in our seats at the start, while others complain spending that much time just to park.

It is a different culture, but not all that big a deal. Laid back area. I am a transplant since I'm from NE Ohio, so I really am only an honorary west-sider (But outside of an occasional joke of not really being a west sider so I wouldn't truly understand, I fit right in). Sure lots of people like to know where you went to high school and often I'll introduce friends to new friends and they either know each other or hung out with friends of friends from high school, etc.

(03-02-2017 09:28 AM)BigDawg Wrote:  Most of the catholic schools are very good and I reiterate to just make sure you aren't in Cincinnati Public School district as it definitely impacts your house value (Though on the other side, you may get more house for your money and if you are sending them to catholic schools anyway, it may not matter). Unfortunately I'm in Covedale (Which has a great elementary school), but in CPS so we definitely will feel the house price crunch when we sell in a couple years as our kids get to middle school age.

Personally I don't feel like it is all that bad getting around. Lots of different ways to get to the same destination (Go down Glenway or cut down the back streets and reach the same destination in the same time). The sun delays can be impactful on some days depending on where you are heading. But shooting down 50 to Mehring way for games is perfect (Or 50 to get to downtown). Miss all the traffic and had plenty of times we would leave 20 minutes before a game and be in our seats at the start, while others complain spending that much time just to park.

It is a different culture, but not all that big a deal. Laid back area. I am a transplant since I'm from NE Ohio, so I really am only an honorary west-sider (But outside of an occasional joke of not really being a west sider so I wouldn't truly understand, I fit right in). Sure lots of people like to know where you went to high school and often I'll introduce friends to new friends and they either know each other or hung out with friends of friends from high school, etc.

Well said. 50 makes access to pretty much anywhere easy for us. I think a lot of people forget that it exists. It makes it easy for us to get downtown, to the east side, to NKY and Indiana. And traffic is rarely bad on it.

Seems like St.I's just getting bigger and bigger. My neighborhood is 5 minutes from a smaller catholic school yet most of the families in my neighborhood opt for the 15 minute drive to St.I's. Im not sure what the allure is other than its currently the trendy school to go to? My sister went to Visi for a few years then my parents yanked her out (bigger schools, more exposure to various vices at younger ages).

Mercy and McAuley should be joining forces so that will alleviate which school to pick when the time comes

Oak Hills is a solid public school district but massive - a hidden gem is Three Rivers - a lot of families in that district opt for parochial schools but they just built a new campus with all grades at one location and fantastic new athletic facilities. Academics are as good or better than any other west side school district.

is this the thread where we talked about growing up on the west side? if so, man do i have a story. there's not to say much really. was brought here when i was a little boy. we lived in westwood. my mother hates roaches... of all kinds. so she took us back to north dakota and swore she would never return to cincinnati if my father (her then boyfriend) didn't find us a suitable roach free habitat. he told me he was only making like $3 an hour at the roy tailors out there in queensgate! hahahaha! anyways, he found us a place near covedale. this was around the time glenway crossing was going up you see. me and the neighborhood fellas would take a picnic basket and with the older girl we'd sit atop a hill and watch those cavorting beasts of man savagely embrace the earth with her cold metal fangs. then we moved to harrison which has established the moniker the new west side. just rolls off the tongue, don't it? other than that i enjoy wild mike's immensely. damn those wings are good. they have three locations and all in the west side biatch. and sebastians. the woman and i joyride out to trotta's once or twice a year. trotta's is one of them drive thru convenient stores. they make pizza and you get you a slice. hollmeyer's orchard has really good unpasteurized cider. i never really considered the fact that i only go to the west side for food. cheviot is a true west side experience, unless you want to go to delhi for some reason. neat neighborhood. hung out there in my early twenties.

the lower level of the western hills viaduct is not only one of my favorite drives in the city, but one of my favorite parts about the city. overlooking the train yard, union terminal and downtown. westwood northern blvd is neat. it's like a mini highway with exits and was the gateway into the city. is that right? glenway ave is pretty fun to drive on, it still has some nostaliga (like the big arby's hat). f*ck the east side

(03-02-2017 09:55 AM)wanes Wrote:  Seems like St.I's just getting bigger and bigger. My neighborhood is 5 minutes from a smaller catholic school yet most of the families in my neighborhood opt for the 15 minute drive to St.I's. Im not sure what the allure is other than its currently the trendy school to go to? My sister went to Visi for a few years then my parents yanked her out (bigger schools, more exposure to various vices at younger ages).

Mercy and McAuley should be joining forces so that will alleviate which school to pick when the time comes

Oak Hills is a solid public school district but massive - a hidden gem is Three Rivers - a lot of families in that district opt for parochial schools but they just built a new campus with all grades at one location and fantastic new athletic facilities. Academics are as good or better than any other west side school district.

St I's was just way too big for us. It was well over 1000 and while the facilities are really nice, I don't think they are meant to accommodate so many students effectively. It's definitely the "flavor of the month" school right now among the status symbol types. Again, good school and all but we felt the one on one attention was lacking. Kids are just a number there where at some of the other catholic schools they aren't. We personally felt the same way about Visi.

Mercy and McAuley are going to merge soon. I see no other way around it. The numbers just aren't there. Both are struggling just to break the 100 mark in every incoming freshman class. Financially it makes no sense to keep both separate. The two schools already work closely together to the point where they act like they are operating as one school.

With OH, I agree, just way too big. It gets back to just being a number type thing as I mentioned above. I've heard that from a ton of OH grads. I'll always be baffled as to why they didn't build a second high school when the district was at its peak in the 1990's and separate into an East and West like Lakota did. It's also no longer the same school district that it was in the 1990's when it's ratings were top notch and it was considered one of the best public school districts in the state. I've noticed their state ratings have dropped in recent years. Rapid Run Middle School is probably the only really good school left in the district. The OH run schools in Delhi like Delshire and Delhi Jr High are a mess.

Like I said before I believe over the last few years Three Rivers has been rated higher academically by the state than OH. But you're right, the vast majority of families out there seem to send their kids to catholic schools.

Love all of the comments so far, everyone. Really appreciate the insight. And humor.

I have a great wife and even better in-laws, so I'm not scared of the move at all. Heck, it was mainly my idea (although I haven't ruled out some sort of west-side mind trickery she pulled on me).

I'm pretty familiar with the area but by no means an expert. My wife and her bajillion siblings went to Visi and loved it, but she wants our kids to go somewhere else. We're still a year or so away from needing to decide, so I'll check out some open houses.