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Bond Hill Information
Founded as a railroad suburb and temperance community in 1871 in northeastern
Millcreek Township in Hamilton County, Ohio, Bond Hill is currently a
neighborhood of the City of Cincinnati. It is one of a number of neighborhoods
lining the Mill Creek, an urban stream in southwestern Ohio. Bond Hill began as
a commuter suburb connected to Cincinnati via the Marietta-Cincinnati Railroad.
Bond Hill incorporated as the Village of Bond Hill in 1886 and the small village
of about 1000 persons was annexed into Cincinnati in 1903. Many new homes were
added east of the original settlement in the 1930s. Beginning in the 1960s,
redlining by the Federal Housing Authority and blockbusting by Hamilton County
realtors swiftly changed the demographic makeup of the community. The first
black family moved to Bond Hill in 1964, but due to these practices, by 1978
nearly 70% of the community was black. By 2000, less than 7% of Bond Hill
residents were white.
Bond Hill was originally founded by a cooperative building association, the
Cooperative Land and Building Association No.1 of Hamilton County, Ohio, the
first post-Civil War housing cooperative in Cincinnati and the first building
association to be organized along idealistic and not ethnic lines. The
cooperative was organized in 1870 by five men including several teetotallers
from nearby Cumminsville. The cooperative initially planned on building in
Cumminsville but for unknown reasons, the young co-op changed the site of their
development to the area they renamed Bond Hill. The change was likely stimulated
by a founding member of the cooperative, Henry Watkin. Watkin had been living in
the area with his wife, Laura Ann Fry Watkin and their child, Effie Maud, since
1860. A utopian communalist and expatriat English printer, Watkin attained some
renown as the adopted father and mentor of the once famous writer, Lafcadio
Hearn. Henry Watkin's wife, Laura Ann Fry Watkin, was the daughter of the master
artist, woodcarver, vegetarian, and religious communist Henry Fry. Early members
of the cooperative included artist friends of Henry Fry: Emma Bepler and her
father August Bepler.
For at least 11 years after its founding in 1871, the sale of liquor was
prohibited in Bond Hill according to the Constitution and By-Laws of the
Cooperative. In the early 1880s, a disagreement centered around Bond Hill's
church, considered by some to be the cooperative's non-denominational church and
by others to be Presbyterian, likely caused a schism within the early community
and the cooperative. The role of Watkin and the early founders in the leadership
of the community seems to have ebbed after this schism.
The origin of the name Bond Hill remains something of a mystery. Newspaper
articles documenting the founding and naming of the railroad suburb by the
cooperative indicate that Bond Hill was the name of the area in the 1830s: "This
was the name of that particular locality forty years ago, and carries with it
associations not easily forgotten by the oldest inhabitants," (January 10, 1871,
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer). An oral history transcribed in 1961 by George E.
Patmor, one of the village's earliest residents, indicates that the name was
first given by visitors to a sawmill operated by a man named Bond: "In these
days the people of St. Bernard and Cincinnati would use a footpath through the
woods 'for a shortcut from St. Bernard to Bond’s sawmill to work or transact
business.' It got to be a common saying that they were going up on Bond Hill, so
this is how we got the name 'Bond Hill'." Local historian, Aharon Varady,
speculates that like other mills in upper Millcreek Township, Bond's Mill may
have been a gathering site for gambling and traveling teamsters -- associations
which nearby residents may have wished to be forgotten.
Until the mid-1930s, Bond Hill was largely rural and surrounded by orchards and
dairy farms. New parkways, such as Bloody Run (later Victory) Parkway offered
Cincinnatians a destination to picnic in Bond Hill meadows on weekends. Even
earlier, while the Miami-Erie Canal still flowed to the west of the
neighborhood, parties traveled up the canal towpath to recreation open spaces in
an area called Ludlow Grove area between St. Bernard and Bond Hill. (Today,
portions of Ludlow Grove exist as parks within developed portions of St.
Bernard.) Residential developments replaced the dairy farms in the east of Bond
Hill. Industrial facilities replaced the orchards in the south and the
artificial lakes in the east. In the north, a regional high school and a large
4,400 car parking lot and shopping complex were built in the 1950s. Community
residents opposed these intrusions but were largely ignored. Perhaps the most
radical change in the neighborhood was the construction of the Interstate 75
Millcreek Expressway over the length of the canal in western Bond Hill and the
Norwood Lateral (State Route 562) extension in southern Bond Hill. By their
completion in the early 1960s the rural character of the neighborhood had been
fundamentally altered.
The environmental degradation and urbanization of the neighborhood presaged the
exit of whites from Bond Hill in the 1960s and '70s. Realtors and local banks
actively encouraged the demographic transition of the neighborhood through
redlining, blockbusting, and racial steering. The Bond Hill-Roselawn Community
Council was founded in 1965 to combat this change. Throughout the next twenty
years the Bond Hill Community Council struggled to develop a community plan and
to stabilize white flight. Their achievements included the creation of a Bond
Hill Community Master Plan in 1977 and the recognition of the "Old Bond Hill
Village" Historic District in 1982. However, the demographic shift never abated,
and today (2004) Bond Hill is nearly as segregated a black community as it once
was a white one a half-century earlier.
There is a longstanding rivalry between Bond Hill and Avondale, another
neighborhood of Cincinnati. There have been several instances spanning decades
rumored to be related to gang violence in a turf war. It is believed the
original rivalry was sparked when a gang in Bond Hill in the 1980's conflicted
with a gang in Avondale.
Some Things to Consider When Looking for an Apartment...
When searching for a new apartment make sure to take your time to think
through what are the most important things to you in an apartment and plan your
search based on those priorities. Here are some things to consider when planning
your move:
1. Consider the areas where you would like to live
* What is the crime rate?
* If you have children - what rating does the local school system have?
* Is there area convenient shopping, health and recreation services in the area?
2. Make a list of your housing priorities
* Do you have pets?
* Do you need parking?
* Do you need to be on the ground floor?
* What amenities are important to you - swimming pool, fitness room, in unit
laundry?
3. Evaluate the building
* What is the condition of the unit and building?
* Are the grounds maintained?
* Are windows, steps, and railings in good condition?
* View the property at night. Is it safe and well lit?
4. The security of the property
* Are there security service? When is the guard on duty?
* Does the building have controlled access?
* Does each unit have secure door and window locks?
5. Talk to the neighbors
* Ask other residents whether they are satisfied with the building.
6. Amenities
* Who is allowed to use the amenities?
* When are they open?
* Are the fees charged to use those facilities included in rent?
7. Ask about Utilities
* Does the owner or tenant pay the utility bills?
* Are any utilities included with monthly rent?
* Do units have separate thermostats to control heat and air conditioning?
8. Review the lease
* How much notice must you give before moving out?
* Can the rent be increased? If so, by how much and how often?
* Are pets allowed?
* What is the security deposit and cleaning costs upon move out?
* What is the responsibility of tenants for damage to property?
* Is there a penalty for breaking a lease?
9. Information too bring to a lease signing
* Credit Report
* Pay stubs/tax returns
* Reference
* Application
More Apartment Information
An apartment (or flat in Britain and most other Commonwealth countries) is a
self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Apartments
may be owned (by an owner-occupier) or rented (by tenants).
Some apartment-dwellers own their apartments, either as co-ops, in which the
residents own shares of a corporation that owns the building or development; or
in condominiums, whose residents own their apartments and share ownership of the
public spaces. Most apartments are in buildings designed for the purpose, but
large older houses are sometimes divided into apartments. The word apartment
connotes a residential unit or section in a building. Apartment building owners,
lessors, or managers often use the more general word units to refer to
apartments. Units can be used to refer to rental business suites as well as
residential apartments. When there is no tenant occupying an apartment, the
lessor is said to have a vacancy. For apartment lessors, each vacancy represents
a loss of income from rent-paying tenants for the time the apartment is vacant
(i.e., unoccupied). Lessors' objectives are often to minimize the vacancy rate
for their units. The owner of the apartment typically transfers possession to
the occupant by giving him/her the key to the apartment entrance door and any
other keys need to live there, such as a common key to the building or any other
common areas, and an individual unit mailbox key. When the occupant move out,
these keys should typically be returned to the owner.
Apartments can be classified into several types. Studio, efficiency, bed-sit, or
bachelor apartments tend to be the smallest apartments with the cheapest rents
in a given area. These kinds of apartment usually consist mainly of a large room
which is the living, dining, and bedroom combined. There are usually kitchen
facilities as part of this central room, but the bathroom is its own smaller
separate room. Moving up from the efficiencies are one-bedroom apartments where
one bedroom is a separate room from the rest of the apartment. Then there are
two-bedroom, three-bedroom, etc. apartments. Small apartments often have only
one entrance/exit. Large apartments often have two entrances/exits, perhaps a
door in the front and another in the back. Depending on the building design, the
entrance/exit doors may be directly to the outside or to a common area inside,
such as a hallway. Depending on location, apartments may be available for rent
furnished with furniture or unfurnished into which a tenant usually moves in
with his/her own furniture. Permanent carpeting is often included in an
apartment.
Laundry facilities are usually kept in a separate area accessible to all the
tenants in the building. Depending on when the building was built and the design
of the building, utilities such as water, heating, and electric may be common
for all the apartments in the building or separate for each apartment and billed
separately to each tenant (however, many areas in the US have ruled it illegal
to split a water bill among all the tenants, especially if a pool is on the
premises). Outlets for connection to telephones are typically included in
apartments. Telephone service is optional and is practically always billed
separately from the rent payments. Cable television and similar amenities are
extra also. Parking space, air conditioner, and extra storage space may or may
not be included with an apartment. Rental leases often limit the maximum number
of people who can reside in each apartment. On or around the ground floor of the
apartment building, a series of mailboxes are typically kept in a location
accessible to the public and, thus, to the letter-carrier too. Every unit
typically gets its own mailbox with individual keys to it. Some very large
apartment buildings with a full-time staff may take mail from the mailman and
provide mail-sorting service. Near the mailboxes or some other location
accessible by outsiders, there may be a buzzer (equivalent to a doorbell) for
each individual unit. In smaller apartment buildings such as two- or
three-flats, or even four-flats, garbage is often disposed of in trash
containers similar to those used at houses. In larger buildings, garbage is
often collected in a common trash bin or dumpster. For cleanliness or minimizing
noise, many lessors will place restrictions on tenants regarding keeping pets in
an apartment.
In some parts of the world, the word apartment is used generally to refer to a
new purpose-built self-contained residential unit in a building, whereas the
word flat means a converted self-contained unit in an older building. An
industrial, warehouse, or commercial space converted to an apartment is commonly
called a loft.
When part of a house is converted for the ostensible use of a landlord's family
member, the unit may be known as an in-law apartment or granny flat, though
these (sometimes illegally) created units are often occupied by ordinary renters
rather than family members. In Canada these suites are commonly located in the
basements of houses and are therefore normally called basement suites.
Staying in privately owned apartments rather than in a hotel is quickly becoming
popular with travelers.