Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up on Art Palace, 

Speaker 2 (00:02):
And then the mortar on the back of the building was like a yellow orange, so that, think about it, it's the West when the sun set, the building would glow. 

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host, Russell iig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art. Today's cool person is Ramona Toussant, tour and Education Outreach Program Director for the Society for the Preservation of Music Hall. So when I was visiting one of the churches with our curator, Amy, we're looking at some of these windows. One of the archivist of the church is Ed Ryder. 

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh yeah. 

Speaker 1 (01:11):
And so he's been involved, I guess in the 

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, he's the former archivist for p and g, and he sits as a VP on the board of S P M H. 

Speaker 1 (01:22):
S P M H, so 

Speaker 2 (01:23):
The Society for the Preservation of Music Hall. 

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Okay. And yeah, he was talking about something, the staining of the bricks. 

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Oh yeah, that's a big thing. 

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Alright. Say it with Meti 

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Run. 

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes. Is not fun. 

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I didn't take German, but I I am assuming, is this German? 

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yes, the King of Prussia wanted his own architectural style. 

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Okay. 

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah. Not too full of himself, but No, I don't know. I don't know anything about the guy. I mean, maybe I'd like him, maybe I want to have a beer with him. But yeah, so American architects, we didn't have a school. I mean, we learned from Europe, and so a lot of the American architects learned by doing, or they went over to Europe to get trained. 

Speaker 1 (02:16):
But 

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Ru Bogen Steel was a new architectural style that was requested by the King of Prussia. And his designers went out and looked at all these different styles and basically made a mishmash of things. And this polychromatic coloring, which is on music hall, which is the red brick and sandstone, there's belt, it's called, it's like stripes that go around the whole building. And then there's sandstone art carb that tells you what the building is. People didn't know how to read really well back then. Not many people knew how to read. 

Speaker 1 (02:57):
So what are their of literally music thing? I am not even sure 

Speaker 2 (03:02):
I noticed this. It's metaphorical, for example, there might be Ivy, there's a lot of Ivy and a lot of the medallions that are carved into the building. 

Speaker 1 (03:14):
And 

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Ivy is always green. It's ever green. So it stood for longevity, eternal life kind of thing. But it would be wrapped around, let's say a liar, or you have picture carvings of birds singing 

Speaker 1 (03:32):
To 

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Represent quarrel singing interest, so music, quarrel singing. And then you might have a compass and gears depicted on the building to represent machinery and new inventions and mechanics. So these are the different uses for the hall and so on. The different parts of the hall where those things happened is where those art carvings exist. 

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Oh, okay. 

Speaker 2 (04:00):
So you had to be rich or you had to be in clergy to be well-educated back then, so, so the common people can just look at the building and know that it was, and of course, high Victorian gothic like cathedrals and churches point to the sky. It's a homage to God. Right. Well, this was an homage to industry and art. 

Speaker 1 (04:23):
So when you said that it represents industry, I guess we think of music hall now as being about music, obviously. So where is that industry part come from? 

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, that's a great story, actually. That's my favorite part about it, is that because of where we were located, Cincinnati, on the Ohio River, everybody knows that Cincinnati was seventh largest city in the United States at the time. Well, given that there was really nothing out west, he was still cowboys and that kind of pioneer days. So Cincinnati, 

Speaker 1 (04:58):
That's, we were the art palace of the West. 

Speaker 2 (05:01):
That's right. We were also considered the Athens of the West, the Paris of America, which was a term that was coined after the Big May Festival. The first May festival. But just going back to that is that we dug this canal 

Speaker 1 (05:17):
That 

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Before that canal was there, you had to go way all around to move goods and people and kind of thing. So when people were coming in from Europe and such, and they were landing in Philadelphia and New York and all these harbor towns, people would ask 'em where they're from and they'd go, and we're going to Cincinnati because it was so big and booming and up and coming. We had labor shortages. So we were very attractive to a lot of immigrants, especially Germans who were not like the Irish, you hear potato, famine and all that stuff, that big wave. I mean, these folks were highly skilled. They had money. They were entrepreneurs, they were craftsmen. And they came and they populated this area. And Cincinnati really became a huge center of commerce and innovation and new inventions. And you got to show that stuff off. We didn't have the internet. So they advertised and they had these big grand expositions, and Cincinnati wasn't the only one that had them, but Cincinnati is one of the top big ones. And people like thousands would come from all over the whole US and sometimes from Europe to come here. We were number one in publishing in the United States. We were number one in horticulture exports to Europe. 

Speaker 1 (06:36):
We 

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Were number one in wine. I mean, number one in beer. We drank half of it, but all the beer we produced. But yeah, we were really, really big. And a lot of those immigrants settled in the over-the-Rhine area. I mean, this is a story that we know really well from our city's history. But if you notice, a lot of the businesses are south of Central Parkway, and a lot of the residences, like smaller buildings, when you walk through over the Rhine, now were north of that. That was like the outer right. And all these immigrants brought with them not only their trade, 

Speaker 1 (07:10):
But 

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Their cultural traditions. So they would sit around the table at beer gardens and PA and all that fun stuff. And it was a family affair. And it was mainly the men that were part of these singing societies and Sanger Fest. 

Speaker 1 (07:26):
And 

Speaker 2 (07:27):
We still have a little celebration now, but these were really big, especially with the immigrants all over. And Cincinnati had so many singing societies that the national headquarters was here in Cincinnati. Now I'm digressing into art. That's right. And culture. But these are the same people that were the laborers and the workers. And so with all of this innovation going on, they needed a place to show off their wares. Think about how big the music hall building is. So now think back before Music Hall, they had this building called Sanger Hall, which stands for Singing Hall, 

Speaker 1 (08:08):
But it 

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Was an exhibition building too. So this is prior to the Real World's fairs. They would build this huge Disneyland, epic temporary buildings all around these, the central building. And people would buy tickets, they'd bring the whole family, and they'd go to see all the new amazing stuff that was being invented. And it brought on a lot of money for the city. And the Ohio Mechanics Institute was really big in that. So this was like craftsmen know, the Ohio Mechanics Institute here in Cincinnati believed in educating the middle class, 

Speaker 1 (08:51):
And 

Speaker 2 (08:51):
The middle class lived really well. And if the middle class lived really well, wealthy people lived really well, and they wanted art and culture, and that made you a better citizen and all that stuff. So all these things were happening simultaneously to create this perfect storm of innovation and culture. And in fact, art and industry were more inextricably linked back then. 

Speaker 1 (09:15):
I 

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Mean, there were certain arts that were just at a more, they were considered more professional, like the wood carving movement. That was very practical because it was furniture, but actually it was to show wealth. 

Speaker 2 (09:32):
And after the Civil War, when we're building ourselves up, I mean, this is what's happening a lot in Cincinnati, we were building up, the women's job became to have beauty in their home, because if your husband was going out on you and your kids were a hot mess, it was probably because you didn't have beauty in your home. So these women played a really, really big role in the art and culture development while the men kind of concentrated on practical building mechanics, inventions. If you had a thought, when I do outreach for kids right now, I go into this whole thing is that everything in the world is created twice, once in your head and then once in the world. And how do you show people? You have to draw it. You have to build it, little sculptures. So the whole idea of a museum kind of started with these little exhibits of this is just scale, what this building would look like. And so in that way, painting men could be painters back then women could not, they could do the decorative arts, like pottery. 

Speaker 1 (10:46):
I mean, there are some examples of women painters at that time, but they're rare. It was not the norm. 

Speaker 2 (10:54):
But 

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, definitely not considered necessarily culturally appropriate for a woman to partake in. 

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Absolutely. 

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah. So that's why you have very few women painters through a lot of history. And the ones who are well-known are so few and far between because they were rebels. 

Speaker 2 (11:15):
They were rebels. We had rebels even back then. But these folks were held in high regard for what they did. And for example, the Hook and Hastings organ, which was one of the largest organs in the world at the time that it was built, it was certainly the largest in United States. A hundred women volunteers carved 121 of those panels to cover the pipes of that huge 50 by 60 foot organ. And they were all volunteers. They were learning because of course, Mariah Longworth Nichols was having some wood carving done in her home. And all of her lady friends were there. We would do that too. 

Speaker 1 (12:01):
If you're listening to this and you listened to the last episode, some of the pieces we talked about in that episode came from some of the art carved furniture we looked at. Came from her home and were made for her. In fact, I think we spent a lot of time talking about the corner cupboard, and that was one that I'm pretty positive was commissioned for her. So it's this cupboard, almost like a wardrobe that fits into a corner. 

Speaker 2 (12:29):
It's 

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Very ornate, has Thor and Freya on the front. So it has a mythological. And you were talking about the women carvers. Most of the pieces in our collection are carved by women, 

Speaker 2 (12:42):
The 

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Designers. The designers 

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Were often, they were often students of the Pittman and Fry. 

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Help kind of start the School of Design at uc. And then there was a branch that branched off and became the Art Academy of Cincinnati. 

Speaker 1 (12:57):
And 

Speaker 2 (12:57):
All of these things have connections to Music Hall 

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Because 

Speaker 2 (13:01):
As I mentioned, the Sanger Hall being one of these large buildings that was the center of these huge expositions that was a temporary building. I mean, it had dirt floor over the years. It got a leaky roof. It was just awful falling apart. And the story that we tell is that Ruben Springer went to a May festival with the second one. It was held in Sanger Hall, and it had a tin roof, this building, and there was a storm, and as the paper described it, it sounded like dried peas on a drum. It drowned out the music. 

Speaker 1 (13:40):
And 

Speaker 2 (13:41):
He was like, this is ridiculous. And he'd been thinking about a proper hall where the expositions, which were great moneymakers for the city and for this choral festival was new. And literally everybody in the whole city pretty much came out to the parade and came out to see it. 10,000 people standing outside. So he's the one who suggested building this proper hall, this music hall, and the two exposition wings that were attached to it. So it's actually three separate buildings that were connected by bridges with Carriageways that went through it, even though from the front, 

Speaker 1 (14:18):
It looks like one. It 

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Looks like one. And there was a contest. Several designers, architects were asked to submit drawings. And Samuel Hannaford, 

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Who's 

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Done a lot in this city, he was chosen, and he did Memorial Hall next door and City Hall down the street. And a couple other buildings were right around the music hall, and he was chosen. And yeah, it was perfect for expositions because what we call North Hall and South Hall that are kind of like the wings, if you look at a picture, it doesn't look like it. But if you look for the Carriageways, that's a sheer sign that it's three separate buildings. 

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Probably if you got on sort of a Google map view of it, you could probably see it very clearly. You could see 

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Three distinct rooftops really, really clearly. And North Hall was used, it was called Power or Machinery Hall, and it was used to show off all the new inventions. 

Speaker 1 (15:20):
And 

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Then South Hall was labeled Art and Horticulture Hall. So it was kind of like what you would think of as one of those home and garden shows. I mean, think of it that way. Think of it. I mean, there was nothing like musical hall, a permanent building to do all of this. It was our first civic center. It was our first art center. It was our first industry center, having meetings and conventions, and I mean, people from all over came to Music Hall for lots of different reasons. And it's interesting because Rare for a historic building to still be used for pretty much what it was used for when it was built. I mean, think about that. A lot of historic buildings are like museums, or they would turn into condos or that shows a lot of commitment from the community about how important this building is to this community, that it's still used for what was intended to be used for conferences. But over the years, I mean, it's had to change a lot to adapt, because it wasn't built to be a concert hall in a theater, to hear choirs, like choral festivals, but it didn't have a stage 

Speaker 2 (16:39):
When it was first built. I mean, think about that. That was huge. After the exposition stopped being as popular, and I'm talking, they were really popular. The centennial of Cincinnati, the celebration in 1888, they were only 22 or 25 pieces of art being displayed. It made $440,000 

Speaker 1 (17:08):
In 

Speaker 2 (17:08):
The sale of art. Big time. I'm talking. People came from all over and they would just buy their stuff. Cars came out, oh, it's a new invention. Let's go buy a car at the exposition, drive it home. So people don't realize how many times it's had to adapt. It was a riding school for horses 

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Where, 

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, 

Speaker 1 (17:32):
How 

Speaker 2 (17:32):
In the lobby in Springer Auditorium, which is the center thing. Yeah, you, uc, Bearcats played in North Hall when it was turned into our sporting arena. 

Speaker 1 (17:45):
What year is that? 

Speaker 2 (17:47):
1942. I want to say uc, maybe they weren't called the Bearcats then, but 

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Uc 

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Played there. But it was basketball, boxing. 

Speaker 1 (17:59):
That's crazy. 

Speaker 2 (18:01):
A tennis court. 

Speaker 1 (18:02):
So when you said there was no stage, I keep going back to this. In my mind, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? So this would be in the middle, the center, big hall, right? Yeah. But how was that originally laid out then? I mean, 

Speaker 2 (18:20):
It was just one big box. 

Speaker 1 (18:23):
So there were no balconies or anything, 

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Or Oh, were, so what we call balcony is that first raised level. And then above it was a gallery. 

Speaker 1 (18:36):
And the 

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Gallery did not extend on all three sides of that space. It was just a little bit of a half of a sea, 

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Like 

Speaker 2 (18:45):
A little curve in the back on that third level. And in the 18 95, 96 renovation, it was the first real major renovation. We realized we were losing business, and the expositions weren't as popular because the centennial, the 1888, that actually lost money, even though it brought in a million people to Cincinnati, but it lost money. So they were like, whoa, we need to do something different. They were missing out on traveling opera, which was really hot back then. So they decided to put in a stage, a raised stage with a proscenium march, which is that little thing that makes the box. So what does that do? Well, you can hide sets, 

Speaker 1 (19:33):
You 

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Can hide, make entrances and exits. You can put in a curtain. There was nothing to hang it from. 

Speaker 1 (19:40):
And 

Speaker 2 (19:40):
They lowered the ceiling 15 feet because when the C S O came to make it, its home, it was just too big for an orchestra. I mean, that space was built for an organ and one of the largest organs. I mean that it had to be pretty booming. And when it was built, it could see 5,000 people. And so the seating size was reduced to about 4,400. But they still put in that second balcony. That's with the addition of the second balcony. There were no fixed seating when it first was built. It would turn into this exhibition space, but the floor could go up and down and tilt so that audiences could see above at that novation. And then they put in permanent seating. Wait, 

Speaker 1 (20:35):
So the floor would move? 

Speaker 2 (20:39):
They could pump up the floor. 

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Whoa. 

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah. That's 

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Crazy. 

Speaker 2 (20:43):
And at one point, in one of the renovations, they even raised it. They kept on raising. So it's like at one point they literally tilted it, the slope. You would have in normal theaters like eight feet. So you can see over people's heads and things like that. And putting in permanent seating, big change. It was a pretty big deal to kind of decide to put in permanent seating. Then you couldn't really adapt that room as much. But think about it too, it had windows letting light in 

Speaker 1 (21:13):
That 

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Wasn't cool for an opera or, you know what I mean? So they had to close those up. They took out all the, it was what they call poplar wood or tulip wood. It was this really light, beautiful wood all inside, highly polished. And the newspapers at the time reported that it was sitting in a violin, like a large instrument. It was so beautiful inside to look at. But also the sound was so great. And then they took all that out and they put in plaster, and they pushed back the organ 12 feet, so they'd have more room for sets and stuff like that. I mean, we're talking a huge major renovation. 

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Well, I don't know. That's interesting to me just to think about how much the building has changed. 

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Oh my 

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Goodness. In that, because when I have gone there and over my life, it's looked relatively the same. I guess that it makes maybe a renovation feel like, oh, you're altering the 

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Past in this way. I know. 

Speaker 1 (22:21):
But when you realize that, oh, but that wasn't actually the original either. It kind of makes it a little bit more palatable to be like, oh, well, okay, things 

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Change. Well, there's always this talk about, I feel like there's a natural tension between preservation and making something meaningful. And with art, you're doing that all the time. It's like, how do you make things meaningful to today's audiences? 

Speaker 1 (22:51):
How 

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Do you get people to be engaged when their attention span is as big as a video clip on Facebook? You know what I mean? And so I think that's interesting that society for the Preservation of Music Hall, I mean, it's an all volunteer group. I mean, these are people who don't get paid, but yet they're playing such a major role and in actually preserving certain things rather than updating 'em, renewing and refreshing them. And the restoration part, I think, like you said, I mean, oh, I don't want it to change. Well, there's certain things that have to, I mean, we don't want to go back to water closets, and we want really real bathrooms. 

Speaker 1 (23:44):
We do expect bathrooms. 

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yes. And tiny, tiny seats that you can't move in and long lines for the bathrooms because 

Speaker 1 (23:55):
There aren't enough of them. 

Speaker 2 (23:56):
There aren't enough of them. And even just air conditioning being put in back in the day was a big deal. I dunno. So that's why, I mean, society for the Preservation Music Hall works in partnership with all the resident companies. But what people forget is that this building has a history of its own that is separate, 

Speaker 1 (24:21):
An 

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Origin story that's different than our resident companies. It's really important that they're successful. And I love the fact that our brand, if you will, is associated with these wonderful companies that are just world renowned. But it's a national historic landmark. And we forget that no one's ever really told the story. And that's why I'm so excited to be doing what I'm doing representing S P M H, is because we really finally get to tell these stories. They're not just interesting factoids. Someone actually gets to create a narrative about why it was important. 

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah. So have there been any sort of discoveries about the building while renovating it so far? I know it always seems like whenever you start poking around old buildings, there's always some kind of like, oh, we didn't know about this. Especially a building that has such long history of other renovations. Any sort of weird surprises or anything? 

Speaker 2 (25:21):
I don't think anything weird. No weird surprises, but some delightful surprises, 

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Like, 

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Well, first is the obvious that people are thinking it's the bones. So did you notice that before Sanger Hollow was even there, it was a potter's field that land. And so people who couldn't afford it or who they considered having to contagious diseases or just people who didn't have a home were kind of just kind of dumped there. I mean, 

Speaker 2 (25:53):
They were put in pine boxes. So of course those deteriorated. And so these bones are just loose in the ground. And there's a great story I love to tell about, in 1927, they found these bones during a renovation. I think they were putting in an elevator, and they dug down and they thought that, oh, okay, we found these bones. It's 1927. I guess what we do is we just create a cement box and just leave 'em where they are. Just don't disturb 'em. Right? But then there wasn't any documentation. And so in the nineties, maybe it was the 79 or whatever, renovation, 69 renovation, they were fixing something or whatever in that elevator shaft, and they found this cement box with bones in it. And they called the police thinking there was a murder. And yeah, no, it was old bones. And there was a cemetery across the street in Washington Park, and there was Crips still under there and whatever. So we found more bones. 

Speaker 1 (26:56):
You did find more bones. 

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, we found more bones. So this actually was a documentary done for Canada. I don't know about the bones of music hall. And we have a ghost tour. There's a lot of ghost stories, actually. 

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (27:08):
But that kind of just detracts from the purists who want to focus on the history. But that was surprising and fun. The still bones. 

Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think human bones in a building is part of a history 

Speaker 2 (27:19):
That is a part, 

Speaker 1 (27:20):
At least the land's history, if not the building's history. It is kind of part of it. I mean, you don't have to necessarily believe in a ghost story to be like, that's weird. 

Speaker 2 (27:30):
That's 

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Kind of crazy. Actually. I love ghost stories, but I don't actually believe in ghosts, and I love going on. I would go on these ghost tours in New Orleans. One of the things that always makes me laugh is I'm always interested in the ghost story up until the very end, which is usually when the ghost comes up, appears in the story. Because for the most part, these tours are actually really fascinating because they're usually, here's some really horrible stuff that happened, really grizzly, nasty, horrible things that human beings did to other human beings that is truly bone chilling stuff. 

Speaker 2 (28:07):
This is the 

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Scary stuff. And then it's like you get through all that, and then at the very end, they just go and they say, on some nights you can still hear her whistling. You get through all the actual horror just to be told that on a cloudy night, you can see her ghostly shroud. 

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, seriously, there are a lot of people who swear and they have personal stories. And these are people in the 21st century that have these stories. And we were actually featured, oh, we 

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Have plenty of them too. Here 

Speaker 2 (28:36):
In 2014, we were featured on the Halloween episode of Ghost Hunters. Oh, 

Speaker 1 (28:42):
I watched. 

Speaker 2 (28:43):
You did. I didn't get to see it. But yeah, I mean, some other delightful surprises were one of the SPM H's biggest projects is Dexter Hall, which is the room that is directly below the rose window. And it was renamed Corbit Tower after the Corbetts helped with the really big renovation in 69 seventies. And it was made all modern, really pretty and all that stuff. But we took out the drop ceiling 

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Because 

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Drop ceilings were really big in the seventies, so was sand blasting, by the way, which gets me back to the black brick. But they took out the drop ceiling and holy smoke. There's like 14 feet higher, and it's all coved. And we found all of these hidden windows that were plastered over and up on the ceiling is all this incredible gorgeous stenciling. 

Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah. We think it was John Reddig artist at the time, fresco artist. But there's all this beautiful stenciling on the walls and on the ceiling, and S P M H is restoring that. A lot of it isn't good enough to save, so they're kind of replicating it, 

Speaker 1 (30:07):
But 

Speaker 2 (30:07):
It's going to be an incredible room. It's going to be an incredible room. So we've kind of adopted this room as our own, and windows that were covered up, the original opening doorways that are just gorgeous with these little transom windows. And they were just going to throw in whatever kind of design on the windows, but our group dug and dug and dug and found original pictures to show what the tracery was on the windows. It's going to be really incredible. 

Speaker 1 (30:41):
So you were saying getting us back to the black bricks. 

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Oh, yeah. 

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Which would be a fun way to stop. That would be a good way to finish since we started there, but then actually didn't really talk about it that much. 

Speaker 2 (30:54):
No, no. The seventies were just horrible for destroying old, beautiful stuff. All this shag carpeting and all of this stuff was like, 

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Why would anyone want beautiful, tall ceilings when you could have this delightful drop ceiling? 

Speaker 2 (31:14):
But they sandblasted the building, 

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Which 

Speaker 2 (31:17):
They didn't know how horrible it was. And the mortar on the front of the building. Now, this is really cool and interesting that we discovered in our research, the mortar on the front of the building was black 

Speaker 1 (31:28):
To 

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Make a high contrast. And then the mortar on the back of the building was a yellow orange. So that, think about it, it's the west, when the sun set, the building would glow. 

Speaker 1 (31:42):
We're 

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Like three miles away. You could see this huge glowing. It's orange brick on the back. It's more common brick, as they called it, 

Speaker 2 (31:50):
On the front is this hard, almost like a veneer pressed brick that's really, really dark red. So that was purposely done. So the facade looked very strong and stein, and then the back was this glowing beauties thing. But yeah, they sandblasted it, and then they filled in the mortar with cement, which doesn't expand for weather and stuff. So it starts crumbling. And you could still see there were certain areas of the building that even before the renovation started, that we would go and we would show where the black brick was. And you could see it's like dark black. 

Speaker 1 (32:27):
And 

Speaker 2 (32:27):
If you're not looking, you don't really see it, but now you could really see it. And so all of that's being redone. 

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Yeah. I was just in the park the other day and looking at it, and I was noticing all the patterns that are being created with the black bricks. 

Speaker 2 (32:40):
It's not being created. It was there. 

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Oh, but are they res stain or 

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Yeah. So that's what I mean. So that they're kind of bringing that back out, that these cool patterns that, and they're not like over the top or anything. They're just, but they add this extra little layer. They're really nice. 

Speaker 2 (33:00):
It's really cool. Yeah, I've been 

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Looking at little sense and the way they kind of run along and create lines or this checkerboard patterns, it's 

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Really, yeah, that's called diaper work. I learned a lot about architecture 

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Being in this Wait, diaper work? 

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, the checkerboard pattern that's called diaper work. And then there are tray foil, little tray foils all over it. Very architectural. But there's some black diamonds and tray foils that are being filled in. And the piano keys is what we're, I don't think that's the official term, which is using that. If you look at some of that patterning, it looks like piano keys, especially over the segmented arches. And you'll find that pattern on other buildings in Cincinnati because, and we think maybe there were a lot of music stores a lot. 

Speaker 2 (33:53):
One of our tour guides was on another tour with another group, and they were talking about this building, and they had the piano key kind of looking feature, and they were like, oh, yeah, this used to be a music store. Do you know how we had this many music stores spur square inch, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. Maybe when you see that it might be a old music store. But what I wanted to make sure that I said though, is that this is such a new program that we go out in the community. It's called Beyond the Bricks, because we take you beyond the bricks. 

Speaker 2 (34:26):
And not only do we do tours of the outside of the building, which covers the neighborhood and talks about other architecture in the neighborhood and other history of the neighborhood around us. But we are doing deep dives to find out more like a lady's legacy. We want to find out about the women and the African-American connection and the great organs of music hall and presidents and pop stars. We want to create all of these talks that we can go out in the community and go into schools and things like that, our speaker series beyond the Brick Speaker series, and have people develop a better appreciation for the building, not only just the tours, you know what I mean? So it's like tours in school programs and the speaker series. Oh, 

Speaker 1 (35:09):
That's great. 

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah. It's going to be really exciting when we reopen this fall. 

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, it's October, right? 

Speaker 2 (35:15):
October 7th is a big community open house. Everybody's welcome. There'll probably be a pancake breakfast in Washington Park who doesn't love 

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Pancakes 

Speaker 2 (35:25):
The morning of. So yeah, it's going to be a really, really big deal, and we're really super excited. 

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Awesome. Well, let's go look at some art. 

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Okie dokie. 

Speaker 1 (35:47):
So we are in Gallery 1 0 8 right now, and we are looking at actually a couple of objects we've got here that are both revolving around Ruben Springer. 

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, it's delightful. I didn't know that these were here. 

Speaker 1 (36:01):
And you got all excited. 

Speaker 2 (36:03):
I did. 

Speaker 1 (36:03):
When you saw Ruben Springer, which is funny, I, 

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Across the corner, I was like, 

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Reen baby 

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Boob, blah. 

Speaker 1 (36:09):
That's what I wanted, because I don't know anything about Ruben Springer, so Oh, wow. Now you're going to tell me about the art. I don't actually know much about the man. 

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Well, he was a very, very humble man, and he grew up in Frankfurt, Kentucky. He moved to Cincinnati. He was working down at the docks, really, because that was the big boom of the business. And he was a clerk. He then got into the grocery business, and really, he was a millionaire by the time he was 40. 

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Oh, wow. 

Speaker 2 (36:47):
And back in that day, that's a lot of money. 

Speaker 1 (36:50):
I mean, I wouldn't turn my nose up at a million dollars today. 

Speaker 2 (36:52):
No. And he had no children, so I don't know what you're going to do if you have no kids to bequeath it to. But being someone, everything I've read about him, he didn't really seem to have what we would traditionally think of as being a lot of art and culture as a child. But he was very invested civically in community. And as I said before, the arts and culture were really considered to make you a really good citizen. And because he was such a wealthy leader in the community, he gave a lot of money to the arts a lot. So music hall, he first put up, his first matching grant, you would call it that we know of in the country, is $125,000 if the citizens of Cincinnati would match it dollar for dollar. And even Cincinnati school children pulled together their change to come up with $3,000. 

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Wow. 

Speaker 2 (37:46):
$125,000 is $3 million today, I would say approximately. And then he donated more money for the business people to match it for the exposition wings. And then he even donated more money for the organ that was in the hall and just, he was a big arts supporter, but very humble. So if you look at, right here is this lithograph that they're showing of Music Hall. 

Speaker 1 (38:16):
We're looking at the label right now, and this is for, actually, there's a vase and dedication medallion from Tiffany and company that were given to Springer. And at the bottom of this label, we have this old image of Music Hall. And so what were you going to point out about it? 

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Well, but what you can't see really well in this lithograph, which we actually show in our tourism education programs, but there's actually right underneath the rose window, there's a place for a pedestal for a bust. Who do you think would go there? 

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Springer. 

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, maybe Springer. But he was so humble. I'm sure he was like x nay on the bust, a get that out of there. 

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Well, that's funny. We have a bust of him right over here too. I know. 

Speaker 2 (39:05):
It's really interesting. But he didn't want any credit. He even said, my money is no better than the Hod carrier. He called out the Hod carriers, a big old shout out to the people who built the building and to the black barber in the community. These are people who donated money. So he was really clear about, his money was no different from anybody, so he didn't want to dedication on the building. Also, this picture who's blown up and you could see it, they're actually fresco kind of pieces of art that are angels dancing and see that angel up on top, kind of like the Tyler Davidson fountain, this kind of dedication to art and music that was never put up there too. So there's a lot of little finishes. He wanted the building to be plain, but substantial. And I don't dunno about you, but that doesn't look plain. 

Speaker 1 (40:03):
No, it's pretty fantastic. I would say with all of 

Speaker 2 (40:08):
These, high, Victorian Gothic tends to be very grand, right? 

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It does not feel super humble. But I guess I can also understand it is fairly grounded as far as the building goes. So overall kind of horizontal in these spires do kind of accent it, but it isn't an over the top kind of building. So I can kind of see from a Victorian type of viewpoint where everything is kind of full of spires 

Speaker 2 (40:40):
And all of these 

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Old knicknacky details. 

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Well, there's so many different styles in the building. There's Romanesque and the Ron Boen Steel and all these different kind of styles at it. Back in the day, they had this little nickname for it. The residents, they, a lot of them were German. They teased it that it was called Sour Bratton Byzantine. It was like the joke. But preservationists hate if I said that, or architects probably would hate if I said that, but yeah, hi, Victorian Gothic. But it was kind of eclectic in its style. But see how different parts of the building stick out 

Speaker 1 (41:20):
To 

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Accentuate that. There are actually three different buildings. It's not just a flat facade, pretty grand. 

Speaker 1 (41:26):
But 

Speaker 2 (41:26):
This is a gorgeous piece. 

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, we're looking at the vase and dedication medallion here that were looking at the accession number and saw that it was given to the museum. Well, in 1884, and it was actually when Springer died, which was not too long after everything had been finished on music hall, I would guess were, 

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, music hall was built. And it's premier, just the center building, which actually you can see on this one, which we call Spring Auditorium right now, was built in 1878. And then only the next year did they build the two exposition wings. 

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah. So just a little over five years or so, 

Speaker 2 (42:13):
He 

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Passed away and it was given to the art museum by his estate, I guess it was given to us. And then we have this little medallion that goes along 

Speaker 2 (42:28):
With, which is really cools. What do you do with that? Yeah, I don't know. Well, I guess it might hook around this. 

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Maybe 

Speaker 2 (42:34):
It's such a substantial piece 

Speaker 1 (42:37):
With 

Speaker 2 (42:38):
The liars on it. I mean, you'll see liars all over music hall. I mean, they give this piece to him and it's in and of itself, it's a dedication to music with the 

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Stuff on, well, it has a very nice Greek feeling, very classic Greek 

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Feeling 

Speaker 1 (42:53):
With this sort of head on the top here. And even the shape of it is a very, almost like you would imagine it more as a Greek piece of pottery. And the 

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Decorations 

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Have a very classical feel to them as well. 

Speaker 2 (43:10):
I wonder if it meant anything to put it in silver instead of it being like a Greek piece of pottery. Was pottery not as respected back then? I don't know. 

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Well, I, I mean, I'm sure that would be nice, but I guess also that's not what Tiffany and company's known for. That's true. 

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, I guess so. 

Speaker 1 (43:30):
If you're going to Tiffany, get them something silver, I would assume Get them something Tiffany. Yeah. So yeah, we have a little label over here that kind of talks about Springer's life, and it has this really beautiful watercolor drawing of him that we were also studying. I was saying, it's unfortunate we can't display that drawing all the time, just because drawings and watercolors are very light sensitive, so they have to be stored away. But it's really, really quite beautiful. And again, look at the accession number on that one. 1881, 

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Right? 

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Wow. Yeah. So that's the first year the museum was founded, but before the building opened 

Speaker 2 (44:14):
In what, 86? 

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yes. Our building opened in 86, and we were talking about this V may have been displayed at music hall because a lot of our collection as it was being collected, was being displayed at music hall 

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Because the Women's Art Museum Association, actually, that was their headquarters from 82 to 86 when the museum 

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Was being built. 

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, being built. And again, women made it happen with the cultural, the arts and stuff. So I'm sure he was very well connected to women's groups like the Women's Art Museum Association and probably corralled a lot of these groups to go out and make it happen, make the art museum happen. He's always frowning. Every picture I see of him I know was smiling in pictures. Wasn't a big thing back then, but 

Speaker 1 (45:15):
This 

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Looks like a downright 

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Sour. A lot of that's practical because if you think about the long exposure times of cameras, early cameras that you're basically, you have to hold a smile for minutes. And 

Speaker 2 (45:29):
I didn't even think of that. And it's hard 

Speaker 1 (45:31):
To do. So that's why everyone looks so sour in those old photographs. 

Speaker 2 (45:34):
That's fascinating. I didn't know that. I thought it was just because they didn't have a good dental hygiene. 

Speaker 1 (45:39):
And also, I mean, even if you're just sitting for a drawing or a painting, that takes a long time. So people tend not to smile in those portraits because it's hard to hold that. Yeah, it's exhausting. 

Speaker 2 (45:53):
I like my dental hygiene 

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Theory 

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Better. That's really nice. Have to get rid of that. Now, 

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Maybe they have to put Vaseline on their teeth so they keep smiling in a beauty pageant or they're 

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Brown teeth or whatever. 

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Well, he almost has a little bit of a smile in this bust over here, though. 

Speaker 2 (46:13):
He does. He actually looks a little bit more like grandpa. 

Speaker 1 (46:18):
And I mean, when I say a little bit of a smile, it is basically the minimal, 

Speaker 2 (46:24):
It's not a frown, 

Speaker 1 (46:26):
The least amount of one degree of smile from completely straight face. 

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Someone may be trying not to smile. You just told 'em a joke 

Speaker 1 (46:37):
And it's like 

Speaker 2 (46:37):
They're trying to dead panic. 

Speaker 1 (46:38):
We're in church and you have to be serious or something. You can't laugh. 

Speaker 2 (46:44):
He lived not far from music hall. He lived over on what was called Plum Street over by that temple. He had a rhubarb patch, 

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Really. He's 

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Kind of a simple guy. He didn't have a big fancy house or anything. He was very, very humble. And a big quote that he had in the paper was that I have done nothing more than get this started. It's the passion of other people that keeps the stream going kind of thing 

Speaker 1 (47:11):
To 

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Drop some so fancy. It wouldn't be him. He wouldn't be in this. Looks like he's in sort of tuxedo. And then even on here, they mention it. What did it say it? I thought I read it. Oh, he would've elected more contemporary dress for himself. I took that to mean casual. 

Speaker 1 (47:31):
So actually what they're saying there is that there's a lot of traditions where actually if you look across the room at the busts over on their side where we have Longworth, who's looks naked, and the lady over here who's sort of draped in this very classical kind of toga, this is actually, even though to us it may be a tuxedo looks very formal, this was actually seen as sort of less grandiose because you're not putting yourself up on this sort of Greek ideals. 

Speaker 2 (48:05):
That 

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Makes sense, that seems more heroic to put yourself almost in this very classical position of someone. It's almost like you're giving yourself a sense of history 

Speaker 2 (48:17):
At the time 

Speaker 1 (48:19):
You're putting yourself in history before it's even happened. So when you see somebody in a bust wearing actually the close of the day, that actually is more modest. 

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Oh, really? 

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Yeah. So that's actually what's trying to say. That's cool. So in a way, when we're talking about all this modesty that even though he's wearing a bow tie and this nice suit and vest, it actually is less hoity-toity than the alternate. That 

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Totally makes sense. That totally makes sense. 

Speaker 1 (48:49):
That's 

Speaker 2 (48:49):
So cool because a lot of the expositions too, not just here, but other places, they had Greek a Parthenon. I actually went, I drove to Tennessee on a vacation once, and I actually stopped in at some museum that was a replica of a Parthenon. Oh 

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yeah. Do you 

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Know it? Right? 

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Oh yeah, I know. In Nashville. 

Speaker 2 (49:10):
And they had a real regard for the classics. And 

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Was that built during a world's fair? 

Speaker 2 (49:18):
I would imagine. So now that I'm learning what I'm learning now, being in this role, I'm like, oh, of course. That was probably part of the World's Fair, and they saved 

Speaker 1 (49:28):
The building. I think that Nashville had a world's fair, and I cannot remember the year and 

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Either that or an exposition, 

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Because that 

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Was kind, 

Speaker 1 (49:35):
This will be one of those things. Now I have to go look up and finish at the end of the show. Because if there's nothing more infuriating than listening to a podcast where somebody half has information, you go. But somebody listening right now is from Tennessee and is pulling their hair out going like, no, you dummies don't about our famous Parthenon. All I know is he was 

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Super cool. 

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Yeah, I only know about it. I mean, most of what I know about that is just everything I know about Nashville. I learned in the Robert Altman movie Nashville, which is so good. Have you ever seen it? No. Oh my gosh. It's amazing. 

Speaker 2 (50:11):
No, you have to see it. So it's a movie. 

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Yeah, it's from the seventies, late seventies. Lily Tomlins in it. I mean, it's like 

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Lily Tomlin. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (50:18):
That's awesome. Mean, it's a Robert Almond movie, so everyone's in it. A really young Jeff Goldblum is in it riding a really big, weird looking motorcycle. Shelly Val's in it. That's awesome. Keith Carradine. Oh my gosh. It's 

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Called Nashville. 

Speaker 1 (50:37):
Nashville. 

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Got it. 

Speaker 1 (50:39):
It's one of these Altman movies where everyone, there's a million stories happening and everyone talks over top of each other and it's great. And it's like three hours long and it ends at the Nashville Parthenon. 

Speaker 2 (50:54):
That's so cool. 

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, it's great. So I'll 

Speaker 2 (50:58):
Check 

Speaker 1 (50:59):
It out. That's my, every episode, I have to have a really big digression about something completely unrelated, just everything else we've talked about. And that's mine right there, 

Speaker 2 (51:08):
The Parthenon thread, 

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Just trying to get people to watch Nashville. Always. 

Speaker 2 (51:12):
I'm going to email you once I've seen it. 

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Well, I also, I held back, because when you were talking about the Ghost Hunters episode of Musical Hall, I wanted to talk about it so bad earlier, and I was like, no, no, no, no. 

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Unless she brings it up. Oh, she brought it up. 

Speaker 1 (51:25):
But you didn't give me an opportunity to talk about my favorite moment in this episode, which is seriously, this was a joke around here for ever. We would talk about this still is The Ghost Hunters have some audio and gosh, I wish you probably would know who they play it for. I can't even remember. But it was somebody from Music Hall or somebody very official, and they're playing this audio for them, and they've got some little blip that just is like, and then they're like, it sounds like they've deduced what it sounds like, which they can hear 

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Voice in their expertise. 

Speaker 1 (52:02):
They can hear voices in this, of course. And you're like, I don't know. And so it sounds like somebody says, put us back, or maybe Putus Black. We were thinking maybe that that's a name. And they're looking at this guy, Hey, gosh, I wish I remember this 

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Guy's looking at him. I'm like, are you kidding me? 

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Because they're just like, you could tell when they said Puth Black that they thought that somebody was going to be like, did you say Puth Black? 

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Why? 

Speaker 1 (52:35):
I haven't heard that name in 35 

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Years. Why 

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Puth Black, the famed murderer of musical. They thought they had cracked it wide open. And the guy's just like, nobody's named Puth, you can just see on his face. But he's being very polite about it. He is like, 

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Oh my gosh, I think I know who that is. Scott Santangelo. It's got to be, I don't 

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Know. 

Speaker 2 (52:58):
He's so awesome. I can just see him. It makes me happy to just picture if it is him. You're just hearing that piece. He 

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Was being very polite about it, just being like, yeah, no, I don't think there's anyone by that name. And they're just like, yeah, it's probably put us back Then 

Speaker 2 (53:17):
The bones, 

Speaker 1 (53:18):
I think maybe. 

Speaker 2 (53:20):
But 

Speaker 1 (53:20):
I think I definitely might have done some drawings of Puth Black. At some point, we started imagining what this character would look like 

Speaker 2 (53:28):
And what he did. Like a whole backstory, 

Speaker 1 (53:30):
Very sinister looking as you can imagine the name like Puth, who wouldn't be, 

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Well, a lot of those bones are moved to Spring Grove, supposedly. So maybe to be Puth is up there. 

Speaker 1 (53:41):
The spirit of Puth Black is hunting Spring Grove Cemetery. 

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah, 

Speaker 1 (53:46):
That makes me happy to know that. 

Speaker 2 (53:48):
I think it's interesting that all of his little wrinkles and stuff around his eyes, I mean, it just looks so, it looks like, it amazes me how someone can do that out of marble looks more like if it was clay, I would get it. But it's 

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Always impressive when you 

Speaker 2 (54:09):
So impressive. 

Speaker 1 (54:09):
I think especially when the artists make marble feel flushy, like 

Speaker 2 (54:14):
That 

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Is always really fun because it's such opposite of what we know the material to actually be, that we know it is hard and solid. And to give it this soft, supple feeling that you could squeeze it and it would give, which is probably one of the reasons marble sculptures get touched a lot, 

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Which 

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Is something we always have to worry about here because 

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yeah, I'm resisting right now. Now know because the skin looks so smooth. 

Speaker 1 (54:46):
I know. And it's definitely not great, and especially when we're talking about those flawless white marble sculptures, when people touch them with their hands, even if your hands are clean, you leave oil, which attracts dirt, and over time, that builds up. So that's one of the many reasons we encourage not touching, because yeah, you actually end up damaging the sculpture over time. 

Speaker 2 (55:15):
He got some eyebrows. 

Speaker 1 (55:18):
They are impressive eyebrows. 

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Those are impressive eyebrows. I 

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Didn't really think about those right off the bat, but 

Speaker 2 (55:23):
I mean, they got a wave to 'em 

Speaker 1 (55:26):
Almost. Yeah, they do. Yeah. The artist, I think had a little fun with that probably. I mean, that's one of the things too, when it comes to hair. Every artist has that kind of a trick when it comes to dealing with hair, because the reality is you don't draw every hair follicle, right? No matter what you're working in, drawing, painting, sculpture, it's like you can't do it all 

Speaker 2 (55:51):
You 

Speaker 1 (55:52):
To just suggest the hair. So it's interesting to see how they do that here. So you get some big details of some big waves, and then the littler details here and there that sort of come in and out of focus almost that sort of suggest many, many, all that hair. But of course, they're just kind of making it up a lot of times. Maybe some of the big details might've been there, but I think that's probably with the eyebrows they had to show us, these are eyebrows, this is hair. This is not just his face. And so giving those little kind of curls and waves and things, make it read as eyebrows more. Well, anything else you want to say about anything we're looking at in the museum? Well, 

Speaker 2 (56:41):
I don't know. Why is this one here with this? I'm like, it's a picture of fruit all of a sudden, out of nowhere next to Reen Springer, 

Speaker 1 (56:49):
It belonged to Ruben Springer. 

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Oh, belong to Reen Springer. 

Speaker 1 (56:52):
So see, you doubted us. You thought we just threw up some pretty fruit. Fell asleep. You thought we were asleep on the job. 

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Wow. 

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Yeah. No, that would belong to 'em. See? 

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Nice. Nice. 

Speaker 1 (57:07):
I did not know that until I walked over though. 

Speaker 2 (57:09):
You're like, I, there'll be a connection there somehow. I know when I get 

Speaker 1 (57:13):
There, I really have not looked at these three pieces much. I've looked at the vase once with a group, and again, it was a situation where a group just was like, what's that? And I thought, I have no idea. And I think I told him that. I said, you know what? I don't know, but let's go look at it and learn together. 

Speaker 2 (57:32):
I mean, it's fantastic that it has these liars on it. It's really neat. And that whole classical, that's really, really neat. 

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Yeah, it's a nice little piece over here. 

Speaker 2 (57:43):
It's huge. 

Speaker 1 (57:44):
Yeah, I know. I shouldn't call it little. That probably is. It's 

Speaker 2 (57:46):
Yeah. More like a Grecian urn, right? 

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Yeah. Yeah. If I knew more about Greek pottery, I could tell you what shape that was. 

Speaker 2 (57:54):
It's a classical show. I want 

Speaker 1 (57:56):
To say amphora because that's the only one that comes to mind. 

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Wow. I'm really impressed. Just say that at cocktail parties. Just say, oh, the shape over there. But I could be 

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Totally wrong about, and your 

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Mantle's like amphora. 

Speaker 1 (58:07):
There's all sorts of, there's a kyx and a crater, but I don't remember what they are now. 

Speaker 2 (58:12):
Oh, you get 'em all mixed up. 

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Look at that. I looked up amphora on. 

Speaker 2 (58:16):
Look at that 

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Exact. Who gets brownie points? 

Speaker 2 (58:20):
You do. You do. And then even the band that goes around. I'm 

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Sure that that's a, yeah, that's what I said. The decoration, the styles are very, very classical Greek. All right. Well, thank you so much for being my guest and for looking at all this cool art with me, Ramona. 

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Yeah, it was my pleasure. It was really fun. 

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Thank you for listening to Art Palace. You can learn more about Cincinnati Music Hall as well as their Beyond the Bricks Walking tours@smphcincinnati.org in case it was driving you crazy. The Nashville Parthenon was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. We hope you'll come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have conversations about the art yourself. General admission to the museum is always free, and we also offer free parking special exhibitions on view right now are William KenRidge. More Sweetly Play the Dance Tiffany Glass painting with color and light, the poetry of place, William Cliff, Linda Connor, and Michael Kenna. For program reservations and more information, visit cincinnati art museum.org. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Snapchat. Our theme song is Efron Al by back al. And as always, be sure to rate and review us on iTunes. I mean it. I'm Russell Iig, and this has been Art Palace produced by the Cincinnati Art Museum.