CINCINNATI — A recent visit from a panel of national and local experts has helped Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine Museum to map out its future.
The panel, compromised of architects, designers, preservationists, genealogists and historians, met in Cincinnati in late February for an orientation to the city and project, and to begin research and writing.
These experts will return in July to finalize their recommendations and give a public presentation of their work. The final interpretive plan will be the museum’s foundational guide for the next ten years, the museum said.
The Over-the-Rhine Museum, located at 3 W McMicken Avenue, has said it will use the model of New York’sLower East Side Tenement Museum to recreate apartments of residents who lived in its building at 3 West McMicken between 1862 and 2012.
Museum researchers have identified about 150 families and businesses that occupied their building. In addition to deciding which of the former resident’s stories to tell, the panel will offer recommendations for objects, furnishings and finishes to help plan the museum’s interior spaces.
They will also assist with tour scripts, ideas for walking tours, school programs, community outreach and other ways to engage with the public.
“I’m really excited about this project — the building is amazing; the neighborhood is amazing. What’s exciting to me is how it allows us to make connections between the different groups of people who lived in Over-the-Rhine and in this building… to make something like that come alive, which is what this project is going to do," said Deborah Weiner, PhD, historian and museum curator based in Baltimore who serves on the panel.
“(The Over-the-Rhine Museum project) documents the history of the immigrant population and migrants and African Americans who lived in the Over-the-Rhine district. I think the telling of that story is extremely important” added another member of the panel, Henry-Louis Taylor, Jr., PhD, University of Buffalo.
The Over-the-Rhine Museum said it hopes to inspire "understanding and respect for the people who have created and lived in Cincinnati’s historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood by working with community members and visitors to uncover, present, and preserve their stories in an immersive experience."
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