Eric Espinosa

Over The Rhine Ghetto: In the ghetto

These pictures have been taken in Cincinnati, in the "Over the Rhine" ghetto downtown. From its earliest development, Over-the-Rhine has served as a port-of-entry for immigrants to Cincinnati. In the nineteenth century the community was home to people of all economic classes and included the poorest of immigrants, working class families, shop owners, and businessmen of means. For a majority of these new residents, the unifying element was the German language and culture. After World War II, Over-the-Rhine became a place where migrants looked for affordable housing and where employers looked for cheap labor. Over-the-Rhine historically has been a place where people new to the area try to make better lives for themselves. African-Americans today compromise the majority of Over-the-Rhine's population. The rapid rise of the African-American population has added a racial and ethnic character to the area. The majority of Over-the-Rhine’s current residents are poor and undereducated. Over-the-Rhine faces the same social problems that affect inner-city neighborhoods nationwide. Alcoholism, drug dependency, inadequate housing and homelessness are major concerns in the neighbourhood.

The Over-the-Rhine neighborhood lies just blocks from the downtown area of Cincinnati where some of America's largest corporations, such as Procter & Gamble and Kroger's Supermarkets, are headquartered. But over 90 percent of the area's 7,000 residents live below the official poverty level, and two-thirds of the apartment units are below code or abandoned.
   
Over the Rhine is Cincinnati’s most drug-infested and violent neighborhood. The area’s Italianate walk-ups, home in the late nineteenth century to one of America’s most culturally rich and densely populated German-American communities, today often are either abandoned or given over to methadone clinics, drop-in centers, or Section 8 public housing.
   
African-Americans today compromise the majority of Over-the-Rhine's population. The rapid rise of the African-American population has added a racial and ethnic character to the area.
     
  
The poverty rate in Over-the-Rhine approaches 95 percent, and the area houses many of the city's homeless shelters, soup kitchens and drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. A drive through the neighborhood provides a picture of destitution and desperation, with trash-filled lots, abandoned houses and storefronts and dozens of unemployed young men congregating on street corners with nothing to do. Most of those who work rely on the dozens of the low-paying day labor and temporary agencies that dot the neighborhood.
   
  
     
  
   
  
Cincinnati, which lies along the Ohio River across from the state of Kentucky, is traditionally a politically conservative town that votes Republican in national elections. The eruption of Over-the-Rhine and other predominantly black districts has revealed the explosive state of social relations in cities throughout the US. Entrenched poverty, staggering levels of social inequality, police abuse directed primarily against minorities are conditions that describe virtually every major urban center.
     
  
Dressed-up man in the ghetto on Sunday, in front of a vacant building. Over-the-Rhine has lost many of its housing over the years through disinvestment and demolition. Nearly a quarter of the apartments in Over-the-Rhine stood vacant in the 90's and still today, many of these units are uninhabitable without rehabilitation.
  
Over-The-Rhine contains the largest collection of 19th century Italianate architecture still standing in the United States. The entire 360 acre district of Over-the-Rhine is recognized on the National Historic Register.