CINCINNATI — There have been many instances throughout U.S. history where railroads and highways have divided neighborhoods and displaced residents.
That's what happened in Cincinnati nearly 60 years with the creation of the Brent Spence Bridge. But with a new bridge project in the works, city leaders said they vow to help correct that wrong.
Cincinnati’s West End “Kenyon Barr” neighborhood is where more than 25,000 Black residents called home during the early 1900s. But then a flood in 1937 ripped through town.
“The neighborhood was underwater,” said Brian Boland, the director of the Bridge Forward Coalition. “The city kind of gave up on the neighborhood, kind of mentally. So they didn't invest in it. It was kind of left behind, if you will.”
Bridge Forward Coalition is an organization that has done research on how the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Cincinnati to Covington, Ky., has impacted Black neighborhoods.
Boland said building the 1-75 and 1-71 highways to connect to the bridge from the West End was the city’s solution to improving the neighborhood.
“Our city administration thought, you know, not only can we build the highway, but we can kind of fix that neighborhood that we've underinvested in and build something new in its place,” he said.
Instead, it displaced thousands of residents not only from this neighborhood, but other predominantly Black neighborhoods across Cincinnati. Boland has heard countless stories from those who were forced to leave.
“It might not have been the best neighborhood, but it was our neighborhood,” he said. “And they talked about, you know, the troubles that you have in any neighborhood of the kids wanting to fool around and get in trouble and the grown ups trying to keep them in line.”
In an effort to better reconnect those neighborhoods, the City of Cincinnati and other partners are working on the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project. Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said the $2.77 billion project would include infrastructure improvements to help reclaim land downtown and across the river.
The estimated value of the new land is $20 million, and Pureval said it could generate more than $500,000 a year in real estate taxes.
“We're also doing everything within our power to recapture the special opportunity and reconnect the West End and Queensgate with the rest of our urban core,” Pureval said.
Construction is expected to begin a year or two from now. Boland and his team have been helping with the design of this project since 2020, and it is his hope that the cries and concerns of those in the Black community are heard and considered throughout the process.
“Those are the stories that we, in part of our push, want to try and make up for by reconnecting across this highway,” he said.