Back in 2009 I had the oppurunity to tour the guts of the Cincinnati Music Hall and interview staff about the haunted happenings in the enormus building. It was a facinating trip through Cincinnati’s darker past of grave robbing, poor houses, and pauper’s graves which have resulted in the hauntings of both Washington Park and the Cincinnati Music Hall (CMH.) For the past two years CMH has been closed for a 129 Million dollar restoration project, which saw a larger stage put in, the box seats removed, and all new chairs for the auditorium, plus cosmetic and internal renovations of the structure itself. At 9:30AM today the doors were opened to the public, with free tours and hourly performances by the Cincinnati Opera and Cincinnati Symphony Orchastra.
Ironcially, that’s not why I was downtown today- I was there to welcome back friends to Cincinnati who are here for a wedding. We met up at the Taste of Belgium in Over-The-Rhine (neighborhood in downtown Cincinnati) and learned about this CMH event during brunch. We had a fabulous time touring the building and admiring the new paint job that the has been done! The walls have gone from a guilded gold/red/ cream colors to more relaxing and contemporary platnium/ warm-gray/ white colors.
But I am sure the ghosts still haunt the hall.
After touring the building, we picked up some Holtzman Donuts! Holtman’s opened shortly before we moved away from Cincinnati in 2015, and I had yet to try out their famous maple-bacon donut. Stay tuned for an update, I haven’t had it yet but will eat it as an afternoon snack.
All-in-all I’m happy to see the Cincinnati Music Hall back up and running and open to the public. Next week is the Blink Festival, and the CMH is a fixture of that event. Naturally, we’ll be going to that too, and hopefully I’ll have plenty of photos of that next weekend.
Cheers,
Kat
