Dr. Know: Carew Tower, Plaques, and Zips

T he Carew Tower is just now starting a huge rehab. Will that include the iconic clock on its corner? It has four faces, each showing a different—and wrong—time. Fixing the clocks now would be good optics, but I can’t find any information about who handles Tower maintenance. Can you? —TIMES LIKE THOSE

DEAR THOSE:

To confirm your claim, the Doctor strolled the corner at Fifth and Vine streets, literally watching time pass by. He observed two of the Carew Tower clocks as almost correct and almost in sync. The other two are aimlessly drifting through the past, or perhaps the future. They could be obeying random pulses from the 1977 Voyager space probe.

As you observe, Carew Tower is commencing a long-overdue renovation. “Errant clock” probably does not rank high on anyone’s priority list, but because your point about optics has merit, the Doctor attempted to locate the Tower’s official timekeeper. That effort was, sadly, as circular as a clock: The lobby security guard provided a phone number for someone in New York, and that person suggested asking the lobby security guard. Therefore, fixing the clocks may or may not happen any time soon. We suggest a temporary semi-solution: Just stop them completely. Then, as the old saying goes, the four-faced clock will be accurate eight times a day.

CVG has a little-known Airplane Viewing Area outdoors, where I take my kids. A plaque there says that in 1880 the population center of the U.S. was “a few hundred yards” away. The kids want to know exactly where the true spot is, and why the airport didn’t put the plaque there. —REPLUNK THE PLAQUE

DEAR REPLUNK:

The second part of your question is easily answered, and we hope you quickly provided it: “Look around, kids! This is an airport! Is the exact spot out on one of those runways? Should they have curved the runway around the plaque like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon?” Never let pass an opportunity to educate your children.

CVG’s Airplane Viewing Area—we heartily recommend a visit—shows on its plaque the exact latitude-longitude coordinates of the center of U.S. population in 1880. Armed with these facts, the Doctor has determined precisely where a geographically accurate plaque would be and why it should not be: in the CVG employee parking lot on Loomis Road, right by the northernmost bus-shuttle pickup station. While the plaque could conceivably be placed at that spot, anyone wishing to see it would first need to get a job at the airport. It’s better that you and the family can enjoy the 1880 landmark from “a few hundred yards away.” The actual distance is more than two miles; don’t tell the kids.

A friend showed me photos she took at the American Sign Museum in Camp Washington. One includes a neon sign for Zip’s restaurant, but it can’t possibly be from Cincinnati’s legendary Zip’s on Mt. Lookout Square. It’s very different. Is that a local sign or from an imposter? —ZIP-A-DEE DON’T DAH

DEAR DON’T:

As above with the CVG Airplane Viewing Area, the Doctor recommends a visit to the American Sign Museum . This month a new area is opening there to display more beautifully restored signage, doubling both its square footage and its electric bill. The museum proudly shows many historic signs from Cincinnati businesses, some long-gone and others still thriving. But it is the American Sign Museum, so there are many nationally known signs and others from various locales.

The Doctor hopes you can someday be at peace with the fact that there is more than one restaurant in the U.S. named Zip’s. There’s one in Jupiter, Florida, and another in Magee, Mississippi. There’s a chain of Zip’s drive-ins in Idaho and Washington and a Miz Zip’s in Flagstaff, Arizona. The Zip’s Gastro and Bar in Hungary doesn’t qualify as American, but Zip’s Diner in Danielson, Connecticut, certainly does, and that’s what gave birth to the sign that now glows in comfortable retirement at our Sign Museum. Should Zip’s in Mt. Lookout ever close its doors permanently, please duck as its front awning flies to Camp Washington.

Dr. Know is Jay Gilbert, radio personality and advertising prankster. Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here .

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