An Old-Time Reporter Wrote The Book Every Cincinnati Historian Should Memorize

Our fair city has been honored by a substantial library of books written about her. It is remarkable how many of the books about Cincinnati are well written, informative and entertaining. Some – I am looking at you, Charles Cist – still hold up after close to 200 years.Scanning a shelf ranging from Daniel Drake’s 1815 “Picture of Cincinnati” to Cist’s “Miscellany” and his trilogy of “Sketches” to Dabney’s “Colored Citizens” to the WPA Guide to Alvin F. Harlow’s “The Serene Cincinnatians” to Dick Perry’s “Vas You Ever,” it should be quite a task to name the premier volume ever written about the Queen City, but it’s not. There is really only one contender and it is Frank Y. Grayson’s 1924 “Pioneers of Night Life on Vine Street.”Grayson’s book is a collection of newspaper columns originally appearing in the Cincinnati Times-Star. The book was, in fact, published by the Times-Star with a delightfully droll cover illustrated by George Bristol, political and sports cartoonist for the paper.…