Why The Banks in Cincinnati is AWESOME

Is The Banks the BEST Place in Cincinnati, OH?

Like every Cincinnatian, I am so excited for Spring to be here. This week, I went down to The Banks to shoot a bit of a tour and an overview, and I was reminded at how awesome of a place it is. The tulips and all of the trees at Smale Riverfront Park aren’t even in full bloom yet. The Reds haven’t begun their season at Great American Ballpark, but … it’s close!

Being down at The Banks just makes me happy. It’s so well designed and such a beautiful place. But, what about you? I’m curious. How do you rank The Banks? Do you like it? Do you have other places in Cincinnati you enjoy more? I’d love to hear from you. Please be sure to comment on the YouTube video!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

It’s just designed so beautifully, it’s such a pleasant aesthetically place to be. And you get these awesome, beautiful views of the skyline. And just being down here at The Banks and Smale Park is one of my favorite places to be in Cincinnati, hands down.

YouTube, what’s going on? We’ve been checking out different areas and neighborhoods in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. And today, we are in one of my favorite places, which is The Banks, which is right downtown and an awesome area of one of my favorite parts of Cincinnati.

All right. Hey guys, welcome back. It’s Eric Sztanyo from Keller Williams Realty and TeamSztanyo.com, where we are helping families find their way home. And I’m a Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Realtor. And if you’ve been thinking about moving to Cincinnati, or just want to know a little bit more about the neighborhoods, things to do, the different parks, just the different restaurants, fun places to be, that’s what we’re going through in this video today.

An Overview of The Banks in Downtown Cincinnati, OH

And we’re talking about The Banks, which is right on the Southern end of downtown Cincinnati, basically. And essentially, it’s the area between the two stadiums. So in Cincinnati we have two professional, well, we have three professional sports teams now, with FC Cincinnati, but traditionally we’ve had the Cincinnati Bengals (it’s hard to be a Bengals fan), and the Cincinnati Reds. It’s a little easier to be a Reds fan, but it’s been a drought for both teams.

But the area we’re looking at today, if you can see behind me, right over here, you can see these lights. That’s Great American Ballpark. And if I turn around here, maybe you can see this as well. Where am I? Oh, it’s kind of hard to see, it’s blocked here, but right behind this building, right here … Let me move over here. Okay. Yeah, if you guys can see that right there, that is Paul Brown Stadium, where our man, Joe Burrow has taken over the team and is going to lead us to the promised land. I’m telling you, it’s going to happen. Whodey!

The Banks Offers Great Architecture, Restaurants, Pro Sports, Parks and More

So what is so great about The Banks down here? Man, a lot of things. For one, the architecture is beautiful. If you can see this right here, it’s the Roebling Bridge. If you recognize that bridge at all, that’s the bridge that I have in my icon for Team Sztanyo, because I just think it’s absolutely gorgeous. It kicks off the skyline. If you’ve never been to Cincinnati, and maybe you fly into CVG and you’re coming around from Northern Kentucky into downtown, and you come around the corner and you see the skyline, it’s really striking the first time you see it. Well, part of that is because the Roebling Bridge is absolutely beautiful.

So what else do you have down here? You have tons of great restaurants. I love going to the Yard House, where they give you beers the size of a yard, which is amazing. You got Christian Moerlein Lager House. You’ve got Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. You’ve got Condado Tacos, Taste of Belgium, all kinds of really, really good restaurants down here. The other place that’s known for that in Cincinnati is on the North side of downtown in Over-The-Rhine, OTR. Make sure you check out our other video that we did on OTR. We’ll put a link in the description down below.

But the other place in terms of really good restaurants, places you might want to go for a date, places you just might want to hang out, places that you’re going to have a lot of fun in, in between all the Reds games where it’s popping down here, 81 games of the year, and the Bengals stadium into the fall and winter, this is an area that’s, it’s just fun to be here. It used to be a complete wasteland. I grew up in Northern Kentucky, and so we used to park in Covington for Reds games, which is right across the river here, walk across this bridge and everything where I’m standing right now was just a complete muddy disaster mess. It was terrible.

And where this little park is, let’s see here, right behind me, there used to be Cinergy Field, before that was called Riverfront Stadium. And they blew that thing to smithereens, that old donut-shaped seventies stadium that they used to have here. They built this beautiful Great American Ballpark. And really, since then, they redid the highways, they’ve made this area, it’s been building and building and building, and it just keeps getting better every single year. It’s really fun. It’s really pretty. You’ve got awesome bike and running trails down right alongside the river that go for a few miles in either direction. So this is a place you really want to come and hang out and have a good time.

Living at The Banks in Cincinnati, OH

There’s some condo living down here, but there’s not a ton of residential space. So there might be different parts of downtown, like I said, OTR, where you might be living. The nice thing is, it’s not running right now, but when the streetcar gets running again, there’s a good transportation system in the Cincinnati streetcar that takes you from The Banks to OTR and different parts of downtown. So it’s really easy and convenient to get down here if you can’t live right down here. There is also the Central Riverfront Parking Garage, which makes parking at The Banks very easy and affordable.

So beyond the restaurants, the bars, the entertainment of the professional sports teams, you’ve also got some major corporations downtown. Obviously, you’re really close to the city busy business district, Great American, Western & Southern, some big employers down here, as well as GE, this building right behind me, which they just put a big corporate office down here. You also have a really cool museum.

Cincinnati, Where The North Meets The South

Now, a lot of people don’t realize, but Cincinnati, I mean, just on the other side of the river of me is Kentucky. And really, what Cincinnati is from a historical and geography points, we’re the North meets the South. So one of the coolest things that are down here at The Banks is the National Underground Freedom Museum, railroad … Gosh, I can’t remember, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Okay, that’s a mouthful.

So, yeah. The other thing you have here at The Banks is this really cool museum. It’s the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. And it tells all about, going back to the Civil War, the underground railroad, how slaves were basically made it from Kentucky into Ohio, really interesting stuff. So all kinds of very, very cool things to do down here at The Banks.

Smale Riverfront Park is a MUST See in Cincinnati

And the other thing, which I’m going to show you in just a minute, that is maybe my favorite thing down here is Smale Park, which is gorgeous. It’s beautiful. I’ve got five kids. And so, it’s amazing to bring your kids down to this park and play. So let’s go check that out. And we’re just at the start of spring, but when, when spring is going and summer’s going, the flowers and the … It’s just designed so beautifully, it’s such a pleasant, aesthetically place to be. And you get these awesome, beautiful views of the skyline. And just being down here at The Banks and Smale Park is one of my favorite places to be in Cincinnati, hands down.

All right, guys. So I’m down here on the river walking trail, and again, it’s just beautiful down here. It’s early spring. It’s Monday morning, so a lot of people at work. But you can see, I mean, you can imagine all the people who will be out here when it’s warm, it’s sunny, it’s hot, having picnics, having dates, just enjoying each other, enjoying a good time. Smale Park down here, and The Banks in general, is just an awesome place to be. So if you’re thinking about Cincinnati and you’re like, I don’t know much about that place, just wanted to give you guys a little bit more of a tour and an overview of what it actually looks like to be down here.

Can you put yourself in a position where you’re thinking, “Hey, that looks kind of cool. I didn’t realize Cincinnati had something like that.” So be sure to check out some of our other videos, guys. If you like this video, if it was helpful for you, give you a little bit better feel of the city, of being down by the river and seeing a little bit more what Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky is like, please like, subscribe. Appreciate you guys and we’ll see you in the next video.