The Voice - August 2020
/City Update
Submitted by City Manager Tom Fromme
While the city building is closed to the public, all meetings of the Board of Commissioners, Board of Adjustments, Planning and Zoning, and Historic Preservation will be available for viewing on the city’s Facebook page listed below. Please check the city’s website for dates and times of meetings.
Applications for occupational licenses, signage, zoning issues, conditional use permits, Certificates of Appropriateness (COA), and more are available on the city’s website. Enter the specific application you seek and you will be directed to the related information and application.
Applications can be processed online or you may place them in one of the lockboxes located inside the city building’s entry doors at 998 Monmouth St.
City employees continue to meet with business and residential owners to ensure development, construction and renovation projects move forward. I am happy to report that more than 30 new businesses have opened during COVID-19! This is a good sign for Newport. Hopefully, delayed ribbon-cutting ceremonies will take place in a couple months.
Your continued support of shopping and dining in the city is greatly appreciated by our business owners. The regulations and guidelines that business owners follow ensure they are able to keep their brick and mortar businesses open during these unprecedented times.
Newport Resources:
City Website: http://www.newportky.gov/
City Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CityofNewportKY/
Sign-up to receive timely city updates, and tune in for the Board of Commissioners meeting on Monday, August 17, 7pm.
Newport History Museum @ The Southgate Street School Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewportHistoryMuseumattheSouthgateStreetSchool/
As always, if you have any questions, please email bholiday@newportky.gov or call my office at 859-292-3687. Great things are happening in Newport!
Thanks for making Newport a great place to live, work, shop, dine and play.
In Search of the Elusive NEWPORT Brick
Hershell Freeman, longtime brick collector, is pictured here with his derrick brick.
By John Gilliam
Bricks are a big deal — both in Newport and around the world. Our local brick collectors enjoy trading and giving away bricks from their collections. Perhaps you’ve passed by some of the most coveted local bricks in our East Row walkways, alleys, walls, and even in your own backyard, and wondered about the story behind them.
If you look around town for bricks that say NEWPORT, good luck! They are out there, but hard to find.
The first one I saw was in Loveland, Ohio where I met Peggy French, the beloved editor of the International Brick Collectors journal. She gave me a NEWPORT brick and that got me started. There is now on Brown Alley (behind Lexington Av.), a 6' high wall that I built. Another NEWPORT brick is faintly readable right at the end of Brown Alley. Unfortunately, the fading is typical since most NEWPORT bricks have not aged well. If you want to see one in good condition, head to Central Avenue.
Mike Kolb has an excellent NEWPORT brick that he found while digging up a privy for bottles on York St. Mike is an interesting guy with all kinds of talents such as mixing up mortar or shellac to just the right shade. We have something in common. We both broke our pelvis in spectacular fashion, but that’s a story for another day.
John Phelps happened upon a stray NEWPORT brick at his Park Av. house and now he has two of them mortared up near his rooftop. A must see!
Hershell and Nancy Freeman are longtime members of the Brick Collectors. Married for 60 years with a daughter, Jo Ellen, they live on Oak St. and operate Star Building Materials out of Florence. You can actually buy used bricks there. And yes, Hershell has a NEWPORT brick.
I live on the 700 block of Washington Av. these days, with plenty of bricks. The Guatemalan workers up the street made a deal with me: Ladrillos por duraznos. They had the even rarer NPB Co. bricks; I had peaches. All the evidence pointed to the fact that the Newport Pressed Brick Company must have made the NEWPORT bricks.
You can also find DERRICK bricks out there. Some were made in Newport, some in Cincinnati but there is no way to know if a DERRICK brick is actually from Newport.
The former mayor of Newport, Johnny TV Peluso, knew as much as anybody about our town. I asked him where I could find NEWPORT bricks, but I was too late. There had been a whole hillside of them but they were buried by a bulldozer.
As it turns out, the best place for NEWPORT brick spotting is on O'Fallon St. in Bellevue. Young rehabbers Shawn Morris and Holly Campbell have an all NEWPORT sidewalk leading up to their house. It’s best viewed on a wet day.
Back in the day, bricks were big business with at least 12 Newport brick manufacturers, including:
Newport Pressed Brick and Stone Company made the NEWPORT and NPBCo bricks
Frank J Derrick & Co. might have made the Derrick bricks.
As far as we know, the other companies didn't make any marked bricks.
Adam Ebert
Henry Fundchar
Dr. Aug Hembolt
Newport Brick Co. 1906
L'T' Pyle
Bernard Silman
H.C. Spinks Clay Co.
Richard Judkamp
George Tippehauer
Peter Tippenhauer
From left, As far as we know, Shawn Morris and Holly Campbell are the only local residents with an all-NEWPORT brick sidewalk leading up to their home. While excavating an old outhouse, mike kolb found his fine specimen of a Newport brick amidst other discarded items and John Phelps, far right, installed his Newport bricks into the wall of his home (see brick toward bottom right of photo).
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps: Finding Your Home's Roots
By Paula Brandon
Living in our historic neighborhood, we of course wonder who and what came before us. Is the half-buried foundation in my backyard a remnant of a stable? Was my home ever a business? Is the extension on the back original to the house? What kind of store existed in that building on the corner? A great place to dive into the past is the Kenton County Public Library, with its Sanborn Fire Insurance Map collection. With a little digging, the library branch at 502 Scott Blvd., Covington can help reveal a fascinating, historical record of your home and its urban surroundings.
Sanborn maps were created for insurance purposes, to document the structures and hazards of urban settings. As a happy coincidence, they can offer you an early snapshot of your neighborhood and your home. Start your search upstairs in the library’s Local History & Genealogy Department where the large-scale, original Sanborn maps of Newport are bound into oversized books. Knowledgeable librarians will point you in the right direction to find the maps you need, to reveal interesting and unexpected details. Snap photos with your cell phone or print out information using the library’s digital map collection. Sanborn maps may look cryptic at first, but the key to deciphering symbols and abbreviations is included. Get ready to have fun and learn something new when you open the Sanborn map books.
Learn more about:
Above, Newport’s 1886 riverfront was bustling with industry and manufacturing, as noted on Sanborn maps. Although many of our street names have changed over the years, once you get acquainted with the maps, they are easy to use. Here we see the structures of the Cincinnati & Newport Iron & Pipe Co. at the foot of Washington St., along with the nearby Moore, Harkness & Bayless Alligator Stove Foundry.
At left, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps can reveal details about your home’s original construction and configuration using abbreviations for windows, bedrooms, porches, businesses, outbuildings, and more.
Reminder: Get Your Certificate of Appropriateness BEFORE Starting Your Project
Submitted by Scott Clark, Historic Preservation Officer and Executive Director, Newport History Museum
Greetings from the Newport Historic Preservation Office and the Newport History Museum! As of this writing, the City of Newport Historic Preservation office is continuing to work without direct contact with the public. This is for the safety of the public and the employees of our city.
We are still accepting COA applications by mail and email, and are available to talk with contractors and citizens by phone or email, so that any outside projects you may have within our historic districts may go forward without interruption.
Please submit your projects to Scott Clark, sclark@newportky.gov or contact Scott at 859-655-6347.
The Newport History Museum at the Southgate Street School has cancelled all planned events and will be using the time to make repairs, establish new displays and clean and prepare to reopen to celebrate Newport's 225th anniversary.
Thanks to the digital age, there are plenty of online resources for virtual tours of museums, historic houses and parks connected with international museums, the National Trust for Historic Places and the National Park Service. Please enjoy these online tours while we are paused for the current situation.
Our historic city has weathered many changes and challenges throughout our 225 years as a vibrant community. We are proudly celebrating our diverse past — and making history every day.
Celebrate Newport’s History
New Riff Community Bourbon Barrel Bottles Available for Purchase: The limited edition 225th anniversary bottles “Proudly Celebrating Our Diverse Past & Making History Every Day” are now available for purchase in the New Riff Distillery Gift Shop at 24 Distillery Way. Thanks to New Riff’s generous donation, a portion of each bottle sold will benefit the 225th Anniversary Celebration of Newport’s History.
The Newport History Museum @ The Southgate Street School is offering for purchase a limited supply of architectural pieces from the former 1936 Fourth Street School. All proceeds from the sale will benefit the promotion and interpretation of the 225-year history of the City of Newport.
Items Available for Purchase:
Terra Cotta Decorative Block - $55
Slate Deli Cheese Board - $28
Oak and Brass Stair Railings - $75
Newport 225 Coasters and magnets are also available, locally handcrafted by Studio Vertu.
Coasters - $10
Magnets - $6
Delivery within Newport will be arranged. Please contact Scott Clark at sclark@newportky.gov for ordering items from the former Fourth Street School. Thank you for your continual support of the Newport History Museum!
The Voice
Editor: Paula Brandon
Send articles to voice@eastrow.org. The editor reserves the right to edit or reject submissions due to length or content.
