Spotlight On: Laure Quinlivan

April 29, 2013

Interviewing fellow or former journalists often makes for a good interview because they’ve been on the other side of the tape recorder. They understand the five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why). That’s why I was especially excited to speak with Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan. Though she is not Cincinnati born and bred, Quinlivan has adopted the Queen City as her home. A career as an investigative reporter placed her in cities big and small i.e. New York, Nashville, Wilmington, and Washington, among others.

In 1995, the Toledo native and Miami University alum, came back to Ohio with a job on Channel 9′s I-Team. She produced a documentary in 2001 called Visions of Vine St. At that time, Vine St. was probably the most dangerous street in the city. Quinlivan credits the making of that documentary as part of the reason she’s in her job on council. “That’s when I really fell in love with the city.” She added, “This place used to be called the Paris of America at the turn of the century. We had it all. Imagining it and understanding we have a treasure trove with these buildings — the largest collection of Italianate architecture in the country.”

Charlie Luken was the mayor then, and he made Vine St. a top priority. In 2005, Quinlivan did a 30-minute follow up to the documentary. Lavomatic was just being created and there were other improvements as well, but the pace really picked up after ’05 when 3CDC came on board. Although there has been great progress with the Gateway Quarter, there is still plenty to do. “That’s a reason why I am a huge streetcar supporter. We still have over 500 vacant buildings waiting to be restored, and they won’t be if we don’t have modern public transportation. There are approximately 7,000 people here now; at the turn of the century, there were 100,000. Imagine how much room there is to grow, here in Over the Rhine [and the city] with everyone paying taxes,” Quinlivan said.

Laure with Bootsy Collins at the Evanston Memorial Day parade from 2009

So now that the highly divisive streetcar issue is out in the open, let’s learn a little bit more about Quinlivan: what makes her tick, what makes inspired her to join City Council, and what other visions she has for the Queen City.

To read the complete interview, please click HERE.

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