Mount Auburn

It is said that Cincinnati, like Rome, was built upon 7 hills, but no two lists seem to agree on what those 7 hills are.  One that all lists have, however, is Mt. Auburn.  Mt. Auburn was the birthplace of arguably Cincinnati's most famous native son, William Howard Taft.  If you haven't been to the National Historic Site in Mt. Auburn, I highly recommend you visit and take a tour (although I hear their best tour guide ever retired from the job many years ago).  I actually couldn't find the typical map image I use for the neighborhood, so I screen captured what Google said the neighborhood boundaries were.  It's tough to see the red dashed lines, though.

My brain kept going to old Tafty and his big mustache like the photo below.


So here is

FLAG 1

The moustache symbolizes the neighborhoods most famous resident.  The three vertical bars are the break the plainness of the white field and to prevent too much white from showing when the flag hangs limp.

But then I thought about what Taft is unfortunately most famous for, getting stuck in the tub!  So I made the flag below.  It should be noted, that that event did not happen in Cincinnati, though.

FLAG 2

Some may find this insulting, however.  So I kept looking.

Upon reading about the neighborhood I learned that it was called Key's Hill until 1837.  So I thought I would try making a key the symbol of the neighborhood.  Turns out that there are lots of flags (almost all European) that use keys in their symbolism.    

I saw this flag from De Marne, a city in the Netherlands.  It works really well because the key could symbolize Key's Hill and the wavy line mirrors the wavy lines on the Cincinnati flag.

I straight up am just going to steal this flag design and try to Cincyify it a bit by using Cincinnati flag colors.

FLAG 3

and a different color combo

FLAG 4

But then I thought, if I am going to use Cincy colors, the Mt Auburn flag should mirror the Cincy flag as close as possible. 

FLAG 5

But then I though that I have used the Cincinnati colors on many flags and began looking for a more unique color scheme for Mt. Auburn.  One day I was driving near UC and noticed one of the Uptown informational signs.  Uptown is the correct name for the group of neighborhoods, surrounding UC, not Clifton!  The idea of Pan-Uptown colors came to mind since I just did the Pan-Westside colors.  I went to the Uptown Consortium wepage and noticed that the little logo that came up (which is the word "up" btw) was blue and orange.  That would be unique.  Very few national or state flags use the color orange, let alone blue and orange together.  Interesting because it is a fairly common sports team color combo.  So I tried the flags again taking the colors from the Uptown logo.  The logo is below

I was going to focus on the "up" because the creators of this logo just decided to throw every color in their logo just to be sure.  

FLAG 5

I actually like this color scheme, I find it a nice combo.  But then I was thinking I've seen this color scheme on a flag somewhere before.  Remember, I am a flag nerd so I have seen a lot of flags.  A little bit of searching Google for blue and orange flags revealed this, the flag of Tierra del Fuego Argentina.

Very similar shades of blue and orange used here too, but they are a bit less "metallic" maybe?  I tried Flag 5 again with the blue and orange from the del Fuego flag.

FLAG 6

I am having a hard time deciding which blue I like better.  The blue from the Uptown logo is almost a grayish color.  The Tierra del Fuego blue is more vibrant, but may be too much with the orange.  The orange, by the way, was an imperceptible difference in shade which I find interesting.

Next. I tried making Flag 5 but swapping out the colors, making the background orange, the wave blue and the key white.

FLAG 7

That doesn't seem right to me.  So let's try a blue key and a white wave.

FLAG 8

But again, it just doesn't contrast as well as the blue background version.

Finally, I went back to FLAG 2 and redid it in the Uptown Slate Blue and Orange (I'm calling it.)

FLAG 9

Two coincidences occurred to me as I finished this blog.  One is, the key flag I used is Dutch, and the Dutch national sports colors are orange and blue.  See their very similar blue and orange from their 2008-2010 home soccer kits below.

Also, Auburn University (which is in absolutely no way linked to Mt. Auburn) color's are blue and orange, although a much darker shade of blue.

I know I just recolored all the key flags from the Dutch flag but they seem way superior to the mustache and tub flags.  I was looking for another symbol for him but I just couldn't come up with one.  Maybe a former Taft National Historic Site tour guide could help me.

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