Just Askin': What divides East Side from West Side?

The Enquirer's Just Askin' series aims to answer the questions that no one seems to have an answer for, not even Google.

A Queen City rivalry for the ages: Yes, it's East Side versus West Side.

But where does one end and the other begin?

Question: What's the dividing line between the East Side and the West Side of Cincinnati?

Answer: Vine Street is the official divider between Cincinnati's two factions.

There are some opinions among locals about the official partition. Northsiders and College Hill residents might take it to their graves that they're "central," though that's not really an official thing, either.

Beginning at the Downtown riverfront, Vine Street meanders in a northern pattern through the city, all the way to St. Bernard. It bisects Over-the-Rhine and the Central Business District.

All east-west addresses begin at Vine Street and start at zero. For example, West Eighth Street begins at its intersection with Vine and goes into Lower Price Hill. All addresses east of there will be on East Eighth Street, which hits a dead end at Broadway.

At the city's founding, the partition was Main Street, according to Ohio History Connection historian Marlise Schoeny. That changed in 1896 when the city renumbered streets and chose Vine Street as the new starting point.

But not all communities identify as eastern or western. Why?

Residents of neighborhoods adjacent to Vine Street might fight you about whether they're East Side or West Side, or just drop the label all together.

For example, Clifton, Northside and College Hill all fall just west of the border, but residents there often don't identify as West Siders. The same goes for neighborhoods like Avondale and Bond Hill, which are directly adjacent to Vine Street's eastern edge.

Really, it becomes somewhat subjective, according to Price Hill Will commercial real estate director Ashley Feist. Those neighborhoods that self-identify as "central" fall into that category.

Feist said the divide has the Vine Street origin, but our meanings of East Side and West Side have been cultivated over generations by our own cultural ideas of what they are and how communities fit into those molds.

But at the end of the day, it's still a geography issue. And Vine Street is the best place to start.

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This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati East vs. West: Where do they begin and end?