DR. KNOW

Q + A

I am stalled researching my family history. According to old Cincinnati directories, my great uncle moved in 1947 from Marquis Street in Walnut Hills to Layton Alley. But I can’t find a Layton Alley on any map, old or new. Where did my Uncle Arthur go? I’ve lost him. Help! —CRYING UNCLE

DEAR CRYING: The Doctor, proudly flexing his six-pack of research muscle, found Layton Alley and your Uncle Arthur. Solving this mystery, however, uncovered something even more mysterious. Follow along:

In 1936, Uncle Arthur’s front door was on Marquis Street in Walnut Hills. Outside his back door ran a slimmer street called Lawrence Al-

Dr. Know is Jay Gilbert, weekday afternoon deejay on 92.5 FM The Fox. Submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities at drknow@cincinnati magazine.com

ley—or so it seemed. The city had renamed it Layton Alley back in 1908, but mapmakers seemed to have missed the memo. They showed it as Lawrence Alley for decades, which is why your research stalled. But it got screwed up even more.

In 1947, for reasons unknown, the city of Cincinnati shoved all the addresses along Marquis Street over to Layton Alley. You didn’t “lose” Uncle Arthur; he never moved. He and all of his neighbors suddenly had their back doors designated as front doors. Did the city reimburse residents for new landscaping? Or maybe paid for rotating each property? We’ll never know, because the entire area was later obliterated by Interstate 71, possibly to hide any embarrassment.

When the “Capitoline wolf” statue in Eden Park was stolen in June, my older brother said it wasn’t the first time the statue has been attacked. He can’t remember the details, but he says about 10 years ago it was “dressed up in embarrassing clothing.” Do you know what that’s supposed to mean?

—WHEREVER I MAY ROME

DEAR WHEREVER: First, some history: Romulus and Remus were the original Property Brothers—the mythical founders of ancient Rome. A bronze statue there depicting them as babies suckling a wolf goes back centuries. In 1931, Italian dictator Mussolini bestowed a replica of the statue to us, an American city named for a Roman leader (Cincinnatus). And it was here our troubles began.

Italy delivered the wrong statue, only 30 inches long; kind of like that Stonehenge scene in the movie This Is Spinal Tap. This error was quickly corrected. Later, the fact that Mussolini’s best friend was Adolf Hitler became, um, triggering, and park officials had to hide the statue for a while. In the 1950s, some Cincinnatians briefly expressed discomfort with the babies’ exposed pee-pees, but we got over that.

The statue’s most recent humiliation