Beginning in 2017, I spent multiple years doing archival research of The Independent Eye, an underground counterculture newspaper published in Cincinnati (1968-1975). My discovery of the Eye came after reading Jean-Francois Bizot's Free Press, an international overview of the underground press that gained momentum beginning in the sixties. Going through the archives, I managed to interview about two dozen of the original Eye staff members (founders, journalists, artists, photographers, volunteers) via cold calls or online correspondence. In partnering with the Public Library of Cincinnati, my project became threefold: a digitization of the original papers, a retrospective exhibition and panel discussion, and a modern tribute publication called Optic. At the time that I began my research, there was virtually no information online bout the Eye online besides a brief Wikipedia article and an outdated CityBeat article from back in 2004.
Over the years, I occasionally get questions from others after they discovered this project or the Eye in general. This page was created to serve as an all-encompassing "catch all" placeholder for my ongoing Independent Eye research and updates (see: "footnotes"), as well as a visual archive of ephemera and information for those interested: both of the paper itself and the multiple parts of my 2019 project. If you or someone you know were at all involved in the Eye in any capacity or want to communicate in general, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Quick links:
- Digitized archive of The Independent Eye
- Panel discussion video at downtown library feat. Jim Tarbell, Ellen Bierhorst, Monty Sher, Jim Tarbell & myself
- CityBeat cover story by Mackenzie Manley
- Torn Light feature by Hannah Blanchette
- WVXU audio interview
- Art Palace podcast
Over the years, I occasionally get questions from others after they discovered this project or the Eye in general. This page was created to serve as an all-encompassing "catch all" placeholder for my ongoing Independent Eye research and updates (see: "footnotes"), as well as a visual archive of ephemera and information for those interested: both of the paper itself and the multiple parts of my 2019 project. If you or someone you know were at all involved in the Eye in any capacity or want to communicate in general, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Quick links:
- Digitized archive of The Independent Eye
- Panel discussion video at downtown library feat. Jim Tarbell, Ellen Bierhorst, Monty Sher, Jim Tarbell & myself
- CityBeat cover story by Mackenzie Manley
- Torn Light feature by Hannah Blanchette
- WVXU audio interview
- Art Palace podcast
Project timeline: My research was done via numerous visits to the downtown Public Library's "Rare Book Room", which housed the majority of original Independent Eye newspapers. I was granted access to take photographs of the materials as the library worked to digitize the archive. Through this, I spent years going through the archives and contacting staff members listed.
I met with Ellen Bierhorst (via Jim Tarbell via librarian Brian Powers) for several hours at her stunning, historic Lloyd House home, the same house where the original Eye staff put the paper together starting in 1968. I later filled gaps by acquiring missing newspapers (specifically from the latter 1971-1975 era) that were donated by photographer Melvin Grier to John Hughes, who had them stored in a box in his photography dark room at the University of Cincinnati. Our exhibition and panel discussion was held on November 13, 2019. Ken Hawkins provided me with numerous original photographs that were used for our library exhibition Tecla Hirby mailed me original linoleum cut prints that were done for the Eye, including various logos and a print of Martin Luther King Jr.
From my initial project to the present, my interest in the Eye is the fascinating glimpse it provides of the counterculture and sociopolitical climate of its era. Despite the lack of budget and frequent staff turnover, the paper has a remarkably long longevity of seven years extending into the mid-seventies (most underground papers lasted only a few years or less). This feat is especially impressive considering the challenges of publishing an alternative paper in such a conservative city.
Interviews conducted: Jim Tarbell, Ellen Bierhorst, Melvin Grier, Ken Hawkins, Tecla Hirby, Bonnie Speeg, Joe Richards, Monty Sher, Kathy Beil-Morgan, Bill Hobson, Jerry Yukevich, Glen Ihrig, John Parkins, William Hobson, Ellen Reinstatler, Corky Johnson, Jack Lillie, Greg Hand, John Hughes
- Footnote (2025): Eye in new publications. One of the most rewarding parts about creating our digital Eye archive is seeing it cited as a resource for modern publications or other academic research. Last week, author Aaron G. Fountain Jr. published his historical overview of teen activism High School Students Unite!, which references multiple articles from the initial mimeographed editions of the Eye published in Yellow Springs in 1968. Kevin Schneck's book LGBTQ Cincinnati actually published the whole cover of the April, 1973 issue of the Eye, which includes a photo of an organized local march that took place on Gay Pride Weekend.
- Footnote (2024): RIP Ted Richards. I recently learned of the news that early Eye cartoonist and journalist Ted Richards passed away last year. A "Remembering Ted Richards" article published by The Comics Journal actually links to our CityBeat cover story on the Eye. If there was one single person associated with the Eye that I wish I could have been able to interview during my project (not counting founders Alex and Jennifer Varrone who had passed away), it would be Richards.
For one thing, Richards was the most singular cog in the infamous "schism" that splintered the staff of the Eye, with Richards going off to create his own, more politically radical paper Queen City Express. Anecdotally, Ted was undoubtedly a divisive figure whose name often did come up with the other Eye staffers who I spoke to. Sometimes there were rumblings that he was an informant who had infiltrated the group, others even mentioned him possibly being associated with the mysterious fire of the Eye's Vine Street offices. While there was undoubtedly tensions initially (see Ted's charged diatribe in the Cincinnati Post articles about the differing New Left philosophies and inner-workings of the two papers), it quickly died down. One edition of the Express called for a "truce" of sorts; meanwhile the Eye always published the Express's phone number on their "essential numbers" list.
Like other Eye artists like photojournalists Melvin Grier and Ken Hawkins, Richards went on to have a long and prolific artistic career. He left Cincinnati for good following the Queen City Express's short-lived run, relocating to California Bay Area to begin working on the Berkeley Tribe underground paper where the mecca of the leftist counterculture was taking place. Shortly after, he was a member of underground comix collective knowns as "Air Pirates" who spun subversive takes on Disney characters.
In the midst of my project around 2018-19, I had attempted to contact Richards a couple of times via the website of his computer business (it was hard to tell how active it was). I never got a response. Assuming he received the messages, it was unclear to me whether Richards would want to speak to me once I told him about my work and all of the others who I had already spoken to (was he aware of that negative reputation?), or perhaps he had no interest in revisiting that early period of his life. His time in Cincinnati was relatively short and a small blip compared to the rest of his career, after all. The Comics Journal article, however, included a fantastic photo (pictured below) of Ted drawings comics in Cincinnati circa 1968. If this date is indeed correct, Richards would almost assuredly be working on an Independent Eye piece, as the Express started the following year. This is a high quality version of the photo published in the old Cincinnati Post article about the Eye-Express rivalry. I noticed that the photo was credit to Ted's daughter Miranda Lee Richards, a Los Angeles-based musician. In contacting Miranda, she filled in some gaps for me: around 2019 was when her father's health began to decline and may have been why he had missed my original messages. Miranda said that she has much of Ted's original artwork, including from the Cincinnati area, in her storage and will be attempting to share some with me, as well as anything else relevant to this project.
I met with Ellen Bierhorst (via Jim Tarbell via librarian Brian Powers) for several hours at her stunning, historic Lloyd House home, the same house where the original Eye staff put the paper together starting in 1968. I later filled gaps by acquiring missing newspapers (specifically from the latter 1971-1975 era) that were donated by photographer Melvin Grier to John Hughes, who had them stored in a box in his photography dark room at the University of Cincinnati. Our exhibition and panel discussion was held on November 13, 2019. Ken Hawkins provided me with numerous original photographs that were used for our library exhibition Tecla Hirby mailed me original linoleum cut prints that were done for the Eye, including various logos and a print of Martin Luther King Jr.
From my initial project to the present, my interest in the Eye is the fascinating glimpse it provides of the counterculture and sociopolitical climate of its era. Despite the lack of budget and frequent staff turnover, the paper has a remarkably long longevity of seven years extending into the mid-seventies (most underground papers lasted only a few years or less). This feat is especially impressive considering the challenges of publishing an alternative paper in such a conservative city.
Interviews conducted: Jim Tarbell, Ellen Bierhorst, Melvin Grier, Ken Hawkins, Tecla Hirby, Bonnie Speeg, Joe Richards, Monty Sher, Kathy Beil-Morgan, Bill Hobson, Jerry Yukevich, Glen Ihrig, John Parkins, William Hobson, Ellen Reinstatler, Corky Johnson, Jack Lillie, Greg Hand, John Hughes
- Footnote (2025): Eye in new publications. One of the most rewarding parts about creating our digital Eye archive is seeing it cited as a resource for modern publications or other academic research. Last week, author Aaron G. Fountain Jr. published his historical overview of teen activism High School Students Unite!, which references multiple articles from the initial mimeographed editions of the Eye published in Yellow Springs in 1968. Kevin Schneck's book LGBTQ Cincinnati actually published the whole cover of the April, 1973 issue of the Eye, which includes a photo of an organized local march that took place on Gay Pride Weekend.
- Footnote (2024): RIP Ted Richards. I recently learned of the news that early Eye cartoonist and journalist Ted Richards passed away last year. A "Remembering Ted Richards" article published by The Comics Journal actually links to our CityBeat cover story on the Eye. If there was one single person associated with the Eye that I wish I could have been able to interview during my project (not counting founders Alex and Jennifer Varrone who had passed away), it would be Richards.
For one thing, Richards was the most singular cog in the infamous "schism" that splintered the staff of the Eye, with Richards going off to create his own, more politically radical paper Queen City Express. Anecdotally, Ted was undoubtedly a divisive figure whose name often did come up with the other Eye staffers who I spoke to. Sometimes there were rumblings that he was an informant who had infiltrated the group, others even mentioned him possibly being associated with the mysterious fire of the Eye's Vine Street offices. While there was undoubtedly tensions initially (see Ted's charged diatribe in the Cincinnati Post articles about the differing New Left philosophies and inner-workings of the two papers), it quickly died down. One edition of the Express called for a "truce" of sorts; meanwhile the Eye always published the Express's phone number on their "essential numbers" list.
Like other Eye artists like photojournalists Melvin Grier and Ken Hawkins, Richards went on to have a long and prolific artistic career. He left Cincinnati for good following the Queen City Express's short-lived run, relocating to California Bay Area to begin working on the Berkeley Tribe underground paper where the mecca of the leftist counterculture was taking place. Shortly after, he was a member of underground comix collective knowns as "Air Pirates" who spun subversive takes on Disney characters.
In the midst of my project around 2018-19, I had attempted to contact Richards a couple of times via the website of his computer business (it was hard to tell how active it was). I never got a response. Assuming he received the messages, it was unclear to me whether Richards would want to speak to me once I told him about my work and all of the others who I had already spoken to (was he aware of that negative reputation?), or perhaps he had no interest in revisiting that early period of his life. His time in Cincinnati was relatively short and a small blip compared to the rest of his career, after all. The Comics Journal article, however, included a fantastic photo (pictured below) of Ted drawings comics in Cincinnati circa 1968. If this date is indeed correct, Richards would almost assuredly be working on an Independent Eye piece, as the Express started the following year. This is a high quality version of the photo published in the old Cincinnati Post article about the Eye-Express rivalry. I noticed that the photo was credit to Ted's daughter Miranda Lee Richards, a Los Angeles-based musician. In contacting Miranda, she filled in some gaps for me: around 2019 was when her father's health began to decline and may have been why he had missed my original messages. Miranda said that she has much of Ted's original artwork, including from the Cincinnati area, in her storage and will be attempting to share some with me, as well as anything else relevant to this project.
Ted Richards drawing an Independent Eye illustration in 1968. Photo courtesy of Miranda Lee Richards
Footnote (2023): Melvin Grier's Memoir. Renowned photojournalist and early Eye photographer Melvin Grier has published a memoir, It Was Always About The Work. Melvin's spectacular photography was not only one of the essential features of the Eye, but he was extremely important in my project being what it was. Melvin was one of the first Eye people I attempted to contact via a cold phone call, and he was extremely generous with his time, including providing some invaluable anecdotes about the early history of the Eye. I met Melvin at our exhibition and panel discussion in 2019, along with his late wife Brenda who also helped work on the paper. Inadvertently, I later filled a lot of gaps by acquiring missing Eye papers and files of ephemera via a box that was sitting in the dark room of UC professor John Hughes. Those had been donated to him by Melvin years ago.
In May of last year, Melvin invited me to his house in Avondale as he was working on his memoir. I was able to provide him with some of the rare photographs and pieces of his that I had gathered during my project. A true jazz aficionado, we ended up spending a lot of time going through his extensive LP location and talking music, as well as listening to the classic Miles Davis album Kind of Blue on his hi-fi living room stereo.
Melvin Grier speaking at the 2019 Independent Eye retrospective
Footnote (2024): Strawberry Sunday: Along with their own local artists like the Lemon Pipers, most people associate Cincinnati and the late sixties rock/folk boom with the Ludlow Garage, and for good reason. Despite lasting just 17 months, Jim Tarbell's legendary venue was a unique converted autogarage furnished with humorously oversized rocking chairs and massive Oriental rugs. Tarbell had been inspired by a trip to San Francisco's pioneering psychedelic ballrooms and making contact with Bill Graham. His earliest local ventures including organizing the post-Woodstock "First Annual Midwest Mini-Pop Festival" at the Cincinnati Zoo. The year prior, Tarbell ran a "Hyde Park Teen Center" and brought the Grateful Dead to town for the first time in November of '68. Shows at the Garage were eclectic; various performances included Captain Beefheart and Ry Cooder, The Staple Singers, The Kinks, BB King and the Bonzo Dog Band. NRBQ and the Allman Brothers infamously released live albums sourced from the Garage's soundboard recordings. Those well versed in local music history will know that the similarly short-lived Black Dome (located at the corner of Calhoun and Vine) actually predated the Garage.
The Independent Eye proved to be one of the most invaluable resources for digging into the music scene in this era, with innumerable source documents: issues are filled with original advertisements for shows at the Black Dome, Ludlow Garage and beyond. Multiple fascinating, first hand articles were written about experiences at both, sometimes in an attempt to get people out to support the venues when they were nearing their end.
Of course, the Eye's coverage went well beyond the national shows as well.
"Vibration" took place in July of '68, with the Eye reporting about 4,000 attendees. The event was sponsored by radio station WEBN and its emcee was Michael Xanadu (host of the notorious "Jelly Pudding radio show). The Sacred Mushroom played, and other on-stage entertainment included a hybrid martial arts/ballet performance courtesy of the "Korean Karate Association".
The Independent Eye proved to be one of the most invaluable resources for digging into the music scene in this era, with innumerable source documents: issues are filled with original advertisements for shows at the Black Dome, Ludlow Garage and beyond. Multiple fascinating, first hand articles were written about experiences at both, sometimes in an attempt to get people out to support the venues when they were nearing their end.
Of course, the Eye's coverage went well beyond the national shows as well.
"Vibration" took place in July of '68, with the Eye reporting about 4,000 attendees. The event was sponsored by radio station WEBN and its emcee was Michael Xanadu (host of the notorious "Jelly Pudding radio show). The Sacred Mushroom played, and other on-stage entertainment included a hybrid martial arts/ballet performance courtesy of the "Korean Karate Association".
Footnote (2023): Remaining Buildings and the Infamous Fire: As a follow-up to the previous footnote about the Peace & Freedom Center, I had mentioned that the building was one of many of the original Eye facilities that was still standing during my initial project around 2018. So, what are the others?
The most noteworthy is the John Uri Lloyd House, a historic Clifton home designed by architect James W. McLaughlin in 1888 (McLaughlin's designed such local buildings as the original Cincinnati Art Museum and several original Zoo structures). Ellen Bierhorst (formerly Sher) has lived in the house since the sixties, where the mansion was the primary venue where the Independent Eye was produced; a gathering place for the production and communal potluck gatherings for the staff. I had the opportunity to meet with Ellen at the stunning Lloyd House in 2018, which was one of the most important jumping off points for my Eye research project. Bierhorst's parents purchased the house in 1957, and she and her husband Monty moved back into the house in 1965 (their involvement in the Eye came three years later). Monty served as the "Cincinnati editor" of the paper in the early days when the "Southwest Ohio" tag meant there were multiple regional editors in Cincinnati, Yellow Springs and Dayton. Now owning the property for over fifty years, Bierhorst still operates her holistic psychology practice out of the home and rents out other parts of the castle-like mansion.
The Lloyd House is mentioned in the May, 1970 Cincinnati Post article about the Independent Eye, in which the author George Gilbert visits the home to oversee the daily operations of the staff. "The headquarters of the Independent Eye is a splendid, 15-room, three-story stone Victorian mansion in one of the Cincinnati's best residential districts". The article ran in conjunction with one the following issue about the Queen City Express, the "rival", more radical paper published by former Eye cartoonist/journalist Ted Richards. That piece chronicles a tense incident in which Express staff staged a "raiding party" to confront the Eye people on the lawn of the Lloyd House, shouting things like "property is theft" and questioning how one can be an ally of the people when having such lavish living conditions.
The most noteworthy is the John Uri Lloyd House, a historic Clifton home designed by architect James W. McLaughlin in 1888 (McLaughlin's designed such local buildings as the original Cincinnati Art Museum and several original Zoo structures). Ellen Bierhorst (formerly Sher) has lived in the house since the sixties, where the mansion was the primary venue where the Independent Eye was produced; a gathering place for the production and communal potluck gatherings for the staff. I had the opportunity to meet with Ellen at the stunning Lloyd House in 2018, which was one of the most important jumping off points for my Eye research project. Bierhorst's parents purchased the house in 1957, and she and her husband Monty moved back into the house in 1965 (their involvement in the Eye came three years later). Monty served as the "Cincinnati editor" of the paper in the early days when the "Southwest Ohio" tag meant there were multiple regional editors in Cincinnati, Yellow Springs and Dayton. Now owning the property for over fifty years, Bierhorst still operates her holistic psychology practice out of the home and rents out other parts of the castle-like mansion.
The Lloyd House is mentioned in the May, 1970 Cincinnati Post article about the Independent Eye, in which the author George Gilbert visits the home to oversee the daily operations of the staff. "The headquarters of the Independent Eye is a splendid, 15-room, three-story stone Victorian mansion in one of the Cincinnati's best residential districts". The article ran in conjunction with one the following issue about the Queen City Express, the "rival", more radical paper published by former Eye cartoonist/journalist Ted Richards. That piece chronicles a tense incident in which Express staff staged a "raiding party" to confront the Eye people on the lawn of the Lloyd House, shouting things like "property is theft" and questioning how one can be an ally of the people when having such lavish living conditions.
Lloyd House circa 2019
By September of 1970, the Eye offices moved to 2283 Vine Street., the first of a series of identical rowhouses on the downhill section of Vine going from Clifton to Over-the-Rhine. The paper had previously held a circulation office just up the street at (now demolished) 4 E. McMillan Street, on the corner of McMillan & Vine close to the Cincinnati Free Clinic which was often written up in the Eye. It would appear that the 4 E. McMillan office shared spaces with hippie boutiques such as one called "Blew Mind". The latter office at 2283 Vine was where the mysteriously infamous firebombing arson took place on September 8, 1970. The house still stands today and is remarkably mostly unchanged from 1970 (see photos below).
The fire, of course, is one of the most divisive incidents in the history of the Eye, and numerous people who I spoke to gladly offered up their opinion on it. Most of those opinions were that local police themselves were responsible, in an attempt to retrieve information such as Eye subscription lists and financial receipts. The local arson squad claimed the fire was intentional, but the investigation (or lack thereof) went unsolved. Michael Wood, then-editor of the Eye (who also lived on the third floor of the 2283 house) claimed that he was held back by "plainclothes personnel" broke into filing cabinets and such to retrieve those documents. A few weeks later, the September 11 issue of the Independent Eye published an issue with the headline "FIRE!" and chronicled their anecdotal account of the incident, including publishing photographs of the aforementioned broken-in filing cabinets. In the words of Wood, the police "didn't do an investigation. They just got out a paintbrush".
That article didn't hold back. They claim that three days prior to the arson, an anonymous caller phoned the Cincinnati Switchboard with claims that the Eye offices would be firebombed. In the couple days after, there were anecdotal reports of a squad and detective car continually parked outside of the property. They also mention police making snide remarks about the paper as they retrieved various paper and ephemera. "Locked and chained cabinets on the first two floors were broken into with axes or other fire implements. Political books and posters, in non-burned areas were missing". In the summer of 1989, Wood and other Eye staffers (Michael Avey and the Varrones) filed a lawsuit against the city regarding the fire and wiretapping. To many, the fire marked the beginning of the end of the paper. While the paper never kept up the same schedule and pivoted to more sporadic publishing, it's remarkable that it did go on to exist for the next five years.
The fire, of course, is one of the most divisive incidents in the history of the Eye, and numerous people who I spoke to gladly offered up their opinion on it. Most of those opinions were that local police themselves were responsible, in an attempt to retrieve information such as Eye subscription lists and financial receipts. The local arson squad claimed the fire was intentional, but the investigation (or lack thereof) went unsolved. Michael Wood, then-editor of the Eye (who also lived on the third floor of the 2283 house) claimed that he was held back by "plainclothes personnel" broke into filing cabinets and such to retrieve those documents. A few weeks later, the September 11 issue of the Independent Eye published an issue with the headline "FIRE!" and chronicled their anecdotal account of the incident, including publishing photographs of the aforementioned broken-in filing cabinets. In the words of Wood, the police "didn't do an investigation. They just got out a paintbrush".
That article didn't hold back. They claim that three days prior to the arson, an anonymous caller phoned the Cincinnati Switchboard with claims that the Eye offices would be firebombed. In the couple days after, there were anecdotal reports of a squad and detective car continually parked outside of the property. They also mention police making snide remarks about the paper as they retrieved various paper and ephemera. "Locked and chained cabinets on the first two floors were broken into with axes or other fire implements. Political books and posters, in non-burned areas were missing". In the summer of 1989, Wood and other Eye staffers (Michael Avey and the Varrones) filed a lawsuit against the city regarding the fire and wiretapping. To many, the fire marked the beginning of the end of the paper. While the paper never kept up the same schedule and pivoted to more sporadic publishing, it's remarkable that it did go on to exist for the next five years.
The Eye offices at 2238 Vine Street following the arson
The largely unchanged house today, courtesy Google Street View
Footnote (2023): Yellow Springs and The Peace & Freedom Center: The historic Yellow Springs building where the Independent Eye was originally published was demolished on May 8, 2023. Located at 221 Xenia Ave (right in the heart of the main artery of the town), the building was called the "Peace & Freedom Center" (see header above from one of the first issues of the Eye) around 1967-68. Little is known about the exact purpose of the venue, though it was likely a communal center for Vietnam draft counseling and resource center for adjacent activism at the nearby Antioch College, as well as a place to pick up magazines, buttons and bumper stickers. While the first Eye was published in February of 1968, the Peace & Freedom Center is mentioned in a couple of publications as early as March, 1967 (in publications like the socialist newspaper The Militant and New Left Notes). Interestingly, the latter mentions another war resistance paper called SWOMP that also listed its address as the Peace & Freedom Center, founded by members from various activist groups at Antioch and elsewhere around Southwest Ohio.
The Eye's connection to Yellow Springs is both essential and a tiny blip in its overall trajectory. It makes total sense that a war resistance paper would start in YS in '68, given the overall climate of the town and the activism at nearby Antioch College. The paper was started by Alex Varrone, a New York native and then a political science student at Antioch. His wife Jennifer soon got involved, with the couple pioneering the overall running the paper. When my Eye project began in 2017, it was nearly impossible to track down any info on the Varrones. It took a lot of digging to discover that Alex had actually passed away back in 2003. Eventually I made two breakthroughs, starting with making contact with Jennifer's children Andrew and Jessica (their father was Jennifer's second husband). Through this I discovered that Alex had been in a coma for about a year before his tragic early passing. A second discovery was some original typewriter papers that were in the box of Eye ephemera given to me by John Hughes, in which Ellen Bierhorst attempted to briefly profile the Varrones. It mostly mentions their move from YS to Cincinnati and desire to start a family in the future.
The paper (and the Varrones themselves) obviously moved to Cincinnati a few months later in 1968, when the Eye morphed from a small mimeographed newsletter of sorts to a full, broadsheet newspaper. In Cincinnati, they were reaching a large city with all sorts politically-charged activism around pockets like the University of Cincinnati, as well as the emergent counterculture taking place in areas like Calhoun Street and music venues like the Black Dome and Ludlow Garage.
The Eye's connection to Yellow Springs is both essential and a tiny blip in its overall trajectory. It makes total sense that a war resistance paper would start in YS in '68, given the overall climate of the town and the activism at nearby Antioch College. The paper was started by Alex Varrone, a New York native and then a political science student at Antioch. His wife Jennifer soon got involved, with the couple pioneering the overall running the paper. When my Eye project began in 2017, it was nearly impossible to track down any info on the Varrones. It took a lot of digging to discover that Alex had actually passed away back in 2003. Eventually I made two breakthroughs, starting with making contact with Jennifer's children Andrew and Jessica (their father was Jennifer's second husband). Through this I discovered that Alex had been in a coma for about a year before his tragic early passing. A second discovery was some original typewriter papers that were in the box of Eye ephemera given to me by John Hughes, in which Ellen Bierhorst attempted to briefly profile the Varrones. It mostly mentions their move from YS to Cincinnati and desire to start a family in the future.
The paper (and the Varrones themselves) obviously moved to Cincinnati a few months later in 1968, when the Eye morphed from a small mimeographed newsletter of sorts to a full, broadsheet newspaper. In Cincinnati, they were reaching a large city with all sorts politically-charged activism around pockets like the University of Cincinnati, as well as the emergent counterculture taking place in areas like Calhoun Street and music venues like the Black Dome and Ludlow Garage.
Back to the Peace & Freedom Center: at some point in the early seventies, Big Bill Haywood's Revolutionary Bookstore took over the wood-sided 221 Xenia Ave building. This is actually mentioned by Alex Varrone in a "happy birthday" letter published in a 1973 edition of the Eye, congratulating the then-staff of the paper on the third edition of the Eye. The bookstore published an edition of the Manifesto of the Black Workers Congress in 1971, which occasionally shows up on rare book sites. It later became Earth Rose International Imports, an emporium that claimed to be the first Birkenstock dealer in the country. It was in business for over fifty years until the owner's death in 2021.
It's unfortunate to learn that the building has been demolished as part of a new development plan (owned by Dave Chappelle, who's obvious celebrity status has put Yellow Springs on the mainstream radar). However, this doesn't necessarily seem like a "tear down and replace it with a ubiquitous Chase bank" scenario. In the Yellow Springs News article about the demolition, architect and YS native Max Crom claims the 100-year old building was beyond repair, including extensive foundation damage and profound asbestos. At any rate, it was rewarding to get to visit YS during my initial research and get to see the exact physical birthplace of the Eye, similar to other spaces like the Lloyd House and Vine St rowhouse where the infamous fire took place. When we released Optic, we distributed free copies to Dark Star, the current Yellow Springs bookstore located a matter of feet away on Xenia Ave.
It's unfortunate to learn that the building has been demolished as part of a new development plan (owned by Dave Chappelle, who's obvious celebrity status has put Yellow Springs on the mainstream radar). However, this doesn't necessarily seem like a "tear down and replace it with a ubiquitous Chase bank" scenario. In the Yellow Springs News article about the demolition, architect and YS native Max Crom claims the 100-year old building was beyond repair, including extensive foundation damage and profound asbestos. At any rate, it was rewarding to get to visit YS during my initial research and get to see the exact physical birthplace of the Eye, similar to other spaces like the Lloyd House and Vine St rowhouse where the infamous fire took place. When we released Optic, we distributed free copies to Dark Star, the current Yellow Springs bookstore located a matter of feet away on Xenia Ave.
In the 1970s, Big Bill Haywood's Revolutionary Bookstore occupied the Peace & Freedom Center building
Footnote (2021): Scarcity: As I mention in the intro of this page, when I began my Eye research project in 2017, the only online presence of the paper was a brief Wikipedia article and one CityBeat article from back in 2004. This is not counting, of course, the handful of old Cincinnati Post and Enquirer articles archived in paid research tools like newspapers.com. Before I even typed "Independent Eye" into the Public Library search engine, I took to local crowdsourcing to see if anyone I knew in local creative circles had ever heard of the paper or knew where I could find papers. It became painfully obvious very quickly that no one head heard of it (not surprising given the age and lack of retrospective publicity) but actually finding any copies would be practically impossible.
In a way, this was the microcosm of the whole project. Once I gained access to the library's archive, the most important step was to take photos of the tiny paragraphs of "Eyepeople" staff pages that were sporadically published in the paper. Then came attempting to find them via Whitepages, social media presence, or some sort of other public listing. Given the age of the paper, a lot of obituary pages were found. Often times, female staffers were impossible to find given that it was their maiden names when they were in their early twenties or so. The Cincinnati location sometimes didn't help, since many of these were students at a local college and relocated shortly after (plenty of medical students or activists who went elsewhere). The paper was so primitively put together, sometimes last names were misspelled. The major breakthroughs, of course, came via communications with a couple of key figures such as Melvin Grier, Ellen Bierhorst and Ken Hawkins. And along the way with a little luck and countless hours researching, others would trickle in.
If there was one other person who had a passion for the Eye like I did, it was likely a local journalist and professor named Lew Moores who passed away in 2014 (Lew's close friend Jon Hughes ended up being a crucial contributor to the project when he donated a bunch of missing papers to me). Moores wrote two very important articles on the Eye, one dating back to 1989. In that Cincinnati Post article, Moores detailed what was always suspected: that the local Cincinnati FBI office kept tabs on proprietary Eye information via bank information of both the Eye and Queen City Express offshoot via subscribers, etc. In 2004, Moores published a CityBeat article titled "The Alternative Press Used to be Dangerous". The piece overviews the history of the Eye while mixing in a POV from Mike Wood, one of the paper's editors in the seventies (notably, Wood lived in the same Vine Street building where the Eye offices were firebombed). This article provided a lot of great insight given that both Moores and Wood passed away before my project started. Moores even reached out to Frank Weikel for some quotes, the former conservative Enquirer columnist who was always mocked in the Eye.
In a way, this was the microcosm of the whole project. Once I gained access to the library's archive, the most important step was to take photos of the tiny paragraphs of "Eyepeople" staff pages that were sporadically published in the paper. Then came attempting to find them via Whitepages, social media presence, or some sort of other public listing. Given the age of the paper, a lot of obituary pages were found. Often times, female staffers were impossible to find given that it was their maiden names when they were in their early twenties or so. The Cincinnati location sometimes didn't help, since many of these were students at a local college and relocated shortly after (plenty of medical students or activists who went elsewhere). The paper was so primitively put together, sometimes last names were misspelled. The major breakthroughs, of course, came via communications with a couple of key figures such as Melvin Grier, Ellen Bierhorst and Ken Hawkins. And along the way with a little luck and countless hours researching, others would trickle in.
If there was one other person who had a passion for the Eye like I did, it was likely a local journalist and professor named Lew Moores who passed away in 2014 (Lew's close friend Jon Hughes ended up being a crucial contributor to the project when he donated a bunch of missing papers to me). Moores wrote two very important articles on the Eye, one dating back to 1989. In that Cincinnati Post article, Moores detailed what was always suspected: that the local Cincinnati FBI office kept tabs on proprietary Eye information via bank information of both the Eye and Queen City Express offshoot via subscribers, etc. In 2004, Moores published a CityBeat article titled "The Alternative Press Used to be Dangerous". The piece overviews the history of the Eye while mixing in a POV from Mike Wood, one of the paper's editors in the seventies (notably, Wood lived in the same Vine Street building where the Eye offices were firebombed). This article provided a lot of great insight given that both Moores and Wood passed away before my project started. Moores even reached out to Frank Weikel for some quotes, the former conservative Enquirer columnist who was always mocked in the Eye.
Footnote (2020): The Scholarly Grateful Dead. The expansive world of the Grateful Dead can be downright scholarly, and shortly after the original Eye project, I stumbled on a couple of Dead resources that had spent decades attempt to track down original periodicals and primary source ephemera around certain early gigs from the band's history. One such was the long-running Grateful Dead Sources blog, which had long been seeking the April 9, 1970 edition of the Eye for a report on the Dead show at the UC Fieldhouse A photo of Jerry Garcia from the concert graces the cover, and the photographs and show report went unseen for the last fifty years. I was able to send scans of that editions to the blog, therefor contributing a bit to the universe of Dead scholarship.
The openers were the local Lemon Pipers (one of the latter shows of their career), Devil's Kitchen (not listed on the bill, San Fran-via-Illinois, played the Ludlow Garage 3-4 the previous year) and Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankers themselves, in a bizarre billing. Ken Babbs of the Pranksters had a local connection as he was an Ohio native and attended Miami University. The concert was a part of UC's short-lived run of "Spring Arts Festivals", and was put on by Bernd and Barb Baierschmidt (owners and counterculture tastemakers of Kidd's Books downtown). Considering very few people actually attended the Dead's previous, infamous gig at the Hyde Park Teen Center two years prior, this was practically a new Cincinnati debut for the band.
The openers were the local Lemon Pipers (one of the latter shows of their career), Devil's Kitchen (not listed on the bill, San Fran-via-Illinois, played the Ludlow Garage 3-4 the previous year) and Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankers themselves, in a bizarre billing. Ken Babbs of the Pranksters had a local connection as he was an Ohio native and attended Miami University. The concert was a part of UC's short-lived run of "Spring Arts Festivals", and was put on by Bernd and Barb Baierschmidt (owners and counterculture tastemakers of Kidd's Books downtown). Considering very few people actually attended the Dead's previous, infamous gig at the Hyde Park Teen Center two years prior, this was practically a new Cincinnati debut for the band.
Original linoleum cut prints by artist Tecla Hirby
Panel discussion at the downtown Public Library of Cincinnati (November, 2019)
Independent Eye staff at the 2019 retrospective. L-R: Chris Smith (librarian), John Parkin, Jack Lillie, Joe Richard, Ellen Bierhorst, Jim Tarbell, Brenda Grier, Melvin Grier, Bonnie Speeg, Monty Sher, Kathy Biel-Morgan, Mark Neeley, Paula Wiggins
CityBeat cover story on my Eye project (October, 2019)
Eye co-founder Alex Varrone with anti-war activist Tom Hayden (photo courtesy of Ken Hawkins)
Latter era Eye editor Mike Wood
Independent Eye founders Alex & Jennifer Varrone
Display at the retrospective exhibition at the downtown Public Library of Cincinnati (2019)