Urban Roots

Latest Episodes:

Edgemont Inn (short) Jul 29, 2026

Show notes

From 1833 to 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe and her family called a two-story yellow brick house in Walnut Hills home. Her experiences there – across the river from slave-owning Kentucky – inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

In the 1930s, the house was converted into The Edgemont Inn — a tavern and boarding house that became a mainstay in Cincinnati’s Green Book listings.

Today, you can step inside and experience the building’s two significant eras of Black history – just as they once were.

Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts are brought to you by Cincinnati Public Radio and produced by the Urban Roots podcast team. This year's Juneteenth special programming is made possible thanks to sponsors Eric and Jan-Michele Lemon Kerney.

Urban Roots Team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (showrunner/host), Tania Mohammad (producer), Vanessa Quirk (story editor), and Connor Lynch (editor).

Gordon Hotel (short) Jul 22, 2026

Show notes

In the 1910s, millions of migrants from the rural South arrived in Cincinnati seeking employment. Affordable housing was scarce; workers and their families packed into dark, dangerous tenements. Seeing poverty on the rise, local millionaire Jacob Schmidlapp built something unusual for the time: low-income lodging filled with high-quality amenities. It was called The Gordon Hotel.

Urban Roots Team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (showrunner/host), Tania Mohammad (producer), Vanessa Quirk (story editor), and Connor Lynch (editor).

Preserving Cincinnati's Green Book Legacy Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

You heard briefly about Cincinnati’s remaining Green Book sites in our shorts; now prepare to be immersed in their history. Our host (Deqah) will take you to Walnut Hills and discuss what these places meant — and continue to mean — to the neighborhood and its residents.

Urban Roots Team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (showrunner/host), Tania Mohammad (producer), Vanessa Quirk (story editor), and Connor Lynch (editor).

Manse Hotel (short) Jul 08, 2026

Show notes

When greats like Duke Ellington, Jackie Robinson, or Thurgood Marshall came to Cincinnati, they couldn’t stay at the white-only inns downtown – so they went to The Manse Hotel and Annex in Walnut Hills. With its 108 luxurious rooms, first-class restaurant, and large ballroom, the Manse was the crowning achievement of Horace Sudduth, a Black businessman who became one of the city’s wealthiest Black residents in the 1950s.

Urban Roots Team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (showrunner/host), Tania Mohammad (producer), Vanessa Quirk (story editor), and Connor Lynch (editor).

The Green Book (short) Jul 01, 2026

Show notes

In Jim Crow America, Black Americans couldn’t travel like their White counterparts. Every time you stopped at a restaurant, a gas stop, a bathroom, you’d have to check: can you enter? Is it safe? The Green Book — a directory of Black-friendly businesses — became the “bible of Black Travel” in the 1940s and 50s.

This short explains the origins, rise in popularity, and eventual end of the Green Book. It also sets the stage for our following shorts — each about a Green Book site in Walnut Hills that, despite the forces of urban renewal, highway construction, and gentrification, remains standing.

Urban Roots Team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (showrunner/host), Tania Mohammad (producer), Vanessa Quirk (story editor), and Connor Lynch (editor).

k. kennedy Whiters on Preservation as Repair Apr 17, 2026

Show notes

Join Deqah (host) as she sits down with guest, k. kennedy Whiters– apreservationist, registered architect, business owner, educator, writer, and founder of interdisciplinary firms wrkSHäp kiloWATT, studio kW Architecture + Preservationfor an IRL chat about architecture, preservation, reparative action, and the power of language in shaping historical narratives. In addition to managing wrkSHäp kiloWATT and Studio kW, kennedy has founded historic preservation initiativesBeyond Integrity in (X), (un)Redact the Facts, and Black in Historic Preservation.

In this convo, Deqah and kennedy talk about their shared experience in a Columbia University studio co-taught by Whiters and Dr. Erica Avrami (and TA-ed by Deqah) about New York’s Tenderloin district and dive into kennedy’s “The Pledge to (un)Redact the Facts,” aframework that helps students and practitioners confront the ways grammar, narrative structure, and omission can obscure Black harm when writing about history.

This is a conversation about more than buildings. It is about repair, truth-telling and care.

Credits:

Hosted and produced by Deqah Hussein-Wetzel. Edited and mixed by Skyler Ficklin.

Urban Roots⁠ is brought to you by ⁠Urbanist Media⁠, a non-profit dedicated to preserving place through story. Please consider supporting us on ⁠Venmo⁠ or ⁠Paypal⁠.

Sign up for our Newsletter: @urbanistmedia

Other Links

YouTube: @urbanrootspodcast.

IG: ⁠urbanrootsculture⁠

TikTok: @urbanistmedia

Patreon: @urbanist_media

ALT Design: Brent Spence Community Engagement Feb 05, 2026

Show notes

Since October 2023, the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet have advanced a new iteration of the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project, proposing to replace the existing bridge and expand capacity along I-71 and I-75.

In 2025, community engagement sessions in the West End (OH) and Covington (KY) were led by Hub + Weber in collaboration with the Devou Good Foundation's Greater Cincinnati Coalition for Transit and Sustainable Development, A Picture’s Worth, and Urbanist Media⁠ as part of a broader people-over-pavement initiative.

This audio piece, narrated by Deqah Hussein-Wetzel and produced by the Urban Roots podcast team (Deqah, Vanessa Quirk, and Connor Lynch), centers West End resident voices reflecting on the proposed highway expansion and envisioning more equitable transportation futures.

For more information, visit the Sustainable Cincy website.

The Real Value of Real Estate w/ Cecily King Nov 28, 2025

Show notes

Dive into all things real estate in our latest convo with Cecily King, a real estate professional and educator whose work focuses on equitable development, racial justice, and community-driven investment in Detroit. She is also an Associate Professor of Real Estate Development at Columbia GSAPP.

As the founder of Kipling Development, Cecily draws from her experience in affordable housing, community finance, and development strategy to unpack how Detroit’s real estate landscape is shifting—and what it takes to ensure longtime residents benefit from change.

Big thanks to our episode sponsor, Leila Yusuf, a licensed real estate agent in New York State and Pennsylvania with Compass, with over 13 years of experience handling over $150 million in transactions.

Lastly, if you want to give back this holiday season, consider giving to the community as you give to family. Join our Kinfolk Giveback program by donating via ⁠Venmo⁠ or ⁠Paypal⁠.

Credits:

Hosted and produced by Deqah Hussein-Wetzel. Edited and mixed by Skyler Ficklin.

Urban Roots⁠ is brought to you by ⁠Urbanist Media⁠, a non-profit dedicated to preserving place through story.

And don’t forget, you can be a part of our Kinfolk Giveback program by making a tax-deductible donation via ⁠Venmo⁠ or ⁠Paypal⁠.

Newsletter: @urbanistmedia YouTube: @urbanrootspodcast.

IG: ⁠urbanrootsculture⁠ TikTok: @urbanistmedia Patreon: @urbanist_media
And don’t forget to check out the latest episode of the Black Preservation Stories podcast by the Grassroots Black Heritage Preservation Network, all about the ongoing fight to preserve Glendale Public Housing in Minneapolis, MN.

BONUS: Preserving Joy: A’Lelia Walker’s Harlem Renaissance Sep 01, 2025

Show notes

Join Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (host) and award-winning journalist and historian A'lelia Bundles (guest), in a Black history and preservation-focused conversation about A'lelia's newest book Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance.

A’Lelia Walker—daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and heiress to America’s first Black woman-made fortune—was more than a symbol of inherited wealth. She was a cultural impresario, a connector of artists and activists, and an architectural patron whose Vertner Tandy-designed Villa Lewaro Estate and (rehabbed) Harlem townhouse became vital gathering places for the Black intelligentsia of the 1920s.

Together, Deqah and A’Lelia Bundles, the great-granddaughter of A’Lelia Walker, explore her interest in her family's history and what she’s learned about her ancestor's role in shaping Harlem’s cultural landscape through hospitality, preservation, and community. The episode also delves into the challenges of researching Black women’s histories, the overlooked architectural legacy of Vertner Tandy, and the significance of cultural memory in contemporary preservation work.

🔗 More about the book: https://aleliabundles.com/writing-biography-an-update-on-the-joy-goddess-of-harlem

🎧Listen to the full interview on Columbia GSAPP’s Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/columbiagsapp

Credits:

Your host and producer is Deqah Hussein-Wetzel. This episode was edited by Skyler Ficklin and Vanessa Quirk. Mixed by Skyler.

Urban Roots⁠ is a project by ⁠Urbanist Media⁠, a non-profit dedicated to preserving place through story.

Subscribe on YouTube (and Patreon/Substack for exclusive content)!

Follow Urban Roots on Instagram at ⁠urbanrootsculture⁠ and at urbanrootspod

BONUS: Bree Jones on Development Without Displacement Jul 30, 2025

Show notes

Unpack equitable preservation-based development with Deqah (host) and Bree Jones (guest), the Founder and CEO of Parity, an equitable development company headquartered in West Baltimore that acquires and rehabilitates abandoned properties by the block to create affordable home ownership opportunities. Bree started Parity in 2020 as a response to the gentrification and displacement she experienced in her hometown in NYC.

Here, Deqah and Bree discussthe various levels of economic disinvestment that create hyper-vacancy and decay. Instead of pushing people out of their legacy lands and neighborhoods, Bree and the folks at Parity have envisioned a new way to develop, one that disengages from traditional, top-down forms of planning to combat gentrification and other historical place-based inequities such as America’s legacy of urban renewal. Through this new approach, Bree has successfully generated over $60 million of investment in Black communities.

Bree Jones is the CEO & Founder of Parity, a culturalist and nationally recognized systems change leader focused on revaluing Black neighborhoods and engendering Black wealth. If you haven’t already, we recommend you watch her TED Talk, How to Revitalize a Neighborhood – Without Gentrification, that explicates this innovative vision.

This episode is sponsored by Loyola University Maryland’s Sellinger School of Business and Management. Loyola University Maryland is a Baltimore-based institution that believes in the power of community builders.

Credits:

Your host is Deqah Hussein-Wetzel. This episode was edited by Deqah, Connor Lynch, Skyler Ficklin, and Vanessa Quirk. Mixing by Connor Lynch. Our music is by Adaam James Levin-Areddy.

Urban Roots⁠ is a project by ⁠Urbanist Media⁠, a non-profit dedicated to preserving place through story. Please consider supporting our work by donating to us via ⁠Venmo⁠ or ⁠Paypal⁠.

Subscribe to our YouTube (and Patreon for exclusive content)!

Want to sponsor a bonus episode? Email us at: urbanrootspodcast@gmail.com

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