Downtown Nostalgic, beloved Clifton-area vintage shop, set to close after 50 years

I walked into Downtown Nostalgic – Clifton Heights' charming and beloved vintage shop – on a recent Thursday to the sound of a story. A young customer with thick black eyeliner had brought up a well-worn, forest green blazer to Ossie Johnson, owner and sole employee, standing at the counter.

"This jacket?" Johnson exclaimed. "Oh, there's a story behind this jacket. ..."

And so it seemed for many items in the shop.

The blazer had been the property of a businessman from Seoul, South Korea. The businessman was fired, unexpectedly, after only six months in Cincinnati, and needing to lighten his suitcase for the long ride home, sold the jacket to Downtown Nostalgic.

Johnson pointed out a hand-painted white T-shirt advertising a "Wearable Art" show in Cincinnati, circa 1978. "What a show," she sighed.

Johnson walked over to a nearby rack and picked up a small, sparkling pink dress. "It’s not really a funny story," she said. The dress had belonged to the daughter of the woman that had sold it to the store. The daughter had grown too big for the tutu, but she still insisted on wearing it. The mother brought it in so the daughter and the dress could have a clean break.

All those stories, however, are coming to a new end. Downtown Nostalgic is holding a 20-40% liquidation sale. Johnson plans to close the shop this summer when the clothes go, or whenever she feels the time is right.

"Why are you closing?" asked the customer buying the storied green blazer from Seoul.

Johnson looked up from folding the blazer into a bag, "I want to be free."

The birth of nostalgia

In its heyday, Downtown Nostalgic was something of a renowned locale in the vintage-fashion world. Johnson and the store worked with multiple Cincinnati production companies, including the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, the School for Creative and Performing Arts, the Human Race Theatre (Dayton) and more. And in the early '90s, the store even provided costumes for multiple movies. Johnson worked with designers on "A Rage in Harlem" (1991), "City of Hope" (1991), "Little Man Tate" (1991) and "Lost in Yonkers" (1993).

Johnson was born in Baltimore in 1953. She was raised in Pittsburgh and attended Central State University – a historically Black college in Wilberforce, Ohio – before landing a job in Cincinnati as a corporate retailer in 1975. That same year, strolling about the city, looking for community, she found Downtown Nostalgic.

Downtown Nostalgic was opened a year before, in November of 1974, by a woman named Mary K. Klein. Klein and Johnson became fast friends. A photo of Klein and Johnson sitting together in a Clifton-area apartment is pinned to the drawer beside the counter. Johnson called Klein more than once during the course of our time together. Klein still comes by the store every month or so for a chat.

Johnson said this of how she got to owning Downtown Nostalgic: "I shopped here, I volunteered here, then (Klein) employed me because I was hanging around the store so much. Then I invested, and then in March of 1981, I acquired ownership as the first Black, female owner in Clifton."

Being the first Black, female owner in the area was important to Johnson – the struggles that came with that fact, not as much. "I didn't allow it to be a big thing," Johnson explained.

"It's the clothing that matters," she said. "And the customers. ... Vintage to me is like an art form. It's art: one-of-a-kind, quality, unique, stylish and just classy."

The clothing was the first half of Johnson's love for the store. The other half was the customers.

"My customers mean the world to me," she said. "They give me energy so that I can give back. Giving back, giving back. That's what the world is missing right now. Sometimes people freak out when I say something's free. It's free! Take it! I am giving. I am giving back."

At one point during our interview, a little boy, no more than three years old, walked into the store with his mom and aunt. Immediately, the boy grabbed for a small, blue, transparent bag, and put it over his head like an oversized hat. "Oh, he has to have that bag, I'm giving him that bag," she said, and after a quick back-and-forth, the boy's mom agreed to accept the gift.

It's hard to say goodbye

Shops close and neighborhoods change. Streets get paved, parks get built, new condos pop up on the deserted corner lots. Cities change. In that respect, Clifton Heights is no different from any other neighborhood, and Cincinnati no different from any other city.

"Cincinnati is a plentiful vintage area," Johnson was quoted saying in an interview with The Enquirer, published on July 18, 1989. At that time, Downtown Nostalgic competed with three other Clifton-area vintage stores on W. McMillan Street alone. Since then, Tendititions on 271 W McMillan St. has closed and become a tattoo parlor; A Very Good Year on 110 W. McMillan St. is now a branch of Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott, popular with visiting University of Cincinnati parents. Savannah's Closet on 10 W. McMillan St. is an off-campus condo complex.

Clifton Heights losing its last vintage store is not the end of the world, but it is the end of an era for a neighborhood rich with cultural history, now stacked with pricey student housing and off-brand Marriott suites.

Johnson looked a little sad talking about the present state of the neighborhood.

"It's kept up with the times," she said. "You can't fault them for that. I don't fault them for that. Clifton did the same thing the rest of the world was doing. It transitioned.

I understand the evolvement, but I don't have to be involved in it."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati vintage store, Downtown Nostalgic, closing after 50 years