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2 Downtown Cincinnati

Historic Architecture, Corporate Headquarters, and Transit

The Taft Museum of Art features paintings by American and European masters.

BOUNDARIES: Plum St., Court St., Pike St., Fourth St.

DISTANCE: 3 miles

DIFFICULTY: Easy

PARKING: Metered parking on streets; $1 parking for up to 59 minutes at 2 garages, including Fountain Square

PUBLIC TRANSIT: Metro (go-metro.com) and TANK (tankbus.org) buses serve downtown with routes radiating from Government Square. Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar (cincinnatibellconnector.com) connects The Banks, downtown, and Over-the-Rhine with 18 stations. Cincinnati Red Bike (cincyredbike.org) has bicycle rental stations at Fountain Square, Duke Energy Convention Center, Main Library, and elsewhere.

As Ohio’s third-largest city, Cincinnati benefits from a downtown that is walkable and easy to navigate, mostly because it was built before the invention of the automobile. Although most streets are one-way and connect with a freeway ramp or other major thoroughfare, downtown has retained its human scale. It has a growing mix of entertainment options, green spaces that encourage both interaction and relaxation, and diverse architecture. Eateries boast a range of flavors and ethnicities, while Broadway tour productions and museums offer people multiple ways to spend their days. In all, downtown Cincinnati is a good place to experience city life.

Walk Description

Start your tour with a cup of coffee at Booksellers on Fountain Square inside Fountain Place. Maybe you bought this book there! Across the street is Fountain Square, Cincinnati’s primary public space and its heart since 1871. Enlarged and remodeled most recently in 2005, Fountain Square serves as the site of free concerts, festivals, demonstrations, and relaxation year-round. At its center is the Tyler Davidson Fountain, possibly Cincinnati’s most recognizable landmark, dedicated in 1871 and named in honor of hardware magnate Henry Probasco’s brother-in-law and business partner. Aside from the fountain, Probasco is known for his historic Oakwood mansion in Clifton.

Walk south on Vine Street and turn right on Fifth Street. On the left is Carew Tower, Cincinnati’s second-tallest building. Built in 1930 and rising 49 stories, it offers spectacular views of the city for $4 from its observation deck. Carew Tower and the adjoining Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza together create one of the nation’s finest French Art Deco ensembles. The hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, a program of the National Trust for Historic Places. Its famed shopping arcade is the final point of this tour.

Turn right on Race Street. On the left, between Fifth and Sixth Streets, is the headquarters for 84.51°. This nine-story, charcoal-gray, concrete tower features an asymmetrical zipper design with first-floor restaurant space. Past Fountain Place on the right is the former Terrace Plaza Hotel. Designed by Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill and built in 1948, the hotel was the first major building to rise in downtown after World War II and the first International Style hotel building constructed in the United States. Architectural historians claim it as one of America’s Modern Movement buildings. Cincinnati’s Terrace Plaza Hotel: An Icon of American Modernism, by Shawn Patrick Tubb, is a good source of additional reading on this often-misunderstood building. As this book was going to press, development offers continued to be presented and considered. Across from Terrace Plaza Hotel on Sixth Street is The Cincinnatian Hotel, the city’s finest surviving French Second Empire building from 1882.

Cross Sixth Street and enter the Race Street Historic District, a group of 24 contributing buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Streamline Moderne building at 604 Race St. was originally a two-story J.J. Newberry department store and is now Newberry Lofts on Sixth. For a quick alley tour, turn right on Morand Alley and then left on College Street. To the right is the rear of the former Cincinnati Enquirer Building, at 617 Vine St. Designed by the firm of Lockwood Greene and Company and completed in 1926, it is now a Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites. To the left is the gleaming back side of the Macy’s Inc. Building, at 7 W. Seventh St. Turn left on Seventh Street and walk to Race Street, one of downtown’s most impressive corners. The four buildings contributing to this epicenter of urban architecture include (clockwise from the southwest corner) Shillito Place, Pearl Market Bank Building (1910), The Groton (1895), and Jewelers Exchange (1915). The most notable building is the massive John Shillito & Co. department store. Designed by James McLaughlin and built in 1878 (and modernized in 1937), it originally featured five elevators and is considered a precursor to Marshall Field’s State Street flagship store in Chicago. The landmark building is now Lofts at Shillito Place apartments. It served as a set for the movie Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara and filmed almost entirely in Cincinnati in early 2014.

Backstory: Betts-Longworth Historic District

The Betts-Longworth Historic District on the eastern edge of the West End is named for its early landowners: William Betts and Nicholas Longworth. Betts owned 111 acres in the West End where he and his family farmed and ran a brickyard. His house, the oldest brick house in Ohio still on its original site, stands at 416 Clark Street and is now a museum. The family slowly began subdividing their property in the early 1800s, around the same time Longworth acquired 33 acres adjacent to the Betts parcel. Longworth immediately divided his entire property for development, including selling a small lot on Chestnut Street to a Jewish congregation for a cemetery, now the oldest Jewish cemetery west of the Allegheny mountains. The neighborhood was home to well-to-do businessmen, including architects Henry and William Walter, department store owners Frederick Alms and William Doepke, jeweler Frank Herschede, and James Gamble, cofounder of P&G.

Turn right on Race Street and walk to Garfield Place and then Piatt Park, the city’s oldest park. Donated to the city in 1817, the park stretches between Vine and Elm Streets. A bronze statue of President James Garfield stands at the east end of the park. On the south side of the park is the Doctor’s Building (19 Garfield Pl.), a stunning Late Gothic Revival building from 1923 that serves as headquarters for LPK, an international design agency. North of the park is Cuvier Press Club Building (22 Garfield Pl.), a rare surviving Italian Renaissance residence designed by Samuel Hannaford and built in 1861.

Turn left on Garfield Place and walk past Gramercy on Garfield and Greenwich apartment buildings to the statue of William Henry Harrison on horseback at Elm Street. Cross Elm Street to Covenant First Presbyterian Church, which nicely terminates this end of Piatt Park with its elegant Gothic-style 1875 facade. Cross Eighth Street and turn left at Waldo apartments, 801 Elm St. Built in 1891, it’s one of four surviving late 19th-century apartment houses that brothers Thomas J. and John J. Emery built downtown.

Turn right on Goshen Alley and then left on Weaver Alley. An overlooked part of Cincinnati’s downtown, alleys serve as a safe space for bicyclists and pedestrians to navigate clear of motorized vehicles. Cross through the parking lot on the left and return to Eighth Street and walk west to Plum Street, another one of downtown’s great corners where politics and religion are represented. On the southeast corner is the Isaac M. Wise Temple, built in 1866 and a majestic example of Moorish Revival architecture. Under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, it was the site of the first ordination of rabbis in America and is one of Cincinnati’s most important buildings. On the southwest corner is St. Peter in Chains, completed in 1845 with a 200-foot steeple visible throughout much of downtown. Cincinnati City Hall takes the northwest corner with its massive facade of red granite stone and nine-story clock tower. Designed by Samuel Hannaford in Romanesque Revival style, it was completed in 1893. On the northeast corner, at 802 Plum St., is a modest Streamline Moderne building. It would likely be more at home on a more subdued street corner.

Walk north on Plum Street and turn right into the Ninth Street Historic District, three blocks of more than 40 buildings from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. Walk to Elm Street and go to the northeast corner. Crosley Square (140 W. Ninth St.), was designed by Harry Hake and built in 1922. Originally home to the WLW radio station, this impressive Classical Revival–style building currently houses the Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy.

Continue walking east toward Race Street. While there’s an empty lot on the northeast corner, the other three compensate for the void with solid historic buildings listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places. On the southeast corner is The Phoenix, built in 1893 to accommodate Cincinnati’s first professional Jewish men’s club. On the southwest and northwest corners, respectively, are Saxony and Brittany apartment buildings, designed by Samuel Hannaford & Sons.

Turn left on Race Street and walk to Court Street. On the left is Cappel’s, one of four locations for the local retailer of party supplies and costumes, founded in 1945. Turn right and walk to Vine Street. On the left is the headquarters for Kroger (1104 Vine St.), a Cincinnati-based company founded in 1883. To the right is Scotti’s Italian Restaurant. Complete with red-checkered tablecloths and wax-covered wine bottles, Scotti’s menu hasn’t changed much since 1953.

Cross Vine Street and stay on the south side of Court Street. This block retains its 19th-century scale and is almost completely intact, with just one missing building. According to Ann Senefeld of Digging Cincinnati History, all of Court Street, from Central Avenue to Main Street, was once lined with market booths, while the market building stood between Vine and Walnut Streets. By 1912 the city declared the market building a health hazard, and it was torn down in 1915. Perhaps as a partial nod to Court Street’s market past, Kroger built a 45,000-square-foot supermarket below a parking garage and 139 apartments that opened in summer 2019 at the northeast corner of Court and Walnut Streets. Ahead is the Hamilton County Courthouse. This neoclassical megalith from 1919 is the easternmost terminus of Court Street.

Turn right on Walnut Street and look to the left at Homecoming (Blue Birds) ArtWorks mural on the side of Courtland Flats, at 119 E. Court St. It is based on a painting in Charlie Harper’s geometric style and depicts two bluebirds returning home. The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County fills the blocks on the right from Prior to Eighth Streets. The main library opened in the southwest building in 1955 and underwent expansions in 1982 and 1997. Established in 1853, the library system includes 40 regional and branch locations and is the 12th largest in the United States. Across from the library, on the southwest corner of Eighth and Walnut Streets, is St. Louis Catholic Church, headquarters for Cincinnati’s Roman Catholic archdiocese. The church parsonage is attached. Cross Walnut Street and walk east on Eighth Street. At 110 E. Eighth St. is a restored firehouse. Built in 1889, it now functions as an office building. Next door, at 114 E. Eighth St., is the Citadel, designed by the Hannaford firm and built in 1905 for the Salvation Army.

Proceed to Main Street. In the ground along Main Street is track for the reborn Cincinnati Streetcar, which opened in September 2016. Across Main Street (on the left behind the fabric awning with a large “A”) is Arnold’s Bar and Grill, the city’s oldest tavern. Turn right on Main Street and cross Seventh Street. On the right is the smallest of three theaters found inside Aronoff Center, a performing arts center designed by Argentine American architect Cesar Pelli that opened in 1995. The rest of the west side of the 600 block of Main Street is an intact row of late 19th-century commercial buildings, which date from when this was the city’s main commercial thoroughfare. The businesses here are a time capsule: Hathaway Stamp (1901), Bay Horse Cafe (1817, reopened 2015), Spitzfaden Office Supplies (1951), and Richter & Phillips Co. (1896). Famed architect Ernest Flagg designed the 12-story Gwynne Building (1904), Cincinnati’s most ornamental early skyscraper, on the northeast corner of Main and Sixth Streets.

Turn right on Sixth Street and enter Cincinnati’s reemerging restaurant row. Most notable are Sotto, Boca, and Nada—all three the product of the Boca Restaurant Group. At Sixth and Walnut Streets is the Zaha Hadid–designed Contemporary Arts Center, one of the oldest contemporary arts centers in the United States. Next door is 21c Museum Hotel, which opened inside the restored Hotel Metropole in 2012.

Turn left on Walnut Street and left again on Fifth Street. Walk through Government Square, Metro’s downtown transit hub. Dominating the left side of the square is Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse (100 E. Fifth St.), built in 1939. The next three blocks east of Main Street are where corporate Cincinnati functions. It’s a quiet place after office hours, with the exception of the Taft Theatre and Cincinnati Masonic Center complex. Walk these remaining blocks of Fifth Street past the Procter & Gamble towers on the left and turn right on Pike Street.

Around the corner is Lytle Park Historic District, one of the oldest areas in the city. The 2.31-acre park, updated in 2018, is known for its seasonal floral displays and an 11-foot-tall bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln. East of the park is the Taft Museum of Art. Built in 1820, the house was home to several prominent Cincinnatians, including Charles P. Taft, half-brother of President William Howard Taft. Charles Taft donated the house in 1917 and the park’s statue of President Abraham Lincoln in 1932 to the city. On the north edge of the park is the Literary Club, at 500 E. Fourth St., an excellent example of Georgian-style architecture from 1820. On the southwest edge is Guilford School, 421 E. Fourth St., the original site of Fort Washington.

Turn right on Fourth Street, which is Cincinnati’s version of Chicago’s North Michigan Avenue and New York’s Fifth Avenue. One mile long, it starts with the ease of Lytle Park behind you and then gradually becomes the city’s main financial thoroughfare before terminating at its increasingly residential western edge. Cross Broadway Street and continue west on Fourth Street. Christ Church Cathedral, 318 E. Fourth St., was completed in 1835 and rebuilt in 1957; it remains the street’s only church. Cross Sycamore Street and continue west past Atrium I and II office buildings. Garber & Woodward designed the Classical Revival–style Duke Energy building, completed in 1929, at the southwest corner of Fourth and Main Streets. Next door on Fourth Street is a tiny row of three buildings dating to 1870.

Walk to Walnut Street for a view of downtown’s most towering historic corner. Significant buildings include (from the southeast corner, clockwise) Fourth & Walnut Centre, designed by Daniel H. Burnham (1903); Dixie Terminal (1921), with a grandiose barrel-vaulted lobby offering a view of Roebling Suspension Bridge; Bartlett Building, also designed by Daniel H. Burnham (1901) and reborn as a Renaissance Hotel in 2014; Formica Building (1971); and Mercantile Library Building (1905). North of the library at the southeast corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets is Tri-State Building (1902), another Burnham building. Cross Fourth Street and walk to Fourth National Bank Building (1905), on the north side of the street. It was the last one built of four early 20th-century downtown skyscrapers designed by the Chicago firm headed by Burnham.

On the northeast corner of Fourth and Vine Streets is the 15-story Ingalls Building, the world’s first reinforced concrete skyscraper, built in 1903. On the southwest corner is the 34-story PNC Tower, designed by the same architect (Cass Gilbert) behind Manhattan’s Woolworth Building. Finished in 1913, it was once the tallest building west of the Hudson River. Cross Vine Street and walk to Race Street. This block was historically department store territory and a hive of activity up through the late 1990s. Today, it’s a mix of other commercial and residential uses. Continuing west is West Fourth Street Historic District, the finest intact remnant of Cincinnati’s turn-of-the-19th-century downtown streetscape. Turn right on Race Street and walk to the entrance of Carew Tower Arcade. Inside are about two dozen shops and restaurants, including two Cincinnati classic restaurants in the midst of Art Deco colors and floral motifs: Hathaway’s Diner (since 1956) and Frisch’s. Exit the arcade at Vine Street and return to Fountain Square.

Points of Interest

Booksellers on Fountain Square 505 Vine St., 513-258-2038

Carew Tower/Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza 441 Vine St., 513-579-9735

84.51ϱ 100 W. Fifth St., 513-632-1020, 8451.com

The Cincinnatian Hotel, Curio Collection by Hilton 601 Vine St., 513-381-3000, cincinnatianhotel.com

Covenant First Presbyterian Church 717 Elm St., covfirstchurch.org

Isaac M. Wise Temple 720 Plum St., 513-793-2556, wisetemple.org

St. Peter in Chains 325 W. Eighth St., 513-421-5354, stpeterinchainscathedral.org

Cincinnati City Hall 801 Plum St., 513-591-6000, cincinnati-oh.gov

Cappel’s 917 Race St., 513-621-9499, cappelsinc.com

Scotti’s Italian Restaurant 919 Vine St., 513-721-9484

Hamilton County Courthouse 1000 Main St., courtclerk.org

Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County 800 Vine St., 513-369-6900, cincinnatilibrary.org/main

St. Louis Catholic Church 29 E. Eighth St., 513-263-6621

Arnold’s Bar and Grill 210 E. Eighth St., 513-421-6234, arnoldsbarandgrill.com

Aronoff Center 650 Walnut St., 513-621-2787, cincinnatiarts.org/aronoff-center

Contemporary Arts Center 44 E. Sixth St., 513-345-8400, contemporaryartscenter.org

21c Museum Hotel 609 Walnut St., 513-578-6600, 21cmuseumhotels.com/cincinnati

Taft Theatre 317 E. Fifth St., 513-232-6220, tafttheatre.org

Cincinnati Masonic Center 317 E. Fifth St., 513-421-3579, cincinnatimasoniccenter.com

Taft Museum of Art 316 Pike St., 513-241-0343, taftmuseum.org

Carew Tower Arcade 441 Vine St.

Connecting the Walks

To connect with Walk 1: Ohio Riverfront, walk south on Walnut Street from Fountain Square to the top of the Walnut Street Steps, which lead to the riverfront.

To connect with Walk 3: Over-the-Rhine, from Scotti’s, walk north 1 mile on Vine Street, then turn left on Findlay Street. Turn right on Elm Street to reach Rhinegeist.