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
Walk south on Vine Street and turn right on Fifth Street. On the left is
Turn right on Race Street. On the left, between Fifth and Sixth Streets, is the headquarters for
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