A National Historic Landmark. Built in 1930 in the Art Deco architecture. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1982. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“Carew Tower is a 49-story, 574-foot (175 m) Art Deco skyscraper in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The second-tallest building in the city, it was Cincinnati's tallest from 1930 until 2011, when it was surpassed by Great American Tower at Queen City Square.”
Wikipedia article Carew Tower, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 314 National Register listings in Hamilton County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · built in 1930, Art Deco architecture, by Walter W. Ahlschlager · one of 9 National Historic Landmarks in Hamilton County.
National Register reference number.82003578- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The reader looks forward to this, the first history of Cincinnati that has yet found itself in print. The writers look back across its half-century of chapters and the century of years embraced by its annals, and have, chiefest of all, to regret many unavoidable errors, both of omission and commission. The more important of these, it is hoped, will appear in our page of errata; but there are still many, doubtless, that have escaped the compilers' attention. In a few cases, discrepancies appear between their statements and those of an extract immediately following. In those instances they must assure the reader that the former rest upon an authority believed to be superior to the other in regard to the matter in hand; but time and space could not always be taken for the discussion and settlement of points concerning which there are variant reports. In all really important matters, they believe the history will be found quite trustworthy, especially when corrected from the page of errata.
Within the decade whose annals have just been passed in review, fell the birth of Cincinnati township, to which was entrusted, for almost twelve years, the government of Cincinnati village, which it of course contained. The township was created, after Columbia, by the court of general quarter sessions of the peace, which then had jurisdiction in these matters, in 1791. To the time of the erection of these townships, the whole county, which contained but a few hundred white inhabitants, was most conveniently governed as one municipality.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 5,839 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Carew Tower between 1819 and
1975: 2,831 Fungi, 1,704 Animalia, 955 Plantae, 298 Protozoa, 32 Unrecorded, 18 Chromista, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A Schwartz, A. Braun, A. F. Braun and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
1 working within 5 miles of Carew Tower: 1 unknown.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: Tin, Lead, Antimony. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Cincinnati, the town this property stands in, in 70 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 25 thunderstorm wind, 17 hail, 14 flash flood, 7 flood.
The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Numerous roads were flooded throughout the Cincinnati area and some basements were flooded. Flooding also caused some damage at Reading High School and Whitaker Elementary School.
Lightning struck a home causing a fire in the attic, which spread toward the second floor before being extinguished. Significant fire and water damage occurred to the home.
High water was reported on several roads in the downtown Cincinnati area and the near West Side. A retaining wall collapsed onto a roadway near the intersection of State Avenue and Ernst Street and a building was flooded on Poplar Street. Also, an apartment basement flooded on Linn Street and one resident needed to be rescued.
14 papers published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues,
0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
7,017 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
framing bays that have a vertical alignment to the yellow brick The base of the Carew Tower exhibits a first floor with above the l5th floor where a one-bay setback rises for another five . deteriorated _ unaltered - good separated by a decorative rectangular panel. Flanking each side of flush until the 38th floor. Above this, a series of setbacks appear in rapid succession to be capped by an observation platform on the facade. reeding. The third through fifth floors This fenestration is terminated black polished granite pierced by large single-pane display windows. stretched wings rests atop a globe supported by foliated decoration. This connects the Carew Tower to the new Westin Hotel spandrels and setbacks.The east upper floor facade is distin- capped by palmette ornamentation.
recessed 2 bays back from the wings. and blind panels.The upper trim of the base exhibits an inter- The second floor wall material is composed of smooth A low pediment serves as a back drop to the eagle.A portion of the Carew Tower, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio Item number 7 details as the east, except the number of bays are reduced, thus of the north facade, is composed of a greatly altered first floor to line, terminate the base treatment. the wall detail. garage entrance. backs. Page facade.
(in one paragraph) -communications (See Continuation Sheet) common elements such as palm leaf light sconces, open handrail with It is with the interiors of the public spaces that the - archeology-prehistoric community planning - landscape architecture _ religion .art from the common base, the three individual towers are symmetrical 1930 arcade uses metallic zigzag and diamond patterns and polychromic The setbacks are highlighted The mass is reduced and a distinctive window bays with variegated walls.T The lower arcade, with undulating bays, stylized window treatment, treatment exhibits another approach to the use of detail. and formal on the exterior.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 82003578, 119 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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