Cummins School
(1871), according to a ‘Cincinnati Enquirer’ article (July 22, 1989)
...”gained international acclaim when it was recognized at the Paris
Exposition in 1900.” When it opened, the school accommodated 1,008
students in its 18 classrooms, with offices and an auditorium. The brick
Italianate elementary school still stands in Walnut Hill as the Walnut
Hills Center. The Center houses a day-care facility and serves as offices
for community organizations. It is on the National Register of Historic
Places. The building at 2601 Melrose Ave. and William Howard Taft Road was
transformed by a $1.9 million rehabilitation through the Walnut Hills
Redevelopment Foundation. The developer was James Gould. The marble and
Rookwood drinking fountain from 1936 is still in place as is the
wainscoting, wooden floors and tin ceilings. It is one of the oldest
buildings in Walnut Hills.
St.
George Church (1872-1874) 42
Calhoun St. This Romanesque Gothic or Romanesque Revival style church was
the first Catholic church on the hilltop. It drew German Catholic
parishioners from Fairview, Mt. Auburn, Clifton, Clifton Heights and
Corryville when it was built. At that time, the German Catholics were moving
out of Over-the-Rhine and up the hill to Corryville and neighboring
communities. Corryville was a new suburb at that time, named after an early
mayor of Cincinnati, William Corry. The cornerstone was laid by Archbishop
John Baptist Purcell on Oct. 13, 1872. The church was dedicated June 28,
1874. It church cost over $100,000 and seated 1,200. The building is dark
pressed brick, and the twin spires, each containing four clocks, rise 190
feet, making its copper clad spires a landmark.
The rose window above the front doors is of particular note. Not all
the stained glass windows are original to its construction.
In Hannaford’s notebook, tucked away in the Cincinnati Historical
Society library are the specifications for the building: what type of brick,
who was responsible for the foundation and specifications of the type of
stone to be used, details such as the wooden baseboards and wall treatments
be painted to look like marble, and small sketches as to what the newel post
should look like. David Hummel Building supplied the brick and the
foundation.
St.
George’s parish started in 1868 with a two-story school and chapel built
by German Franciscan fathers. The order came from the Motherhouse in
Oldenburg, Indiana. The church
was built under the first priest, Fr. Jerome Kilgenstein, O. F. M. and the
building committee’s members were George Weber, George John Alt, John F.
Menkhaus and Michael Ryan. In 1895 it ministered to more than 700 families.
The rectory and monastery were added in 1928.
The parish school across the street was added in 1914.
The
interior spaces of the church soar with the nave and side aisles the same
height. It is a typical North German design and brought a sense of
familiarity to the German Catholic parishioners. As the neighborhood
changed, the families attending dropped. Over the protests of parishioners,
they were consolidated with St. Monica in 1993 and the building was put up
for sale. (St. Monica was deemed the easier of the two buildings to keep in
repair and was in better condition.) The huge brass and glass doors, which
are not original, tarnished and there was a neglected air to the church for
a while. Members of the parish and community leaders tried to come up with
another use of the building to save it from the wrecking ball.
The
University of Cincinnati wanted the building to be razed by the Archdiocese
so it could purchase the land. In
1994, Old St. George as it was now called, was purchased from the
Archdiocese of Cincinnati for about $600,000 by the Christian Ministries
Center. A bookstore-coffee
house, community and non-profit organizations such as the Mill Creek
Restoration Project had offices there as did spiritual organizations such as
the Amos project, and space was offered for exhibits and community events,
musical performances, weddings, etc. Money was invested in necessary repairs
to the building’s exterior and roof, restoration of the front doors, a
sound system was added and the interior was painted.
But
it was a struggle and eventually the parent organization closed the building
in 2004. Walgreen’s offered to purchase the building for $1.6 million to
tear it down and build a drugstore on the site. It was purchased for the
same dollar amount by the Clifton Heights Community Urban Redevelopment
Corporation and the building is currently being repaired (2006). The
building is on the Nation Register of Historic Places.
St.
George has a rich, museum-like quality. Painted angels hover above the
marble altar, on which is carved with a pelican. Wonderful stained glass
windows bear names of their donators. Rookwood tiles line the floors of the
rectory next door, a dining room mural is there of feasting monks, a wood
paneled library is on the second floor, and a tiny atrium that looks perfect
for a wedding or tea party is alongside the colonnade. It is an incredible
building and since it is desanctified, you can look all you want. A reminder
of a closely knit Corryville church, it sits alone and out of place on
today’s Calhoun Street.
The
Cincinnati Observatory is a unique building designed by Hannaford in
1873 in a Neo-Classical/Georgian Revival style of brick and stone. On Dec. 9,
1997 is was declared a National Historic Landmark, which is different from the
National Register of Historic Places. NHL is only granted to those properties
of unusual worth to the country. It is the oldest functioning observatory in
the U.S. Next to the observatory is the Ormsby McKnight Mitchel building,
built in 1904 by Samuel Hannaford & Sons in the a Greek Revival style. The
ribbed, metal dome was installed in 1895. It has been owned by the University
of Cincinnati since 1872 and has tours currently available.
The
first observatory was built on Mt. Ida and after the cornerstone laying by
former Pres. John Quincy Adams on Nov. 9, 1843, the hill was renamed Mt.
Adams in his honor. It was his last public address, delivered in a day long
rain. Pres. Adams had a long standing interest in astronomy and promoted his
avocation through the proposed foundation of observatories at Harvard and
the Smithsonian. Just before leaving for Cincinnati he said; “There is not
one study in the whole circle of the sciences more useful to the race of man
upon the earth, or more suited to the dignity of his destination, as a being
endowed with reason, and born to immortality, than the science of the
stars...The history of Astronomy has been, in all ages, the history of
Genius and Industry, in their blazing light and untiring toil, patronized by
power.”
One
of the primary people responsible for this building was Prof. Ormsby
McKnight Mitchel, a professor of science, civil engineering and mathematics
and director of the Cincinnati Observatory. He participated in the founding
the Cincinnati Astronomical Society in 1842 and also supervised the
construction of the new observatory building. He said; “The building of
the Cincinnati Observatory has forever settled the great question as to what
a free people will do for pure science.” Born in Union Co., Kentucky, he
received his education in Lebanon, Ohio where his widowed mother and family
moved in with a married daughter. He graduated at West Point in the same
class at Robert E. Lee. During the Civil War, Mitchel was a Major General on
the Union side, dying in 1862 of yellow fever. Ft. Mitchell was named in his
honor - the second “l” was a spelling mistake when the area was
incorporated.
The
land for the observatory was donated by Nicholas Longworth, who at that time
was the second largest landowner in the country, the first being John Jacob
Astor. Mitchel and Judge Jacob Burnet persuaded Longworth to donate four
acres for the observatory site, which Longworth did with the provision that
the building had to be erected within two years or the land title would
revert back. This first observatory, monies raised by the heroic efforts of
Mitchel who also contributed his own savings, was built through the selling
of subscriptions, or shares, to the public who would receive free passes to
the observatory in return. The subscriptions were often in kind, either in
materials or in services. He was able to use the in kind services not needed
in the building of the observatory as a way to partially pay the workmen, or
to sell them for cash. Mitchel thought the cost to have brick delivered to
the site to be too high, so he changed the design to be made of stone so
that it could be quarried right on Mt. Ida. He had the sand needed for
mortar to be hauled from the Ohio River shore and burnt the limestone of the
hill in makeshift ovens to produce lime. It was the quarrying of limestone
from the hill that makes the sides of Mt. Adams so prone to landslides
today. When the building was complete the cost in cash was less than $2,000.
The lens for the telescope cost $9,000 and it came from Munich, Germany. It
was the greatest refractor lens in the world. When it was assembled in
Cincinnati, the telescope was 17 feet long and had 10 eyepieces.
By
1855 the observatory had trouble seeing clearly the night skies. The smoke
of the slaughterhouses arising from the banks of Deer Creek (Gilbert Ave.),
smoke from locomotives, other industry, and the burning of coal, hung over
the city night and day. Farmers’ College in College Hill offered to be the
site for a new observatory but was turned down.
During
the Civil War, the observatory wasn’t used and fell onto disrepair. In
1867, Alfonso Taft, father of President Taft, donated $4,000 for
refurbishment. The following year, Cleveland Abbe, the father of
meteorology, was appointed director. He had volunteers telegraph the weather
conditions in places all along the Ohio Valley and in 1869 he published the
first weather reports. The novel idea was found so valuable by the U.S.
government that the following year he left for Washington, D. C. to set up
the United States Weather Bureau (now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, NOAA). The Cincinnati observatory was left without a leader
and the telescopic lenses were dismantled and stored.
In
1871, the University of Cincinnati offered to take over the observatory if
it could have the telescope and observatory records. The land title was
transferred by the Longworth heirs to U.C. and a new observatory was
proposed in Mt. Lookout on four acres of land donated by John C. Kilgour
(who also donated $10,000 towards the cost of a new building). The old
observatory was leased to the Congregation of the Disclaced Clerks of the
most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ who converted the
building into a monastery. They purchased the building and later tore it
down to build the Church of the Holy Cross and monastery on Mt. Adams.
The
new observatory cornerstone was laid on Aug. 23, 1873 by Rufus King and the
old cornerstone relaid from the first observatory. The old telescope was
reassembled and used until 1904. This first telescope in now housed in the
O. M. Mitchel building next to the observatory.
(Sources:
The Centenary of the Cincinnati Observatory, Nov. 5, 1943, by the Historical
and Philosophical Society of Ohio and the University of Cincinnati, 1944)
Photograph courtesy of the William H. Deak collection.
McMicken
College (original building),
University of Cincinnati, was constructed in 1874 on Clifton Ave. Charles
McMicken was the son of a Pennsylvania farmer who, finding that the horse and
plow did not suit him, came to Cincinnati in 1803. Minimally educated, he
still could work as a store clerk, and was canny enough to go on buying trips
in New Orleans, and Philadelphia. He was attracted to business on the river
and made his fortune transporting cotton and speculating on property.
Hannaford designed his stores on Main St. between 3rd and 4th streets. Never
married, he divided his time among three residences; Cincinnati in spring,
east coast in summer and winters at his Feliciana Parish, New Orleans, home.
In 1840 he bought a home between Clifton and McMicken avenues. He died on
March 30, 1858 aboard a boat returning him to Cincinnati from New Orleans. He
left property worth nearly one million dollars in addition to stocks, bonds
and cash. Of that he willed a million dollars to found an institute of higher
leaning with a caveat that African Americans were not to be educated there.
His will freed any slaves he owned. He had a mulatto son, John McMicken, who
was a teacher and principal in one of Cincinnati’s African American schools.
Hannaford’s
building was quickly outgrown and 43 acres was apportioned from Burnet Woods
Park by Cincinnati City Council for new university buildings. The old
college on lower Clifton Ave. then became home to the College of Medicine.
With the Belleview Incline next door, the medical students would wave body
parts out of the windows at passengers.
Later the building became the Law College. This old building was torn
down in 1935 and bricks from this building were included in the base of the
Golden Gate Bridge since its engineer, Joseph Strauss, studied engineering
here in 1892. Until 1977 the University of Cincinnati was owned and operated
by the City of Cincinnati for its residents.
Grand
Hotel was built in 1874 in the French
Second Empire style. It was located on the corner of Central Ave. bounded by
3rd and 4th streets, opposite the Grand Union Station and had 300 rooms. It
cost nearly one million dollars, an incredible sum for its day, and was
opulent in its furnishing and interior decoration.
Advertisement for the Grand Hotel.
