OTR History

Cincinnati's original economy flowed from the Ohio River. Early settlers built their homes and businesses on the flat area near the river banks in the area that is now the Central Business District. In 1835, the Miami & Erie Canal was completed and ran a route that roughly followed Central Parkway on the northern border of the original city. Cincinnati's earliest settlers were predominately English, Swiss, and French, but Germans began immigrating here in large numbers between the 1830's and 1860's. As new immigrants swelled the city's borders, the area north of the canal was developed and inhabited predominately by first-generation Germans. At the end of the workday, all the Germans who left jobs in the original city and went home by crossing bridges over the canal were said to be going home "over the Rhine," a tongue-in-cheek reference to Germany's Rhine River. Some sources indicate that the phrase came from the city's more established families and had a negative, ethnic slur connotation, but the name stuck. Over-the-Rhine became the most densely populated neighborhood in America, helping Cincinnati become nick-named "the Paris of the West." At its peak of population, Over-the-Rhine was home to over 45,000 people. All ethnicities and social classes called it home, but the majority of residents were working-class German-Americans.

People sometimes here about a "golden age" in Over-the-Rhine and assume that it was an affluent place, but it never was. Wealthy brewers like Kauffman and Moerlein lived near their breweries, but people who made their fortunes in OTR typically moved to the suburban hills of Clifton, Mt. Auburn, and Walnut Hills. There are some magnificent single-family homes in Over-the-Rhine, but the neighborhood is primarily composed of brick, tenement row houses with elaborate "Italianate" window and roof cornices. OTR's "golden age" was a period in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century when it was the epicenter of Cincinnati's working-class social life. Vine St. alone was home to over 130 taverns. The neighborhood was full of saloons, beer gardens, restaurants, and theatres that catered to tastes ranging from "legitimate" theatre to burlesque and Wild Bill Hickock's traveling show. Around the previous turn of the Century, OTR was also a power center where corrupt Republican Party head "Boss" Cox ran the city through deals and schemes hatched at beer halls like Wielert's (still standing in tact on Vine St.)

Over-the-Rhine's original culture took massive blows from Prohibition and WWI. German culture placed a high value on good beer, and Over-the-Rhine was in the business of making a lot of it. The neighborhood was home to roughly 40 breweries. Some were small, but dozens produced hundreds of thousands of barrels a year. Christian Moerlein, for example, was one of the largest breweries in the United States and was an industry leader in marketing and export distribution. The Moerlein brewery employed over 500 people and breweries like Kauffman, Hudepohl, Lion, Schaller, Jackson, Lafayette, Crown, Mohawk and others employed thousands of neighborhood residents. In addition, these breweries owned taverns that employed hundreds more, and spawned off-shoot industries making barrels, bottles, delivering ice, distributing and shipping, etc., etc. Further, six-day work-weeks were typical and Sunday was the day that families would spend relaxing and socializing in beer gardens or the hill-top resorts. Sunday "blue laws" were the first major change in culture, followed by the economic and social destruction of full Prohibition. Thousands of livelihoods and family businesses were destroyed. Combined with the anti-German hysteria produced by WWI, national policy and propaganda forever changed Over-the-Rhine. Major economic drivers were lost and German families moved to more assimilated neighborhoods.

Over-the-Rhine remained a vibrant neighborhood in the early Twentieth Century, but the demographics started to change. Improved public transportation and cars made it easier for working-class families to live in the surrounding hilltop neighborhoods. People who could afford to leave OTR's densely packed, small apartment buildings moved away. Even into the 1950's, many four and five story walk-up apartment buildings lacked indoor plumbing. Units were small and the thick brick walls held heat in the summer months. OTR's building stock was outdated, and became home predominately to poor Appalachians who moved to the city from surrounding rural communities.

Another major change in Over-the-Rhine's demographics occurred with the construction of interstates I-75 and I-71. Neighborhoods to the east and west of OTR had large concentrations of African-Americans. These neighborhoods were essentially wiped out of existence to construct the interstates, and poor black families filled vacancies among poor and working-class Appalachians. Living conditions were cramped, often unsanitary and unsafe. Reformers in the 1960's and '70s started "renovating" OTR's historic building stock by ripping out historic features and making apartments more energy efficient and easier to clean. By the 1980's, a vast number of the neighborhood's housing units were project-based Section 8. Residents no longer felt a connection to or pride in the neighborhood. Historic buildings were routinely razed while others started to fall into disrepair. Crime rose. Poverty increased. Over-the-Rhine became known as Cincinnati's most infamous ghetto.

However, even in the neighborhood's darkest days, visionaries started moving here. They were drawn by the architecture, the European feeling of the streets, and an underground art scene. In the late 1980's and early 1990's, small groups of concerned OTR citizens started to band together to improve the neighborhood. Among them, the Over-the-Rhine Foundation was founded in 1992. Working with other organizations, the Foundation helped revitalize Main St., restore historic building facades, save historically significant buildings like the Alms and Doepke, and begin work toward the neighborhood's rebirth.

There have been snags along the way, but it appears that Over-the-Rhine is finally turning the corner. Due to resident-driven changes in policing with cooperation from the Hamilton County Sherriff and the CPD, crime has been reduced over 50% in one year. The neighborhood is rapidly becoming a different place. City officials are finally starting to value historic buildings and the economic potential of OTR. For perspective, Over-the-Rhine is slightly larger than New Orleans’s French Quarter. While the French Quarter is older, most of its building stock dates from the same era as Over-the-Rhine's; and the majority of wrought iron that makes New Orleans’s architecture famous was produced in Cincinnati and its surrounding communities. While a vast amount of opulent and historically significant architecture has been destroyed in Over-the-Rhine, it remains the largest collection of Nineteenth Century Italianate architecture in the United States. Both for the value of its building stock as well as the long Cincinnati tradition of destroying it as fast as possible, the National Historic Trust named OTR one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the U.S. in 2006. Vacant old tenements are becoming market-rate condominiums. OTR's Pendleton Art Center is the largest collection of private galleries under one roof anywhere in the country. The famed Cincinnati Art Academy relocated here in '06, and three new theatre troupes have created an alternative theatre district around 12th St. Green businesses and green design are hot topics. Local architects are exploring ways to combine historic preservation with ecofriendly restoration to make OTR America's greenest historic neighborhood. Over-the-Rhine was once world-renowned as a cultural Mecca. We believe that this part of our past is preparing to repeat itself.