It is the second city of Ohio, on the north bank of the river Ohio, two hundred and seventy miles southeast of Chicago by rail, opposite the cities of Covington and Newport, in Kentucky. Steam ferries and six lofty bridges connect the city with the Kentucky shore; the suspension bridge by Roebling is two thousand two hundred and fifty feet long, and cost one million eight hundred thousand dollars.
Cincinnati occupies an exceedingly broken and irregular site, the more densely built parts being [599] enclosed between the Ohio River and steep hills. The river front is upwards of fourteen miles in length. A second terrace is fifty or sixty feet higher, and a district between the hills and the Miami Canal, known as “over the Rhine,” is occupied by the large German colony.
The main portion of the city is regularly laid out and its streets are well paved. The chief shopping district is bounded by Fourth, Main, Seventh, and Elm Streets. The best residential quarters are on the surrounding highlands, built on a succession of irregular hills, by whose steepness they are broken into a series of some five and twenty villages, interspersed with parks.
Fountain Square, an expansion of Fifth Street, may, perhaps, be called the business center of the city and from it start most of the street railway lines. In the middle of the square stands the Tyler Davidson Fountain, cast at the Royal Bronze Foundry at Munich. To the north, at the corner of Fifth Street and Walnut Street, is the United States Government Building containing the Post Office, Custom House, and United States Law Courts, erected at a cost of five million dollars. It is of sawed freestone in the Corinthian style.
By following Fifth Street to the west and turning to the left down Vine Street, we pass the entrance to the Emery Arcade and reach, at the corner of the busy Fourth Street, the Chamber of Commerce. Opposite, at the northeast corner of Fourth and Vine Streets, stands the Ingalls Building. On the north side of Fourth Street, between Vine and Race Streets, is the fine Third National Bank.
Following Fourth Street towards the west, we soon reach Plum Street, which we may follow to the right to St. Paul’s Protestant Cathedral, at the corner of Seventh Street; the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter, at the corner of Eighth Street, and the Synagogue, opposite the last. In the block bounded by Central Avenue and Eighth, Ninth and Plum Streets is the City Hall, a large red building in a Romanesque style, with a lofty tower, constructed of brown granite and red sandstone at a cost of one million six hundred thousand dollars. A little to the east, in Vine Street, between Sixth and Seventh Streets, is the Public Library. To the north of this point, “over the Rhine,” is Washington Park, with the Springer Music Hall and the Exposition Building.
Among other buildings may be mentioned the County Court House, St. Xavier’s College, the Oddfellows’ Temple and the Cincinnati Hospital. Recent buildings of the modern type include the Traction Building, the Mercantile Library, the Union Trust Building, and the First National Bank.
The chief park of Cincinnati is Eden Park, which lies on the hills to the east and affords fine views of the city and river. It contains the Art Museum, a storage reservoir of the City Water Works, and the Water Tower. The top of the last affords the best view of the city and its environs, the river, and the Kentucky Highlands.
The Art Museum is a handsome group of buildings on a hill-top, some in a Romanesque, others in a Grecian style. Adjacent is the Art Academy. Both are maintained by a private corporation.
There are more than two hundred and fifty churches, including a Roman Catholic cathedral; besides many handsome theaters, hotels, and public halls, hospitals and asylums, and schools.