This little corner of Ohio was my home for 35 years before moving just over the river to Bellevue last summer. Every time I look out of my front door or my bedroom window, I see the Carew Tower standing tall above the 80s skyscrapers that failed to match its height and spirit, reminding me where I'm from and what I'll always be. I know the city's center like the back of my hand. I spent years exploring the basin, climbing its hills, and finding the character that imbues the city with originality beyond its postcard-worthy icons. But even though I've walked its streets for years and have read the story of how we got to where we are today, there's always something fascinating to learn about its history.
To grow my understanding of Cincinnati's history, I went on the Tenement Life North of Liberty Walking Tour given by volunteers of the OTR Museum. The tour explores the history of how people lived in the late-1800s and early-1900s in Over-the-Rhine—specifically the way they lived north of Liberty Street. From the crowded apartments to the rudimentary toilets, the tour opens one's eyes to the physical challenges faced by Cincinnatians who didn't have the modern luxuries we take for granted today. It also touches upon the mental toll it had on the people who suffered in less-than-desirable conditions.
But the tour doesn't focus exclusively on hardships. You learn a great deal about the immigrants who came from Germany in the middle-1800s and essentially built what we know now as Over-the-Rhine. Personal biographies are read aloud in front of the buildings that once housed those families, and photos of long-lost structures are paired with the physical locations they once occupied. The tour benefits significantly from the volunteer guides' acute understanding of the phrase "specificity is the soul of narrative."
TOURING TENEMENT LIFE
I'll take you through a few of the things I learned on the tour, but I won't recap the entirety of it to encourage you to take the tour yourself. The $15 admission price is a direct donation to the OTR Museum and is well worth the price for the hour-long tour.
We started in the shade of the Findlay Market beer garden that flanks Elm Street. The group is intentionally kept small to provide an intimate experience. Our guides never had to scream their stories to ensure everyone could hear—I much prefer this type of tour as it doesn't attract attention from passersby like other tours I've done. They spoke about how the area of Elm & Elder Streets began developing in the 1830s due to German migration to the region and how the Prussian Revolution of 1848 further increased the movement Cincinnati-ward. Beer and unregulated industries popped up on the then-outskirts of the city where they settled, giving the area a sense of relative lawlessness for a spell.
The tour began at Findlay Market on the Elm Street side.
The scope of German occupation is a big topic early in the tour. By 1890, 58% of people in the basin were German immigrants who'd made their home in Cincinnati. During the 1910 census, 126,000 people living in the area listed German as their first language. They drive home the idea that, at one time, Cincinnati was overwhelmingly German before the demographics began changing around the beginning of WWI due to the rise of anti-German sentiment and Prohibition.
Because women were excluded from entering the saloons and bars the men frequented, they would gather in courtyards instead.
They also tell the tale of John Filson, the original surveyor who named the city 'Losantiville' before General Arthur St. Clair renamed it two years later, and how he disappeared one fateful day in October without a trace.
As the tour moves on, it delves into the physical elements of Cincinnati, both lost and preserved. They speak about the Globe Building at the corner of Elm & Elder Streets and show a photo of the modest, wood house that occupied that space before the Globe was built. The story of the family who lived there is a primary focus for that leg of the tour.
They talk about the courtyards and their role in the social lives of the women who lived in the tenements above them. Because women were excluded from entering the saloons and bars the men frequented, they would gather in courtyards instead.
This is also where privies were introduced. Warning: references to human waste for three paragraphs below.
Now, here's the thing about privies: even though they're toilets, they're an amazing source of knowledge because of all the artifacts people would throw into them when finished using them or after the holes were filled in once indoor plumbing became available. They're these dirty treasure troves of old beer bottles, old shoes, smoking pipes, broken dining ware, and so many other everyday objects of the time that belong in a museum today.
The tour talked a lot about these former fecal sheds-turned-archaeological goldmines and spent time pointing out where several once were as well as where at least one of them still stands. Our group was also enlightened to the concept of "honey dippers"—the men who routinely emptied the privies and deposited the material into the Ohio River.
You can see the outline of where a multiple-toilet privy once connected to a neighboring building. This is now a parking pad and a back yard for a single-family home.
An example of a single-toilet privy (not in Cincinnati, but same concept). Photo by Carl Mydans, Library of Congress.
Of course, not everyone used a privy. Ever hear of a chamber pot? If you're unfamiliar with the term, it's likely because you've never dreamed of using one. It's essentially a bucket placed bedside, so when you wake up in the middle of the night and have to go, you needn't go outside. Chamber pots would be emptied the following day, sometimes from second or third-story windows and onto the streets below. Women didn't just walk around with umbrellas for shade, apparently. I'll let you piece together why.
Woman with umbrella, 1910. Photo from the collection of the Missouri History Museum.
During this part of the tour, I was acutely aware of my privilege, having grown up in the modern world and being born well after humanity had perfected toilet technology. We don't give enough credit to the people who managed to live in substantially dirtier conditions than we do today.
During these privy hunts, the guides also pointed out how additions to houses were made to enhance profitability for the families living in the home. Tenements often sprung up in front of or behind modest single-family homes and were later connected to the original structure as density increased. These are referred to as "hyphens." This provided an extra source of income for the family who owned the land and provided shelter for fellow Cincinnatians.
An example of a “hyphen” on Pleasant Street.
The guides outlined some interesting facts which I will not reveal here (you'll just have to take the tour!), but one stood out to me as staggeringly wild. In 1916, Cincinnati had a greater percentage of people living in densely crowded tenements than any other city in the United States. Let that sink in for a moment...
Our tour led us through alleys and stopped on Pleasant Street to showcase how buildings featured attic windows so freshly laundered clothes could be dried inside the building, and how after-market floor joists marked by an iron star on the exterior were added to buildings in response to fear around earthquakes.
An example of a tenement building with attic windows.
Attic windows above the third story.
When looking at this tenement building, two visual clues hint at its past. First, the lack of windows and visible scar on its south side indicates that a building once stood directly next to it and has since been demolished. Second, the number of chimneys is a strong visual representation of how many apartments were once housed within the tenement building.
We eventually walked down Race Street to check out how drastically Liberty Street changed since its inception. Originally, Liberty Street was a two-lane road and was later expanded, taking out scores of historic buildings to make room for its expansion.
Also on Race Street, the guides pointed out how metal facades, which were equally ornate to and cheaper to manufacture than stone facades, make up a wide variety of Over-the-Rhine's built environment. They can be identified by little emblems that are still visible today.
An example of a Race Street building with a metal facade.
Eventually, the tour heads over to the future site of the OTR Museum. It has an interesting story rich with information about who lived there and what the building was home to over time. I won't reveal that story here so you can go into it fresh when you take the tour yourself.
The OTR Museum’s future home. To get the full story about its history, you should take the tour!
Below is an image that teases one small part of its history, however.
By the time the tour concluded, I felt like I had an even better appreciation for our local ancestors and the urban fabric they created and we maintain today. This is a tour for anyone who is even mildly interested in history and learning more about Cincinnati. It will open your mind to seeing Over-the-Rhine in a new light if you're not already dedicated to studying architecture. It's also a good reminder that nostalgia for a time that isn't our own isn't exactly as rosy as people want it to be. Unless you were white and wealthy in the middle to late 1800s and early 1900s, life was difficult, uncomfortable, and unsanitary by today's standards. I appreciated that honest, raw retelling of tenement life in Cincinnati.
Tickets for the Tenement Life North of Liberty Walking Tour can be purchased here. Also, check out the other tours offered by the OTR Museum on its website.
The OTR Museum is currently fundraising. You can learn more about its mission, vision, and initiatives here.