Look up and ahead for a massive, tan-colored Art Deco skyscraper with a tiered design rising high above everything else-Carew Tower’s bold geometric lines and height should make it easy to spot towering over the square.
You’ve arrived at the mighty Carew Tower-standing tall at 49 stories and stretching 574 feet toward the Cincinnati sky, it’s a real heavyweight champ of Ohio architecture! When this skyscraper first opened in 1930, it absolutely dwarfed everything else around it, much like a pro-wrestler showing up at a chess tournament. Now, just imagine Cincinnati in the late 1920s: jazz music drifting out of downtown clubs, shopkeepers in crisp aprons, and the steady rattle and hum of construction teams transforming the city’s dreams into reality.
The tower’s story starts with ambition. Industrialist John J. Emery had a wild vision-not just for another office block, but for a whole “city within a city,” with offices, shops, a glamorous hotel, and even a parking garage (which, back then, was the height of modern convenience-sort of like putting Wi-Fi on a horse-drawn carriage). With famous architects Walter W. Ahlschlager and Delano & Aldrich on the project, inspiration came from the luxurious Jazz Age, and the building’s design shows it, with dramatic setbacks and colored terracotta stone glowing warm gold as the evening sun hits it.
But the fun wasn’t all smooth jazz and martinis. Just as the first buildings on this site crumbled under the demolition crew’s picks, the 1929 stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. That might have stopped a lesser project, but Emery had already cashed out his stocks to fund the tower, dodging disaster by a hair. As workers swarmed the site-by day and by night-they smashed demolition speed records, tore down thirteen buildings, and then poured concrete around the clock for 30 hours straight. Construction ran into more drama as striking ironworkers walked out in solidarity with their New York peers; weeks ticked by and nerves frayed, but then, finally, hundreds of sweat-soaked steelworkers raced through to raise a floor a day, setting a world record for fast steelwork.
When the Carew Tower and its fancy sister, the hotel Netherland Plaza, finally opened, the city gathered for opening dinners and swinging band music. The hotel itself had to change names in a flurry-the original “St. Nicholas Plaza” clashed with a hotel across town, so a frantic search led to the more mysterious “Netherland.” And just down below, department stores bustled, newspapers hit the stands, and Cincinnatians came for a taste of luxury and speed.
The tower drew everyone from baseball commissioners to radio station moguls, and it saw high times and low. There was a massive fire in the hotel during the early ‘40s, a parade of department stores over the decades, and plenty of debates about skywalks, which once let you float across downtown above the traffic until they were ultimately taken down. Shopping malls came and went inside, and for a time, the view from the 49th floor observation deck became a must-see for tourists and locals alike.
Though for decades the Carew Tower ruled as Cincinnati’s tallest, the Great American Tower eventually stole its crown. By the 2000s, it faced rough weather-office vacancies rose, ambitious mall ventures faded, and the tower changed hands. In 2022, after financial turbulence, new owners set out on an audacious plan to fill these storied halls with apartments, with renovations set to bring a fresh buzz by 2029.
So here stands Carew Tower, called “one of the finest examples of skyscraper modernism in America,” a monument to determination, jazz, and just a bit of Cincinnati’s flair for wrestling with history-literally and figuratively-high above the city streets. And trust me, that’s no tall tale… or actually, maybe it is!
