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Avondale, Cincinnati — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Avondale is one of fifty-two Cincinnati neighborhoods, incorporated 27 July 1864 and annexed in 1896, home to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.
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Where to stay in Avondale
The practical side of choosing where to sleep.
The zoo is the reason most visitors come. Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden stands in Avondale, and North Avondale, Evanston, Walnut Hills, Corryville and Clifton ring the neighborhood on every side. It divides into two halves. North and South Avondale grew increasingly separate after the mid-century, with North Avondale holding its property values and the character of its streets while the rest went a different way.
Institutions fill much of the ground. University of Cincinnati and the nearby hospitals were the beneficiaries of the rebuilding between 1965 and 1975.
Things to do in and around Cincinnati
Ranked by global recognition; descriptions from Wikidata (CC0).
Churches & Religious Sites
6- St. George Parish and Newman Center Heritage
- First Unitarian Church Heritage
- Walnut Hills United Presbyterian Church Heritage
- Calvary Episcopal Church Heritage
- Grace Church Heritage
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- First Universalist Church Heritage
Stadiums & Sports
3- Cincinnati Tennis Club Heritage
- Corcoran Field
- J. Page Hayden Field
Parks & Gardens
1- Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
Landmarks & Notable Places
8- Harriet Beecher Stowe House Heritage
- Henry Probasco House Heritage
- George B. Cox House Heritage
- David and Mary May House Heritage
- Bernard H. Moormann House Heritage
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- Gorham A. Worth House Heritage
- Moses Goldsmith Building Heritage
- Charlton Wallace House Heritage
worth knowingacross 4 categories in and around Cincinnati
About Avondale
What are the main landmarks in Avondale?
A stream gave the place its name. Legend puts it on the wife of Stephen Burton, a wealthy ironworks owner, who is said to have begun calling the area Avondale in 1853 after seeing a resemblance between the brook behind her house and the Avon in England. Three men incorporated it.
Daniel Collier, Seth Evans and Joe C. Moores did so on 27 July 1864, when this was still a rural suburb of Protestant families from England and Germany. Zoo aside, the built record is housing. Widespread demolition for street improvements, parking and institutional expansion took much of the older stock after the city identified the neighborhood as blighted in 1956.
What is the history of Avondale?
Avondale was a rural suburb through the 19th century. Its settlers were mostly Protestant families from England or Germany, and it was incorporated on 27 July 1864 before Cincinnati annexed it in 1896. Streetcars changed who lived there.
Less affluent people settled once the lines were laid, and from 1920 until after the Second World War sixty per cent of Avondale was Jewish. An expressway changed it again. Building the Millcreek Expressway in the 1940s displaced people from the Black West End, and because realtors of the day only permitted Black families to move into neighborhoods that already had a Black population, Avondale received them, having had Black households since the mid-19th century.
Renewal promised one thing and did another. The city called the neighborhood blighted by 1956 and rebuilt between 1965 and 1975 in ways that benefited the University of Cincinnati and nearby hospitals, promising better housing and instead demolishing widely for streets, parking and institutional expansion. Two riots began here.
They broke out in Avondale in 1967 and in 1968, part of the wider Civil Rights Movement and Black Power movement in the United States.
Where is Avondale?
Avondale lies among the fifty-two neighborhoods of Cincinnati, bordered by North Avondale, Evanston, Walnut Hills, Corryville and Clifton, with the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden inside it.
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Updated October 2026