United States · Ohio · Cincinnati
West Fourth Street Historic District, Cincinnati — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Terra cotta and mansard brick face the West Fourth Street Historic District, four listed blocks of Cincinnati, Ohio, from Central Avenue to Vine Street.
About West Fourth Street Historic District
Where to stay in West Fourth Street Historic District
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
West Fourth Street Historic District is a listed four-block stretch of downtown Cincinnati, not a hotel quarter of its own. Rooms come from the surrounding Downtown Cincinnati blocks, and the walk in crosses Fourth Street within minutes. Vine Street closes the eastern end under the Fourth and Vine Tower, with Fountain Square a block further north beyond the Fifth Street edge.
The western end at Central Avenue is the plainer half, where the Lombardy Apartment Building has held its mansard roof since 1880. McFarland Street runs behind it. Book this side if you want listed facades and the office core on one walk.
About West Fourth Street Historic District
What are the main landmarks in West Fourth Street Historic District?
West Fourth Street Historic District takes its skyline from the Fourth and Vine Tower, finished in 1913 at 495 feet and the tallest building in Cincinnati until the Carew Tower passed it in 1930. Cass Gilbert drew it. A copper temple on the roof hides a smokestack, and Garber and Woodward added the annex at 309 Vine Street in 1928, tied to the tower by bridges over West Ogden Place.
West of Plum Street the Lombardy Apartment Building has carried a seven-storey mansard roof since 1880. The Ingalls Building stands one step outside the line, across Vine Street.
What is the history of West Fourth Street Historic District?
West Fourth Street Historic District entered the National Register on August 13, 1976 with 32 contributing buildings between Central Avenue and Plum Street. Mansions and an opera house had lined Fourth Street earlier in the nineteenth century, and insurance and banking money took the frontage from them. The Burnet House went down in 1926.
That hotel had opened at Third and Vine in 1850 to a design by Isaiah Rogers, and Union Central Life Insurance bought the ground to raise its annex on it. The boundary moved east twice more, to Race Street in 1979 and to Vine Street in 2007, with a 2015 correction pulling in the annex itself.
Where is West Fourth Street Historic District?
West Fourth Street Historic District runs from Central Avenue east to Vine Street, with Fifth Street above it and McFarland Street and West Ogden Place below.
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Updated September 2026