Walking Cincinnati. Danny Korman

      The Cincinnati Music Hall is one of the city’s most recognizable historic buildings.

      BOUNDARIES: Eton Pl., Race St., 12th St., Young St.

      DISTANCE: 1.9 miles

      DIFFICULTY: Easy

      PARKING: Start at Findlay Market (118 W. Elder St.), 3 blocks north of Liberty St. between Elm St. and Race St. There are parking lots north and south of the market and on Elder St. west of Elm St. Better yet, ride your bike and park at one of the racks on either end of the market house.

      PUBLIC TRANSIT: Take Metro (go-metro.com) routes 46, 64, or 78 to Elder St. and Race St., or routes 6 and 17 to Elder St. and Vine St. or Elder St. and Central Pkwy. Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar (cincinnatibellconnector.com) connects The Banks, downtown, and Over-the-Rhine with 18 stations. Cincinnati Red Bike (cincyredbike.org) has bicycle rental stations at 1723 Pleasant St. (Findlay Market), 1384 Elm St. (Washington Park), 1425 Main St., and elsewhere.

      Over-the-Rhine is Cincinnati’s chief claim to a walking city. The neighborhood is unlike anything else in Cincinnati or the Midwest. The whole area (about 365 acres) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the city’s largest local historic district. Believed to have the single largest grouping of Italianate architecture in the nation and the largest collection of tenement buildings outside New York City, its significance is comparable to other well-known national historic districts around the country.

      The neighborhood’s distinctive name comes from its early residents and builders: German immigrants of the mid-19th century. The Miami and Erie Canal separated the area from downtown and was nicknamed The Rhine in reference to the Rhine River in Germany, and the neighborhood north of the canal was dubbed Over-the-Rhine. The 20th-century transition to Appalachian and African American migrants, as well as immigrants arriving after each World War from eastern Europe, influenced the area’s social and political mix even more. The residential styles are varied because the neighborhood was economically diverse for so many decades. Two of Cincinnati’s biggest industries—brewing and ironwork—are still evident throughout.

      Over-the-Rhine is an urban survivor after suffering decades of neglect and indifference, and it retains an incredible 19th-century sense of place in its compact blocks, brick buildings, and human scale that usually maxes out at five stories. Just like the Germans who first settled here, people today take great pride in their neighborhood. You can see it in the well-kept houses on Orchard Street, the swept sidewalks in front of Main Street storefronts, and the well-traveled aisles at Findlay Market.

      In addition to being a living neighborhood, Over-the-Rhine is a regional attraction. Most visitors come to the neighborhood to experience activities related to the arts, which has led to a surge in bars and dining options, especially along Race, Vine, and Main Streets. A handful of longtime merchants, including Silverglades (since 1922), Suder’s Art Store (since 1924), and Tucker’s Restaurant (since 1946), hold their own in a neighborhood experiencing dynamic change. This walk passes numerous monuments to Over-the-Rhine’s Germanic cultural traditions, while calling out newer additions that give the neighborhood its appeal.

      Walk Description

Start your walk at Rhinegeist, at the corner of Elm Street and Eton Place in a resurgent area of Over-the-Rhine. Rhinegeist, a sprawling brewery, opened in 2013 in the former Christian Moerlein Brewery bottling facility. Walk one block east along Eton Place to the venerable Rookwood Pottery Company. Founded by Maria Longworth Storer in 1880, it thrived until the Great Depression and has rebounded under new ownership since 2006. (There’s a company retail store at 1209 Vine St.)

      Backstory: Pendleton

      While points of interest on Sycamore Street are highlighted in the Over-the-Rhine walk, the neighborhood east of Main Street is called Pendleton; it is mostly residential with pockets of commerce. Here is a quick tour of some neighborhood highlights. Walk east along 12th Street to Broadway, where a cluster of restaurants, bars, and a brewery have emerged on 13th Street in recent years. At Pendleton Street is the headquarters for the Verdin Bell Company (444 Reading Rd.), inside St. Paul Catholic Church from 1850. The large Romanesque Revival church is the centerpiece of a group of church-related buildings constructed after 1850. The Verdin Company led the restoration of all these buildings in the mid-1980s to create spaces for local designers. Turn left on Pendleton Street and walk to 13th Street. Ahead is the Pendleton Arts Center (1310 Pendleton St.). Built in 1909 for Krohn-Fecheimer Shoe Co.—the company that later became U.S. Shoe—the eight-story