Ohio State Office Building construction photograph   Save
Ohio State Office Building Construction
Description: This photograph shows a crowd of people standing outside a brick building located east of the Scioto River in downtown Columbus, Ohio, ca. 1929-1932. This building and an adjoining structure, which are on the site of the future Ohio State Office Building, will be demolished in order to begin construction. Among the individuals in the crowd are law-enforcement officers who may be state troopers and/or city police. The presence of the offers may indicate the possibility of conflict at the site. Various labor disputes slowed the progress of construction. One such dispute involved the Cuyohoga Wrecking Company of Cleveland and unemployed workers from Columbus, who accused the company of using out-of-town labor at a time when many local workers were unemployed. Another photograph in this series (AL06928.tiff) shows a view of the construction site on which sits a brick building with signs advertising the Cuyahoga Wrecking Company. It is possible that the the series of photographs of soon-to-be demolished buildings were taken during this labor dispute. Groundbreaking for the Ohio State Office Building, 65 South Front Street, took place on November 19, 1929. Construction began in October 1930, and the cornerstone was laid on May 16, 1931. An explosion damaged the structure on April 14, 1932, but the building eventually opened on March 27, 1933.The 14-story building was designed by architect Harry Hake, Frank Bail, and Alfred Hahn. The building later became the Ohio Judicial Center. In 2011 the state Supreme Court named the center in honor of the late Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who was the second-longest chief justice in state history at the time of his death in April 2010. The Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center is considered an excellent example of architecture from the Art Deco period View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06931
Subjects: Construction workers; Columbus (Ohio)--Buildings, structures, etc.--Design and construction; Ohio History--State and Local Government; Ohio Judicial Center (Columbus, Ohio); Construction industry--Ohio
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)