Description: Dated June 11, 1937, this photograph shows the Carew Tower, looking east on Fifth Street, in Cincinnati, Ohio, one of the tallest buildings in the city, standing at 49 stories at the corner of Vine and West Fifth Streets. The Art Deco style Netherland complex, which included the Netherland Plaza Hotel, the Carew Office Tower, and the Emery Arcade, was designed by architect Walter W. Ahlschlager with contributions from William Delano. The ground level shopping arcade, which served as the main lobby of the complex, spanned the distance of a city block, connecting to the offices on one end and the hotel on the other. Conceived by civic leader John J. Emery, Jr. to revive the downtown area as a city center, the complex took the place of an Emery hotel, an Emery shopping arcade, and a popular department store. The structure was constructed and decorated in a little over a year, and completed in 1931 during the Great Depression. The complex was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1994. This photograph is one of the many visual materials collected for use in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B02F13_007
Subjects: Architecture; Downtowns; Skyscrapers; Cincinnati (Ohio); Art Deco
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)