Back Street and Hamer Street photograph

Dated ca. 1939, this photograph shows the intersection of Back Street and Hamer Street in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati, Ohio. Germans fleeing the upheaval of the revolutions of 1848 settled in Cincinnati in large numbers. By mid-century, a German area north and east of Central Parkway, centered on Vine Street, had become known as Over-the-Rhine. By the 1890s its high concentration of breweries and bars made it the entertainment center of the city; though the neighborhood never recovered from Prohibition, it retains the greatest density of Italianate architecture in the United States. The area was a poor and working-class neighborhood for much of the 20th century, and in the 21st century it continued to endure alternate periods of investment and disinvestment. The area was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983