Nathaniel Ropes Building | |
Front of the Ropes Building | |
   | |
| Location | 917 Main St., Cincinnati, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 39°6′22″N84°30′40″W / 39.10611°N 84.51111°W Coordinates: 39°6′22″N84°30′40″W / 39.10611°N 84.51111°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1882 |
| Architectural style | Queen Anne |
| NRHP reference # | 82003585 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | September 30, 1982 |
The Nathaniel Ropes Building is a historic commercial building in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Located on Main Street near the Hamilton County Courthouse, [2] this 1882 building has been named a historic site. [1]
Commercial buildings are buildings that are used for commercial purposes, and include office buildings, warehouses, and retail buildings. In urban locations, a commercial building may combine functions, such as offices on levels 2-10, with retail on floor 1. When space allocated to multiple functions is significant, these buildings can be called multi-use.
Cincinnati is a major city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and is the government seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line with Kentucky. The city drives the Cincinnati–Middletown–Wilmington combined statistical area, which had a population of 2,172,191 in the 2010 census making it Ohio's largest metropolitan area. With a population of 296,943, Cincinnati is the third-largest city in Ohio and 65th in the United States. Its metropolitan area is the fastest growing economic power in the Midwestern United States based on increase of economic output and it is the 28th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. Cincinnati is also within a day's drive of 49.70% of the United States populace.
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Of the fifty states, it is the 34th largest by area, the seventh most populous, and the tenth most densely populated. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus.
Nathaniel Ropes founded a company to manufacture lard, candles, and other oil-based products in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1844, he bought a piece of property in what is now the 900 block of Main Street in downtown Cincinnati, and upon this lot he erected a frame building. This structure stood for twenty-seven years; it was replaced by a larger structure in 1871, and this building in turn was removed for the construction of the present edifice. Ropes appears to have arranged for the building's construction for investment purposes; it was erected only after he had bought 11 feet (3.4 m) of land on the southern edge of his original lot, and none of the buildings at the site appear ever to have housed Ropes' business. [2]
Lard is fat from a pig, in both its rendered and unrendered forms. It is a semi-soft white fat derived from fatty parts of the pig, with a high saturated fatty acid content and no trans fat. Rendering is by steaming, boiling, or dry heat. The culinary qualities of lard vary somewhat depending on the origin and processing method. At retail, refined lard is usually sold as paper-wrapped blocks.
Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is generally called mass wall construction, where horizontal layers of stacked materials such as log building, masonry, rammed earth, adobe, etc. are used without framing.
Real estate investing involves the purchase, ownership, management, rental and/or sale of real estate for profit. Improvement of realty property as part of a real estate investment strategy is generally considered to be a sub-specialty of real estate investing called real estate development. Real estate is an asset form with limited liquidity relative to other investments, it is also capital intensive and is highly cash flow dependent. If these factors are not well understood and managed by the investor, real estate becomes a risky investment. The primary cause of investment failure for real estate is that the investor goes into negative cash flow for a period of time that is not sustainable, often forcing them to resell the property at a loss or go into insolvency. A similar practice known as flipping is another reason for failure as the nature of the investment is often associated with short term profit with less effort.
The Ropes Building is a brick structure that features elements of sandstone and iron in its construction. [3] Many ornate details characterize its facade, such as variations in the materials used and in the shapes of elements of all types, which combine to form a fine example of the Queen Anne style of architecture. [2] Because of its well-preserved historic architecture, [1] which also aids in distinguishing a group of adjacent commercial buildings, [2] the Nathaniel Ropes Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. [1]
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized mineral particles or rock fragments.
A facade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually the front. It is a foreign loan word from the French façade, which means "frontage" or "face".
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property.
