Feel the scale of this 49-story Art Deco giant, Cincinnati's tallest tower when it topped out in 1930. Feel the scale: when it rose it became the city’s tallest in 1930, its office and retail tower topping out in July of that year. It kept that crown until 2011, when it was surpassed by the Great American Tower at Queen City Square.
The tower takes its name from Mabley & Carew department store proprietor Joseph T. Carew, the namesake of an earlier building on this site. Industrialist John J. Emery imagined a mixed-use “city within a city” here—a single complex of office and retail space, a hotel, and a parking garage—planned with help from skyscraper pioneer William A. Starrett and built by Starrett Brothers, Inc. Walter W. Ahlschlager served as the principal architect, with Delano & Aldrich as associate architects. Announced shortly before the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, construction pressed on despite hard times; the entire complex was finished by early 1931 at a cost of $33 million.
Upon its completion in 1930, the tallest of the complex’s three towers housed commercial offices. This Art Deco crown ruled the skyline for decades, until the Great American Tower rose higher over you in 2011.