House With a View

Fellow explorer Lance DeLune and myself have had our eyes on this smaller residential building for some time. Built in 1875, it's similar to many of the buildings found throughout the Over-the-Rhine area of Cincinnati, except for its location midway up the steep hillside adjacent to the neighborhood. The building sits on an isolated street, most of the other buildings around it have been torn down over the past few decades. The location offers an excellent view, but at a price; Cincinnati's hillsides are made up of loose soil and clay, which makes it very difficult to build a foundation upon. This building doesn't seem like it will stand for much longer, as the foundation is sliding down the hill, and has been, slowly, for 135 years.

Nevertheless, after being left open to the elements for many years, this old apartment building made for a small, but interesting exploration. Lance, myself, and a new groupie Dana Barrett took a peek around:

Looking out the front windows over Cincinnati.

There isn't a window left in the entire building, but the ground floor is boarded up fairly tight, making it really dark. There is some junk left around, and there are gaping holes in the floors.

The ground floor was boarded up tightly and crowded with junk.

The second floor is a lot more open to the elements. There are no windows at all, it's likely that they were removed and salvaged for use somewhere else. The building was mostly empty, sans some junk that was probably brought in by transients after it had become abandoned. It wasn't clear if some homeless had spent the night, or some hipsters had just hung out; the line between hipster and homeless is so blurred.

A room on the second floor of the building.

The basement was the last stop. It was also pretty empty, and tiny. Dana was the only one who could stand up down here. We took a few photos, then got out.

In the basement.