{"nrhp_refnum":"86003829","name":"Madison Avenue Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by Madison, Adams and Huron Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Toledo","county":"Lucas County","state":"OH","lat":41.66404754200005,"lon":-83.53971075761594,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1998-06-26","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Industry","Architecture","Art"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A downtown commercial historic district along Madison Avenue (with parts of Adams and Huron) in Toledo, Lucas County, Ohio, made up of eleven early skyscraper and commercial buildings erected between 1893 and 1930.","why_significant":"The buildings form Toledo's only significant streetscape of early tall commercial buildings and show several early skyscraper construction methods, including Chicago School and Sullivanesque elements. They are tied to Toledo's glass and automobile industries, whose companies had offices there. They were also the last large commercial buildings built in Toledo until well after World War II.","narrative":"Madison Avenue in downtown Toledo holds a cluster of eleven commercial buildings put up between 1893 and 1930, creating what the nomination calls a financial canyon. Eight are counted as contributing, and two are non-contributing: a c.1940 Tudor Revival club and a 1910 bank building covered by 1960s aluminum alteration. The group runs from the 1893 Gardner Building, an early use of reinforced concrete floors, through the steel-framed Spitzer Building of 1896 and the 17-story Nicholas Building of 1906, to the 1930 Art Deco Ohio Citizens Bank Building, the tallest at 368 feet. Other buildings show Neo-Classical Revival and Italian Renaissance design. All were architect designed. The district matters for its architecture and for its link to Toledo's growth as a glass and automobile center, since companies such as Owens Bottle Machine, Libbey-Owens and Owens-Illinois kept their offices here. It is Toledo's only significant streetscape of early tall commercial buildings.","period_of_significance":"1890-1930","architect_builder":"Multiple; includes Charles Gardner (Gardner Building), Thomas F. Hubber (Spitzer Building), Bacon and Huber (Nicholas Building), Mills, Rhines, Bellman and Nordhoff, and builder A. Bentley and Sons","architectural_style":"Early skyscraper commercial styles including Chicago School, Sullivanesque, Neo-Classical Revival, Renaissance Revival and Art Deco","criteria":[],"status_note":"Most buildings are in use as commercial space; three buildings were demolished after 1976 for parking and empty lots, and the Hamilton Hotel site at 421-423 Madison is listed as vacant. Two buildings are non-contributing.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:07.622495-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/86003829.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71989953","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/lucas-county/madison-avenue-historic-district-86003829/"}