Sedamsville River Road Historic District

Sedamsville River Road Historic District is a narrow strip of historic buildings on the north side of River Road in southwest Cincinnati, below the bluffs of Mount Echo Park and overlooking the Ohio River. It also takes in properties on Mount Hope and Mount Echo roads. The area began in the mid-nineteenth century as country estates for well-to-do Cincinnatians, then filled with smaller frame and brick houses on narrow lots, many reached by steep stairs and fronted by retaining walls. Commercial buildings, an early twentieth century industrial building and bungalows complete the mix. The most prominent building is St. Martin's Church, a High Victorian Gothic brick church built in 1892 with a 125-foot spire, now vacant and endangered. The district was listed for its connection to the Ohio River as a transportation corridor and for its surviving, densely built neighborhood character, despite demolitions from the 1948 city plan and 2003 road widening.