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Our Headquarters and Museum at 3640 Warsaw Avenue

First Floor

The night deposit box on the front façade of the building was expanded to hold a diorama of the Price Hill Incline created by the late Roy Hotchkiss. The diorama extends into the original lobby of the Provident Bank. The front and back sides of the first floor are separated by the original counter of the bank, complete with original drawers, cabinets, and file cabinets. used by the tellers. There were also two small safes in this area that have been removed. There are still two large safes in the back part of the first floor that originally held money and safety deposit boxes and are now used for photo storage and displays.

The library is now located where the teller area used to be. Behind the library are our offices, restrooms, and a kitchen. There is a large area going back in a separate wing that is used for storage and has access to the basement and the second floor. We now have a lift that connects the first and second floors that allows accessible access to our museum displays. There is also a stairway that leads to the outside of the building.

Among the items displayed on the first floor are a large square piano, donated by the Price Hill Methodist Church, two large pictures of the city of Cincinnati as seen from Price Hill that once hung in the Fifth Third bank at the corner of Glenway and Cleve Warsaw, a display of the Price Hill Incline, a display of Price Hill movie theaters, a Skyline booth and chairs from Price Hill's original Skyline and much more.

 

In June 2000, the Price Hill Historical Society found a permanent home when we purchased the former Provident Bank building on Warsaw Avenue at historic St. Lawrence Corner in the heart of Price Hill’s business district. We purchased the building and own it free and clear.  We set up an endowment fund to pay for ongoing expenses of owning a building, such as utilities, insurance, maintenance, and repairs. The historic building has an Art Deco façade with carved sandstone features that we refurbished to their original elegance, and the building was cleaned, sealed, and weather-proofed. We also replaced the roof and had to do a lot of cleaning and painting before it was ready to house the Society. We moved in on September 11, 2000, and now we have a museum featuring displays from our extensive archives as well as a meeting space, a gift shop, offices, and a library for research. Over the years, we continued to make improvements to both the interior and exterior of the building, including our most recent work in updating lighting and window signage, installing a new fire alarm and state-of-the-art security system to protect our collections and a lift to our upstairs museum. We hope our increased safety and security will encourage private collectors to allow us to have temporary exhibits of their documents and artifacts.

 

 

 

Second Floor

The second floor of our building was originally home to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and two dentists' offices. The cashiers' windows, light fixtures, and flooring are original to the building. All of the second floor space is now used for museum displays. One dentist's office displays our  baseball memorabilia, collected by volunteer Richard Jones. The other has been transformed into a doctor's office with items donated by Doctor John E. Finke. This office was set up in memory of Michael Bessinger, Larry Schmolt's grandson, who died in 2012 after a long illness.