General Contractor was the J. and F. Harig Co., Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati and Suburban Telephone Company Building is a registered historic building in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. It was designed by Harry Hake, and listed in the

National Register The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on April 20, 1995. The

Cincinnati Bell Cincinnati Bell, doing business as Altafiber (typeset as altafiber), is a regional telecommunications service provider based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It provides landline telephone, fiber-optic Internet, and IPTV services through its ...

Company opened its building at Seventh and Elm streets in 1931. At that time, it housed the world's longest straight switchboard, with 88 operator positions. The building was built in such a way as to protect the city's phone network. With a push of a button heavy steel doors will lock and metal covers will spring up over the windows on the lower floors. Representations of rotary telephones are carved into the limestone frieze on the building's facade. Continuing the communication motif, still other reliefs depict a runner, telephone inventor

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...

, and nautical

flag signals Flag signals can mean any of various methods of using flags or pennants to send signals. Flags may have individual significance as signals, or two or more flags may be manipulated so that their relative positions convey symbols. Flag signals allo ...

References

Buildings and structures in Cincinnati National Register of Historic Places in Cincinnati Industrial buildings and structures in Ohio Telephone exchange buildings Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Telecommunications buildings on the National Register of Historic Places Cincinnati Bell Industrial buildings completed in 1931 1931 establishments in Ohio Cincinnati Local Historic Landmarks {{HamiltonCountyOH-NRHP-stub