Whereas, I missed the Art Deco exhibit at the Boston MFA;
and Whereas, I recently wan­dered down­town Cincin­nati wast­ing film and time;
and Whereas, Art Deco rocks my socks;
I hereby declare the pres­ence of new photos:

A quick walk around Cincin­nati Bell’s 209 West Sev­enth Street headquarters.

This build­ing was designed by Cincin­nati archi­tect Harry Hake, Sr. in 1929. I used to work in it. What’s inside is a mil­lion times more impres­sive, so I regret that I have not been able to pho­to­graph it. If a lobby of mar­ble pol­ished to a mir­ror fin­ish wouldn’t do it for you, the ornate brass­work (think “This Car Up”) on the stomach-turningly fast ele­va­tors might. If you’re not a fan of respon­sive ele­va­tors, you might take inter­est in the world’s second-longest wire­frame, sol­der­ing irons built into lad­ders built into racks of ter­mi­nal blocks, or the cheer­ful cacoph­ony of click­ing relays and ding­ing chimes ema­nat­ing from ancient equip­ment still in ser­vice because it was designed to never stop working.

I don’t have pic­tures of any of that.