Brunswick--Balke--Collender Building

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The Brunswick-Balke-Collender Building is a six-story brick building at 130-132 E. 6th St. in Cincinnati, built in 1891 in Romanesque Revival style and attributed to architect Samuel Hannaford.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A, B and C, with local-level significance in architecture and commerce, spanning 1891, when it was built, to 1916, when the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company moved out.

Physical character

The brick building has a riveted cast-iron front with glazed window bays, semi-circular headed windows at the fifth story, and a stone colonnade with decorative capitals at the sixth. Wooden flooring, window trim, stair rails and a decorative ceiling survive inside; a rear concrete-block addition was built in 1965, and the original rear building was demolished in the 1980s.

Historical context

John M. Brunswick moved from Harrisburg to Cincinnati in 1840, and by 1873 his company had acquired the Balke Company to become the country's largest billiard table maker. The building opened in 1891 as a showroom for the company's bar fixtures and furniture, a use that lasted until 1916, when that operation moved to Dubuque and the company left. A sporting goods business, the Bolles-Brendamour Company, operated in the building from 1924 until Brendamour, which bought out Bolles in 1956, closed in 1984.