This may have been posted on here before, but I haven't seen anything about it.  Last night on History Detectives, which airs on PBS, they did a segment to find out why Cleveland killed its electric streetcars in the 1950's. 

 

 

As it turns out GM,  which was conspiring to buy up all of the rail lines across the country and convert them to busses, to be purchased exclusively from GM of course, got into some shady business with a former Cleveland Mayor.  His name was Ray something or other and at the time was a county commissioner, who was also on the city's transportation committee.  It was strongly implied that in exchange for a GM dealership in the city he voted to sell off our streetcars to Toronto and replace them with busses. 

 

That is of course the short version.  It was a pretty interesting 10 or so minute segment.  Good stuff.

Saw that episode last night on WOSU-TV.  Great story with great old black & white film of the Cleveland streetcars and those in some other cities. 

 

To be honest, given their declining car sales, it'd be smart for the US auto industry to get into the building of rail transit vehicles.  Perhaps as pennance?

I've heard something similar about GM and the street cars in Los Angeles but people also argue that the street cars were a lot slower than buses and there was some other reason..I can't remember. There has to be some kind of corporate intervention in this stuff though.

I think it is pretty obvious that the highway cabal was doing whatever it could to presuade people to forsake transit in favor of universal car ownership, which in some quarters might be called car dependency or car slavery. The GM "hit list" of transit properties and the corrupt politicians that aided and abetted are proof enough of this.

 

OK, so the next question is: GM sold us down the river, now what?" For my part, this whole thing just makes me want to fight all harder for a future where an automobile is a choice and not a necessity. In a new world of Peak Oil, I think we are running against the clock and this story just reinforces the sense of urgency I feel today.

 

We made bad decisions as a nation and we suffer today, but we can change that.

Noozer, I'm sure you know that General Motors is already a large manufacturer of locomotive engines.  DCX's Orion division makes buses. 

 

I know what you mean, though.  It would be nice to have a U.S.-based rail car manufacturer instead of having to get 'em shipped over from Europe and assembled here.   

A lot has been written about the alleged conspiracy by GM, Firestone, Standard Oil and others to replace urban rail transit with buses as a first step toward moving people away from mass transit and towards autmobiles. A number of corporate executives were convicted in an investigation and trial in the 1950's, but no one got more than a slap on the wrist.

 

I've seen a couple of articles written by people who worked for city transit systems during that era, attempting to refute the allegations of conspiracy, too.

 

To find more info about it, google National City Lines. That was the midwestern bus company bankrolled by GM to buy out and convert streetcar systems.

 

Jonathan Kwitney wrote a story for Harper's, probably something more than twenty years ago, titled The Great Transportation Conspiracy. It's the most detailed account I've read.

Interesting that Chevron owns the patent on NiMH batteries!

 

  Regarding conspiracy theories, in all fairness the streetcar lines weren't doing all that well by the 1950's anyway.

Noozer, I'm sure you know that General Motors is already a large manufacturer of locomotive engines.  DCX's Orion division makes buses. 

 

I know what you mean, though.  It would be nice to have a U.S.-based rail car manufacturer instead of having to get 'em shipped over from Europe and assembled here.   

 

GM sold their locomotive division (EMD--ElectroMotive Division) last year.  I can't recall who bought it, though. 

 

>>>>Eighth and State wrote: 

Regarding conspiracy theories, in all fairness the streetcar lines weren't doing all that well by the 1950's anyway.

 

How could they when the streetcar companies had to maintain their own infrastructure, maintain their rolling stock, and make a profit, yet driving was being made artificially cheap (as it still is today) by the public purse pouring money into streets and highways. 

 

 

 

   Regarding conspiracy theories, in all fairness the streetcar lines weren't doing all that well by the 1950's anyway.

 

There was most definitely an attack on interurban and streetcar systems by GM et al going back to the 1920s. Ironically, at the time, the streetcar and interurban systems were portrayed as the big bad guys, as part of powerful, money-grubbing corporate syndicates that had to be broken up. When rail operations were forcibly divorced from their eletrical utility and real estate sectors by the courts during the New Deal, the rail side was the easiest to chop. Public roads were viewed as the way to free citizens from the shackles of greedy corporations. So the fading condition of streetcars by the 1950s may not have been the cause, but the effect.

 

Funny how the pendulum swings, not to a happy medium, but to the opposite extreme....

Were the rail companies taxed at a high rate to fund road development ?

No more than any other industrial taxpayer. And that tended to occur at the local political jurisdictions, where all road traffic begins and ends.

KJP, you make an excellent point, and that is the splitting of electrical utilities and real estate from streetcar operations instantly rendered the streetcars unprofitable.  Without the real estate component, the Pacific Electric Railway would have never blanketed Los Angeles.  At the same time, many local jurisdictions dictated where streetcar companies were required to provide service, and placed artificial caps on fares, further limiting profit margins. 

i saw it & that show was urbanohio must see tv!

 

the investigation part clearly showed in memos how they targeted cities to destroy the streetcar lines and replace them with busses. also, that part B of that plan was that just behind the curtains and under the table palms were greased. for example, the key politicians in tampa were all riding around in gm caddys after the busses were bought there and clevelands own mayor got a gm dealership after they bought into the bus purchases. the latter was even diligantly reported in the cleveland press, but nothing happened other than the streetcars went away!

 

today we pay the price of reduced transit options.

 

as an aside, cleveland was held as a model of streetcar transit and the views of the city looked great.

There was a documentary about this that came out 10 years ago:

 

Taken for a Ride

 

The Ohio connection is that the director, Jim Klein, is from Yellow Springs...or lives there.  He teaches at Wright State in their film program.

 

 

"Were the rail companies taxed at a high rate to fund road development ?"

 

  Not only were they taxed, but they were also required to pave the streets that they operated in.

 

  In Cincinnati, anyway, the original law from the horse drawn days required transit companies to pave the portion of the street between the rails as a condition for using the right of way. The idea was that horses would wear a rut in the streets. When streetcar companies started installing double tracks, the area that they were required to pave extended between the two sets of tracks as well. In complicated intersections, the streetcar companies were required to pave nearly the entire intersection. This practice continued long after the horses were gone. The streetcar companies literally paved the way for the competition. And, automobiles not only competed for passengers, but they also competed for space. How many streetcars crashed into automobiles? How many streetcars were delayed in traffic? How many streetcars were delayed due to automobiles parked on the tracks?

 

    Whether it was fair or not, automobiles won that battle in Ohio cities, with a few exceptions. The streetcars are gone. Where do we go from here?

I killed Cleveland's street cars.

 

And i'd do it again!

   Not only were they taxed, but they were also required to pave the streets that they operated in.

 

That was true in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County as well.

 

Whether it was fair or not, automobiles won that battle in Ohio cities, with a few exceptions. The streetcars are gone. Where do we go from here?

 

Support existing efforts in Ohio's 3-C's plus Toledo for downtown streetcar projects. All four of those cities have some type of planning effort underway, and I think Dayton has something brewing as well.

I think Dayton has something brewing as well.

Indeed, and it was the subject of the last Grassroots Greater Dayton meeting.  The plan is still alive, but just needs someone to take the lead on it.

http://www.mvrpc.org/dahc/

Hi, this may or may not have been shared before. I don't know, couldn't find it at least, but check out this nifty streetcar short movie featuring Cleveland streetcars.

 

 

Very nice! I was hoping they'd show some of the Detroit-Superior Bridge subway, and they didn't disappoint me.

 

I saw at least three cars from about 1951; a Pontiac, a Mercury, and a Hudson, and all looked shiny new. I'd guess that's about when the film was shot.

^^That's part of Jasper Wood's "Streetcar" from the 1950s (I think there are two parts).  I think Lakewood Public Library did a program about them last year sometime and that both parts are available on youtube.  They are totally, totally awesome.

 

PS: also see this: http://clevelandmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/09/streetcar-by-jasper-wood.html

Hi, this may or may not have been shared before. I don't know, couldn't find it at least, but check out this nifty streetcar short movie featuring Cleveland streetcars.

 

 

 

This footage is great, I posted it back in March. You can also see Part 1:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,18016.msg380326.html#msg380326

This is a redirect of a discussion in the HealthLine thread which began talking about what streetcars or interurbans used the tracks that went up Cedar Hill on the south side of the roadway. The vacated streetcar right of way is still there, BTW....

 

Here is part of a much larger 1925 Cleveland Railway Co. (the private owner and operator of the city's streetcar system) map of Greater Cleveland, although in 1925 the metro area wasn't physically very large! This cropped map focuses on the routes that came up Cedar Hill and then fanned out into the newly developing heights area. Only one of these streetcar routes had an interurban carrier using it -- CR's Euclid Heights/Mayfield 51/6d route which ended at Oakwood Drive. From there, the Cleveland & Eastern Railway took over on a single track to Gates Mills and Novelty just east of which it split with branches to Chardon and Middlefield. Each line on this map represents a track -- which is why I like this map because it shows the track layouts, switches and loops at various junctions and terminals.

 

What do the dotted track lines indicate?

A lot has been written about the alleged conspiracy by GM, Firestone, Standard Oil and others to replace urban rail transit with buses as a first step toward moving people away from mass transit and towards autmobiles. A number of corporate executives were convicted in an investigation and trial in the 1950's, but no one got more than a slap on the wrist.

 

I've seen a couple of articles written by people who worked for city transit systems during that era, attempting to refute the allegations of conspiracy, too.

 

To find more info about it, google National City Lines. That was the midwestern bus company bankrolled by GM to buy out and convert streetcar systems.

 

Jonathan Kwitney wrote a story for Harper's, probably something more than twenty years ago, titled The Great Transportation Conspiracy. It's the most detailed account I've read.

 

I provided the link some time ago to KJP and he posted it in a forum. It's been quite a while, though, and some of the newer forum participants might find it interesting reading:

 

Go here

I provided the link some time ago to KJP and he posted it in a forum. It's been quite a while, though, and some of the newer forum participants might find it interesting reading:

 

Go here

Rob, who wrote that article and when?

I provided the link some time ago to KJP and he posted it in a forum. It's been quite a while, though, and some of the newer forum participants might find it interesting reading:

 

Go here

Rob, who wrote that article and when?

Written by Jonathan Kwitney for Harper's in February, 1981. A co-worker who knew of my interest in transit copied it and gave it to me, and all these years I've somehow been able to hang onto it.

How would Greater Cleveland be different if most of those streetcar lines were still in use?  Curious what people think...

What do the dotted track lines indicate?

 

If you're referring to the Murray Hill, Mayfield, Washington and Coventry routes, those are streetcar lines that were abandoned as of 1925. The Coventry route wasn't much of a loss as the Van Sweringen brothers asked CRC to build that line prior to the brothers building the Shaker Rapid lines. Once the Shaker Rapid was built, there wasn't much need for the Coventry route. Then you'll see a dotted line at the end of the Mayfield CRC streetcar? That was an interurban -- an electric railway that linked cities (vs. a streetcar that ran within cities). Interurbans often used streetcar system tracks to in/out of cities, however. The C&E interurban ran out to Gates Mills (its truss bridge still spans the Chagrin River), Chardon, Middlefield and Garrettsville. There are still a few interurbans running in the U.S. (the South Shore from South Bend, IN to Chicago), but they are still very common in Europe and Asia.

 

 

How would Greater Cleveland be different if most of those streetcar lines were still in use? Curious what people think...

 

I don't think there would be as much urban decay, but I think a subway or two that replaced the city's two busiest streetcar lines (Euclid and St. Clair) would have done much more to preserve and even enhance the density of those corridors. As it stands, the congestion of auto traffic and the inability of streetcars to quickly move through that traffic made much of the east side choke on its own density. Now, if the city was willing to enforce car traffic-free transit right of ways, provide safer streetcar stops rather than have people stand in the middle of the street, and put low-power electrical circuits in the tracks that provide green lights to streetcars at intersections (the same circuits cause flashers/gates to activate at railroad crossings), then I think we would still have a viable streetcar system in Cleveland. And, as a consequence, I think we have many more viable neighborhoods in Cleveland. There still would have been some decay, as we were as hell-bent as any large metro in building highways to decentralize the population. But that sprawl would have been less with a modernized streetcar system and a subway or two.

How would Greater Cleveland be different if most of those streetcar lines were still in use?  Curious what people think...

 

I don't think there would be as much urban decay, but I think a subway or two that replaced the city's two busiest streetcar lines (Euclid and St. Clair) would have done much more to preserve and even enhance the density of those corridors. As it stands, the congestion of auto traffic and the inability of streetcars to quickly move through that traffic made much of the east side choke on its own density. Now, if the city was willing to enforce car traffic-free transit right of ways, provide safer streetcar stops rather than have people stand in the middle of the street, and put low-power electrical circuits in the tracks that provide green lights to streetcars at intersections (the same circuits cause flashers/gates to activate at railroad crossings), then I think we would still have a viable streetcar system in Cleveland. And, as a consequence, I think we have many more viable neighborhoods in Cleveland. There still would have been some decay, as we were as hell-bent as any large metro in building highways to decentralize the population. But that sprawl would have been less with a modernized streetcar system and a subway or two.

 

Great points, especially about the neighborhoods and decay... I don't think there would be much decay if the streetcars had remained.  They were an integral part of the city's design, and to an extent, the city can't be expected to function without them.

If Oregon had had automobile manufacturing as a major component of its economy, then Portland would have had development patterns more like Cleveland.

...I don't think there would be much decay if the streetcars had remained.  They were an integral part of the city's design, and to an extent, the city can't be expected to function without them.

 

Exactly.  While the residential parts of streetcar suburbs can function ok without them, their commercial corridors get hit hard.  Those commercial streets depended on pedestrian traffic, and they were mangled to provide parking and better visibility for speeding cars, ultimately left behind for larger and flashier digs.  When the commercial streets get grungy and run down, it's difficult to keep that blight from spreading into the residential neighborhoods too. 

 

If Oregon had had automobile manufacturing as a major component of its economy, then Portland would have had development patterns more like Cleveland.

 

Was Portland all that much better in the past?  Yes it's improved itself a lot in the past 20 or 30 years, but they had a lot of "bad" to undo in the first place.  This brings me to a point many people bring up, that National City Lines didn't own THAT many systems, so why did all the others get abandoned?  National City Lines sold the idea of new shiny "modern" buses that other cities copied, because that's what all the cool kids were doing.  After WWII most of the streetcar systems in the country were seriously worn down from heavy wartime use, and rebuilding them was an expensive proposition.  Instead, they could "modernize" the system with cheap flexible buses, without realizing they were throwing away the advantages of streetcars.  Whether still independently or municipally owned, the streetcar systems simply didn't have the money for capital improvements, especially with so much government money being poured into road building.  It's really sad to see how completely one-sided the situation was, and remains to this day. 

I know I've posted these elsewhere here on UO, but they probably should be posted here. These are of the unique curbside operation of the Clifton streetcar through Lakewood and the Edgewater neighborhood of Cleveland...

 

This is looking west on Clifton in Lakewood in 1941...

 

 

 

An aerial view looking down on the Clifton-West 117th intersection in 1948 as the tracks are being removed and the boulevard widened from two lanes to seven...

 

 

 

Again at the Clifton-West 117th intersection, looking west, in 1948. The streetcars have been replaced by buses but the tracks have yet to be removed...

 

 

 

Clifton at Ethel in Lakewood, looking east in 1947...

 

 

 

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures. It was taken in 1902 when the west end of Lakewood was just vineyards. There weren't even trees here, let alone large houses. Then Clifton Boulevard was built along with the Cleveland Railway Co. streetcar line over which the Lake Shore Electric to Toledo also ran....

 

 

 

Here is one of those Lake Shore Electric trains, but by 1937 (when this picture was taken looking east at Summit Avenue) the line had been shortened to Lorain. But it was still double-tracked throughout and, west of Lakewood, the trains still rocketed along at 80 mph. Glad to know we've progressed since then to 65 mph on the highway...

 

 

 

Lake Shore Electric along the CRC's Clifton tracks in 1930...

 

 

 

A couple of views of the unique side of the road operation along Clifton where, if you had a car and you pulled out of your driveway you had to first look for streetcars and interurbans, then look for roadway traffic. That apparently offended County Engineer and Lakewood native Albert Porter who made it his personal mission to rid Cleveland of rail transit. Here's Clifton in 1927, two years after Porter joined the county engineer's office as an entry-level planner...

 

 

 

Clifton at Warren, looking west in 1927...

 

 

 

Clifton at Granger, looking west in 1927...

 

 

 

One last view. This is of a Cleveland Railway Co. streetcar in 1937 on Clifton at Summit, looking east. A year later, the Lake Shore Electric stopped running (Northern Ohio's last interurban) over privately funded and decaying tracks, and was replaced by Greyhound buses over publicly funded and improved highways. Four years later the stockholder-owned Cleveland Railway Co. would be sold to the City of Cleveland and renamed the Cleveland Transit System. Seven years after than, the Clifton line was converted to buses. Cleveland Mayor Ray Miller was on the city council’s transportation committee in 1946 when the decision was made to dismantle Cleveland’s streetcars. Four years later, Mayor Miller received a new GMC dealership a month after GM won the contract for supplying new buses to the city of Cleveland. Things that make you go "hmmmm"...

 

It is just heart breaking to look at those photo's.  I remember seeing Mayfield near Green (warrensville center rd?) being dug up to be repaved in the late 70's maybe 1980.  They tore it down to the bricks, which still looked good in my oppinion and all the streetcar tracks were still there.  They tore those up too and laid down concrete.  Sigh. 

Or like what was proposed by the Cleveland Transit System in 1944, 1947 and 1953. The last one was approved by voters countywide but killed by County Commissioners who were bribed by Public Square interests who feared the subway would help Playhouse Square interests "too much." County Engineer Albert Porter also helped fight it by recommending that the commissioners stipulate that the underground construction incur no cost overruns. So the will of the few overcame the will of the people...

 

 

 

 

that is beautiful! long have i dreamt of cleveland having a subway system. i truly think its an integral part of an urban community and core. getting cleveland to that point is a dream of mine, and i hope one day it happens. that and\or the olympics. hah! but seriously, its a dream of mine. cool to see where they wanted stations. i always thought the galleria was an absolutely prime place to be an underground station.

 

there is a cincinnati t-shirt with a made-up underground system on it, maybe we should make one for cleveland? i would wear it.

I think we all agree that the idea of a full subway system in Cleveland is more than dead.  I do believe that the completion of the North Coast Transit Center (or whatever it is called) will reopen the discussion about completing the loop for the waterfront line with a portion being underground (maybe a few hunderd feet) to the Terminal Tower. 

As it turns out GM,  which was conspiring to buy up all of the rail lines across the country and convert them to busses, to be purchased exclusively from GM of course, got into some shady business with a former Cleveland Mayor.

 

To my knowledge, the "conspiracy" started well before GM was a powerful corporate interest. It was more of a result of a sea change in popular opinion, characterized by the platform of the progressive party.

 

Streetcar companies were started before the turn of the century by investors from all walks: some for profit, others for the purpose of selling their real estate. Many of the lines, especially interurbans, were built to compete with private turnpikes, of which there were many. This led to an interesting form of competition between different modes of transportation that led to a great deal of innovation and diversity at a time when the world was changing at a very rapid pace.

 

Fast-forward to the early 1900s. Privately-owned streetcar/electric utility interests were fully developed, and millions of city dwellers relied upon them to get to work. Political figures began to point out that they have something of a monopoly power over consumers. As a result, popular culture labeled streetcar operators as exploitative opportunists. Free and open public roads were seen as necessary to prevent the corporate interests embodied by the greedy streetcar operator from taking advantage of the common man. The city of Cleveland passed many ordinances directly assailing the streetcar companies' bottom line early in and before the turn of the century. The three-cent fare was probably the most famous of these, getting national press:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9904E1DD1230EE32A25751C1A9679C946597D6CF

For many years, progressive interests lobbied for this ordinance but failed in the courts. In 1904 they finally got their way. This was really only the beginning of the city government squeezing the heck out of the streetcar companies. They also required them to pave their right-of-way, sometimes light the streets, and pay exorbitant franchise fees.  Then, as now, the word "profit" was considered a dirty word and activists felt no qualms about burdening the common carriers. Mayor Johnson's apparent goal during this period was to drive the companies into bankruptcy so that the municipality could purchase and operate them (at the time a municipal railway was already operating in competition). Additionally, streetcar strikes plagued the private interests at the time, incurring additional costs.  About a year after the 3-cent-fare mandate went into effect, the main streetcar company declared bankruptcy and a compromise franchise grant charging fares at cost-plus-6%-return was put into place in 1910. Though the seeds for decay were planted, ridership would eventually double to a high of 450 million in 1920. But the system started to become neglected, service was spottier, and eventually things began to reach a head in the 1930s as maintenance costs became prohibitive.

 

Just around that time, the Public Company Utility Holding Act was passed as a part of overarching New Deal regulatory legislation.  This act required public utilities to divest themselves of all unregulated (non-utility) businesses. At the time, most streetcar companies were majority-owned by public utilities whose principal customers were electrified streetcar lines. They used the streetcar companies for tax deductions and ways to shore up their books in the face of increasing regulatory pressures. Without the utilities providing an influx of capital for operating, the streetcar companies were unprofitable. Thus began the wave of selloffs. National City Lines was the principal buyer in many cities, but the municipal government was probably a more frequent customer. The bus lobby more than likely found it much cheaper to bribe a mayor than to lay out the capital to purchase an entire streetcar system.

 

The Van Sweringen brothers actually controlled the Cleveland system from 1930-1937, receiving that 6% return and integrating it into their railroad system. Since the Vans were already nearly broke around this time, they had no money to put the streetcar system on life support like the utilities were doing. The city entered negotiations to acquire the system in 1937 after O.P. died. The sale closed in 1942.

 

Enter Cuyahoga County Engineer Albert Porter, mentioned earlier in this thread. His lifelong goal was to rid the city of streetcars, probably because he was in the pocket of special interests. This leads to years of mismangement and incomptence that led to the last streetcar service shutting down in the middle 1950s.

 

That's what I know. One day I'll write a book.

 

Edit: KJP already gave the cliff notes on this in an earlier post. Go figure! Well, here's some more in-depth information for you.

Here is a much bigger (2.5 MB) version of the map below:

http://members.cox.net/corridorscampaign/NEO-RRs-Interurbans-1914.jpg

 

The original map was for 1904, but two important rail lines were built in Cleveland in 1911, so I added them to this map and changed the titled to the map as a 1914 railroad and interurban map:

 

 

And this is a 2.12 MB version of the map below (please note that it shows the number of steam passenger trains per day, not including electric interurbans, that came in and out of the heart of Cleveland -- yes, there was a total of 173 passenger trains per day in 1919 arriving and departing downtown Cleveland depots!).....

 

http://members.cox.net/corridorscampaign/VanSweringenPlan1919.jpg

 

 

 

And I figured you all would get a kick out of this.....

 

 

 

Plus I also have some statewide public transportation maps showing the rapid decline of Greyhound and other bus service providers since 1979.

This is utterly fantastic! Thanks!

I've seen the Van Sweringen plan (circa 1919) before, and have seen it elsewhere besides UO.  Question: of the Shaker Lines planned, why isn't the Green (Green Rd) line not shown?  We do know that, by 1919, the street level version along what would become Shaker Blvd was running between Coventry and Courtland.  So obviously the 2 lines, in the 2 major boulevards -- Shaker and Moreland (later Van Aken) was already in the works from the beginning... Is this a map oversight?

This is utterly fantastic! Thanks!

 

You're welcome. And if you liked those, you might like these too. I forgot to show the actual streetcar lines that existed at the approximate peak of the system in 1929 (of which the interurbans and the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit were not a part)....

 

(Large map, 771K):

http://members.cox.net/corridorscampaign/CleRwy1929.jpg

 

 

 

And a zoom-in view of downtown....

 

(Large map 405K):

http://members.cox.net/corridorscampaign/CleRwy1929D.jpg

 

 

I've seen the Van Sweringen plan (circa 1919) before, and have seen it elsewhere besides UO.  Question: of the Shaker Lines planned, why isn't the Green (Green Rd) line not shown?  We do know that, by 1919, the street level version along what would become Shaker Blvd was running between Coventry and Courtland.  So obviously the 2 lines, in the 2 major boulevards -- Shaker and Moreland (later Van Aken) was already in the works from the beginning... Is this a map oversight?

 

No, I think it has to do with relevancy. The Van Aken (Blue) Line was relevant to the Van Swerigens' plans to consolidate railroad and interurban traffic into their planned downtown terminal. The Shaker (Green) Line was not.

While searching for other photos of the Cleveland Union Terminal, I found these 1978 photos along the Rapid transit routes. Great stuff!!

 

http://viewoftheblue.com/photography/cleve.html

Wow those are awesome. Good find!

Artist's sketch in 1965 of then-proposed Cleveland Transit System's Hopkins Airport terminal.........

 

This is fantastic.

 

 

This picture....brought back so many memories for me.

 

I've walked down those stairs countless times throughout my life.  I'm verklempted!

 

That's a cool shot, but I think this shot looks more urban. I would love to have such features at the top of the RTA station's escalators today at Tower City. Overall, I like Tower City better (concourse level and higher) than the old Union Terminal even if it is a bit overdone and amusement park-ish. But it's the messy little retailers and the chaotic interactions like this from the old days that I miss......

 

^That is an awesome shot.  I like the big, bold signage.  We've beaten it to death already, but RTA's branding and signage these days is just so sadly meek and blando corporate.

^That is an awesome shot.  I like the big, bold signage.  We've beaten it to death already, but RTA's branding and signage these days is just so sadly meek and blando corporate.

 

Actually that was the Cleveland Rapid, CTS.  Before RTA.