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Euclid Avenue Memories

Guest CornerCurve
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I thought this was great.  Finally the PD appears (yes - appears) to be rallying around the city core in a postive light.  Last week the topic of Public Square (BTW, I love that most people would pay more in taxes to fix up the Square!!), this week Euclid Avenue.  Now that we have a considerable amount of new housing be introduced into the downtown core, the more positive items that are in the paper/media, it will make the public aware of what we had and what we need to do revive our Grand Dame!

 

Just looking at that map saddens me. 

 

Memories of eating at Stouffers Restaurant, The Forum Cafeteria, Halles (which was light years ahead of Higbee's, in terms of being fashion forward at the time they were both open), Sterling Linders holiday decorations/tree, Bonwit Teller, Ice Cream at Woolworth's, I. J. Fox furs, Cowell & Hubbard, Chandler Shoes, Buster Brown, (I think I was showing early signs of being gay and/or a shopaholic at the age of four!), The Twigbee shop and Mr. Jingaling!  :cry:  :cry:  and those three fabulous hostess with the big hair at the Silver Grille restaurant!I am actually tearing up here! 

 

Shopping downtown was an "experience", an experience you dressed for! If my mom couldn't get it at Halles on Shaker Square or Severence (which was the second best store) the sales ladies would always say, "you know we have it downtown, we have EEEEEVERYTHING in every size, downtown"...which meant a trip downtown on the Shaker Rapid and a stop a the Hough Bakery on Public Square, if I was a "good boy"!  and for those FABULOUS sugar cookies, in the shape of a star with blue sprinkles, I'd be a perfect angel.  I can remeber going to Football games with my dad and brother at Municipal stadium and then going to the Central Market before heading home!

 

Unless something changes dramatically, my Nephews/Nieces will never get an opportunity to experience - in Cleveland - what urban living is like.  Although we lived in Shaker, it seemed that everything we bought was purchased downtown. 

 

This article has been a real emotional kick in the gut for me!  I bet people all over metro Cleveland are discussing what (shopping in) downtown Cleveland was like.  (sigh) The memories.....................:cry:

Holy Crapamoli....Euclid used to look like 5th Ave or Michigan Ave(pic in the PD).....it would be SO nice to see something like that return....

I thought this was great.  Finally the PD appears (yes - appears) to be rallying around the city core in a postive light.  Last week the topic of Public Square (BTW, I love that most people would pay more in taxes to fix up the Square!!), this week Euclid Avenue.  Now that we have a considerable amount of new housing be introduced into the downtown core, the more positive items that are in the paper/media, it will make the public aware of what we had and what we need to do revive our Grand Dame!

 

Just looking at that map saddens me. 

 

Memories of eating at Stouffers Restaurant, The Forum Cafeteria, Halles (which was light years ahead of Higbee's, in terms of being fashion forward at the time they were both open), Sterling Linders holiday decorations/tree, Bonwit Teller, Ice Cream at Woolworth's, I. J. Fox furs, Cowell & Hubbard, Chandler Shoes, Buster Brown, (I think I was showing early signs of being gay and/or a shopaholic at the age of four!), The Twigbee shop and Mr. Jingaling!  :cry:   :cry:  and those three fabulous hostess with the big hair at the Silver Grille restaurant!I am actually tearing up here! 

 

Shopping downtown was an "experience", an experience you dressed for! If my mom couldn't get it at Halles on Shaker Square or Severence (which was the second best store) the sales ladies would always say, "you know we have it downtown, we have EEEEEVERYTHING in every size, downtown"...which meant a trip downtown on the Shaker Rapid and a stop a the Hough Bakery on Public Square, if I was a "good boy"!  and for those FABULOUS sugar cookies, in the shape of a star with blue sprinkles, I'd be a perfect angel.   I can remeber going to Football games with my dad and brother at Municipal stadium and then going to the Central Market before heading home!

 

Unless something changes dramatically, my Nephews/Nieces will never get an opportunity to experience - in Cleveland - what urban living is like.  Although we lived in Shaker, it seemed that everything we bought was purchased downtown. 

 

This article has been a real emotional kick in the gut for me!  I bet people all over metro Cleveland are discussing what (shopping in) downtown Cleveland was like.  (sigh) The memories.....................:cry:

 

waaa! i will just ditto everything you said. oh and i will add to your star cookie memory the modernistic cookie, which anyone in nyc area would know as a black&white cookie. i think those were at hough too or maybe the higbees silver grille.

 

the peedee did good on this one and good timing too. that will be a total inspiration to the people, the city and developers.

 

 

my mom even still has my halles mr.  jingaling key.

Does anyone have or know where they can point me to find some old pics of Euclid Ave?

waaa! i will just ditto everything you said. oh and i will add to your star cookie memory the modernistic cookie, which anyone in nyc area would know as a black&white cookie. i think those were at hough too or maybe the higbees silver grille.

 

the peedee did good on this one and good timing too. that will be a total inspiration to the people, the city and developers.

 

 

my mom even still has my halles mr.  jingaling key.

 

That was at the Silver Grill.  They would have the cookies displayed on Silver Serving trays!  God, I'm old!

^I've still got my cardboard oven they served the kids' meals in at the Silver Grill, so please don't say you're old, 'cuz that just makes me feel old too! :wink:

I would check  http://www.clevelandmemory.org/

Go to FIND IMAGES and you will find just about anything you can imagine photo wise for Cleveland.

^I've still got my cardboard oven they served the kids' meals in at the Silver Grill, so please don't say you're old, 'cuz that just makes me feel old too! :wink:

 

OK...now thats a keeper!  I totally forgot all about that. 

 

I dont feel old, besides i'm only 40, according to my mom, "life" is just about to begin!  Who knew??!! 

 

Besides, 40 is the new 30...cause i've seen some people in their 20s who look like they are in their 40s...I can still "drop" it like it's hot!  It's "picking it up" thats the problem :wink:  So all-in-all, I think I'm looking pretty good and feeling even better.  :laugh:  So bring it if you can, you 20-something whipper snappers!  :whip:

 

 

 

 

^You are ridiculous. I think its more likely time for you to move out of your Shaker Square apartment and check into the The Alcazar.

 

^You are ridiculous. I think its more likely time for you to move out of your Shaker Square apartment and check into the The Alcazar.

 

 

Oh no you didn't!!!   :-o  I am too young and pretty for that place.

I was reading the articles that people posted and was SHOCKED that my own "I love living in the suburbs" brother wrote a memory.  This from a man who cringes at the idea of living in Cleveland or sending his children to a Cleveland public school.

 

I guess even ubber surbanites realize that investing & believing in Cleveland well ultimate help all of NEO and Ohio.

 

I remember riding downtown on the shaker rapid (remember when it had the orange sunburst on the front??) with my Mom and younger brother. We would always start at Sterling Linder, then go to Halle's because my mom thought it was better than Higbee's.

My younger brother and I could always pick out something to play with at Woolworth's before heading to the Hough Bakery for sugar cookies. I always got a cookie with red sprinkles, he always got a cookie with blue sprinkles!

Other found memories are roaming around the Central Market or eating Foot Long hotdogs during a Browns or Indians game!

My fellow Clevelanders, we let our voices be heard when we wanted the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame! No lets all demand developers and retailers show some interest in the heart of great city...malls will never have a place in our hearts like Euclid Avenue has.

Pick up your pens/pencils, write an email to your favorite retailer and tell them WHY they should have a store located on Euclid Avenue!!!

Bring Back Millionaires Row

i dunno this whole nostalgia thing is kinda odd.  its not like euclid just turned to shit when 1970 hit.  its not even bad right now.  granted it has a lot to be improved. 

 

i was never alive during the euclid avenue heyday, but i do have fond memories of going downtown as a kid on the rapid with my parents.  tower city was still grand instead of mediocre, the water fountains and whatnot.  and then we would walk over to the old arcade where it was filled with some really cool shops.  i remember the one toy shop in there we would always go to.  i wanna say there was a comic book store somewhere over there too, but maybe im thinking coventry?  and this all took place in the early 90s.  We even accidentaly watched the pride '92 parade because we didnt know what was going on around euclid, we walked out of the arcade and there were floats and people waving.  i even got excited about the "pretty dancers"...

i dunno this whole nostalgia thing is kinda odd.  its not like euclid just turned to shit when 1970 hit.  its not even bad right now.  granted it has a lot to be improved. 

 

Zace, you had to see it to believe it. Imagine being on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. That's what Euclid Avenue was like. My earliest memories of it were from the 1970s, and yet the street was still busy at times, into the mid-1980s or so. There were times while driving along Euclid and we had to turn into a parking garage, we had to wait a while for the pedestrian flow to clear.

 

When I drove down it recently with my father to show all of the buildings undergoing renovation, I saw a tear in his eye. I asked him and why and he said "It's so sad to see it like this." My dad was born in 1929 and saw Euclid Avenue in its better years (though some may argue he just missed the best years, as the 1920s were probably its peak).

 

So, yeah, Euclid Avenue really is that bad, especially when the shadow from its grand history still looms over it like a ghost that can't be seen. But the ghost is there, and I can feel it every time I'm there. I'm cursed with an awareness of how truly great that thoroughfare once was.

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

yea maybe thats true, i guess id have to see it at the time to understand.  and ya know, come to think of it my earliest memories of it up until now have always kinda felt like there used to be more to it, kinda like the whole ghost feeling.

I'm going to revise this when I get a chance to think about it more. I do think everyone who has posted in this thread has been dead-on with their views.

 

As long as that one building without windows stands looking like hell, I will be unhappy. I think what a lot of Euclid Avenue looks like is shameful. Who owns those buildings?

 

It sort of reminds me of when I lived in the Detroit area, and I went downtown for a story I was doing, and I saw the old buildings and the true enormity of a city that is now all beaten down. Later I saw picture of what Detroit looked like in the 1960s, and it really bummed me out, and I didn't even grow up there.

 

 

i dunno this whole nostalgia thing is kinda odd.  its not like euclid just turned to shit when 1970 hit.  its not even bad right now.  granted it has a lot to be improved. 

 

i was never alive during the euclid avenue heyday, but i do have fond memories of going downtown as a kid on the rapid with my parents.  tower city was still grand instead of mediocre, the water fountains and whatnot.  and then we would walk over to the old arcade where it was filled with some really cool shops.  i remember the one toy shop in there we would always go to.  i wanna say there was a comic book store somewhere over there too, but maybe im thinking coventry?  and this all took place in the early 90s.  We even accidentaly watched the pride '92 parade because we didnt know what was going on around euclid, we walked out of the arcade and there were floats and people waving.  i even got excited about the "pretty dancers"...

 

Z I'm not sure how old you are, but the comic book store was on the Euclid side facing E. 4th.  The toy store was really cool.  At one point IIRC that toy store was FAO Schwartz (the other FAO Schwartz was on Shaker Sq.). 

 

Euclid is bad - to those that remember how great it was - and I based on what i've read and heard, KJP and I missed the REALLY GOOD years, in my opinion as it was amazing and at the time Michigan Avenue wasn't as nice as Euclid Avenue.  The Daisy Sales.  The Halle's - Higbee's rivalry.  Back then Sterling Linder & May Co. were tacky stores and the downtown Halle's was Cleveland's version of Bergdorf Goodman/Neiman Marcus/Marshall Fields.  Shopping downtown was an ALL DAY EXPERIENCE when Halle's and Higbees stores were fully occupied from the bottom to the top.

 

you were "excited"........hummm???

 

i dunno this whole nostalgia thing is kinda odd.  its not like euclid just turned to shit when 1970 hit.  its not even bad right now.  granted it has a lot to be improved. 

 

Zace, you had to see it to believe it. Imagine being on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. That's what Euclid Avenue was like. My earliest memories of it were from the 1970s, and yet the street was still busy at times, into the mid-1980s or so. There were times while driving along Euclid and we had to turn into a parking garage, we had to wait a while for the pedestrian flow to clear.

 

When I drove down it recently with my father to show all of the buildings undergoing renovation, I saw a tear in his eye. I asked him and why and he said "It's so sad to see it like this." My dad was born in 1929 and saw Euclid Avenue in its better years (though some may argue he just missed the best years, as the 1920s were probably its peak).

 

So, yeah, Euclid Avenue really is that bad, especially when the shadow from its grand history still looms over it like a ghost that can't be seen. But the ghost is there, and I can feel it every time I'm there. I'm cursed with an awareness of how truly great that thoroughfare once was.

 

KJP, I totally understand how you and your dad feel.  My dad said the same thing when he came to have lunch with me once.  Saying its a shame that offices and homes are all over the place but that all the stores have abandoned the city.  He's still upset the central market was torn down.

 

Even when my family would go downtown on a regular basis in the 70s/80s we could still shop, but at that point 3 of the 5 department stores were already gone and my mom shopping habits switched to severance (an now Severance is a shell of what a beautiful mall was) and Shaker Square went into disaray as Halle's closed and the major national stores left the Square. 

 

My mom didn't come to Cleveland until the 1960s and said she had hit the "shopping gold mine" here in mighty Cleveland, she had never seen so many stores.  For her it was the land of opportunity and credit cards - she still has credit cards that say Mrs. --- my dads name.

 

Euclid Avenue retail is the one area where I think the city should look back and try to rebuild/recapture.  Anyone who thinks towercity was awesome when it opened has no clue what shopping in downtown was like.

 

I can't agree more with your 7:52 AM post.  Euclid Avenue went from being absolutely fabulous to ghetto ass strip.  I dont think it will get people "down".  I'll be optomistic and say it should ENCOURAGE people to take a stand.  With all the housing development in downtown right now...there is no reason there shouldn't be a game plan to revitalize Euclid with BIG TIME retail, restaurant and one of a kind speciality stores.  Stores you can only find in Cleveland.

Euclid Avenue retail is the one area where I think the city should look back and try to rebuild/recapture.  Anyone who thinks towercity was awesome when it opened has no clue what shopping in downtown was like.

 

I can't agree more with your 7:52 AM post.  Euclid Avenue went from being absolutely fabulous to ghetto ass strip.  I dont think it will get people "down".  I'll be optomistic and say it should ENCOURAGE people to take a stand.  With all the housing development in downtown right now...there is no reason there shouldn't be a game plan to revitalize Euclid with BIG TIME retail, restaurant and one of a kind speciality stores.  Stores you can only find in Cleveland.

 

Exactly! I deleted my previous posts because this basically hits on what I was trying to say but did a lousy job saying. All I know about downtown retail is Tower City and the Galleria, and those places were cool in a "better than Beachwood" sort of way. But they obvioulsy weren't anything like the past.

 

Euclid Avenue is such a great, historic location! I love how when I walk down it on my lunch break, I still look up at the tops of the buildings to see how high they are. Think of all the things you could do on that street. Bars, restaurants, stores, museums, art galleries -- school, which is my personal favorite. Already some parts look good. That little strip behind the Halle Building is nice, and Star Plaza is a great place to go on lunch during the work week. "You're so money and you don't even know it!"

 

I do understand and feel the depression people have when they look at what that street has become. It pisses me off more than anything else. I guess it's like OTR in Cincy, which I have never visited but all the photos just knock me out it's so beautiful. I'm trying to figure out people, especially young people, who don't come downtown. One person recently told me he didn't even know Cleveland had a theater district or more than one theater -- he saw a show, and I asked him at which theater and he got confused. Another person only shops at Crocker Park, not even on the "east side" where all the best stores are anyway (TJ Maxx, etc.:). My friends invited me to go to a bar in Westlake after work, and I thought "Westlake!? LAME!" And it was lame! Nothing bums me out more than getting a drink at a place next to an Aldis in a strip mall. At the same time, people like this will say Cleveland sucks.

 

OK! I figured out where I'm going to go on the Rapid. W. 117 to University Circle. Should be fun.

 

Z I'm not sure how old you are, but the comic book store was on the Euclid side facing E. 4th. 

 

Hmmm, I do not remember a comic book store on 4th. But I do remember Super City Comics in the Old Arcade, Euclid side, on the second floor. Brian Michael Bendis (famous comic writer, used to work there as a store clerk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Michael_Bendis ) This was in the early 90's. I still have all of those comics.

 

When I was a kid, I remember going to Woolworth's with my mom and eating open faced turkey sandwiches and mashed potatoes covered in gravy. (It was approximately the site of the fireplace in HOB.)

 

And of course I remember doing the Xmas deal at the Twigbie Shop and seeing all the stuff one see's in the Christmas Story movie.

 

I remember much more from the 70's and the 80's, but most of it has been covered already.

I think I have pictures somewhere from when they did the last overhaul of Public Square.

I'll have to dig them out.

yea i remember it being in the old arcade and not e4th, but then again i was like 7 or 8 so what did i know then heh

 

Z I'm not sure how old you are, but the comic book store was on the Euclid side facing E. 4th. 

 

Hmmm, I do not remember a comic book store on 4th. But I do remember Super City Comics in the Old Arcade, Euclid side, on the second floor. Brian Michael Bendis (famous comic writer, used to work there as a store clerk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Michael_Bendis ) This was in the early 90's. I still have all of those comics.

 

quote]

 

Thats it!  you walked up the narrow stairs to get to it!  I said it FACED east fourth(and Wendy's.)

  • 9 months later...

I AM FURIOUS ABOUT THIS!

 

And is this Calabrese related to the one who the building next door to First Merit? Or is that all the same building, I can't remember. If so, he has a dump building and gives away our historical artifacts!

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/earlyedition/2007/04/citys_historic_webb_c_ball_clo.html

 

Time ran out last week for Cleveland's oldest street clock.

 

It was snatched off the sidewalk by a town of 2,500 people.

 

Local members of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors were ready Monday to fix and restore the 121-year-old clock at 1112 Euclid Ave. after reading in the Plain Dealer that its owner had agreed to give it to the Fredericktown Historical Society.

 

For more information, click the above link.

Yeah, it's pretty sad when even your monuments start fleeing the city  :-P

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