forest city products 1980s —

 

 

October 25, 2020 04:00 AM

 

Crain's Cleveland Look Back: Forest City's reach grew across the nation

 

STAN BULLARD 

 

crains —

https://www.crainscleveland.com/crains-cleveland-40th-anniversary/crains-cleveland-look-back-forest-citys-reach-grew-across-nation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

untoppable nightmare material — 😂

 

2 hours ago, mrnyc said:

untoppable nightmare material — 😂

 

 

Omg this is such a flashback for me.... where was this sign??????

Also - I'll never get over this picture from the Charity Game... 71,000 to watch Cathedral Latin play Holy Name, with the dirtiest of blocks being thrown behind the play. 

24 minutes ago, YABO713 said:

Also - I'll never get over this picture from the Charity Game... 71,000 to watch Cathedral Latin play Holy Name, with the dirtiest of blocks being thrown behind the play. 

Those high school kids look like they were in their thirties.

2 hours ago, mrnyc said:

untoppable nightmare material — 😂

 

 

The Bedford store was next door to the bar I ended up working at.  When he expanded into his whole building he bought the FC building, let the fire department practice in it, and tore it down for parking.

4 hours ago, E Rocc said:

 

The Bedford store was next door to the bar I ended up working at.  When he expanded into his whole building he bought the FC building, let the fire department practice in it, and tore it down for parking.

 

i think the one in the middle of broadway in lorain might still be there?

 

they freaked me out as a kid. 😂

4 hours ago, YABO713 said:

 

Omg this is such a flashback for me.... where was this sign??????

 

sorry i dk about that one, it didn't say. 

 

but yeah they were all over the place back in the day.

13 hours ago, mrnyc said:

 

i think the one in the middle of broadway in lorain might still be there?

 

they freaked me out as a kid. 😂

 

I know the entire chain shut down in like 2001, because I started at the bar in 2002.

20 hours ago, Htsguy said:

Those high school kids look like they were in their thirties.

They'd probably been working night shifts since they were 9

4 hours ago, E Rocc said:

 

I know the entire chain shut down in like 2001, because I started at the bar in 2002.

 

oh wow i’m surprized it hung on that long, but i meant just as a ghost sign. there must be some still around? if i was driving around and saw one now i would probably crash the car. 😂

super clarity —

 

sheriff street market 1905 (b. 1891) —

 

 

 

viaduct —

 

lakeside ave at w9th — 1920 —

 

 

 

 

 

As I usually do on the rare occasion I have some downtime, I'm going through old memory cards to archive the thousands of images I've taken over the years. Came across a batch from 2015 - I'm fully aware these might not fall under the traditional definition of "historic" but there's been so much that's changed (or unchanged, in some cases), I figured why not? No particular order, hope you enjoy a trip down memory lane.

Public Square from 200 Public Square:

200 Public Square atrium:

Icon from Saint Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral:

Saint Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral:

Main dome interior of Saint Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral:

Saint Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral - in case you didn't know, the building caught fire this year and is currently being reconstructed. 

Hilton facade under construction:

Scranton Flats Towpath:

Scranton Flats Towpath, this land has since been leveled and the Collins apartments are under construction:

The Federal Building was still undergoing a facade replacement which seemed to take forever:

Hilton construction:

West 14th Street and Innerbelt construction in the Tremont neighborhood:

Detail view of Euclid Grand apartments, before restoration:

Senator Sherrod Brown and Connie Schultz on the steps of City Hall, when the Obergefell v. Hodges decision was handed down (not long after, my husband and I joined the ranks of the happily married - well, I'M happily married, lol!). I recall Connie Schultz declaring "the dragon is dead" in reference to the anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments - wishful thinking I guess. 

Hilton construction:

Walnut Wednesday at Perk Park:

View of the Sherwin Williams HQ tower site from Prospect and West 3rd. 

Now demolished, Haabs Bakery in Duck Island:

Hilton construction from the Goodtime III:

Skyline from I-77 northbound:

MetroHealth buildings under demolition, where the Glick Center now stands:

Euclid Avenue at East 4th Street - pre-Beacon and Shake Shack:

View from the 1010 Building rooftop:

Rose Building, former United Church of Christ building and the Schofield:

Key Tower and the PNC (Previously National City, Pittsburgh Not Cleveland) building:

View looking west from 1010 Euclid:

 

East Sixth Street looking south from St. Clair Avenue - the former National City Building's parapet is under repair after it collapsed and crushed a vehicle but fortunately no one was injured

Protest to recall former Mayor Frank Jackson - thought the individual in the center with the blue baseball hat must have had something to hide 😉

View from the Convention Center Roof/Mall B:

Workers installing the Hilton facade:

 

Schofield under redevelopment:

Main Avenue:

Duck Island:

Drury Plaza (formerly Board of Education):

Indians (now Guardians) Opening Day at Huron and Prospect:

Former United Church of Christ headquarters (700 Prospect):

East 4th Street, Opening Day:

Public Square from Soldiers and Sailors Monument:

Public Square from Soldiers and Sailors Monument:

Former National City Bank Building - click here for a more current view:

Former Jewish Federation of Greater Cleveland Headquarters, now site of the Edge apartments:

Kesicki Hall/Welsh Academy on the campus of Saint Ignatius - click here for more current view:

Flats East Bank apartments:

Steeple of St. John's Cathedral with Hilton under construction:

The Ivory under redevelopment:

Hilton construction:

Great set of pictures.

 

Amazing amount of changes over the last ten years or so.

I wish the atrium space at 200 Public Square was restored to it's original design.  Thanks for the photos @MayDay

This city has come a long way!

A few more from the archives - happy to provide more detail on these, just ask.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took these photos when I was teenager with my 35mm camera. 1989 "Light Up Cleveland" Monday Night Football. 

As a person whose first visit to Cleveland wasn't until 2003, it's strange to see the riverfront without the Waterfront Line.  I wonder how far along the construction of Key Tower was at the time these pictures were taken.

12 hours ago, Florida Guy said:

"I took these photos when I was teenager with my 35mm camera. 1989 "Light Up Cleveland" Monday Night Football."

 

@Florida Guy   Thanks for sharing.   Enjoy seeing any old photos of NEO.  By the way, these photos look similar to nearly every 35 mm camera photo I took from 1970 to 2000.   Its incredible how digital photography especially on our Smartphones has changed everything for us amateurs.  I would have killed back then for just one shot equal in quality to any random shot on my Pixel phone today.  😉   






 

 

The only thing in these pictures I wish we could go back to is all the people in the Arcade.  And maybe the fountains.

14 hours ago, Florida Guy said:

I took these photos when I was teenager with my 35mm camera. 1989 "Light Up Cleveland" Monday Night Football. 

I kind of wish they could have found another location for Jacobs Pavilion instead of wedging it in next to the powerhouse.

 

2 hours ago, JohnOSU99 said:

As a person whose first visit to Cleveland wasn't until 2003, it's strange to see the riverfront without the Waterfront Line.  I wonder how far along the construction of Key Tower was at the time these pictures were taken.

It’s always wild to me how Superior used to just dead-end into a dirt lot by the river. 

5 hours ago, JohnSummit said:

The only thing in these pictures I wish we could go back to is all the people in the Arcade.  And maybe the fountains.

The Hanna fountains were beautiful. 

6 hours ago, JohnOSU99 said:

As a person whose first visit to Cleveland wasn't until 2003, it's strange to see the riverfront without the Waterfront Line.  I wonder how far along the construction of Key Tower was at the time these pictures were taken.

The powerhouse was a skeleton, but just down the river on the east bank the flats were the place to be.
 

I moved to Florida in January of 1990 from Cleveland. I remember the area of the Society Tower being fenced off but I don’t have any recollection of the construction. There’s probably pictures of it somewhere in this thread.

Sorry - couldn't find a better way to share this... But I'm reading a book on the few weeks before Lincoln's initial inauguration, and his visit to Northeast Ohio (and the landscape he found there) is described in detail. Thought this was too cool not to share:

 

Didn't know about the Cuyahoga being the official western boundary in 1795, though of course that didn't last because wars change those things.   That made the east side the northwestern corner of the USA.  #LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

Read the outstanding book "The Western Reserve - the story of New Connecticut in Ohio" by Harlan Hatcher, published in 1949. I seem to recall that Moses Cleaveland in 1796 paid the few remaining natives for their land with various trinkets and booze. The book relied heavily of diaries written by Cleveland and his surveying party which was actually two surveying parties who trekked west and met on the banks of the Cuyahoga. The northern one came along the lakeshore. The other farther south, finding lots of swamps in what is today Twinsburg and Hudson. Both parties knew they had left Pennsylvania and crossed into the Western Reserve when they passed a 100-foot-wide north-south clearing through the forest. That was done to mark the western border of Pennsylvania. It ran from Lake Erie at least to the Ohio River and possibly beyond, but I don't remember.

 

The part that got me was where one of the two survey parties described walking through the woods and came down a hill to the first bend in the Cuyahoga River south of the lakeshore. There they found a fur trapper's cabin that was in disrepair. it probably was built by the French decades earlier if not a century or more. They then measured their steps back up the hill to a spot where they planned a town square and marked its perimeter. As they looked up at the tall trees swaying in the breeze, they imagined a town being here someday. When I read that whole section, the way it was beautifully described, it put tears in my eyes. They knew they were doing something important but could not know how important. Cleaveland thought his new town might grow to be big as his native Windham, Connecticut someday....

 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Windham,+CT/@41.6998913,-72.1583864,122m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89e66370d6856305:0xd9d6a5c229789a5e!8m2!3d41.6998208!4d-72.1570219!16zL20vMHJnYzI?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyOS4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Euclid Avenue, looking east from East 105th, in 1930 and today. The building (The Fenway) at far right is the only constant. This is the only quadrant of this major intersection where I might consider progress has been made in the past century....

 

 

 

danny greene mobster bombing

Lyndhurst, October 6, 1977

On 1/31/2025 at 11:28 PM, Florida Guy said:

I took these photos when I was teenager with my 35mm camera. 1989 "Light Up Cleveland" Monday Night Football. 

Three questions, where were those fountains, why did they disappear and when did the Arcade start falling off? I've never seen it busy like that besides a special event.

On 2/1/2025 at 2:41 PM, roman totale XVII said:

It’s always wild to me how Superior used to just dead-end into a dirt lot by the river. 

Wait it did? lol

2 hours ago, MyPhoneDead said:

Three questions, where were those fountains, why did they disappear and when did the Arcade start falling off? I've never seen it busy like that besides a special event.

Hanna Fountains were on the mall between St. Clair and Lakeside.

The fountains were removed because of constant issues with water leaking into the convention center below.

 

Edited March 15Mar 15 by LibertyBlvd

3 hours ago, MyPhoneDead said:

Three questions, where were those fountains, why did they disappear and when did the Arcade start falling off? I've never seen it busy like that besides a special event.

Jaysus, those photos take me back. Those fountains (and the Indians/Browns) are all I remember about downtown from the 80s.

 

In 2007 Mr. MayDay posted the fountains leaked into the Cleveland Convention Center and were removed (at an earlier date, not '07).

 

As to when the Arcade began falling off, 70s and 80s like everything else. Even the '01 renovation and Hyatt absorbing space didn't do all that much. Those shops and eateries were quite dead; people just used the mall to go from one block to another.

 

Used to see Travis Haffner at the gym downstairs, that was cool. 

 

1 hour ago, TBideon said:

Jaysus, those photos take me back. Those fountains (and the Indians/Browns) are all I remember about downtown from the 80s.

 

In 2007 Mr. MayDay posted the fountains leaked into the Cleveland Convention Center and were removed (at an earlier date, not '07).

 

As to when the Arcade began falling off, 70s and 80s like everything else. Even the '01 renovation and Hyatt absorbing space didn't do all that much. Those shops and eateries were quite dead; people just used the mall to go from one block to another.

 

Used to see Travis Haffner at the gym downstairs, that was cool. 

 

I remember the Arcade being pretty active my early work career, starting in the early 80s and well into the 90s.  It was around the turn of the century that it really started to fall off and definitely once the Hyatt went in.

Quote

As to when the Arcade began falling off, 70s and 80s like everything else. Even the '01 renovation and Hyatt absorbing space didn't do all that much. Those shops and eateries were quite dead; people just used the mall to go from one block to another.

This was a typical lunchtime crowd in 1980. The demise of retail along with the Hyatt occupying spaces for spas et al accounts for its current appearance.

In my day everybody almost always took a full hour for lunch and left the office, including the secretaries and support staff.  Not the case anymore.

Buckeye Rd. & East 116th Street in the late 1940s, at one time had the largest Hungarian population outside of Hungary. There was a large Slovak population too!

6 hours ago, KJP said:

Buckeye Rd. & East 116th Street in the late 1940s, at one time had the largest Hungarian population outside of Hungary. There was a large Slovak population too!

 

If anyone has an opportunity to go to St. Elizabeth, the catholic church in the neighborhood founded by Hungarians... it's breathtaking. To this day they offer a Hungarian service. 

On 3/15/2025 at 11:32 AM, Htsguy said:

I remember the Arcade being pretty active my early work career, starting in the early 80s and well into the 90s.  It was around the turn of the century that it really started to fall off and definitely once the Hyatt went in.

 

It was Tower City's opening that set it back.   People forget that it was kind of a high end mall for a few years after it opened.  I used to go down there from work in Maple Heights for lunch every so often.   Beat the hell out of Randall on multiple counts.

On 3/18/2025 at 1:26 PM, Htsguy said:

In my day everybody almost always took a full hour for lunch and left the office, including the secretaries and support staff.  Not the case anymore.

 

This ended about the time a lot of people quit dressing up to go to work,  early 90s or so.   Both trends started in the tech industry.

On 3/18/2025 at 12:58 PM, Barneyboy said:

This was a typical lunchtime crowd in 1980. The demise of retail along with the Hyatt occupying spaces for spas et al accounts for its current appearance.

Maybe a dumb question, but what were the typical occupants of spaces on the 3rd and 4th floors?

5 minutes ago, YABO713 said:

Maybe a dumb question, but what were the typical occupants of spaces on the 3rd and 4th floors?

Less occupancy but generally business offices.  I remember our firm use a court reporting firm that had offices up top.