There are so many great buildings in the above photos, but I am really loving/missing this Art Nouveau building with the Davis sign.

 

Wow!

 

1900

^Good shot.  I've seen that one before, but never looked at it closely enough to notice that the bridge was fairly substantial and not made of wood.  I assume it used to cross the small ravine that' now part of the Botanical Garden site.

How about this one? The Brown Hoisting Company plant built in 1902 at 4403 St. Clair Avenue with a nice write-up and photos from a few years ago is here http://www.clevelandareahistory.com/2011/03/brown-hoist-building.html.

 

Here's a few sample pics....

 

 

 

Not only does the ornate office building in the lower left of the above rendering still stand.....

 

 

 

But so does the large building at center with the extensive atrium-like structure.....

 

 

so if ever anyone asks you why should that rock hall be in cle? show them this - the old agora crowd goes nuts for rush. in 1974.

 

 

old agora. i always thought it looked like a doctor's office.

 

 

I think this is the place I went to around 79. On Euclid?

Saw, The Jam, The Clash & PIL there.

separately

 

Jeez, does that picture bring back memories.

 

But it wasn't all that close to Euclid.  You may have been to the Euclid Tavern up by CWRU.

 

Edit:  PIL's first Cleveland show was at the Agora in April, 1980.

Some beautiful indoor shots of the Hollenden Hotel 1890:

 

https://archive.org/details/hollendenhotelcl00hand

Great find! If I could have just one old building back this would be it.

Some beautiful indoor shots of the Hollenden Hotel 1890:

 

https://archive.org/details/hollendenhotelcl00hand

 

Wonderful pics! I just had to save a few, clean them up a bit, host them, and post them.......

 

 

 

 

Oye, this thread makes my stomach turn.

Nothing lasts. So enjoy good things when you see them.

CLE History in Pics ‏@CLEHistory  9m

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, #PublicSquare, c. 1910. pic.twitter.com/YJ5q0QGx93

 

Not to start the weekend on a negative, but other than 4 buildings, everything else in that photo is in a landfill somewhere.

Hehe, yeah w28th, every historic photo of Cleveland I look at I think the same thing... We once had world class historic architecture and most of it is in a landfill now. 

Admittedly, a lot of that was crap. Like many of the buildings on the far-left side (SW corner of the square), they weren't what one would expect on the central square of America's fifth-largest city. In fact, by 1920, they were considered a civic embarrassment.

 

However this view does look right into the heart of what is today the Parking Lot District, and for me that generates similar civic shame today as the SW corner of Public Square did for many Clevelanders 100 years ago. So where are our Van Sweringen brothers to develop the Parking Lot District? How about a nice streetcar line from Ohio City into downtown along Detroit/Superior? :)

The SW corner was the biggest loss in my opinion!

 

Not to start the weekend on a negative, but other than 4 buildings, everything else in that photo is in a landfill somewhere.

 

What's the fourth?

The SW corner was the biggest loss in my opinion!

 

 

That's a great block of buildings -- for Painesville or Elyria or, in Cleveland for Tremont and Ohio City. But not on the Public Square at the heart of a major metropolis. And by the early 1920s, those buildings were in bad shape. Look at 'em.

^ Im sorry but Ill have to disagree. Buildings like that are found in the BEST part of nearly any city. Even Cleveland with the little that remain.

Aren't those exactly the type of buildings down East 4th and warehouse district? We fawn over these buildings now.

 

Is that the corner with the Renaissance now?

Not to start the weekend on a negative, but other than 4 buildings, everything else in that photo is in a landfill somewhere.

 

What's the fourth?

 

Rockefeller, Old Stone Church, Society Bank, and Soldiers and Sailors.

^^Nope... thats a surface lot now. Thats progress.

Aren't those exactly the type of buildings down East 4th and warehouse district? We fawn over these buildings now.

 

Is that the corner with the Renaissance now?

 

That's where the casino is now.

looks like downtown wooster. 

I generally don't object to the razing of old structures when what replaces them is vastly superior, which is what DID happen in this case.

Aren't those exactly the type of buildings down East 4th and warehouse district? We fawn over these buildings now.

 

Is that the corner with the Renaissance now?

 

No, that's the corner with the Higbee building. And that whole SW ccorner of Public Square was leveled for the Cleveland Union Terminal Group complex, of which its most famous structure is Terminal Tower. It is a decided upgrade over the kind of land use usually found in a Central Business District for a city of 100,000 people (which it was in the mid- to late-1800s), or in an urban neighborhood near a CBD. It doesn't belong in a CBD district of a city on a path to 1 million population where rising land values forced upward construction and greater densification. What was built there -- the Terminal Tower complex -- was and is universally hailed as a vast improvement over what stood before. Go ahead and argue that the Terminal Tower complex should be demolished and replaced with an East 4th-type district and see what the public's response is. I totally understand the response from losing similar buildings in the Warehouse District (the earlier CBD) for acres of surface parking. But I don't understand the preference for buildings that fall far short of the grandeur, function and connectivity of the Terminal Tower complex. If you want to keep all historic buildings and not tear anything down, I guess we could always keep filling in Lake Erie for new towers.

 

If you go back in this thread, you see a photo spread of all that was razed for the Terminal Group (some definite losses IMHO, but overall a net gain):

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,766.msg595314.html#msg595314

^ Im sorry but Ill have to disagree. Buildings like that are found in the BEST part of nearly any city. Even Cleveland with the little that remain.

 

Really?  You would rather have those buildings on Public Square rather than the Higbee Building, Terminal Tower and Renaissance Hotel, three of the grandest buildings in Cleveland.

Aren't those exactly the type of buildings down East 4th and warehouse district? We fawn over these buildings now.

 

Is that the corner with the Renaissance now?

 

Go ahead and argue that the Terminal Tower complex should be demolished and replaced with an East 4th-type district and see what the public's response is.

 

I don't believe anyone is arguing for that to happen. But I think it goes both ways. Argue to demolish everything between Euclid and Huron from Ontario to East 9th for a massive complex with todays architecture, with mostly one style/building material. And make it have very few storefronts. Everyone would be freaking out.

I don't believe anyone is arguing for that to happen. But I think it goes both ways. Argue to demolish everything between Euclid and Huron from Ontario to East 9th for a massive complex with todays architecture, with mostly one style/building material. And make it have very few storefronts. Everyone would be freaking out.

 

I wasn't debating demolishing historic buildings of East Fourth-scale for present-day architecture and materials along Euclid to 9th. I'm not sure why you introduced that new argument. No one has proposed demolishing this street's buildings which are in good condition and in productive use. I was debating with you whether the Terminal Tower complex was considered an upgrade over the largely decayed, obsolete, canal-fostered mercantile district which preceded it. In all the books, magazine articles and newspaper articles (including special sections issued at its opening in 1930) I've never read one critique about the Terminal Group replacing "wonderful buildings." There were some comments about how the project was so large ($1.9 billion in today's $$) that a few substantial structures were razed. But most descriptions of the structures used terms like "tenements" and "hovels" and "obsolete." There are some structures I was disappointed to lose, but all in all, it was clearly a net gain and a proud accomplishment for Cleveland. Some 90 years later, it's probably time that we moved on.

the real debate is whether the terminal tower complex and any later office buildings should have gone around the square in the first place. if only it was just the scrappier sw quadrant. too much was lost.

The SW corner was the biggest loss in my opinion!

 

That's a great block of buildings -- for Painesville or Elyria or, in Cleveland for Tremont and Ohio City. But not on the Public Square at the heart of a major metropolis. And by the early 1920s, those buildings were in bad shape. Look at 'em.

I agree.  These buildings are on the scale of a smaller, growing 19th Century-era Cleveland, not the more mature city that emerged after WWI.  You would much prefer to have the scale, size (high-rise) and architectural grandeur of the Terminal Group that replaced these structures.  If I could have saved these buildings, picked them up and moved them the oceans of WHD surface parking, I would have (I jest, of course, because hundreds of similar structures DID populate those surface lots before they (foolishly) met the wrecking balls of the auto-oriented/post WWII era.  Frankly, it’s rather surprising that many similar scale structures still survive along Euclid from Public Square east to the old Taylor’s  department store now, of course, the Residences at 668.  But it does represent the shifts to, then away, then back to Public Square that happened between the turn of the 20th century and the late 1920s,  where the Van’s Terminal Group represented the effort to pull the center of gravity back to Public Sq and away from Playhouse Square which mushroomed in go-go years immediately after WWI.

 

 

^... of course, I too, am not wishing for the demo of E. 4th Street because I LOVE 4th Street.  To have a bustling, narrow, human-scale, now mixed use residential/restaurant/entertainment district adjacent to the City's core area is something most big cities would give their right-arms for.  I'm just commenting how odd it is that, thankfully, such a block (actually several blocks) of buildings survived Cleveland's tremendous downtown explosion of the 1920s.

Found this photo online at the CSU digital humanities website.  Look at the density that existed in the warehouse district before all the demolition!  Also from this angle you can see the Renaissance prior to the construction of the ballroom.  If only these buildings still existed, what seamless connection would exists between the warehouse district and Public Square! I've seen pre parking lot pics before, but never from this angle.

 

Also digging the Great Lakes Exposition set-up between East 9th and Municipal Stadium

Found this photo online at the CSU digital humanities website.  Look at the density that existed in the warehouse district before all the demolition!  Also from this angle you can see the Renaissance prior to the construction of the ballroom.  If only these buildings still existed, what seamless connection would exists between the warehouse district and Public Square! I've seen pre parking lot pics before, but never from this angle.

 

 

Oh how I wish the Warehouse Distract still looked like that....

I'd like to see a photo down Frankfort Ave.  also, the difference in construction materials of the different eras (brick in the Warehouse District pre 1900, stone to the east, post 1900) is remarkable.

I love this conversation...I wonder over and over if we gained or lost with the Terminal complex...In the end, I thing I would have preferred that we left the hundreds of old brick buildings in place and didn't have the Terminal complex [as much as I love the Terminal complex].  The smaller brick buildings were much more manageable and fitting for the population we have in Cleveland in 2014.  I think Cleveland overbuilt during the Golden age and a low rise older brick city would have been better. But alas, it is what it is and we have the monstrosity of the Terminal complex with no residential...  Just like most other things in Cleveland, I think this one went the wrong way...

I love this conversation...I wonder over and over if we gained or lost with the Terminal complex...In the end, I thing I would have preferred that we left the hundreds of old brick buildings in place and didn't have the Terminal complex [as much as I love the Terminal complex].  The smaller brick buildings were much more manageable and fitting for the population we have in Cleveland in 2014.  I think Cleveland overbuilt during the Golden age and a low rise older brick city would have been better. But alas, it is what it is and we have the monstrosity of the Terminal complex with no residential...  Just like most other things in Cleveland, I think this one went the wrong way...

 

Terminal complex ... a monstrosity?  That's a new one on me...  I can agree that Cleveland, like most cities, destroyed way too many Victorian-to WWI era apartments and small-scale commercial buildings –  especially in areas like the WHD, where only a fraction (thankfully) survive.  But the Terminal area is at the heart of town where the small scale of these buildings, let alone their apparently rundown appearance (you can see this in the old photos) and condition, was simply incompatible with a metropolis that was so rapidly growing in size and stature as Cleveland was during this era…

 

… and this doesn't even begin to address the major advantages of transit, retail, commercial and hotels this huge yet compact interconnected Terminal complex brought and still brings … it's a testament of the foresight of its creators that 84 years after its opening, it’s still expanding… So I can't disagree with you more, although you’re entitled to your opinion. 

 

I love this conversation...I wonder over and over if we gained or lost with the Terminal complex...In the end, I thing I would have preferred that we left the hundreds of old brick buildings in place and didn't have the Terminal complex [as much as I love the Terminal complex].  The smaller brick buildings were much more manageable and fitting for the population we have in Cleveland in 2014.  I think Cleveland overbuilt during the Golden age and a low rise older brick city would have been better. But alas, it is what it is and we have the monstrosity of the Terminal complex with no residential...  Just like most other things in Cleveland, I think this one went the wrong way...

 

"Low rise" inspires nobody.  There's a lot to be said for looking up forty or fifty stories  (or down).

Downtown's need a mix of both low rise human scale districts and high rise areas that send an image of power and growth.  Even cities that traditionally have low rise centers (DC, Paris) have high rise districts in the suburbs that fill this need.  In my view we could use more towers on our skyline.  The low rise need is filling out nicely with the warehouse district, east 4th, prospect, Euclid and new flats developments.  A new tower or two would also be nice.  With that said though I'd give almost anything to have those old buildings back on the warehouse district lots, anything except the terminal tower.  That's our city's icon and could never be replaced.

I definitely appreciate the scale of the smaller buildings formerly located on the site of the Terminal Tower complex, but I doubt they would have survived the urban renewal era of the 1960s/70s. Did they overbuild? Perhaps, but in hindsight I think Cleveland now has a good set of 'bones' to build up and infill, if that makes sense.

^I Agree. I think we'd miss those pre-Terminal complex buildings a lot less if we hadn't also lost almost all the small-scale stuff everywhere else downtown.

Downtown's need a mix of both low rise human scale districts and high rise areas that send an image of power and growth.  Even cities that traditionally have low rise centers (DC, Paris) have high rise districts in the suburbs that fill this need.  In my view we could use more towers on our skyline.  The low rise need is filling out nicely with the warehouse district, east 4th, prospect, Euclid and new flats developments.  A new tower or two would also be nice.  With that said though I'd give almost anything to have those old buildings back on the warehouse district lots, anything except the terminal tower.  That's our city's icon and could never be replaced.

 

And empty towers does what?  What message does that send?  Also, when we have so much empty space which is available to develop, where and why would a tower be built?

"Irish Bend" 1885. A view looking west from the Detroit-Superior Viaduct of a section of the Cleveland Flats known as "Irish Bend." The Cuyahoga River can be seen in the left side of the photograph. Houses, cottages and shacks can be seen dotting the hillside along the river.

I'm surprised that hillside looks so... Early 19th century. It looks like it hadn't been updated for 50 years, except for the railroads which didn't arrive until the mid-1800s. There's few if any brick and masonry buildings, or brick streets.

Is that st michaels church in the background?

Is that st michaels church in the background?

 

I drew a line on Google Earth and it appears St. Michael is too far east. This church appears to be somewhere along West 25th (probably on the west side of it, given the location of the steeple), south of Lorain, and possibly as far south where I-90 is today. However, there is no church of that size along this stretch of West 25th. So the church was either demolished (given the amount of 20th-century commercialization and abandonment in that area of West 25th, that's probably not surprising), or I've got the wrong the location.

C'mon guys, that St. Emeric.  It's still there, though probably an earlier version shown in that photo.

C'mon guys, that St. Emeric.  It's still there, though probably an earlier version shown in that photo.

 

I thought that at first, but its obviously not the current, smaller building. I've never heard of an older, larger version of St. Emeric (or other church) at that location and getting demolished. If it was, it must've been a LONG time ago (100 years?) because I'm pretty familiar with this city's larger churches that have been demolished in the postwar urban decline (St. Agnes, St. Anthony's etc).

"Irish Bend" 1885. A view looking west from the Detroit-Superior Viaduct of a section of the Cleveland Flats known as "Irish Bend." The Cuyahoga River can be seen in the left side of the photograph. Houses, cottages and shacks can be seen dotting the hillside along the river.

 

St Michael's cornerstone was laid in 1889 and the building was dedicated in 1892, so it's not St Michael.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael_the_Archangel_Church_(Cleveland,_Ohio)

 

St Emeric's current building only dates back to 1925, and the parish was founded in 1905, so it's not the current Saint Emeric either. http://stemeric.com/History_of_Church.htm

 

Prior to Saint Emeric's founding, there was another Catholic parish in almost the same location.  Annunciation Church was at the corner of West 22nd and Moore Court (these streets no longer connect due to the rail line).  I can't find a picture of the building that was there in 1885.  The first church was described as a "plain frame church" on top of a two room school, so that doesn't sound like the large building in the picture above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annunciation_Church_(historic)_(Cleveland,_Ohio)

 

The church building pictured here from wikipedia wasn't dedicated until 1898:

 

Annunciation parish was a French parish which closed in 1916, and the building above became home to Saint Emeric, until 1924 when it was purchased by the Van Sweringen's and demolished to obtain the right-of-way for train tracks leading to the Terminal Tower. (source: People of Faith: Parishes and Religious Communities of the Diocese of Cleveland, 1998, Charles R. Kaczynski).  The new (current) St Emeric was built in 1925 just 150 feet from the original site.

 

St Ignatius College's familiar building wasn't built until 1891, but there was a Catholic parish located in that area at the time of this picture.

 

St. Mary of the Assumption was founded in 1854 and the building was dedicated in 1865 at the corner of Jersey (W. 30th) and Carroll:

 

This building was located directly across West 30th from the current St Ignatius main building, so the bell tower would be at the left of a photo taken from Irishtown Bend... it was closed as a parish in 1945 (merged with St Patrick - Bridge), used as the school chapel by St Ignatius from then until it was demolished in 1968 to make room for a science center. 

 

The original photo doesn't have enough geographic detail for me to tell if either of these churches could be the one in the background.

 

Worth staring at and studying. This is what the nation's 6th largest city looks like in about 1935. But it would be another 23 years before another building taller than 6 stories would be built downtown.....