On 10/24/2018 at 11:22 PM, KJP said:

 

 

What's kind of funny is that Ontario, projected out, intersects with the Lake at Cleveland Browns Stadium.   Which is therefore "ground zero" for Cuyahoga County addresses.

This is really cool -- and we should do something like this again (including with other active sports) to make more use of Public Auditorium. These are from the 1930s and the 1980s....

 

 

 

SOURCE:

 

My tire was a victim of a small nail and succumbed to a leak. I went to my favorite tire repair on Fulton Road - presto chango... like-new tire.

While waiting, I saw this photo on their wall from 1946 and a Google Street View from 70 years later

 

A post about The Old Arcade this week in the Urban Ohio Northeast Projects and Construction pages included some vintage images of the Old Arcade, which sent me looking through my own library of vintage travel books.

Happily, I landed on this cool old image of the still extant front Gates of the former Stager Beckwith mansion on Euclid Avenue  (Built 1860s - Now the Cleveland Children's Museum.)

 

"America: Picturesque and Descriptive," by Joel Cook

Published by H.T. Coates & Co., Philadelphia: 1900

Text is from pages 419-420

Edited November 10, 20186 yr by ExPatClevGuy

 

Anyone know of the backstory to the masonic memorial building?

Today, as GCRTA celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Red Line extension into Cleveland Hopkins Airport, we go 13 years farther back in time to 1955. That was the first year of the Cleveland Transit System Rapid Transit which was owned by the City of Cleveland, separate from the Shaker Height Rapid Transit which was owned and managed by the City of Shaker Heights....

 

From the Jay Himes collection...a Bluebird apposing a NYC Hudson!
October 29,1955 - New York Central westbound train #14,fast mail and express is speeding past the C.T.S. West 117th &Madison Ave rapid station with Hudson #5452.

A couple more "historical" pictures (I use quotes because I was alive when these pictures were taken and they therefore cannot, under any circumstances, be considered historical!). These are views of the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad between Riverbed Yard & Ore Docks along the south side of the old river channel and Whiskey Island, and Literary Street below Tremont, continuing on to the steel mills of the Mahoning Valley (Youngstown, Warren etc) and to Pittsburgh via North Randall, Solon, Aurora, etc. These photos were taken in 1970-71, five to six years before Cleveland-based Erie-Lackawanna was absorbed into Conrail and its Riverbed ore docks were shutdown in favor of the ore docks on Whiskey Island. That made this rail line redundant and was abandoned in November 1981 and the tracks were pulled out in the summer of 1982.

 

I saved these photos with filenames that describe when they were taken and where.

1). Hey @KJP, looks like you're old man.... just kidding. 

 

2) Was the Franklin Rd. Hill not in existence back then? I can't spot it in the pic. 

 

3) Anyone know what the sign on top of the building on the Southwest corner of 25th and Lorain said? 

1. Eat me. (just kidding)

2. I can see Franklin descending the hill at the left side.

3. Unknown - Maybe United Bank?

Little Italy / Murray Hill Photos:

 

 

E. 126th and Mayfield Rd: 

 

 

 

 

E. 119th and Mayfield Rd:

 

 

 

 

Coltman Rd. and Euclid Ave:

 

 

Mayfield Theater on Mayfield Rd:

 

 

Random Rd and Cornell Rd:

 

 

Mayfield Rd and Murray Hill Rd:

 

Alta House (built by JD Rockefeller):

 

Some notable neighborhood residents at the Mayfield Cafe in 1961...drinking P.O.C beer (now the Tavern of Little Italy (TOLI)):

 

 

 

 

1985:

 

 

 

On 11/8/2018 at 9:09 AM, KJP said:

This is really cool -- and we should do something like this again (including with other active sports) to make more use of Public Auditorium. These are from the 1930s and the 1980s....

 

 

 

SOURCE:

 

Hope Mayor Jackson doesn't see this. He might get the idea to turn Public auditorium into his indoor dirt bike location. LOL

Actually, that's not the worst idea. 

2 hours ago, TBideon said:

Actually, that's not the worst idea. 

 

Nothing could be further from the worst!  Public Hall is a historic landmark!

I wonder when there will be discussion about renovating Public Hall

48 minutes ago, Mendo said:

I wonder when there will be discussion about renovating Public Hall

 

Last updates were 2011 to the tune of over $3 million.  It's not horrible....it's just not modern in terms of restrooms and concessions spaces. 

 

 I do find it sad that Music Hall and Little Theater have been seen by relatively few Clevelanders in recent decades. 

20 hours ago, Cleburger said:

 

Nothing could be further from the worst!  Public Hall is a historic landmark!

From the outside, sure. But buildings need to be repurposed when they're unused. If there's a market for dirt bike racing or whatever those fools do, and the city can economize it, and the building is being underutilized or unused (I have no clue the calendar), then bring on DMX shows.

^ Heck, Cleveland already has arguably the number one indoor bike park in the country in Ray’s. (https://m.facebook.com/RaysIndoorBikePark/)  This would further cement Cleveland as a nation leader and destination in that genre.

Edited November 20, 20186 yr by MuRrAy HiLL

 

That would be quite the cherished landmark if it was built (and still standing). I wonder if the Group Plan that followed 10 years later would have happened. Or even if the Tower City complex would have been built. Could have completely changed the landscape of downtown Cleveland.

It would have been torn down by Albert Porter in the 1950s or 60s as an obsolete eyesore and a traffic impediment. 

 

BTW, the Cleveland Union Terminal complex would have been built anyway. The Van Sweringens would still be developing Shaker Heights, still building rapid transit to nurture it, still needing to buy the 500-mile Nickel Plate Railroad to get access to several miles of it so its transit line had a street-free route to downtown, still would be buying several more railroads that inspired the Vans to unite them and rapid transit in a major station on Public Square. 

Edited November 24, 20186 yr by KJP

 

I'd rather have Public Square than a landmark City Hall on top of it.  But- how amazing would it have been if the approaches to Public Square along Superior and Ontario had been built over like that- giving Public Square arched entryways!

That city hall design is fascinating... and beautiful... but I tend to agree, id rather have a cool rendering than the pain of knowing it was built and torn down ?

 

Love it....

 

On 11/23/2018 at 11:39 PM, KJP said:

 

Why were they protesting?  And why did they win if the voters had already okayed it?

I have no idea. I didn't know that voters had approved it or that anyone had protested it until I saw that tweet.

Back when a voice meant the world.

 

Sorry, but anything that occurred as part of my experience is not "history"...seems this was just a few years ago. 

 

And that intersection would be the convergence of Woodland, East 55th and Kinsman, where none of the five corners has any building left on it.....

 

 

Edited December 6, 20186 yr by KJP

That's insane...completely gone

On 12/3/2018 at 8:25 AM, KJP said:

Sorry, but anything that occurred as part of my experience is not "history"...seems this was just a few years ago. 

 

 

Hell I was old enough to drink (I turned 20 the next day) so no it is not history.

 

As I posted  on the tweet the blonde is two years ahead of the mainstream club fashion curve.

some of the pre- Parking Lot District can be seen: https://mobile.twitter.com/joeschwarten/status/1070801076486582277/photo/1

^Interesting - also shows the Rockefeller Building before the addition of the western section.

Brief but amazing. When streets belonged to everyone...

 

 

 

Would anyone have a picture of the giant NOEL christmas sign that was hung on the now-demolished First Energy (CEI, Cleveland Electric Illuminating)  Lake Shore power plant on East 55th? They hung a large NOEL sign on the west facade in the 80s/90s. 

What the heck? Am I missing something here?  What happened to the elevated rail?  Or is second photo predating the first?

10 hours ago, sizzlinbeef said:

What the heck? Am I missing something here?  What happened to the elevated rail?  Or is second photo predating the first?

 

Isn't that the 55th/Euclid intersection?  

 

And so very very sad all those buildings we've lost! 

Yes it is. The first photo is from 1915 when the Pennsylvania Railroad was in the midst of reconstructing its rail line to elevate it across the east side. That's a temporary railroad bridge during construction. So the second photo predated it. Euclid-East 55th was a mass transit mecca then. You had the Euclid Avenue streetcar line that was the second busiest in the city (St. Clair was #1). Even so, it carried more than 100,000 riders per day. Then you had the streeetcar line on East 55th which was the busiest crosstown streetcar line ("crosstown" in this instance meant the line didn't go downtown and instead served as an outlying connector streetcar for the radial lines coming out of downtown). And then you had the Pennsylvania Railroad station here which was served by more than 20 passenger trains per day to places like Hudson, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Youngstown, Alliance, Pittsburgh, Steubenville, Harrisburg, Baltimore, Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York City. PRR was tied with Erie RR with the most trains (14 per day) between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, but came up second fiddle to Erie/B&O on the Cleveland-Baltimore/Washington run and to New York Central on the busy Cleveland-New York City travel market. East 55th/Euclid was PRR's busiest Cleveland station. Its trains also served stations at lakefront's Union Depot (between West 3rd-9th), Woodland Avenue/East 79th and Harvard/Broadway Avenue. My grandfather would board PRR trains at either East 55th or Harvard to go to his office in New York City, but only when the New York Central pissed him off.

 

BTW, the City of Cleveland required the railroads, at their own expense, to eliminate all at-grade road crossings through the city where possible. So not only did the PRR elevate its line, the Nickel Plate RR depressed its right of way through the east side and west sides of the city. Lakewood and East Cleveland were established suburbs by then and they debated whether to have the Nickel Plate grade separated through their cities too. East Cleveland wanted the grade separation; Lakewood didn't because residents felt the elevated rail line would divide their city. New York Central, the busiest railroad in Cleveland with more than 30 passenger trains per day and about 100 daily freight trains, didn't undertake a grade separation program. Instead, it built a belt line around the city for freight and made sure it was grade separated and then it participated with the Van Sweringens' Cleveland Union Terminal project on Public Square to route all but a few express passenger trains to it over grade-separated tracks.

Edited December 15, 20186 yr by KJP

Speaking of railroad stations...

 

 

And...

 

Saw this on Twitter. The people!!! THE STREETLIGHTS!!! Can we get both of those things back???

 

 

Edit: same corner today....

Edited December 19, 20186 yr by KJP

 

80s aren't historic, but here it is...