There is a Ron Burgundy joke somewhere  in that picture of the two women and the guy....

 

Or a Ron Jeremy joke. :-D

Not sure if these have been posted yet.  From the turn of the century.  Amazing how much more we enjoyed our waterfront back then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, some amazing shots in there.  Those two Flats shots are really amazing.

 

I think RTA should totally rebuild some of the old "pagodas" on Public Square to serve bus riders.

Those are fantastic photos!

East 4th Street, south of prospect looking north.

 

 

I would kill for this East 6th street

^Cool!  I don't think I've every seen that last shot.  There are a few postcards out there with stylized images of that building with the curved corner (a Hollenden Hotel annex?), but I don't think I'd even seen a real photo of it before or was even convinced it ever existed.  Just compounds the tragedy of the Hollenden demo :(

Man how I wish I could walk around the streets of Cleveland in 1915.  Que the violin but it pains me to see how much of the beautiful architecture has been leveled for parking or new buildings.  Think of all the beautiful rehabs we could have had.

Man how I wish I could walk around the streets of Cleveland in 1915.  Que the violin but it pains me to see how much of the beautiful architecture has been leveled for parking or new buildings.  Think of all the beautiful rehabs we could have had.

 

I would kill to get lower Euclid back to what it looked like in this picture posted earlier

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9827?size=_original

 

Look at how beautiful those buildings are! Several of them were replaced with uglier, shorter buildings, and on the northside, 200 public square

How boring and uptight do you have to be to wear a dress or a suit to a beach? I mean, I know it was 110 years ago but didn't comfort mean anything back then?

I would love to see more pictures of the gritty 70s and 80s, especially the sleazy places downtown.

^ those decades seem like it's really hard to find pictures of. We have more pre 1930's pics then 70s and 80s pics

Though it would be interesting to see the grit, grime and grossness of the 70's & 80's Cleveland......I'll take pictures of the

grandeur, greatness and golden age of the 1900-1930's

^ Oh of course I would prefer the earlier pictures, but I find it odd that there seems to be less visual documentation of the city during the 70's and 80's.

It's too bad the big bad Clinic had to take the place of our "second downtown" near Euclid & E. 105th.

 

I may have previously posted entire threads of my Cleveland film scans, and I know I've used individual shots here and there on the forums. The photos are sequenced by year starting with 1978 and running through 2003, with most of the photos before 1990.

 

Here's an example. Click the photo to go to the page on my site:

what is incredible is how dirty/sooty/grimy the downtown buildings were 20-30 years ago...especially the Mall A fountain...it's practically black!  Downtown Cleveland has come a LONG way from the 70's and 80's

^It's changed a whole lot since then, but I don't really like all the changes.  Not trying revive this longstanding debate, just expressing a different view.  I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the color of the fountain in Mall A is a paint job, not the result of some kind of cleaning or natural oxidation.  Doesn't make it bad, but I prefer the dignified oxidized look myself. 

 

Rob your old Cleveland photos are bada$$.  I think my favorite is the one of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge guardian with the Marlboro man billboard next to him. Too awesome.

I just stumbled upon this 1980s photos of the area now occupied by Gateway.  Nothing super illuminating about it, but a cool shot none the less that I don't I'd seen before:

 

http://bp3.blogger.com/_GmbzLoMsW_8/RpdynVvp_MI/AAAAAAAAAHs/y44ZmdcxyLI/s1600-h/87-06-21415-419+eagle.JPG

what is incredible is how dirty/sooty/grimy the downtown buildings were 20-30 years ago...especially the Mall A fountain...it's practically black!  Downtown Cleveland has come a LONG way from the 70's and 80's

 

There was a lot of corrosive stuff in the air, then. I remember waiting at a bus stop at the west end of the Detroit-Superior Bridge, and my eyes were burning and watering like crazy. It probably was sulfur dioxide from coal-burning power plants and/or steel mill coke ovens, the stuff that combines with atmospheric moisture to form acid rain.

 

^It's changed a whole lot since then, but I don't really like all the changes.  Not trying revive this longstanding debate, just expressing a different view.  I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the color of the fountain in Mall A is a paint job, not the result of some kind of cleaning or natural oxidation.  Doesn't make it bad, but I prefer the dignified oxidized look myself. 

 

Rob your old Cleveland photos are bada$$.  I think my favorite is the one of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge guardian with the Marlboro man billboard next to him. Too awesome.

 

Thanks. Two gay icons of a certain era there. I printed a note card using the image with the caption, "Marlboro Man with rope checks out Greek god with truck."

Thanks for those 70s/80s shots - SO COOL! Beauty in grime

Things havent changed too much :P

 

It's too bad the big bad Clinic had to take the place of our "second downtown" near Euclid & E. 105th.

 

 

For a large version

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/10281?size=_original

I feel another attack of pedantry coming on.

 

In the Shorpy photo, note the Ford Model T on the far left (license number19284). See the upright cylinder on the running board? That's what makes the headlights work. It's an acetylene generator, and the driver puts chunks of calcium carbide in the bottom and water in the tank on top. Water drips onto the calcium carbide at a rate that the driver can adjust with a needle valve on top of the assembly. When it comes into contact with water, calcium carbide releases acetylene gas, and the more water, the more gas. The acetylene flows through tubes to the headlights, which are equipped with gas jets similar to the ones on the carbide lamps still favored by some spelunkers (cave explorers). To light the headlights, one opens the door on each unit and then starts the flow of gas by opening the needle valve on the gas generator. After a minute or two, there's sufficent gas at the headlights to light with a match, and the intensity of the light can be varied by adjusting the rate at which the water drips upon the carbide. The acetylene gas burns with a brilliant whte flame, and the reflector-equipped headlamps cast a fairly bright beam.

 

Between the early carbide generators and the later electric lighting systems, carbide generators often were replaced with pressurized tanks of acetylene gas produced by PrestoLite Corporation.  Other lighting in automobiles, like tail lamps and the cowl lamps just below the windshield, burned kerosene in a wick, just like the kerosene lamps used in homes.

 

Now, go back two more cars parked on the left and there's an electric auto occupied by two ladies wearing white blouses.

 

http://clevelandsgs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/town-casino-marquee2.jpg

Okay how can I make that picture smaller?

OMG  I know i'm old!

.

I may have previously posted entire threads of my Cleveland film scans, and I know I've used individual shots here and there on the forums. The photos are sequenced by year starting with 1978 and running through 2003, with most of the photos before 1990.

 

Here's an example. Click the photo to go to the page on my site:

 

 

Wow...look how many rapid cars!

 

^Robert---I love that shot of the train.

Although I don't have a record of the date, that was shot on a weekend; I was dating someone in Cleveland then, and only was there on weekends. It might have been a day when there was a big-crowd event like a football game.

It's too bad the big bad Clinic had to take the place of our "second downtown" near Euclid & E. 105th.

 

 

The Cleveland Clinic didn't replace this once-great neighborhood -- urban blight did. All that was left of this area by the 1970s were rotting shells of buildings. I would have preferred that the Clinic rehab them, but if you think the Clinic's modus operandi isn't favorable toward historic renovations today, it was even worse back then. They wanted to wipe a horrific slate clean. This neighborhood was home to some disgusting activities, including drugs, prostitution, organized crime and one of those beautiful old theaters was hosting live sex shows by the early 1970s. The reputation of the area was so horrible that few had the patience to save it.

 

 

 

It takes an immense amount of neglect, blight, slime and eradication to turn this:

 

 

Into this:

 

 

 

 

http://clevelandsgs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/town-casino-marquee2.jpg

 

To better understand the times in which this marquee appeared, read my article at:

http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_241.html

Thats painful KJP.

 

Where exactly on Public Square would this have been? Terminal Tower?

 

I love those old streetlamps

So I thought this was cool that the Glenville neighborhood was once a city all its own, till it was annexed by Cleveland in 1905. And it was also the home of the GLENVILLE RACE TRACK till it closed in 1908 and moved to the Village of North Randall which of course we now know as the home of Thisledown Race Track. So the next time your on St. Clair between E 88th and 101st thats where it was located. I wish it was still there.

 

From The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=GRT

 

The GLENVILLE RACE TRACK, part of an 87-acre development that attracted the city's wealthy sportsmen in the summer, was located on St. Clair between E. 88th and E. 101st streets where it was considered a first-class racecourse. Once the site of horse, auto, bicycle, and foot races, the Glenville track was built in 1870 by the Cleveland Driving Park Co. as part of the Northern Ohio Fair, whose major grounds were located across the street. The Northern Ohio Fair Assn., a stock company formed by leading citizens, including Frank Rockefeller, SYLVESTER EVERETT†, Warren H. Corning, and HOWARD M. HANNA†, promoted AGRICULTURE, horticulture, the mechanical arts, and trotting races. Although the fairground was abandoned in 1881, the driving-company venture remained successful until 1908, with harness races as the track's principal attraction. In 1872 Cleveland joined with Buffalo, Utica, and Rochester to become the Quadrilateral Circuit; within a year the group became part of the Grand Circuit, the major league of harness racing. In July 1876 a famous race, immortalized in verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes, pitted the famed Goldsmith Maid against Smuggler at the Glenville track. On 30 July 1885, William H. Vanderbilt's Maud S. set the world record for trotting (2:08 3/4) there. Horseracing at Glenville was later promoted by the Gentlemen's Driving Club, organized in May 1895 by HARRY K. DEVEREUX†, Col. Billy Edward, and DANIEL RHODES HANNA†. Devereux, the most prominent of the local drivers, amassed records and awards.

The sporting life of the track overflowed into the nearby Roadside Club, where race spectators and participants wined and dined. Even after harness racing lost its appeal, the Roadside Club (also known as the 9100 club) prospered as a gambling club until 1935. The Glenville track was also used for auto racing where speed trials and match races featured well-known drivers such as Barney Oldfield. Fueled by the growth of Cleveland's AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY, many cars were tested there, including locally built Baker Electrics and Wintons. Despite the popularity of racing at Glenville, the track was abandoned in 1908 when GLENVILLE mayor FREDERICK GOFF† declared betting illegal, and the center of local racing shifted to the village of NORTH RANDALL. The popularity of trotting races, the main attraction at Glenville, waned within a decade of its closing, and the Gentlemen's Driving Club passed out of existence prior to World War I.

 

 

 

 

So I thought this was cool that the Glenville neighborhood was once a city all its own, till it was annexed by Cleveland in 1905. And it was also the home of the GLENVILLE RACE TRACK till it closed in 1908 and moved to the Village of North Randall which of course we now know as the home of Thisledown Race Track. So the next time your on St. Clair between E 88th and 101st thats where it was located. I wish it was still there.

 

 

I'd heard about the Glenville track but didn't know where it was. I suspect that, based on the layout of streets and since there is no East 88th just south of St. Clair, I suspect the track was north of St. Clair.

 

BTW, the Glenville Race Track moved in 1909 to become the North Randall Race Track. Thistledown wasn't built until1925. The North Randall track was demolished in the 1970s to make way for Randall Park Mall.

I may have previously posted entire threads of my Cleveland film scans, and I know I've used individual shots here and there on the forums. The photos are sequenced by year starting with 1978 and running through 2003, with most of the photos before 1990.

 

Here's an example. Click the photo to go to the page on my site:

 

 

Awwww... Diamond Jim's... dear Uncle Jimmy (RIP).

He was my favorite Uncle

So glad to have stumbled on this thread. Never knew it existed. And there are so many photos I've never seen before.

I may have some personal pics to add to this. I'll look around.

From conception to completion and today.....The LN Gross building

 

 

 

mid-block diner!

 

 

filthy air!

 

 

booo! hiissss!!

 

many more here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbustapeck/favorites/page5/?view=lg

 

 

 

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History has a sharp new website: http://ech.case.edu/

 

 

Very nice. About time

I wonder if they be publishing an updated version of their book.

Cool pics!

 

http://photos.cleveland.com/4501/gallery/thanksgiving_snowstorm_1950/index.html

I LOVE that huge sign on top of the FRies building.

 

Why don't companies use cool signage like that anymore?

Cool pics!

 

http://photos.cleveland.com/4501/gallery/thanksgiving_snowstorm_1950/index.html

 

 

Great photo thread -- I love snowstorms, cities and history.

 

That was the year that Cleveland reached its highest population, and it shows. This was one of the last years of seeing the streetscapes still intact before suburbanization, highways, block busting and white flight. Too bad it took a snowstorm to document the cityscape.

I would love to see this version of public square!

 

 

 

 

 

The building on the left is beautiful

 

I love the terminal tower but damn... :(

 

Even the current older buildings on Euclid tore down even more beautiful buildings

 

A few other randoms

 

 

 

 

 

Shaker Square

amazing photos - wow! the pre-terminal view is particularly interesting. a shame we have to lose to gain.

Well Shaker Square wasn't "Shaker Square" at that time.  It known as "Moreland Circle" then.  ;)

Well Shaker Square wasn't "Shaker Square" at that time.  It known as "Moreland Circle" then.  ;)

Well that would explain why it's labeled that way on the photo.