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.

 

Ok Mr. Smarty Pants!  LOL

More pictures of Public Square before the Terminal Tower Complex wiped out half of it. I kind of wish the same design would have been built north of Mall C. Anyways looking at these pictures and then looking at the square really makes me feel the square is too far gone. Most of the buildings add nothing to the square, and give no or little chance at any retail space. The skyscraper helped kill the square.

 

 

 

And this one I previously posted.

 

 

More pictures of Public Square before the Terminal Tower Complex wiped out half of it. I kind of wish the same design would have been built north of Mall C. Anyways looking at these pictures and then looking at the square really makes me feel the square is too far gone. Most of the buildings add nothing to the square, and give no or little chance at any retail space. The skyscraper helped kill the square.

 

 

 

And this one I previously posted.

 

 

 

How did the TT wipe out half?  There are four quadrants, TT only fronts one.

I have always been under the impression that the buildings that were demolished for the Terminal complex were substandard, bordering on slums.  I certainly would not say the skyscrapers destroyed the square.  There was plenty of other retail downtown at that time and for years to come.  I cannot believe you would say Higbees and what was in its day a premiere hotel added nothing to the square (not to mention Cleveland's icon)

I dont buy the whole slum thing. The warehouse district(what remains) was considered a slum and a fire hazard. Plenty of great buildings were demolished by people who didn't see the value in them. I believe the complex helped kill Superior Avenue and all activity south of the tower. The Landmark Buildings add no street life. The old post office has terrible interaction with the street. I wouldn't call any of that area a fun place to walk. And unless you work over there, or are at the hotel, there is no reason to be over there. You will most likely enter tower city from the square, garage, or tracks.

 

Compare whats here today compared to the pictures I posted above.

 

http://g.co/maps/3ecyh

 

http://g.co/maps/ae977

 

http://g.co/maps/vquca

 

 

And the skyscraper did kill it from its old function. Why should I go to public square? The whole northeast corner serves no purpose for me. Dont work at Key Tower, and the Courthouse just creates a wall to walk past. 200 public square doesn't add much. Im glad they added retail spaces on Euclid though.

The more I think about it, the Terminal Tower complex is kind of a bunker. All buildings are connected by underground tunnels, so you never have to go outside. Most has no retail frontage or any interactions with the street. Superior is a joke. Huron is joke. And West Prospect is a joke.

The more I think about it, the Terminal Tower complex is kind of a bunker. All buildings are connected by underground tunnels, so you never have to go outside. Most has no retail frontage or any interactions with the street. Superior is a joke. Huron is joke. And West Prospect is a joke.

 

At the time it was built downtown was different.  And how can you say there was no retail frontage when Higbees had major entrances on the square itself, Ontario and Prospect?  Please stop now and think about what you're posting. 

I dont buy the whole slum thing. The warehouse district(what remains) was considered a slum and a fire hazard. Plenty of great buildings were demolished by people who didn't see the value in them. I believe the complex helped kill Superior Avenue and all activity south of the tower. The Landmark Buildings add no street life. The old post office has terrible interaction with the street. I wouldn't call any of that area a fun place to walk. And unless you work over there, or are at the hotel, there is no reason to be over there. You will most likely enter tower city from the square, garage, or tracks.

 

Compare whats here today compared to the pictures I posted above.

 

http://g.co/maps/3ecyh

 

http://g.co/maps/ae977

 

http://g.co/maps/vquca

 

 

And the skyscraper did kill it from its old function. Why should I go to public square? The whole northeast corner serves no purpose for me. Dont work at Key Tower, and the Courthouse just creates a wall to walk past. 200 public square doesn't add much. Im glad they added retail spaces on Euclid though.

 

I believe, and someone help me here, that most "union terminal's" had a connected Main USPS for that area.  During the late 180's thru the 1950's, the majority of mail arrived via train.  Since most main post offices were connected to a Union Terminal that made for easy transfer of mail and parcel posts.  Another cities that have this same set up are Washington, DC, Philly, NYC, Chicago.

 

Please think about how cities work and how the city worked at the time these buildings were constructed, not what you see today.

 

Let me ask you this, how old are you?  You probably are not young enough to remember what was on public square in the 1980s.  Let alone the 70s like I do.

 

Please look at an overall picture of how central cities operate and not just what you see today

 

It would be interesting to see pix of what was on-site before it was cleared for Erieview.

 

@@@

 

This one seems to show what is now parking lot had two substantial high-rises that helped enclose the square..fairly late, no?

 

 

@@@

 

Those two b&W street seens (day and night) look like stills from an old film noir!  Love that stuff....

 

 

 

It would be interesting to see pix of what was on-site before it was cleared for Erieview.

 

@@@

 

This one seems to show what is now parking lot had two substantial high-rises that helped enclose the square..fairly late, no?

 

 

@@@

 

Those two b&W street seens (day and night) look like stills from an old film noir!  Love that stuff....

 

 

 

 

HUH?  That not Erieview.  Erieview is on East 12 and was part of the Urban renewal projects of the 70s.

I know it's not Erieview.  I was just curious what used to there.  I was using this divider....

 

@@@

 

...to seperate my unrelated thoughts in the same post.

 

This one seems to show what is now parking lot had two substantial high-rises that helped enclose the square..fairly late, no?

 

 

Those Ameritrust buildings came down around the same time that the Key tower went up. Somewhere at home (though I've been unable to find it) I have a picture my Dad took of my brother and I on the observation deck at Terminal Tower with demolition going on on those two while Key Tower (though not called that at the time) is under construction.

My understanding is that the slums which were demolished for the TT complex were immediately south of PS, not on PS..... and they really were slums which would have been demolished one way or the other, not industrial buildings with potential a la the WHD.  IIRC, we're talking about what were basically nothing more than 'shacks.'  Nothing like the buildings we lost in Hough and around CSU

 

 

^I would think the Ameritrust buildings were demolished to clear a path for the Ameritrust Tower which was planned but never built on that lot.

^Would you agree that Superior wasn't a slum and that its far worse today because of the Terminal Tower complex. And that most of the area around the complex is not pedestrian friendly.

 

 

Unfortunately these buildings would have probably been demolished anyways, but that is not certain. And of course, I love the terminal tower im just trying to look at it from a different perspective.

^Would you agree that Superior wasn't a slum and that its far worse today because of the Terminal Tower complex. And that most of the area around the complex is not pedestrian friendly.

 

 

Unfortunately these buildings would have probably been demolished anyways, but that is not certain. And of course, I love the terminal tower im just trying to look at it from a different perspective.

 

Yet superior was vastly different and worse for pedestrians in the past than it is today.  WHY?  The Detroit- Superior subway ramp, making the street hard to cross and less pedestrian than it is today.  In addition there was nothing to the south of Superior and the only thing in the current TC complex that was there was the Shaker Rapid turn around

 

Why are you fixated on this?

^ That picture was from when the most of the complex was already built. You can see the post office. The book "Cleveland Then and Now" has some great pictures of what Superior Avenue used to look like. I doubt many people would say Superior Avenue, west of the square, is better off and more pedestrian friendly today, then it was in the last 1800's/ early 1900's, prior to the construction of the TT complex.

 

And sorry for discussing something that hasn't really been discussed. Of course we all love the terminal tower, I do too. Im just commenting on how we lost a lot, and the area is, by design, is not as pedestrian friendly as it was.

 

So my question to you is why are you so fixated on saying im wrong and shutting down any discussion.

^ That picture was from when the most of the complex was already built. You can see the post office. The book "Cleveland Then and Now" has some great pictures of what Superior Avenue used to look like. I doubt many people would say Superior Avenue, west of the square, is better off and more pedestrian friendly today, then it was in the last 1800's/ early 1900's, prior to the construction of the TT complex.

 

And sorry for discussing something that hasn't really been discussed. Of course we all love the terminal tower, I do too. Im just commenting on how we lost a lot, and the area is, by design, is not as pedestrian friendly as it was.

 

So my question to you is why are you so fixated on saying im wrong and shutting down any discussion.

 

But you're not telling us what we "lost"!  I'm not trying to shut you down, I just disagree and posting my points.

 

I asked you specific questions up thread, (i've posted again) that contradict what you post. 

 

More pictures of Public Square before the Terminal Tower Complex wiped out half of it. I kind of wish the same design would have been built north of Mall C. Anyways looking at these pictures and then looking at the square really makes me feel the square is too far gone. Most of the buildings add nothing to the square, and give no or little chance at any retail space. The skyscraper helped kill the square.

 

 

 

And this one I previously posted.

 

 

 

How did the TT wipe out half?  There are four quadrants, TT only fronts one.

 

The more I think about it, the Terminal Tower complex is kind of a bunker. All buildings are connected by underground tunnels, so you never have to go outside. Most has no retail frontage or any interactions with the street. Superior is a joke. Huron is joke. And West Prospect is a joke.

 

At the time it was built downtown was different.  And how can you say there was no retail frontage when Higbees had major entrances on the square itself, Ontario and Prospect?  Please stop now and think about what you're posting. 

None of the buildings that were located at the TT site in the early 20th century, given the prominent location, would have survived in any major American city.  Hell, huge sections of midtown and uptown Manhattan has been rebuilt 3 times since then.

Okay so not half, but a huge chunk on the square(1/4) and a huge area that fed into the square.

 

 

Higbees was good yes, but Im thinking more of the whole area the complex encompasses. I gave examples on how Landmark Buildings, and the post office basically just large wall for pedestrians to walk past. No retail spaces, no reason for pedestrians to be over there. Yes they serve their purpose, but so does some of CSU's old buildings, just much uglier. Still the area in general, behind the square, is very unfriendly to pedestrians. Why would I walk over there, unless I worked there. And superior west of the square is one of the worst parts of downtown, and it was taken out by the complex. I wish I could find those pictures so I could post them.

 

Here is a good one of Public Square though. Higbees was there, but in a different location, You can see how the square on a better layout and purpose.

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9820?size=_original

None of the buildings that were located at the TT site in the early 20th century, given the prominent location, would have survived in any major American city.  Hell, huge sections of midtown and uptown Manhattan has been rebuilt 3 times since then.

 

Uptown?  Are sure?  What do you consider "uptown".  Most of uptown - anything above 96 street - is historically protected.

Really just meant the upper east side below the 90s

Lower Euclid has some beautiful older buildings. But they replaced even more beautiful buildings unfortunately. THIS HAS BEEN POSTED BEFORE.

 

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

Okay so not half, but a huge chunk on the square(1/4) and a huge area that fed into the square.

 

 

Higbees was good yes, but Im thinking more of the whole area the complex encompasses. I gave examples on how Landmark Buildings, and the post office basically just large wall for pedestrians to walk past. No retail spaces, no reason for pedestrians to be over there. Yes they serve their purpose, but so does some of CSU's old buildings, just much uglier. Still the area in general, behind the square, is very unfriendly to pedestrians. Why would I walk over there, unless I worked there. And superior west of the square is one of the worst parts of downtown, and it was taken out by the complex. I wish I could find those pictures so I could post them.

 

Here is a good one of Public Square though. Higbees was there, but in a different location, You can see how the square on a better layout and purpose.

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9820?size=_original

 

And you missed my point AGAIN, think about how the post office was used when built.    People had to go there in order to do business.  LOTS of business.  Most people You had to make a trip downtown to do business at the post office, not their neighborhood branch.

Really just meant the upper east side below the 90s

thats also protected area.  Do you mean Midtown East and West?  The areas between 59 & 34 street.  I get the sense thats the area you're referring too.

Okay so not half, but a huge chunk on the square(1/4) and a huge area that fed into the square.

 

 

Higbees was good yes, but Im thinking more of the whole area the complex encompasses. I gave examples on how Landmark Buildings, and the post office basically just large wall for pedestrians to walk past. No retail spaces, no reason for pedestrians to be over there. Yes they serve their purpose, but so does some of CSU's old buildings, just much uglier. Still the area in general, behind the square, is very unfriendly to pedestrians. Why would I walk over there, unless I worked there. And superior west of the square is one of the worst parts of downtown, and it was taken out by the complex. I wish I could find those pictures so I could post them.

 

Here is a good one of Public Square though. Higbees was there, but in a different location, You can see how the square on a better layout and purpose.

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9820?size=_original

 

And you missed my point AGAIN, think about how the post office was used when built.    People had to go there in order to do business.  LOTS of business.  Most people You had to make a trip downtown to do business at the post office, not their neighborhood branch.

 

The post office is only one part of the discussion though. Are you missing the rest of my points?

 

I understand it served a purpose, but it still had a huge impact. In todays term, it is much worse then what are in those old pictures. The older buildings, if still standing today, would add to downtowns vitality, and would create a pedestrian friendly area. The post office does not.

 

Today, this area is a complete disaster in my opinion.

http://g.co/maps/zt9xd

Okay so not half, but a huge chunk on the square(1/4) and a huge area that fed into the square.

 

 

Higbees was good yes, but Im thinking more of the whole area the complex encompasses. I gave examples on how Landmark Buildings, and the post office basically just large wall for pedestrians to walk past. No retail spaces, no reason for pedestrians to be over there. Yes they serve their purpose, but so does some of CSU's old buildings, just much uglier. Still the area in general, behind the square, is very unfriendly to pedestrians. Why would I walk over there, unless I worked there. And superior west of the square is one of the worst parts of downtown, and it was taken out by the complex. I wish I could find those pictures so I could post them.

 

Here is a good one of Public Square though. Higbees was there, but in a different location, You can see how the square on a better layout and purpose.

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9820?size=_original

 

And you missed my point AGAIN, think about how the post office was used when built.    People had to go there in order to do business.  LOTS of business.  Most people You had to make a trip downtown to do business at the post office, not their neighborhood branch.

 

The post office is only one part of the discussion though. Are you missing the rest of my points?

 

I understand it served a purpose, but it still had a huge impact. In todays term, it is much worse then what are in those old pictures. The older buildings, if still standing today, would add to downtowns vitality, and would create a pedestrian friendly area. The post office does not.

 

Today, this area is a complete disaster in my opinion.

http://g.co/maps/hpjuy

 

And the post office has been given new life, right?  Cities evolve and change.  and we're going to have to agree to disagree on this topic.

Right, interior life. Just like skyscrapers. The exterior life is still inexistent, and nothing can really be done to change it due to the design.

 

My point was basically just saying that the buildings that were there previously, interacted better with the street, and created a better, more active, more pedestrian friendly neighborhood then is there today, even when the complex was first built.

Right, interior life. Just like skyscrapers. The exterior life is still inexistent, and nothing can really be done to change it due to the design.

 

My point was basically just saying that the buildings that were there previously, interacted better with the street, and created a better, more active, more pedestrian friendly neighborhood then is there today, even when the complex was first built.

 

I totally agree with you!  W. Huron, W. Prospect and W. Superior are definitely dead zones.  It's too bad W. Prospect didn't have more street level retail frontage, or at least store fronts that could cater to a residential neighborhood.  There is obviously enough retail right below the street.  Convert some of the upper office floors to residential.

ClevelandOhio, thanks for posting the photos of the old terminal area! I get your point, but I don't think it's fair to think of it as a tradeoff between the whole terminal complex and what was there before.  The parts the Vans actually built (Higbees, the TT, Landmark) had pretty good street presence, IMHO, with awesome entries, retail spaces and store windows (especially Higbees back then- just think the beginning of A Christmas Story), and they were all huge crowd generators.  The hotel predates the Terminal complex by some 18 years (and the horrible ball room came in the 1950s) and the post office was built in that location because of the RR tracks, as MTS pointed out.  And, storefront density doesn't always translate into streetlife in our kind of downtown...witness the Rose Building.

 

Really just meant the upper east side below the 90s

thats also protected area.  Do you mean Midtown East and West?  The areas between 59 & 34 street.  I get the sense thats the area you're referring too.

 

FYI, relatively little of the UES (and northern Manhattan generally) is protected by historic districts and landmark designation, if that's what you mean by "protection."  The old mixed use commercial buildings on York/1st/2nd/3rd Aves have been dropping like flies for decades, and I'm guessing that's the kind of thing Hts is referring to.

ClevelandOhio, thanks for posting the photos of the old terminal area! I get your point, but I don't think it's fair to think of it as a tradeoff between the whole terminal complex and what was there before.  The parts the Vans actually built (Higbees, the TT, Landmark) had pretty good street presence, IMHO, with awesome entries, retail spaces and store windows (especially Higbees back then- just think the beginning of A Christmas Story), and they were all huge crowd generators.  The hotel predates the Terminal complex by some 18 years (and the horrible ball room came in the 1950s) and the post office was built in that location because of the RR tracks, as MTS pointed out.  And, storefront density doesn't always translate into streetlife in our kind of downtown...witness the Rose Building.

 

Really just meant the upper east side below the 90s

thats also protected area.  Do you mean Midtown East and West?  The areas between 59 & 34 street.  I get the sense thats the area you're referring too.

 

FYI, relatively little of the UES (and northern Manhattan generally) is protected by historic districts and landmark designation, if that's what you mean by "protection."  The old mixed use commercial buildings on York/1st/2nd/3rd Aves have been dropping like flies for decades, and I'm guessing that's the kind of thing Hts is referring to.

 

We're getting off topic but the UES/Carnegie Hill/Museum Mile, (59 street to 96 street) from 3 Ave going WEST is almost all landmarked preservation status, which makes sense with what you've said.  The are above isn't landmarked. The  majority of Harlem, the largest single neighborhood in Manhattan, is protected. But because its such a large neighborhood all landmarked/protected areas aren't connected, as you might find downtown.  I had to go to thru HUD and a ton of Landmark sh*t when I bought because I was adding an additional floor.  If I knew then what I knew then what I knew now, I probably wouldn't have bought.

Sorry I'm late to this discussion.

 

ClevelandOhio, I think you would enjoy looking at the pre-construction Cleveland Union Terminal pictures posted at ClevelandMemory.org. The photos at street level in the area southwest of Public Square show just how much human-scale development was lost for the Terminal Group. When you look at the photos, put yourself in the shoes of Clevelanders. In 1920, Cleveland had just reached 900,000 population, and became the fifth-largest city in the nation. What statement was this pre-terminal area saying about Cleveland and its place among the nation's greatest cities?

 

Before we get into that, yes that's correct that most 20th century union terminals in America were built with an expanded post office included or adjacent to the terminal. Cleveland's was no different.

 

I agree that Huron is definitely not a pedestrian-friendly street, and Prospect is slightly better, mostly east of The Avenue where there are more doorways and different uses (restaurant entrances, office building entrances, etc). Prospect west of The Avenue is like a tunnel without a roof. I can understand what ClevelandOhio is saying about Ontario along the long side of the Higbee's building. It used to have windows for some window shopping and at least one store entrance. But it went a long way along Ontario next to a massive building.

 

But I do understand what ClevelandOhio is saying. Pedestrianism is aided by short city blocks and narrow, vertical buildings with some kind of ground-floor use that anyone can use (stores, cafe, restaurant, barber, etc). What we traded these for were longer city blocks filled with massive buildings, some of which which were more horizontal than vertical. What we got was a train station complex that whose design was amended as time went along to add more office and retail uses. The final design was to have a self-contained city-within-a-city.

 

This quadrant of Public Square was chosen for this development because it was considered to be "underwhelming" and not befitting of a city that had risen into the top ten of American cities. The marketing that the Van Sweringens used was that as someone traveled down Euclid Avenue into downtown, they would see the city's renowned theater district, then its famous shopping district, and when the visitor arrived at Public Square, he would be greeted by a square that belonged to the Cleveland of the 19th century. Indeed, the blocks of streets that the Terminal Group wiped out was called the Haymarket District, and it grew up during the canal era. It was filled with buildings built for the mercantile trade, as agricultural and building products arriving by canal boat from inland Ohio could be bought wholesale for retail sale locally in the markets southeast of downtown, or for movement to the East Coast by lake steamer and the Erie Canal. That purpose had passed it by long before the Ohio Canal was abandoned after the 1913 floods. So this was a district in search of a new purpose. And even decades before the when-in-doubt-rip-it-out mantra of the postwar era, "old" invariably meant "bad" and renovations weren't often considered.

 

So the Terminal Group was built (with the tower as an afterthought to the train station) and it was hailed as a statement about how Cleveland felt about itself, with its pedestrianism turned inward through its marbled halls and soaring interior spaces. Public Square wasn't the only underwhelming location, as the city's original Union Station, built in 1864 and still serving its purpose almost 60 years later by the 1920s, was not what Cleveland wanted to say about itself.

 

The original union station from 1866 shown 44 years later:

 

 

 

And 20 years after that (1930 for the math-challenged):

 

 

 

The new Cleveland Union Terminal as originally proposed in 1919....

 

 

 

 

 

As built:

 

 

 

 

And so Public Square was turned into a transit hub, which it still serves today though less so compared to this scene in 1946 when transit riding was at its peak and 10 times greater than it is today:

 

So here is what looks to be an early image of Lakeview Terrace under construction. What a great and noble idea this was at the time, how cool would it have been if this neighborhood could have matured and grown over the years before it was neglected and a highway was driven thru it. What an awesome neighborhood it could have been.

 

I decided to go into ClevelandMemory.com and get some pictures. I'm focusing on Champlain Avenue, since it completely disappeared as a result of the Terminal development. This is the area of the Terminal development, before it became known, in 1916:

 

 

 

But let's turn to the view that made otherwise-proud Clevelander ashamed of their city in 1922 (think of this view as the same some proud Clevelander not wanting to show Jacobs' parking lot on Public Square).....

 

 

 

The street directly behind those building is Champlain, a street that went west down the hill from Ontario to Columbus Road. This is at the intersection of Ontario, showing the backside of the buildings that faced Public Square in the shot above....

 

 

 

Showing more of the backside of the buildings that faced Public Square.....

 

 

 

Just west of those buildings were these, in the 200-block of Champlain, which had outlived their usefulness. Not many people were using horses any more in the 1920s:

 

 

 

And stepping farther west down Champlain to the intersection of West 3rd Street, we look east again toward Ontario.....

 

 

 

In the shot above, see the man in the foreground? Behind him is what was considered as perhaps the greatest architectural loss from the terminal development. This was the American Telephone & Telegraph exchange/switching building at Champlain and West 3rd, which was replaced by the art deco beauty on Huron which briefly became Cleveland's tallest scraper before the Terminal Tower was finished, but served as the model for the Daily Planet in the Superman comic strips. So perhaps this building sacrificed itself for pop culture immortality....

 

 

 

Another architectural loss was the Central Police Station at Champlain and West 6th. It was replaced by an art deco gem on Payne Avenue, which unfortunately was demolished only a few years ago.....

 

 

 

Some buildings were already demolished by the time this picture was taken, revealing the back sides of buildings in the 700 block fronting Long Avenue, another "lost street" south of and parallel to West Superior....

 

 

 

Making our way farther down the hill in terms of topography and building conditions were these in the 800-900 block of Champlain...

 

 

 

At first glance this probably doesn't look like a sloped road, but look at the angle of the buildings against the street/sidewalk surfaces. This view is looking east from Canal Road which ended at Champlain Avenue....

 

 

 

And, finally, at the bottom of Champlain hill was this view at Columbus Road, which climbed up the hill to the left to West Superior. This was one of the oldest commercial districts of Cleveland, dating from the heyday of the Ohio Canal.....

 

 

 

And if you're still having a hard time picturing where Champlain Avenue ran, this picture reveals it because the Public Square buildings shown at the start of this post are gone, revealing Champlain behind. Ontario is at left.....

 

 

 

By the end of 1924, nearly all buildings were gone and the excavation for the Cleveland Union Terminal Group was well underway. The last building to be demolished was the AT&T building (shown earlier and seen at right, below) at Champlain and West 3rd. The cable ducts that ran below Champlain are seen extending west from the old AT&T building, which was kept intact until the new AT&T building (north of Progressive Field today) was operational.....

 

 

 

And that is a tour from the 1920s from the neighborhood that predated the Terminal Group. It truly was a neighborhood left over from the 1800s, its location to the transit hub on Public Square and its accessibility to nearby railroad lines was why this holdover from the canal era was vulnerable. It was ultimately replaced with this......

 

How come I never learned this in school? I'd much rather have classes on content like this than the crap I had to take (like building a car for physics, who are you kidding!). Thanks for the info, KJP, you certainly know your Cleveland!

Good Lord KJP!  Thanks for taking the time to put together such an informative TT history post.

Thanks so much, KJP for the awesome block-by-bock tour.  I'd seen some of those photos before but never really took the time to figure out how they fit together.  And I had never seen photos of that old Central Police Station.  Though FYI, the replacement on Payne is very much still standing- only the Criminal Courts bldg behind it was demoed.

 

The sad thing is that those commercial buildings were a dime a dozen back in the 1920s when demolished for CUT.  Would have been hard to predict how little of the 19th/early 20th century streetscape would survive the next 90 years because of neglect, parking and redevelopment.

Wow thanks for posting those KJP and for the history. We sure did loose a lot. I love the picture of the bottom of Champlain Hill. That area would have added such an addition dynamic to our downtown if it were still intact. Thanks again!

Post of the year

^seriously.

Thanks for the compliments on that post. I hope all of you also saw my post two postings earlier, too. And thanks to Strap for the correction on the Central Police station on Payne. It recall that it was replaced by the Justice Center, but continued to serve as the Third District police station. I thought Third District had moved out and the building demolished. But now that you mention only the criminal courts building was demo'd, that does ring a bell.

 

Wow thanks for posting those KJP and for the history. We sure did loose a lot. I love the picture of the bottom of Champlain Hill. That area would have added such an addition dynamic to our downtown if it were still intact. Thanks again!

 

So would the Erie Railroad station behind and to the left of the photographer, or the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad station out of view to the right (that building still stands). If you didn't arrive Cleveland at Union Station, chances are you arrived at either the Erie or B&O stations which featured trains to the East Coast (Erie went to Solon, Youngstown where some trains went to Pittsburgh, but most trains went to Jersey City, NJ via New York's Southern Tier; B&O went to Akron, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Cumberland, Washington DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia). So this little under-hill corner of the city was still very accessible to newcomers and everyday Clevelanders alike.

 

Erie Station in 1922 (note the watchman's tower -- also visible in the picture ClevelandOhio commented on above)....

 

 

 

Erie Station in 1928 (the bumper posts for the B&O passenger station tracks are just beyond the fence at right), with the concrete supports for the Cleveland Union Terminal viaduct (used only by the Red Line today) are visible in the background, with the then-new Columbus Road ramp/bridge beyond that, and the Detroit-Superior Bridge visible beyond that....

 

 

 

If the photographer turned around, he could get a photo like this. Although this was taken in 1949 of one of the last Erie Railroad passenger trains arriving the tiny depot before Erie trains would move over to Union Terminal before the end of the year. This railroad bridge still stands next to the Carter Road lift bridge at left, still operational today.....

 

 

 

Both the Erie and B&O stations are visible in this picture. Cleveland Union Terminal opened to service by trains of the New York Central (the busiest passenger rail provider in Cleveland, with about 50 arrivals and departures a day to New York, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis), Nickel Plate RR, and Wheeling & Lake Erie in 1930. B&O moved to Union Terminal in 1934, if I remember correctly....

 

 

 

In 1922, here's a better view of the B&O station which still stands....

 

 

 

The Erie station stood until 1995. It served as Diamond Jim's Steakhouse until its owner James Vinci was executed in a mob hit in 1985. His daughter Rosemary, occasionally a county employee and confidant of mobbed-up county leaders Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo, took it over and turned it into Shorty's Diner. She died unexpectedly a few years ago as the FBI began its raids at the start of the county corruption scandal. The county coroner found nothing to suggest her death was the result of foul play but others questioned the findings. Anyway, this was the view of Shorty's in 1995 shortly before it was demolished for the Waterfront Line while the Detroit-Superior Bridge undergoes a much-needed reconstruction at left...

 

 

 

Hard to believe this was only 17 years ago. Shorty's was a fun place, with lots of 1950s memorabilia in there. But I was too busy looking for any leftovers from its days as the Erie Railroad station. :)

 

 

 

Let's go back to the Erie Railroad watchman's tower for the Columbus/Champlain crossing, visible in the foreground of that first photo. That guy would climb down from there and manually lower the crossing gates for Columbus Road. Some gates were lowered from towers by rope, but I don't see any ropes in the photo. Every crossing that had gates back then was staffed by a watchman to lower the gates for approaching trains. There were thousands of these people all over the city!! When labor costs got too high and electrically powered relays became more common in the early 20th century, crossings were protected by automatic flashers (called a wig-wag signal) and, at busier crossings, automatic gates.

 

 

These watchman shanties were at many, many crossings throughout the nation. They came out in heat, rain, snow and night, lowering gates and/or swinging their lanterns....

 

 

 

My father almost died at a railroad crossing near Dayton when he was riding with some workers in a car in the fog at night. During World War II, my father worked at Acme Aluminum Alloys in Dayton. The watchman was sound asleep in his shanty, so the driver of the car went across the crossing. Someone in the car yelled "FLOOR IT!" The driver accelerated and my father looked out the back window to see the steam locomotive's wheels flashing past right behind the car!

 

 

 

Crossing watchmen were replaced by these signals all over America. It's called a wig-wag signal because that dangling thing would swing back and forth like a crossing watchman's lantern would swing at night, fog or snow....

 

Sigh, old photos of the flats in particular seem to depress me.  Still a great mix of infrastructure, buildings and topography but there once was so much more...and it's not like it's been replaced by much.

 

Some of these have already been posted, but I just noticed today that the Cleveland Memory Project has a whole page dedicated to a street-by-street photo survey of the CSU area in the 1950s(?: http://www.clevelandmemory.org/csu/survey/streets.html  It's awesome.  As much as I love all the old shots of landmarks and Euclid Ave, I really enjoy looking at the more mundane street scenes. 

I've seen the watchman houses before but what exactly is the birdhouse like structure in the foreground?  More specifically what would someone be doing in there, signaling? operating a gate or switch?

The birdcage is where a railroad crossing watchman would sit when there is a busy street crossing the tracks, or the tracks run through an intersection and the watchman has to look in multiple directions. In this case, the latter is the case -- plus this is at the throat of the tracks that go into the Erie Railroad station so there are likely trains switching cars in and out of the depot and across the intersection of Columbus/Champlain. My understanding is that, at some crossings, the watchman could pull a rope and lower a crossing gate from the birdcage. But I don't see any ropes here, which means he would have to climb (or slide) down from the birdcage and physically lower/raise the gates as was done at other crossings with gates back then.

 

There was also a birdcage at the Pennsylvania Railroad crossing with Euclid and East 55th (see below), but it appears to have two floors for two watchmen atop a pole. I'm not sure what the second watchman did -- perhaps he operated the junction of streetcar tracks here? But this at-grade railroad crossing remained until the tracks were elevated through the east side in 1915. And like the Erie station above, the PRR had a station at Euclid and East 55th. After New York Central and its associated Big Four lines left the old Union Station on the lakefront for the Union Terminal on Public Square, PRR was the only passenger rail service remaining there (PRR never operated out of the new Union Terminal). They stayed at the old station until about 1955 when they shortened their passenger route into Cleveland by having passenger trains going no farther north than Euclid/E55th which was their busiest Cleveland station anyway.

 

i believe the original union station was the largest building in the usa for quite some time (world maybe?).

In the early 70s the EPA hired freelance photographers to document environmental problems and the cities and people dealing with them. I combed through a portion of their Cleveland photos and pulled out a few that I liked.

 

Eastman park

Willard park

Sunrise

 

Terminal Tower

City Hall

 

Hanna Fountains

 

The Mall

 

Arcade

 

Detroit Ave

 

West Shoreway

Ohio City

Chester Commons

 

Sewage dumping

 

Exodus to the Suburbs

 

Clark Ave

 

Republic Steel

 

i believe the original union station was the largest building in the usa for quite some time (world maybe?).

 

For some reason the description: largest structure under a single roof comes to mind. But I don't know if it was just USA or the world. I find it hard to believe the world because of all those European train stations under huge trainsheds, but they may have come later.

 

In the early 70s the EPA hired freelance photographers to document environmental problems and the cities and people dealing with them. I combed through a portion of their Cleveland photos and pulled out a few that I liked.

 

Terminal Tower

 

 

I remember that air pollution! It's why we banned leaded gas in 1978 and required steel mills and power plants to be equipped with condensers and/or baghouses. And it's why many steel mills shut down instead of making those investments.

 

EDIT: only three of your pictures are showing up, yet I see that you posted image link codes for many more photos.

EDIT: only three of your pictures are showing up, yet I see that you posted image link codes for many more photos.

yeah, I'll work out this whole interweb deal someday.

Wow, great find, Keith!  I love the Clark Ave bridge photos- I guess I never knew it survived into the 1970s, though I suppose it makes sense given how recent the I490 bridge is.  And man oh man do I wish we still had that Detroit Ave streetscape right over the bridge there.  Sigh. 

Love these pics!

http://media.nara.gov/media/images/10/11/10-1032a.gif (I had no idea this is what stood where that parking lot is today. Another loss!)

http://media.nara.gov/media/images/10/11/10-1065a.gif

http://media.nara.gov/media/images/10/11/10-1062a.gif

 

Why is that photo titled "Exodus to the Suburbs"? It's just the Inner Belt curve at Carnegie Avenue. Hmmm.

In the early 70s the EPA hired freelance photographers to document environmental problems and the cities and people dealing with them. I combed through a portion of their Cleveland photos and pulled out a few that I liked.

 

Eastman park

Willard park

Sunrise

 

Terminal Tower

City Hall

 

Hanna Fountains

 

The Mall

 

Arcade

 

Detroit Ave

 

West Shoreway

Ohio City

Chester Commons

 

Sewage dumping

 

Exodus to the Suburbs

 

Clark Ave

 

Republic Steel

 

 

Lord, why do I feel old looking at those pictures?!  The fashions took me back baby!