Government, Business, Neighborhoods and Schools

East Cleveland History

East Cleveland Government

From 1918 until 1985, East Cleveland was governed by the City Manager form of government.  This was an idea developed by the progressive movement, which was very influential at the time East Cleveland adopted its first charter.  Citizens voted for members of a five person City Commission, who in turn selected a professional city manager to run the city.  There was also an elected judge of the East Cleveland Municipal Court.  The progressives believed that a city manager would provide better management by separating the provision of city services from the factionalism and political infighting found in a Mayor and Council form of government.  The theory was that there is no Democrat or Republican way to collect garbage.  In the case of East Cleveland that theory seemed to work well during the time I lived there. 

The East Cleveland school system was governed by a five member Board of Education.  The Board hired a professional Superintendent of Schools, who managed the entire system of six elementary schools, a junior high school and a high school.  Each school was managed by a principal, who in turn selected and managed a team of teachers and support staff. 

All the municipal and school district officials were elected on a non partisan basis.  These officials usually had other jobs in addition to their public one, because the public positions involved little or no financial compensation.  They ran low key election campaigns and were often unopposed.  There was a tradition of community service, which meant that public officials served the community without a particular interest in their own political careers.  They were not professional politicians.  For the most part they were local businessmen or normal citizens, who took the jobs as a civic duty.  For many years this system resulted in a well run City and School District without a hint of corruption.  There were no public employee unions for municipal or school employees.  Those employees had a strong civil service system to ensure fair working conditions.  That system seemed to work well.  I don’t remember any incident of public employee dissatisfaction, when I lived in East Cleveland. 

East Cleveland Business Community

There were close links among the East Cleveland business community, the citizens and the government.  East Cleveland citizens were highly dependent upon local merchants for the daily needs of their families.  Those merchants were equally dependent upon the citizens for their livelihoods.  Both the citizens and the merchants needed good government and schools.  Merchants were some of the best known people in the neighborhood and often took an interest in serving their community. They served in appointed or elected community jobs such as Library Board, Selective Service Board, PTA groups, etc.  They also organized the annual East Cleveland Community Picnic at Euclid Beach Park.  Their direct contact with customers made them extremely visible to the community.    They also appeared in patron advertisements in School Yearbooks, football programs and in the weekly community newspaper, The East Cleveland Leader.   Some examples of businesses, which provided leadership, included: Nelson Jewelry, Don Fisher Furnaces, Tobin Drug, Stonebraker Drug, Ricks Radio and Records, and Windermere Storage.  Some businesses served areas outside of East Cleveland as well as the immediate neighborhood.  Many served more than one neighborhood and others were “Mom and Pop” stores that served a very local population.  Two examples of the latter are Wards Delicatessen at Euclid and Strathmore and Pat Woods convenience store at Coit and Elm.  Tobin Drug had two stores, one at Euclid and Taylor and another at Euclid and Page.  All those businesses, large and small, contributed greatly to the East Cleveland community.

Neighborhoods and Schools

Even a small and compact community (3 sq. miles) like East Cleveland has a number of distinct neighborhoods.  In East Cleveland, those neighborhoods related to the elementary schools.  This is natural, because the number and location of schools was designed to allow children to walk to school.  There were no school buses and parents did not drive their children to elementary school.  Every afternoon at about 3:00 PM the streets of East Cleveland were full of children and teens going home from school.  Most were walking, but some rode bicycles.  It was necessary for some students at Kirk or Shaw to take a streetcar or bus to and from school.  Only a few Shaw High students found it necessary or possible to drive to and from school.  There were six elementary schools in East Cleveland: Prospect, Superior, Rozelle, Mayfair, Chambers, and Caledonia.  Here it should be pointed out that the Caledonia district included the area on the Hill.  The Caledonia neighborhood included a small part of the City of Cleveland Heights that was part of the East Cleveland School District.  Almost every student in East Cleveland went to Kirk Junior High School or Shaw High School starting in seventh grade. 

East Cleveland Elementary Schools and their neighborhoods

Children or teens who attended parochial schools were an exception to the above.  In East Cleveland,     that mostly meant attending Catholic schools.  The major Catholic school in both of my neighborhoods (Prospect and Caledonia) was Christ the King located on Noble Road between Euclid and Terrace.  A few of my friends from both neighborhoods attended Christ the King through eighth grade.  Some of them went on to a Catholic high school and others transferred to Kirk.  There was also a Catholic grade school at St. Philomena.  Some of the Catholic High Schools attended by East Cleveland students included: Regina, Ursuline, and Beaumont for girls and St. Joseph, Cathedral Latin, St. Ignatius and Benedictine for boys.

Over the years, I lived in two different neighborhoods.  From 1940 until 1952 I lived in the Prospect neighborhood.  From 1952 until 1962 I lived in the Caledonia neighborhood.  Although most of the neighborhoods were very similar to each other, the Caledonia neighborhood was somewhat different.  In many ways Caledonia was more similar to the adjacent areas of Cleveland Heights than to the rest of East Cleveland.  In spite of that difference, I think those who lived there tended to identify more with East Cleveland because we went to the East Cleveland Schools.  I know I did. 

Moving from our elementary school to Kirk Junior High School was a major rite of passage.  Suddenly our social network included people from all six East Cleveland neighborhoods.  We adapted quickly to this opportunity and developed new relationships that usually lasted for the six years we were at Kirk and Shaw High School.  In other words, our formative years from kindergarten to sixth grade were spent with a fairly constant group of children from our neighborhood.  We then spent six more years with a fairly constant group of peers from the entire City of East Cleveland.  There was some change in the actual people in our schools over those 13 years.  Some people moved away while others moved in.  However, you can tell how stable the community was during the 1940s and 50s by looking at the class pictures.  Each year many of the same faces appear.  Several children, who I first met in kindergarten, were in my graduating class from Shaw High School.  

Although each neighborhood was built around an elementary school, it also had certain other community resources upon which it depended.  Those included neighborhood shopping areas, parks, churches, and sometimes employment.  Some of these resources served more than one neighborhood.  An example is Shaw Stadium and the adjacent park.  That facility was in the Chambers neighborhood, but those of us in the Prospect neighborhood considered it ours as well.  Another example was Forest Hill Park which served all of East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights as well.  All neighborhoods had access to the East Cleveland Public Library or one of its two branches. 

Shopping was found mostly along Euclid Avenue and Hayden Avenue.  The primary shopping areas were at Taylor and Euclid, Lee and Euclid, Superior and Euclid and Shaw and Hayden.  The Caledonia neighborhood shopped mostly at Noble and Nela View, but there was also a small shopping area at Taylor and Nela View.  There were no large shopping centers or big box stores.  Most of the daily essentials were available within walking distance.  If something wasn’t available locally, you took a streetcar or bus downtown or to E 105 St. and Euclid.  Those were the major shopping centers for East Cleveland.  Each neighborhood had a movie house it called its own.  There were three of them: Shaw Hayden, Windermere and Euclid.  Those in the Caledonia neighborhood usually went to the Center Mayfield.  If you couldn’t find what you wanted at those local theaters, you went downtown to one of the many first run theaters.

Now that I have provided an overview of East Cleveland institutions and history, the rest of this blog will concentrate on my personal experiences and memories or how it was to grow up in that community.

Copyright 2011 by Robert C. Dreifort  all rights reserved

Introduction to East Cleveland

East Cleveland History

Introduction

A study of the history of East Cleveland might start by asking, why it exists in the first place and what are the basic geological, geographical, political and social factors that made it what it was and is.  An argument could be made that East Cleveland had no clear identity of its own.  Each part of East Cleveland is like the community it borders.  On the North it borders the Collinwood section of Cleveland.  On the West it is adjacent to The Glenville section as well as University Circle and Little Italy.  Finally, on the South and East is Cleveland Heights.  In many ways the socio-economic groups, housing etc. in East Cleveland were quite similar to those in adjacent communities.  The Italians of the Western portion of East Cleveland could rightfully consider themselves a part of Little Italy.  Similarly the mostly blue collar ethnic groups in East Cleveland often moved there because of the availability of good jobs in the many industries that Collinwood and East Cleveland shared.  If you didn’t know where the boundary line was, you would not know if you were in East Cleveland or one of the communities bordering it.

Although it could be argued that East Cleveland had no identity of its own, I would argue just the opposite.  As it worked out East Cleveland was a unique mixture of all the elements represented in those adjacent communities.  By 1940 the community was fully developed with a stable population of about 40,000 people including a variety of ethnic groups, blue collar workers, professionals, small business owners and employees, and workers in various University Circle institutions.  This diverse group was the basis for quite a unique community.  Many factors contributed to East Cleveland’s unique identity.  Among those factors were a strong local government, good schools, and a strong local business community.  Those factors, along with the small and compact size of the City resulted in a community in which families could work, play, learn and grow.  I will analyze each of these factors in more detail in following postings.

Geology

Geology had an important influence on East Cleveland as well.  All of Northeast Ohio was created by the receding ice cap that created the Great Lakes and the area in which East Clevelanders lived.  The glacier that formed Lake Erie receded in stages leaving definite contours in the land.  East Cleveland lies right on top of an important geological boundary.  Euclid Avenue lies on a glacial beach and Terrace Road is at the bottom of a hill, which some consider the beginning of the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.  That geological feature also resulted in a separate and distinct portion of the City know as “the hill” or the Heights.  The Hill is actually a ridge that is crossed by several creeks, brooks and other natural waterways.  Those waterways also became the basis for the roads built to travel between lower East Cleveland and upper East Cleveland.  Most of those streets were built on top of large culverts through which the creeks and brooks flow.  The engineering problems encountered in building those roads were complex.  The Roads in East Cleveland that connect to the Heights are Noble, Taylor, Stanwood, Lee, Forest Hill Blvd., and Superior. Those streets follow the paths of waterways, which were placed in underground culverts.   However, as many East Cleveland kids discovered, some sections of those creeks were and are to this day open in hidden ravines behind developed land.   

 Ohio geological features showing Euclid Avenue geological beach and Appalachian Foothills

East Cleveland showing division between Euclid Avenue geological beach and "The Hill"

Some man made features, which resulted from geological factors, also had a great influence on the history and character of East Cleveland.  An important example is the two railroads, which cut through the City. Railroads usually follow paths of least resistance.  As a result they passed through the center of East Cleveland.  Those railroads, the New York Central and the Nickel Plate Road entered East Cleveland from the West in a combined road bed.  They proceeded northeast to Superior Avenue, where the New York Central turned north roughly following the western border of East Cleveland.  The Nickel Plate continued northeast roughly one block North of Euclid Avenue.  The flow of traffic within East Cleveland was influenced by these railroads and the bridges that they went over. Unlike the City of Lakewood, Cleveland’s nearest western suburb, the railroads in East Cleveland had no grade crossings.  This made East Cleveland a safer place for drivers and pedestrians.  Both of these railroads were headed to the industrial areas North of East Cleveland.  Those areas provided many jobs for residents of East Cleveland and the residents of Collinwood, who also felt the influence of the railroads. ( In the case of Collinwood that influence is represented in the name of the Collinwood High School athletic teams, “The Railroaders”.)  One industry, whose location was influenced by the railroads was General Electric.  That Company provided a lot of employment for East Clevelanders both in the industrial area of Collinwood on the Border with East Cleveland as well as the Research Facility at Nela Park located in East Cleveland at the top of the hill near the eastern border.  Many families with Children in Caledonia Elementary School were there because someone in the family was employed at Nela Park. 

Geography

Geography had a great influence on East Cleveland.  It is essentially what was left of the East Cleveland Township after Cleveland ended a series of annexations early in the 20^th Century.  If the pattern of annexation had been similar to that of the City of Columbus, Ohio, most of the suburbs of Cleveland would now be part of the City of Cleveland.  As it turned out, East Cleveland is surrounded by Cleveland and Cleveland Heights.    A major factor allowing East Cleveland and other inner ring suburbs to resist annexation to Cleveland was the adoption of municipal home rule by the State of Ohio in 1912.  That change to Ohio’s constitution allowed communities to incorporate as a village or a city rather than accept annexation to Cleveland. The effects of that law were both good and bad depending upon your perspective.  First it ended the geographic expansion of Cleveland while permitting many new communities such as East Cleveland to develop.  The City of East Cleveland and other new suburban communities were, perhaps, a good outcome for those living there at the time.  There were advantages to living in a small community where you knew your neighbors, businessmen and officials, and making it easier to meet the needs and desires of the citizens.  However, East Cleveland is now dealing with the downside of suburban proliferation in its efforts to develop a more regional approach to government and the provision of public services.  Inner ring suburbs like East Cleveland were the first to feel the downside of the proliferation of municipalities in Cuyahoga County.  Many of those communities’ current problems can be traced to a small tax base and the expense of meeting the complex needs of an inner city community. 

During the period in which I lived there, the City of East Cleveland did not face many of the current problems.  It had a good tax base due to the good mix of residential and industrial land use.  The people living there were able to find work during World War II and the post war prosperity of the late 1940s and the 1950s.  The housing stock was relatively young and in sound condition.  The many small businesses were able to meet most of the neighborhood shopping needs prior to the era of large suburban shopping centers. All of these factors resulted in good schools and a stable community. 

Copyright  2011 Robert C. Dreifort  All rights reserved

Introduction to Robert Dreifort

Since graduating from  Shaw High School in 1958, I have educated myself, married a wonderful wife, raised two great kids, and pursued happiness through a number of interesting hobbies, all of which was supported by a long and checkered career in government, health care and higher education mostly in the Cleveland area. 

Shaw High School

I met my wife, Jean, while we were undergraduates at Western Reserve University.  I have my AB in History and Political Science and Jean earned a BS in Psychology.  Jean went on to get an MSLS at Western Reserve and I have a Master of Public administration Degree from Cleveland State. 

Shaw High School

The first twenty years of my working life involved a number of positions in government at the federal, municipal and county levels.  I was a field representative for the federal Urban Renewal Administration, then a research assistant for the Citizens League of Greater Cleveland, followed by service as an Urban Planner for the Cuyahoga County Regional Planning Commission, and a Budget and Management Analyst in the Mayor's Office for the City of Cleveland.  That experience included service to two Cleveland Mayors, Stokes and Perk.  My last job in government was as the Operations Director for the Cuyahoga County Mental Health Board.  The last twenty years of my working life were almost equally divided between service as a Health Care Administrator at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF) and as a Department Administrator at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU).  I retired from CWRU in 2004 and have been pursuing my hobbies full time since then.

One of my hobbies is Big Band Music as the leader of the Smart Set Band.  Click on this link for more information about that:


Smart Set Band

 Another of those hobbies is the study of Cleveland area  history with an emphasis on the History of East Cleveland.  My youth spent in East Cleveland was a wonderful time.  And I have been spending a lot of my retirement  trying to recapture the spirit of East Cleveland during the time that I lived there from 1940 to 1963.  As I write a section of my memoirs, I will post it to this blog.  

If anyone wants to comment on my memoirs or has some memories they wish to share, please post a comment.  

For more Dreifort family history go to www.dreifort.com

 Some East Cleveland Images

Here are some images of East Cleveland that should bring back some memories.  The first is the old Prospect School before the addition was built to the right of this picture.  When I started kindergarten there in 1945, the School included this building and the addition.  There were two playgrounds, one between the new building and Euclid Avenue and another to the left of this building.  The playground to the  left was behind a wooden barracks style building, which faced Shaw Avenue and was Shaw High School's band room.  Also on that playground was a wooden shed known as the "paper house".  That was used during the wartime paper drives.  I will later post my class pictures, which were taken on the stairs of the building in this picture.

Prospect School

Shaw High School

Above is a picture of Shaw High School taken in 1933.  This is looking South on Shaw Avenue.  My home was on the corner of Shaw and Plymouth just behind where the photographer is standing.  This was my view as I went to school from 1945 until we moved to Nela View in 1953.  More about that later.  Just outside of this picture on the left was the Abel Funeral Home.  On the right was a  gas station and Karl Brown's Colonial Inn, a fine restaurant. 

Copyright  2011  Robert C. Dreifort  All rights reserved