Wednesday, March 19, 2014
CLEVELAND EAST CLEVELAND MERGER
Momentum toward a merger of East Cleveland and Cleveland has increased. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that two prominent Cleveland City Councilmen have suggested that serious efforts to study the possibility of a merger be undertaken. At this time the Mayors of both cities have spoken in favor of a merger but spokesmen for the East Cleveland City Council have spoken out against it. Cleveland City Council President, Kevin Kelley and Cleveland Mayor, Frank Jackson have asked the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University to assist in their study of a possible merger of the two cities.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
EAST CLEVELAND TODAY
This posting
is a bit of a digression from the history of East Cleveland during the 1940s
and 1950s with which I am more familiar.
However, I believe those who follow this blog would also like to stay
current on issues affecting East Cleveland today. In previous postings I tried to avoid much
discussion of current issues, because for the most part I only know what I read
in the papers. My current knowledge of
East Cleveland has been gained through research I have done at the East
Cleveland Public Library and occasional visits to my old neighborhoods.
Like many of
you who grew up in East Cleveland and then returned to visit, I am shocked by
the physical deterioration of the town.
Whole blocks of houses and apartments have been abandoned or burned out
and boarded up. Those housing units,
which are still occupied, tend to be in marginal states of maintenance. Most housing is not owner occupied. The population is the poorest of the
poor. Many of you have commented on my
blog about how depressing it is to see what has happened to our old home town.
There are
those who will blame the current state of affairs in East Cleveland on the
racial change, which occurred starting in the 1960s. I have received comments to that effect on
this site. I lived in East Cleveland
during the early 1960s while attending Western Reserve University. I studied sections of the City as part of an
Urban Sociology class project in 1962.
Later in the decade, I walked all the streets of East Cleveland meeting
people as a candidate for State Representative.
I met many of the new African-American citizens and found them to have
similar values, hopes and dreams as I and my long time East Cleveland friends
and neighbors. Unfortunately, White
flight, encouraged by real estate block busting tactics, moved too fast to
allow the development of a stable integrated community.
East
Cleveland became a stable majority African-American community by the
1980s. It was still a community of
middle class values, which encouraged strong families, home ownership and
property maintenance. Unfortunately, the transformation of East Cleveland into
a majority African-American community coincided with the major economic decline
of the Cleveland region resulting in what we know as the rust belt. This combined with the flight of the middle
class (both White and African-American) from the inner ring suburbs left East
Cleveland with a different population.
The difference was not African-American or White. The difference was economic class.
Merger of East Cleveland with Cleveland
Back in 2011
I started this site with the following comment: “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.” I went
on to argue that East Cleveland did, in fact, have an identity of its own and
went on to describe that identity in detail.
In September
2012 I made the following comment in my presentation to an urban history class at
Case Western Reserve University: “As
much as it pains me to say it, there may not be a reason for the City of East
Cleveland today. In fact the very existence of the City of East Cleveland
may be a barrier to solving the problems of the area known as East
Cleveland. I already pointed out the similarities of sections of East
Cleveland with the neighboring cities. The problems of the economically
depressed population of East Cleveland are more appropriately the problems of
the entire Cleveland metropolitan area. If the area of East Cleveland
were a part of Cleveland and/or Cleveland Heights, the current concentration of
economically depressed people could be absorbed by the larger tax base of those
communities or Cuyahoga County. The barriers to land development within
the current boundaries of East Cleveland would be lowered. I even believe
that East Cleveland as it exists today is no longer a viable power base for the
African-American political establishment, if it ever was in the first place.”
Since my
presentation in September 2012, there has been considerable discussion in the
media and the community of East Cleveland about the possible merger of East
Cleveland with the City of Cleveland.
In fact, the
mayors of the two cities have come out in favor of that merger. Former Cleveland Council President and former
head of the NAACP, George Forbes seemed to initiate this discussion. There have already been examples of mergers
of some city services with those of Cleveland including the Water Department. A strong movement to merge the East Cleveland
Public Library with the Cuyahoga County Public Library failed due to opposition
from a small but vocal group of citizens even though the Library Board had recommended the merger. It now seems as if the greatest impediment to
the final merger will be the East Cleveland City Council. It will take a vote of the people to finally
decide the future of the community.
Last night I
watched a 40 minute program, which describes the heartbreak and despair felt by
current and former citizens of East Cleveland.
That heartbreak and despair is similar to that which many readers of my
blog expressed, when seeing what has become of East Cleveland. The difference is that most of my readers
have been White former citizens, who lived in East Cleveland, when I was there
too. The people you meet and hear on
this program lived there during the 1990s and later. They are all African-American. The hopes, values and sorrow they express are
the same as mine and those of most of my readers.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Caledonia - My second East Cleveland neighborhood
Caledonia
My
Second East Cleveland Neighborhood
My family
moved from our home on Shaw Avenue to a new home at 1021 Nela View Road in June
of 1953. I had just completed my first
year at Kirk Junior High School after graduating from Prospect in June of
1952. I had mixed emotions about that
move. After all, I had spent my entire
life in the Shaw/Plymouth neighborhood.
I was leaving my close friends and the home and neighborhood I
loved. The last day before the move I
spent time in each room of the old house remembering the things that had
happened. I wanted to imprint the place
and those events firmly in my mind. I
hope this blog is evidence that I was able to do that.
Our move
was necessary, because we just didn’t have enough space in the old house. The new house was a single family with three
bedrooms and a finished attic on the third floor. To us, it seemed huge. It was quite a change to have the home all to
ourselves without other families living above us. Not only did I have a bedroom of my own; but
I also appropriated the room on the third floor. I used it to enjoy my hobbies including
amateur radio and as a kind of club house for me and my friends.
Speaking
of friends, I was able to make a whole new group of friends quite quickly. It turned out that David Reynard, who had
been in my homeroom at Kirk, lived just down the street. When I ventured out the day we arrived, I
walked down the street to find David and a bunch of kids playing catch in front
of his house. We recognized each other
and he introduced me to the group. It
turned out the test for new members of the gang was to find out how good you
were at baseball. The best guy at baseball was a kid named Domenic
Argento. He threw me a few and
pronounced me to be OK. My early
acceptance by that new group of kids made the loss of my old friends less
traumatic. I still saw some of the old
group in school and occasionally went back to the old neighborhood on my
bicycle. As I adapted to my new
neighborhood, I made that trip less frequently.
I spent a lot of time exploring the new neighborhood on my bicycle. Many of my trips were to one of the two shopping areas, one at Taylor and Nela View and the other at Noble and Nela View. Those areas had everything we had at Taylor and Euclid and more. The main attraction for me at Noble Road was the Franklin Ice Cream store. At Taylor Road, which was closer and within easy walking distance, there was a drug store with great cherry sundaes for only 35 cents.
Noble and Nela View had the most shopping opportunities. That included Fisher Foods, Woolworths, Fred’s Bakery, a barber shop, a record store, a florist, and a great drug store. That drug store was Stonebreaker’s. Mr. Stonebreaker was the president of the East Cleveland School Board and much loved in the community. He is the one who signed my diploma, when I graduated from Shaw High School in 1958. He was known as “Stoney” to the neighborhood and he and his store filled the same niche as the Tobin Brothers did at Tobin Drug at Taylor and Euclid.
Other
destinations in my exploration of the neighborhood included Caledonia School and
the great playground behind it. Those of
us, who lived on Nela View, also had a vacant lot at the corner of Taylor and Nela
View in which to play baseball. That lot
is now occupied by two houses. It filled
the purpose previously filled by the field at the end of Plymouth Place. It was adequate but not quite as good as that
Plymouth Place field. Therefore, when we
wanted to play some serious ball, we went to the playground behind the school. There we were able to play with a larger
group of kids from the neighborhood around the school.
Other
destinations around the school were the East Cleveland Public Library branch
and the Warner and Swayze Observatory. I
spent a lot of time at that library. My
usual reading was about electricity and electronics. It got to the point where I had read all the
books in the 538 Dewey decimal range and had to go to other libraries to find
some new stuff. I also read extensively
in the history section. My reading said
something about my future life. When I
had to say for the yearbook what I would study at college, I said electrical
engineering. It was truly one of my
great interests. Remember that was 1958
and we were under the impact of sputnik.
A career in science or engineering was greatly prized. Once I went to college I followed my other
interest and studied history and political science, got a master’s degree in
Public Administration and spent a career in government, healthcare and
university administration. It all
started in that branch library. By the
way, I had to take some science courses at Western Reserve University. I chose geology and astronomy. The astronomy class was held at night at the Warner
and Swayze Observatory to which I could walk from my home on Nela View.
Another
great destination across the street from the library was the Methodist
church. Somehow we discovered a coke
machine in the basement of the church.
That machine was still giving coke for 5 cents a bottle when most other
machines were charging a dime. That was
a refreshing stop on the way to or from the playground or library. Much later in life, when I was Operations
Director for the Cuyahoga County Mental Health Board, I got to know Rev.
Douglas Denton, the pastor of that church and a member of the Mental Health
Board. Once, when I was meeting with him
at the church, I revealed the secret of the coke machine. He assured me that they had raised their
price.
To the southeast
of Nela View we explored as far as Mayfield Road. The Severance estate was still there on the
Southeast corner of Mayfield and Taylor.
It was later torn down and redeveloped as the Severance Shopping
Center. On the northeast corner of
Mayfield and Taylor was the Prentice estate.
At that time the Prentice mansion had been torn down but the foundation
and basement were still there. We
discovered a way to get into that basement by climbing through a narrow hole in
the rubble. That was quite an
adventure. I remember a walk-in safe
with a door as big as house entrance door.
That door was locked so we never saw what that safe contained. I thought of that again, when Geraldo Rivera
made a big deal of opening a similar safe, which had belonged to Al
Capone. There was nothing in that one and
there was probably nothing in the Prentice safe either.
Our
neighborhood contained two ravines, which we explored often. These were
sections of creeks, which had not been culverted. They had large storm sewer pipes about five
or six feet in diameter at each end. The
storm water would flow through the sewer pipes, enter the open ravine and exit
farther downstream into another sewer pipe. Most streets, which go from the Hill
to the lower part of East Cleveland, have waterways under them which are
flowing through large culverts. Noble
Road, Taylor Road, Forest Hill Boulevard and Superior Road are examples. The
open ravines were left over, because a street was not needed there and/or there
was no need or ability to develop the land.
The ravines usually ran behind houses.
One started at Nela View and Northvale and extended down to Terrace Road
and Shaw Avenue. I wrote about that
ravine in my Plymouth Place article.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I lived at the other end of
the ravine in which I had spent so much time in my old neighborhood. The other ravine was behind the playground of
Caledonia School. It was later culverted
and redeveloped for a city park and houses on Ravine Drive.
Description
of the Caledonia Neighborhood
Caledonia
is the name of a street located in the portion of East Cleveland commonly
called “The Hill”. I discussed the geography
and geology of East Cleveland in an earlier article. The City of East Cleveland includes portions
located northwest of the glacial ridge created by Terrace Road. Those portions were the first to be
developed. The other section of town is
located at the top of a hill which starts at Terrace Road and can be reached by
several streets, which follow old waterways.
Those streets are Noble Road, Taylor Road, Stanwood Road, Forest Hills
Boulevard and Superior Road. The area at the top of the hill is named Caledonia
as is the elementary school located on Caledonia road.
The first
major development in the Caledonia area occurred in 1913, when the General
Electric Company built its large research facility at Nela Park. That facility is located at the top of Noble
Road hill and in the Northeast corner of East Cleveland. The map below shows the relationship of the
Caledonia area to the rest of East Cleveland.
It is
important to note that much of the Caledonia neighborhood is actually located
in the City of Cleveland Heights. An
examination of the above map illustrates that a rectangular portion of the City
of Cleveland Heights is included in the East Cleveland School District. I know that I and perhaps most others, who
lived in the Caledonia area considered ourselves to be East Clevelanders. Most city services including police, fire and
garbage collection were provided by Cleveland Heights. However we all went to East Cleveland schools
and used the East Cleveland Library.
Most of us read the East Cleveland Leader as well as the Sun Press.
The
Caledonia neighborhood was developed in several stages. The first stage of development was in the
area around Nela Park. That included
most of the housing between Noble Road and Taylor Road. There was always a large group of Nela Park employees
and their families living in the area.
One of my Nela View friends was a boy named Jimmy Casteronis, whose
father worked at Nela Park. He was able
to get his friends into the camp and swimming pool at Nela Park each
summer. I had several relatives and
friends, who worked there, which helped me get a job setting pins at the
company bowling alley. That was one of
the toughest physical labor jobs I ever had.
The
second and third stages of development in the Caledonia area involved the farm
land southwest of Taylor Road, most of which belonged to John D. Rockefeller
and a few other large landowners.
Rockefeller’s large summer estate, Forest Hill, occupied large portions
of East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights.
It included a golf course and much wooded area later donated to the
Cities of East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights as Forest Hill Park. Kirk Junior High School was built on park
land on Terrace Road at the base of the hill.
We would climb to the top of that hill to use the baseball diamonds in
Forest Hill Park. Rockefeller’s front yard also became our winter sledding
hill.
The
portion of Rockefeller’s estate, which was not included in the park, was
designated for development of high end housing.
That development was done in two stages.
The first stage was the area between Lee Avenue and Taylor Road
primarily on the streets Glynn and Brewster.
That area was developed during the 1920s with primarily French Norman
style brick houses. Those streets and
their homes have been listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. You can read more about this at www.fhho.org.
The
development of the rest of Forest Hill was delayed by the great depression and
then by World War II. Most of the area
included streets, sidewalks and even some landscaping before development was
halted. Development didn’t start again
until after the war.
When I
moved to Nela View in 1953, the area just southwest of Taylor had been under
development for a little over five years.
Most of the homes were quite new.
The style of home was predominantly single story ranch homes. They were quite expensive and we considered
the people, who lived there to be quite wealthy. One demonstration of that wealth was the
annual competition to see who could have the most elaborate Christmas lighting
display. They were a wonder to see; but they
could never compete with the other large Christmas lighting at Nela Park. I was lucky.
I could go either direction from my house and see some great Christmas light
displays.
What
Is To Become Of East Cleveland ?
Merger with Cleveland
Merger with Cleveland
As of
this writing there has been considerable discussion about the future of East
Cleveland as a separate city. Many are
making the case that it should be annexed to the City of Cleveland. I have pointed out several times in this blog
that there is no geographic factor, which can explain why East Cleveland has
existed all these years. However, for a
variety of reasons the community survived and thrived as a group of varied social
and economic sectors. I have also made
the case that portions of East Cleveland northwest of Terrace Road are more
like Glenville or Collinwood than the neighborhood on the Hill. Those areas at the top of the hill have more
in common with Cleveland Heights than Cleveland. East Cleveland exists
partially because it is what was left over after all the areas around it
incorporated as parts of Cleveland or Cleveland Heights.
One area
of East Cleveland, which I have not addressed, is not included in the Caledonia
area even though it is on the hill. That
area between Superior Road and the City of Cleveland Heights has always had
more in common with its neighbors in Cleveland Heights. It is part of the Superior Elementary School
neighborhood; but culturally it has always been a part of the Coventry
neighborhood in Cleveland Heights.
Most of
the Caledonia area is located in the City of Cleveland Heights. As I said earlier,
we always felt like East Clevelanders, because we were a part of the East
Cleveland School District. Now I think the future of that area would be more
secure as a part of Cleveland Heights.
As I said
in my lecture at Case Western Reserve University (see earlier post), there may
no longer be a rationale for keeping East Cleveland as a separate municipality. I believe its future could be secured by
making it a part of Cleveland and taking advantage of the development opportunities
which are occurring around University Circle.
The manufacturing base, which made East Cleveland successful in the past,
has disappeared. The old ties, which
kept the community together, have eroded.
However, I still believe that the areas at the top of the hill would be
better served by being annexed by Cleveland Heights.
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