Cleveland is much like St. Louis in that it is much longer than it is wide. In this case, however, the city stretches along a lake, and is longer east-west.
St. Clair and Superior avenues in many ways are like the equivalents of North Broadway back in St. Louis, as well, passing through industrial zones and other interesting factories and warehouses. The two arteries are two blocks apart.
This is Public Safety Central, which is basically the police headquarters.
Below, the Tower Press building was an early redevelopment in the area.
More luxury condos and apartments in old warehouses…
This Italianate house jumped out to me, suggesting this was once a much more residential neighborhood, and much more rural. It is now a non-profit office.
Of course there are taverns and other houses mixed in among the old factories where the workers drank and lived.
The warehouses and factories are huge, and it is a big deal that they are being renovated and not being left empty.
The building below is a mystery to me.
It may have been the school and parish hall of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, just a block away from the building on Superior Avenue.
It’s a beautiful church, which has received a good coating of patina, no doubt due to its location so close to the factories along the lake.
Rows of working class houses line the streets behind it.
Just take a look at one such factory, below, further east. It’s all completely gone now, of course. The buildings came right up to the houses where the workers lived.
One of my oldest memories of Cleveland back in 2006 was standing on an overpass near Case Western Reserve University and watching the sunset over the massive railyards spreading out before me all the way towards downtown.
Further east, things get rough, sadly.
I was starting to work my way up out of the lowlands along the lakefront, and I was confronted with vacant lots and thick undergrowth.
There’s some newer public housing, but it looks like its siding is already starting to fall off.
Rundown commercial strips predominate.
There is new development, but I wonder how long it will last.
