In September 2020, I got to tour 75 Public Square with Cleveland Construction Inc. as they were beginning to demo the building. I did a blog post back then talking about the building’s history and the work that they had begun in July 2020 to convert the old office building into an apartment building. Now […]
Recently I visited the Spirit of 76 Museum in Wellington, Ohio. I went because on our Downtown Public Art walking tour we talk about the Spirit of 76 painting by Archibald Willard that hangs in Cleveland City Hall and I wanted to learn more. The Museum’s first floor is dedicated to the painting and Willard. […]
James Abram Garfield served as our twentieth President. The Garfield home, known as Lawnfield, was purchased by then Congressman Garfield in 1876. The home is located in Mentor, Ohio, just 30 minutes east of Cleveland. Historical Firsts Two historic firsts are associated with the home. One, from his home he conducted the first front porch […]
Woodland Cemetery was officially dedicated on June 14, 1853. The city bought the land because they had out grown Erie St. Cemetery. It purchased the sixty acres from Benjamin Butler, President Andrew Jackson’ Attorney General. The trees felled were sold to provide funds for future improvements. Woodland Cemetery remained a staple in Cleveland throughout the […]
Andrew Carnegie, the steel tycoon from Pittsburgh donated more than $56 million dollars to help build 2,509 libraries. Cleveland had fifteen Carnegie Library branches built with his donations. Brett’s Request The Cleveland Public Library started back in 1869. It consisted on one main location in downtown. But the library wanted to expand throughout the city […]
The Allen Theater turns 100 today, April 1, 2021 (No April Fools joke) . We have seen four of the five original theaters in Cleveland’s Playhouse Square celebrate 100 years in the past couple months! Beginnings The Allen originally opened as a movie theater and was part of the Canadian chain owned by brothers Jules […]
The Hanna Theater celebrates it 100 Year Anniversary today, March 28, 2021. It is the third Playhouse Square theater to turn 100 in the past two months. 1921 Beginnings The theater was built to honor Marcus A. Hanna, Clevelander, U.S. Senator and theater lover. Hanna had owned the Euclid Ave. Opera House which was demolished […]
Joanne Siegel (born Jolan Kovacs) was born in Cleveland in 1917. She wanted to be a model and placed an ad in the paper looking for modeling work. Joe Shuster and his partner, Joel Siegel hired Joanne to model for sketches for a character in a comic book they were creating. That character would be […]
Margaret Bourke-White is known as a pioneer in industrial photography. She was born in New York City in 1904 and graduated from Cornell in 1927. She moved to Cleveland to be near her mother and this is where her interest in industrial photography began. Cleveland Years She went to the owner of the Otis Steel […]
George A. Myers is often referred to as Cleveland’s best barber. But his influence extended beyond the chair and the shop. Myers was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1859. He graduated high school but was denied entrance into the city college because of his race. He would learn to become a barber and move to […]
