Cleveland Pics from March 5th, 2005
Jeff and I went out with the intention of capturing the back end of Lake Erie Screw and some of the steel mills on camera, but ended up stumbling upon an empty housing project and three or four seperate abandoned buildings nestled together on one corner. Here's the pick of the litter. I decided to stick them up on a webpage rather than just put them in Rust and Brique, so I could keep the high resolution and color of these pictures.
Download a Big Panorama of LTV Steel (8366x1034, 1.56 MB)
These shots were taken from Clark Avenue, just below 11th Street. On the left you can see downtown Cleveland in the distance, with Clark Field below. The houses behind everything are part of Tremont. The white tanks are the generically named "Air Products Company" or something like that. The tanks are full of various gasses. Behind the multi-colored fence is Cleveland's "Car Detention Center", that is, an impound lot. Then, the steel mill part is pretty obvious. I think part might be considered "West" and the other "East", being on opposite sides of the Cuyahoga, but I couldn't tell you which is which. Much of what's down there was originally seperate mills until Republic Steel started buying them up, who then were bought by LTV Steel, who then were bought by ISG, who have now been bought out by I don't know who. Most people still refer to the whole mess as "LTV Steel", though.
Lake Erie Screw, as viewed from the bridge connecting Berea Road and Lakewood Heights Boulevard. This whole area is sort of a weird secret spot that not a lot of people even know exists. I've lived here a couple years and never went over this bridge until a few weeks ago. I figure the large coils of metal are their raw material for screwing. . .er, I mean, screw-making.
An odd train engine that went by while we were taking pictures. Very military-inspired, I'd say. The other two power units were normal Norfolk-Southern.
Then we drove over to Tremont to take some steel mill pictures. We've been here at night a lot (out of boredom), and have taken pictures and video then -- we even got kicked out for "trespassing" in an area with no gates to keep us out, no signs saying it was anything but a public road, etc, etc. . .but anyway, we wanted to take some shots during the day, and here they are. One part of LTV with the air tanks in the foreground.
The other side of LTV. These three are from Clark Field, where a bunch of people were practicing football in the snow.
Some venty things at the air tank place, with onion domes in the background, and me off to the side.
We lucked upon this weird bunch of abandoned buildings, on West 7th Street. They were all on one corner of a block, and looked like they might have been a religious school at some point, with weird churchy architecture. There were at least three different buildings, but they connected together in weird ways and it was basically impossible to know what was what. The beigeish building in front is the Tremont Cultural Center, which is not abandoned.
Nice faux-industrial sign!
Weird building #1, the part that looked like a school next to a shed with a decaying roof and the big square factoryish part. Not in too great of shape, with lots of nasty dripping things this day due to snow melt. It did appear that some sort of renovation or work was happening here, but not while we were there. Usually in Cleveland, renovation and demolition work stops for the winter, as it's not the best kind of work to do when it's 12 degrees out and there's a foot of snow on the ground.
"The Herald Publishing House". This is the more factoryish part, which evidently was a religious printing press. There were a lot of authentic wrought-iron gates in this building.
"Gospel Press", same building as above.
The schoolish part again. I bet the neighborhood kids think it's haunted.
Weird building #3, this little decrepit house sort of thing. Attached to #1.
Aiming high, or hardly aiming? Empty housing project on W. 7th Street.
The Valleyview Homes. These have been empty as long as Jeff can remember, and he moved to Tremont in 1988. They stand unfenced-off, in the middle of a shady neighborhood, without a speck of graffiti on them. They are obviously well-maintained by the CMHA (Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority -- "The Project Cops"). I noticed an outdoor light still on and mysterious steam rising from basement vents, so they at least have electricity still. There aren't even any no trespassing, we will kill you if you mess around here signs -- just "no loitering, enforced by the CMHA". The buildings themselves are too boring to warrant a lot of pictures, lots of identical square apartment buildings from the '30's. But the fact that they haven't been torn down to build a condo and the CMHA is still keeping them so well maintained is pretty odd.
Update: 19 December 2005: Someone sent me this excellent WPA poster for the above housing projects, which I've heard have been torn down -- however, the ceramic relief mural was saved! I haven't been able to check it out personally yet.
The church of St. Something-I-Don't Remember, between St. Olga and St. Tikhon streets. One of the boring apartment buildings in the foreground. I just realized that a friend of mine lives a block from this streetcorner, and I still never knew about this stuff. Now that I think about the area, and look at the map, I think the reason this place might have closed is the fact that it has no parking lot. Not an issue in the '30's, but once cars became more ubiquitous it was probably a huge problem.
A very-WPA map of Valleyview homes, in ceramic tile. The fact that it's still here is really incredible. It should have been smashed to pieces long ago, but doesn't even have the smallest grafitti tag or mismatched repainting on it. Why they had to put this pole in front of it and spoil my shot is beyond me.
A closeup of the WPA map. It even has the artists' names on it.
We close with a shot of yours truly in front of LTV Steel from Clark Avenue.