The Terminal Tower was the second tallest building in North America from its completion in 1930 until the construction of the Prudential Center in Boston in 1964. The Cleveland landmark, also known as the Cleveland Union Terminal, stands 708 feet tall, 771 feet with its flagpole. The beaux-arts style building (with a steel structure and façade of granite and limestone) was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. Today, the Terminal Tower serves as commercial office space.
At a meeting of Camp Barnett, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Society, in 1879, Comrade William J. Gleason suggested erecting a monument to commemorate Union soldiers and sailors of the Civil War Cuyahoga County. It was unanimously approved and opened on July 4, 1894. Today, it is open most days from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and is a popular attraction in downtown Cleveland. Visitors can also participate in the occasional tunnel tour of the moment as well as enjoy the Victorian Christmas display each year. It is operated by the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument Commission.
At this location in 1915, the May Company opened the third-largest department store in the United States. David May, the founder of May Department Stores, had previously acquired E. R. Hull & Dutton Co. of Cleveland on Ontario Street in 1899 and subsequently renamed the store as part of the May Company. Rapid success led May's company to go public and its stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange by 1910. Construction of grand downtown retail buildings followed, including the opening of this newly-constructed building in 1915. Designed by famed Chicago-School architect (and creator of the City Beautiful trend) Daniel Burnham, the high-rise building allowed for 800,000-square-feet of shopping space. A renovation and two-floor addition in 1931 pushed the building to 149 feet (eight stories) and $1 million square feet of shopping space. The store closed in 1993 and plans are in place to convert the building to condominiums.
The Cleveland Arcade opened in 1890, becoming the first indoor shopping mall in the country. Within walking distance of most Cleveland attractions, it now features a variety of shopping and dining options and houses the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The Arcade was designed by John Eisenmann and George Smith, who modeled it after a similar facility in Milan, Italy.
The New England Building opened in 1896 as Cleveland's tallest building, a distinction it held until 1905. The building opened after the city enjoyed decades of economic growth. The building largely catered to banks, notably the Guardian Bank and National City. The Guardian Bank moved in and built an addition that now exists under the adjacent Garfield Building, as well as the distinctive Corinthian columns. Similar to older skyscrapers found in large cities, occupancy declined throughout the twentieth century. But, the Holiday Inn Express moved in during the 1990s, helping to revive the historic buildings viability as the city simultaneously enjoyed a civic rebirth after times of decline during 1970s and '80s.
On November 18, 1871, Ursuline College became the first college for women in Ohio and one of the first Catholic colleges for women in the United States. The first campus was located near Cleveland's public square and teeming downtown commercial center. The building, a high-style late Federal/early Greek Revival mansion built in 1833 for Judge Samuel Cowles, was purchased specifically to provide a residence and a school from which the Ursuline sisters could pursue their educational mission. Within two decades, they had outgrown the building and the property, so the Ursuline sisters moved east to more spacious grounds.
Cleveland Trust Company began in 1894 with $500,000 capital and John G.W. Cowles as president. In 1903, it merged with Western Reserve Trust Co. and outgrew its rented office space. The bank built a new headquarters at the corner of E. 9th and Euclid that opened in 1908. The bank eventually closed, but the building remains. After years spent unoccupied, the building now houses a supermarket, hotel, and apartments on the upper floors.
Built in 1912 as Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland developed into a shopping and entertainment hub, the 700-room Hotel Statler served as Cleveland's most magnificent hotel until the middle twentieth century. Celebrities and dignitaries routinely stayed there, but so did the mob. Amenities included lounges, gentlemen's clubs, lavish dining halls, grand ballrooms, and big band halls. By the 1970s, the hotel began its transformation into an commercial office building. And then in 2001, new owners converted the tower into an apartment complex (updated and renovated again in 2019).
Halle Brothers Co., commonly referred to as Halle's, is a defunct department store chain. During most of its ninety-one-year history, Halle's focused on higher-end merchandise, which it combined with personal service. The company was the first major department store in Cleveland to open a suburban branch store. The store was used as the location of the fictional department store, Winfred-Louder, in the television series, "The Drew Carey Show". Actress Halle Berry, a native of Cleveland, was named after the store.
This iconic Cleveland building was completed in 1915 and was originally home to the Lindner Company, a women's clothing and specialty shop that was established by three Cleveland entrepreneurs that later became part of Cleveland's Sterling-Lindner Company. The department store enjoyed a connection to France, offering clothes imported from Paris and eventually opening a French restaurant in its store during the Great Depression. The company also hosted events that drew thousands to downtown Cleveland. The popular store expanded its services and opened other locations throughout the "Roaring '20s." Lindner survived the Great Depression by offering payment plans and a variety of services. However, the post-war years of the 1940s saw suburban sprawl which brought an almost immediate decline in sales for the store and the company's board sold this building in 1947. The store eventually merged with several other stores to become Sterling-Lindner-Davis department store, located a few doors down from this location. As of 2020, the United Way occupies the Lindner Building.
Playhouse Square is a theater district consisting of five theaters at Euclid Ave and East 14th Street. It was opened in between February 1921 and November 1922. Joseph Laronge worked with business magnate Marcus Loew and others to found a partnership called Loew's Ohio Theaters to develop this theater district. Today, this great and luminous district is owned by a company called the Cleveland Playhouse and is open to all to see any live play, musical, or concert perform for a night of beauty and style and is the biggest theater district outside of New York City.
The Stuyvesant Motor Company Building opened in 1917 as a sales showroom, service center, garage, and storage facility for the Stuyvesant Motor Company. The operation served as a precursor to the eventual shift away from local car manufacturing enterprises to much larger, assembly-line based operations. As well, the building survives today as a reminder of Cleveland's once flourishing auto industry during the early twentieth century; the city supported seven significant car manufacturers who contributed heavily to the evolution of the automobile and auto manufacturing.
Planing for this Art Deco building began in 1929, with the goal of the structure to serve as both an office building with rental income and an opulent private business club serving 1,400 members of the National Town and Country Club. The building opened in 1930, less than ideal timing as the city and nation suffered the consequences of the economic catastrophe that ushered in the Great Depression. After one formal lunch event, the building sat vacant for seven years. As a result, the imposing structure served as a reminder of the profound economic changes that had occurred from the Roaring 1920s to 1930s. Fenn College, an educational institution that began in the 1880s as the educational branch of the YMCA, purchased the building in 1937. The building served Fenn College until the 1960s when it became part of Cleveland State. The building now serves as a student-residential skyscraper for Cleveland State.
Built around 1910 for the family of businessman Samuel Mather, this building on the Cleveland State campus is one of the last remaining mansions from the city's historic Millionaire's Row. At its peak in the Gilded Age, the wealthiest families of Cleveland were concentrated in this neighborhood which was home to nearly 250 mansions that were centered around Euclid Avenue. While many other properties came close to the opulence of Mather Mansion, this was the most expensive home in the city of Cleveland during the time at which it was constructed. Mather constructed the mansion while many other wealthy families were leaving the city center. He also used his considerable wealth to fund the creation of the city's community chest.
The origins of Cleveland's First Methodist date back to the 1820s and the congregation was formally established in 1841. After moving a few times, the congregation established its home in this 1905-constructed church on Euclid Ave. The church served as the home for the city's congregation but out-migration from the center of the city led to the decision to move out of this building in 2010 when First Methodist merged with another congregation. A restaurant entrepreneur purchased the vacant building at an auction in 2018 with plans to renovate it slightly to accommodate large events such as weddings and banquets.
Situated just outside the entrance to the WEWS TV news station is this historical marker describing the life and legacy of Dorothy Fuldheim (1893-1989), the country's first female TV news anchor. Fuldheim grew up in Milwaukee where she first worked as a school teacher before moving to Cleveland in the 1920s. Here, she began her broadcast career on radio, where she hosted a biography series on WTAM and later the ABC Radio network. She was eventually offered a journalism job with The Cleveland Press (which is no longer published) and was sent abroad to conduct interviews. Her interviewees included Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Albert Einstein, and the Duke of Windsor. In 1947, she was given the job of anchor for WEWS and eventually had her own interview show. In all, she conducted 15,000 interviews during her career. She retired in 1984 at 91 years old after suffering a stroke.
This historic mansion was completed in 1866 and was one of the most iconic residents along Cleveland's Millionaire's Row. The home of a wealthy telegraph company superintendent, the Stager Beckwith Mansion suffered the fate of many other homes on Euclid Avenue and was in disrepair. Following a $10 million renovation project, the mansion is now home to the Children's Museum of Cleveland. So many adults have wanted to see this 19th-century mansion that the museum allows adults to visit for special history-themed tours on Thursdays.
St. Paul's Shrine, formerly St. Paul's Episcopal Church, is one of Cleveland's most striking architectural landmarks. Built in 1876, it was designed by Gordon Lloyd in the Gothic Revival style and was home to the Episcopal parish until 1928 when the congregation built a new church. By that time, most of the congregants had moved eastward, so the parish decided to move that way as well. A few years later, the parish sold the building to Catholic diocese in Cleveland, which wanted to establish a place for perpetual Eucharistic adoration. This is how the church remains today. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Its most unique feature is the tower, which has four narrow columns attached to the inner part of the structure.
Charles Young was a graduate of the United States Military Academy. In the class of 1889, he was only the third African-American graduate. Colonel Charles Young had a military career as a lieutenant and a squadron and regimental commander. He was also a superintendent of a national park, military attaché to Haiti and Liberia, a Wilberforce University professor, and a military advisor to Liberian President Daniel Edward Howard.
Arguably the oldest building in Cleveland, the Dunham Tavern has a rich history of use. Throughout the years, it has been a silent witness to the various turkey shoots, political discussions, artistic strivings, and domestic struggles of its numerous inhabitants. Today, it is open to public tours, and its surrounding land also serves to further community gatherings; perhaps its communal spirit is not so different than it was so many years ago.
Built for kerosene stove manufacturer Francis Drury in 1910, this mansion was one of the last to be constructed on Euclid Avenue's famed "Millionaire's Row." The Drury House later became the Florence Crittenton Home, a place that provided care for unwed mothers and later served as a halfway house for former prisoners. Given the building's history of being used for charitable purposes, it is perhaps fitting that it is now home to Cleveland Clinic's Foundation.
Now owned by the Cleveland Clinic, this building was constructed between 1898 and 1901. Today it is one of the four remaining mansions of Cleveland's "Millionaire's Row," the fashionable and exclusive Gilded Era neighborhood of the city's wealthiest families. The mansion was built for the family of Henry Windsor White. Of the remaining mansions, its history is perhaps the least well-documented, leaving aspects of its past shrouded in mystery.
Named in honor of John L and Elizabeth S Allen Severance, this historic concert hall has been the home of the Cleveland Orchestra since it opened on February 5th, 1931. The hall has hosted famous guests such as composer and conductor John Williams, who made the scores for Jaws, the Star Wars films, the Indiana Jones films, Home Alone 2, and the first three Harry Potter movies. This building was given by John L Severance as a memorial to his wife and it has been recognized by local and national preservation societies, including the Cleveland Landmarks Commission and the National Register of Historic Places. Today, this place is open to all visitors to witness the Cleveland Orchestra perform soothing and classic music for anyone who is looking to fully experience the fine culture and the artistic design of the hall.
Built in 1881, Adelbert Hall is the administration building at Case Western Reserve University. It was named after Adelbert Stone (1844-1865), the son of industrialist and railroad magnate Amasa Stone (1816-1883), who donated funds to relocate the university from Hudson, Ohio to Cleveland. The building was designed by architect Joseph Ireland, who combined Italianate, Stick/Eastlake, and Romanesque styles to give it its unique appearance. The building is four stories tall and made of buff sandstone. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Founded in 1968, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland is a leading force in the cultural life of Northeast Ohio, recognized nationally and internationally for its vital and creative exhibitions and public programs. These strive to challenge, inspire, and teach a wide range of audiences. Through approximately eight exhibitions a year, all accompanied by public and education programs, and many also by scholarly catalogs, MOCA brings the work and ideas of diverse national and international artists to its audiences.
Cleveland Institute of Art dates back to 1882 with the establishment of a women’s college in the home of Sarah Kimball. Starting with just one student and one teacher, that school grew into a Cleveland institution of learning that now enrolls over 600 students and offers courses and galleries in the recently-constructed George Gund Building. Courses include traditional art mediums such as drawing and painting to photography and graphic design. The school also offers rotating exhibits in its galleries that are open to the public.
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Museums, mansions, and more. This rambling drive along Cleveland's Euclid Avenue includes stops at many of the city's leading landmarks starting in the heart of downtown and making its way to the Case Western campus where it concludes with two of the city's leading art museums.
