Euclid-Green: Part 1

 This was the first section run of the Euclid Green neighborhood.

Map: Run 1, Run 2

Distance This Run: 7.7 miles

Distance So Far:  673.3 miles

Duggan Park is an 8.7 acre park located at Avalon Road & Olympia Road. It was established in 1950 and features two basketball courts, ball field, playground, shelter and even has a in-ground swimming pool. The park received $325K worth of improvements in 2014.

This industrial park at the at the border of Euclid and Cleveland is home to a metal recycling plant, a wood shipping material manufacturer, and a female & family-owned, full-service freight logistics company.

Cool house on Avalon Ave. Built in 1918 and has had the same owner for nearly the past 30 years.

Pure Soul & Seafood (18025 Euclid Ave) is focused on preparing unique plates with a Creole/Soul twist. They offer signature items like the "Oxtail Philly" and Creole Pasta.

Most of the north end of the Euclid-Green neighborhood dead ends into Norfolk Southern railroad tracks. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of industry along it. One of those businesses is J.W. Harwood Co., a tool & die shop founded in 1950 (73 years). It has been at this location for as long as records show.

Euclid-Green's main commercial corridor is Euclid Ave. Despite its location on one of Greater Cleveland's most well known and traveled roads, it struggles significantly with vacant commercial space. Perhaps the most prominent example is this shopping plaza. Most of these stores appeared closed despite the building receiving a significant upgrade only 10 years ago. Such challenges has prompted local government to get involved by way of revitalization plans such as Elevate Euclid-Green.

A more dramatic example of the commercial vacancy or neglect. This was taken only one building east of the plaza above.

The Residences At Cornerstone (18321 Euclid Ave) is a senior apartment building built in 2020. It's the second building by developer NRP Group on the site.It features 125+ units of affordable housing for seniors and families and is the first multifamily LEED-certified Gold project awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council in the Midwest.Their first building - just behind this building - was built in 2008. Both buildings are part of the Village Green Shopping Center. Duggan Park is immediately to the north.

This poster caught my attention. The minimalistic website does sell the posters but the answers are a bit ambiguous (although deep). Regardless, the juxtaposition of such serious content displayed in a backdrop that would be better suited for "Live. Love. Laugh." type decor is odd but intriguing. It's kinda like if David Fincher decided to start selling subversive kitsch instead of making movies.

The Norfolk Southern tracks on London Road which separate Euclid-Green from South Collinwood. Tracks occupied this space as far back as 1881 when they were created for the New York, Chicago & St. Louis railroad, also known as the "Nickle Plate Road". The Nickle Plate was originally created to compete with the rail line just a few blocks north, owned by  William Vanderbilt and Jay Gould. Vanderbilt eventually bought it to quell the competition. It was eventually bought by the Van Sweringen brothers - prominent architects of Cleveland. After several mergers with other rail lines, it eventually became the line for Norfolk Southern in 1982.

This building on Euclid Ave has quite a remarkable history.  Built in 1919, it was originally the home of Chandler Motors, a full-scale auto manufacturing operation. It then became home to global aerospace & industrial giant Parker Hannifin. Arthur Parker started the business in 1917 but lost all his inventory down a Pennsylvania hillside during a business trip. He took a job as an engineer on the Nickel Plate Line, saved his money, and restarted the business in 1924. His hydraulic connectors were massively successful and he purchased the building above, creating a campus for production. Parker Appliances eventually acquired rival Hannifin Corporation in 1957. Today, the company has over 57,000 employees, 9,000 independent distributors, more than 300 facilities in more than 50 countries, annual sales of more than $13 billion, more than 400,000 customers and hundreds of thousands of different products in every region of the world, powering nearly every type of machine that moves. Not bad for an engineer from Euclid-Green. Back to the building: Sadly, Parker-Hannifin moved to the suburbs in 1997. From that time until 2014, the site was home to the Cleveland Clinic business/data center and about 700 medical and IT staff. They, too, moved this branch to the suburbs. Today, Chandler Park isa neighborhood incubator to approximately 300 small businesses. It's actually quite cool.

It was was in this building on London Road that Chanler Motors made its engines. It was later acquired by Parker-Hannifin.

A classic all fixed up at Klassic Kustoms.

A couple of standouts on the 1700 block of Algonac Road. Both were built in 1930. The red house on the right was acquired by the Cuyahoga County land bank in 2020 after falling into state forfeiture. It was then given to the local community development corporation for $0 who transferred it to the homeowner of the tan house to the left for $0. That individual then sold it to what appears to be an out of town LLC for $50K less than a year later. In my experience in this work, these are the type of public-sector transactions that should be reviewed more closely in Cleveland.

This debris pile on the corner of Roseland & Clarkstone Road was home to many industrial business over the years. As far back at 1898, it was a brick yard. In the first half of the 20th century, it was home to an designer and manufacturer of electronic instrumentation for atomic submarines. Interestingly, that company was bought by another Cleveland company (Victoreen Instrument) which was considered the "first nuclear company" because of its involvement in the Manhattan Project. In 1979, that company was bought by one in England  which also worked on nuclear engine production. In the 80s, it was sold to a welding company and then a non-manufacturing type business until it was abandoned, possessed by the State, and eventually met the wrecking ball in the 2010s.

Some of the bricks used in the construction of the site above were from Cleveland Builder Supplies, a major local supply company dating back to the early 1900s. 

A faded truck delivery sign from a pair of businesses that occupied the site from mid-80s to the mid-90s.

As you can probably make out on the doorway masthead, this building on Urbana Ave was originally home to the McLaren Iron Works Company. It was previously known as the Central Wire & Iron Company until transiting to the name McLaren in 1912. The building was built in 1916 and the company was named after Guy & Archibald McLaren (brothers). Archibald may have been the same individual who embezzled $15K from the national Royal Scottish Clans in 1898. He was deemed insane and institutionalized at sentencing. Guy died in 1931 at the age of 54 and is buried in Lakeview Cemetary. Archibald outlived him by over 20 years and died in 1954.

This building on Euclid Ave was originally a warehouse for Cleveland Builder Supplies. After the building was built, it was home to an architect firm. Then, starting in the 1990s, it was a social service provider. After the county land bank acquired it in 2013, they turned it over to King Son's 820, a non-profit which works with at-risk and homeless youth by way of learning trades in home renovation among other things. It's unclear if the building is still being used and how active King Son's still is.

This apartment building on Alcoy Road was built in 1920. There aren't many like it despite the neighborhood's proximity to a lot of blue collar jobs during the time period when housing was being built in the area.

The old Nickel Plate Line bridge trestle on Ivanhoe separating South Collinwood, Euclid-Green and East Cleveland.

This building at 16501 Euclid Ave was built in 1929 as a branch of the Cleveland Trust Company. (You can make out the company's faded crest on the masthead). In recent times, it has been home to East Cleveland Rubber Stamp which was established in 1984.

This interesting looking church is home to Faith Cumberland Presbyterian Church which relocated to the site in 1991. The building itself was built in 1967 but not much could be found about its orginal use. Maps from the 1920s show a small brick building on the site. It's possible that it was a storage yard for Cleveland Builder Supplies which was right next door.