After surveying the remnants of what had once been the workplace of literally tens of thousands of Americans, I worked my way out of Youngstown, passing through the neighborhoods where they once lived. I saw St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church, which alludes to the Eastern European origins of many of the immigrants who once flooded…
Tag: Bridges
The Gates of Hell, Cleveland
Corrigan-McKinney rose from the valley much further south from the Flats, and its presence still dominates the broad expanse along the Cuyahoga. Founded by James Corrigan, Jr. , thousands of trains must have rumbled up from the lake over the last century filled with taconite and limestone to feed the steel mill’s hungry furnaces. Note…
In Search of the Sidaway Bridge and John D. Rockefeller, Cleveland
Sometimes I go searching for something and I don’t find it, but the journey becomes interesting (and a little scary) in of itself. In this case, I went looking for the Sidaway Bridge, further up one of the tributaries of the Cuyahoga River, after reading about it online, and besides being fascinated by its structure,…
Downtown, Part Two, Cleveland
Moving along through downtown Cleveland, we reach the “Beaux-Arts” or “City Beautiful” portion of the city, which every metropolitan area seemed to have dabbled with in the early Twentieth Century to better or adverse effect. Below is the Cuyahoga County Courthouse, completed in 1913. Moving along, we spot the 1922 Public Auditorium, which sits along…
Irish Bend, Cleveland
From high up above the Flats, looking east, you wouldn’t even notice the huge industrial area down below since the passage of the Clean Air Act and the clearing of old factories and other polluters. But head down the streets into the valley, and the dense cluster of bridges, curving river and other buildings soon…
The Flats, Cleveland
From what I understand, pretty much all of the lower Cuyahoga Valley, including Whiskey Island, is know as the Flats, which is the lowlands along the twisting course of the waterway that soon found itself clogged with boats coming to and from the many factories and distilleries crowding its banks. As you might imagine, it…
Whiskey Island, Cleveland
Cutting a huge swath through the heart of Cleveland, the Cuyahoga River valley is a sublime sight to behold. It empties out into Lake Erie at Whiskey Island, itself a creation of human hands. Originally the river snaked around another bend, but early on a short new channel was dug, allowing ships to sale up…
Down by the River, Detroit
Let’s walk from the Campus Martius, named after the famous field in ancient Rome where soldiers trained (it later filled up with temples such as the Pantheon), and part of the original Woodward plan of Detroit and walk down the street of the same name towards the Detroit River. It’s here that I spot some…
River Rouge
I’ll be blunt: I was deeply concerned by my visit to the famous River Rouge area, a short drive just south of Detroit. First, a bit of clarification is in order; there is the actual town of River Rouge, which is located along the banks of the Detroit River, and includes the mouth of the…
Corktown and Environs, Detroit
I was driving around in the Hubbard Farms and Mexicantown neighborhoods, and I snapped these photos. I also spotted the Michigan Central Terminal off in the distance; we’ll come back to it in a bit. But then I finally found what I was looking for, which is the Corktown neighborhood, which claims to be the…