One of the many great tragedies that has befallen Cleveland is the fate of its Euclid Avenuie - the Victorian Millionaire's Row that once boasted more millionaifre's than New York's Fifth Avenue.
From its inception until Worl War I, Euclid Avenue boasted some of the largest city residences in all of North America. Nor expense was spared, and the lavishness of the lifestyles of rich and famous was mind boggling. Remember, before teh Rockefellers discovered New York, they dominated Cleveland.
But the Avenue went into a steep decline in the 1920s and by the 1960s it was simply a place you drove through and hoped you didn't need to stop.
This image is especially sad.
Taken in 1966 (and purloined from the Cleveland Memory Project's Clay Herrick Slide Collection) this image shows the former colonial revival home Cleveland Attorney Andrew Squire primed for demolition for construction of a lodge hall. The house - which looks an awful lot like Twelve Oaks after the Yankees got done with it - had spent part of its life as the headquarters of the Cleveland office of the American Red Cross and as a smörgåsbord type restaurant after the Squires moved to the Heights and places on the far east side. I'm not sure whose stone home was to its west, but I can tell you that when it was built it was gray - the blacking of the stones is the result of 50 years of air pollution on the pourouse stone blocks.
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