The concept of moving unimpeded traffic through and around urban areas evolved in concert with federal initiatives that predated the U.S.’s entry into World War II. In April 1941, President Roosevelt created the Interregional Highway Committee, which went on to propose a 32,000-mile highway network. Wartime industrial mobilization brought increased demands upon existing roads as men and materiel had to be moved quickly and efficiently throughout the country. The Committee worked through the war, calibrating its efforts to use highways to provide jobs, improve urban areas, and encourage the transition to peacetime economic growth. The Committee issued a final report in January 1944 which recommended development of efficient roads to support urban revitalization. That December, the Federal Highway Act endorsed the plan with the financial support of a tax base to underwrite the project. With federal support, state and local agencies and transportation industry associations began planning their contributions to the transportation program.

The recently reorganized Cleveland City Planning Commission was one such entity in step with the plan. In 1943, while the Interregional Highway Committee was still formulating its national plan, the City Planning Commission proposed a three and a quarter mile “innerbelt” of uninterrupted traffic that would narrowly skirt downtown Cleveland. That route was later described using a series of names from its east approach or terminus to the west terminus. Motorists traveling west on the Shoreway (along Lake Erie near East 30th Street) would make a ninety-degree turn to the south at what was referred to as the Inner Belt Curve, later to be popularly dubbed “Dead Man’s Curve.” The southbound mile stretching to Carnegie Avenue was called “The Trench” as it passed beneath railroad tracks and Lakeside, Hamilton, Saint Clair, Superior, Payne, Chester, Euclid, and Prospect Avenues. Next the freeway sliced under Carnegie Avenue at the “Carnegie Curve” before turning to the west to the “Central Interchange.” The Inner Belt then mounted the “Central Viaduct” (which took its name from an earlier bridge in the same location) to span Cleveland’s Flats and the Cuyahoga River, finally joining the Jennings and Airport Freeways. A look at the city’s pre- and early postwar street maps illustrates a congested patchwork of industrial, commercial, and residential properties with railroads and thoroughfares stretching radially from downtown. Some 1,250 property parcels lay in the proposed Inner Belt path, requiring legal acquisition for the right-of-way.

The 1943 Commission report introduces the urban revitalization orientation of the plan: “The Commission sees planning to facilitate long term post-war full employment as even more important than planning for temporary employment on public works. A very promising way to accomplish this objective is to prepare to rebuild our city completely reconstructing the blighted central areas, rehabilitating and remodeling the obsolescent districts through the cooperative effort of private initiative and public enterprise… and to extend and improve Chester Avenue and to engage with other agencies—County, Regional, and State highway engineers to provide for a network over Greater Cleveland of seven radial and two belt freeways.”

By 1945, the plan, now called the Thorofare Plan, was modified and expanded to cover the whole city including surface roadways in addition to the freeways. Specifications for improvements to the Newburgh Freeway and the Shoreway (soon to be renamed the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway) were approved and specified. Momentum however was slowed when President Truman’s administration prioritized wider economic development initiatives and, by 1950, the Korean conflict over transportation. Nonetheless, Cleveland planners continued to support the Thorofare Plan during this period. By 1948, “real evidence … began to show” with work underway on the Chester Avenue extension, the Willow Freeway development, the Memorial Shoreway interchanges, the Lakeland Freeway interchanges, and the creation of the Inner Belt Planning Office. To complete the planning, the proposals needed to be detailed, agreed, and approved. How did a freeway pierce through the heart of a large city? Highway development gained momentum in the mid 1950s with federal policy promoting interstate links to the nation’s urban centers. Those policies also addressed the deteriorating conditions of many central cities with aging and emptied residences left behind in the suburban exodus. Also left behind were the economically deprived class without the resources to maintain or upgrade their properties. Policy makers sought to address these issues with plans to route freeways through the blighted urban areas and revitalize surrounding neighborhoods with public housing and redeveloped neighborhoods. The strategies had disadvantages as well. Long standing neighborhoods were lost or split by roadways and the dislocated residents were primarily low income, low resource individuals and families. The Cleveland Inner Belt provides a prime example.

Land acquisition for the Inner Belt followed the general plan and pathway identified earlier to connect the Memorial Shoreway with the Medina/Airport Freeway. With terminus points near East 30th Street and the Memorial Shoreway and West 14th Street in Tremont, the route would wind south and west around the southeast quadrant of downtown. The right-of-way acquisition involved the mixed strategies of negotiating ‘fair’ property value with the landowner and relying on court ‘seizure’ via the process of eminent domain. The vicinity of the northern terminus was an area of abandoned industrial sites. During the war, Otis Steel/Jones and Laughlin had gradually expanded and modernized its facilities in the Flats to empty its Lakeside facility. In 1948, the city negotiated the purchase of land and rights between East 26th and East 30th Streets, Lakeside Avenue parcels, and space between the Shoreway and the North Central Railroad tracks to facilitate the development of the planned Inner Belt. The closure of the J&L facility and surrounding affiliated businesses further depleted residential population in the area just south of Saint Clair, in turn impacting businesses and churches. Further south, Saint Columbkille Church and School occupied the northeast and southeast corners of Superior and East 26th Street. In 1956 the Diocese of Cleveland and Bishop Schrembs announced plans to build a new parish in suburban Seven Hills and sell the downtown properties to the state for the Inner Belt right-of-way. The final mass was celebrated on September 26, 1957. Moving along the pathway to Euclid Avenue, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History had occupied two houses of the Leonard Hanna estate since 1922. The combined need of more space and the impending eviction for Inner Belt construction led CMNH to build a facility at University Circle where it remains today. A block south, the Lutheran High School campus at 2648 Prospect was also in the roadway’s path. When notified of the state’s plan to acquire the property by eminent domain, the Cleveland Lutheran High School Association immediately began planning for east and west campuses for new Lutheran High Schools. These were among more than a thousand commercial and residential properties that needed to be acquired by the State of Ohio to make way for the road and its access points. The pathway through the “blighted central areas, rehabilitating and remodeling the obsolescent districts” was well under way by 1956-57.

Following the land settlements for the right-of-way, contracts were extensioned for demolition, clearing, and construction of the roadway, infrastructure, 16 bridges, and 31 entrance and exit access ramps between the Shoreway and the west end of the Central Viaduct bridge. Construction was launched and completed in phases between 1955 and 1962. The first phase construction was initiated in December, 1954 with the Central Viaduct Bridge later to be known as the Inner Belt Bridge. This segment connected West 14th/Abbey Avenue in the Tremont neighborhood over the Flats and Cuyahoga River with East 9th Street and East 22nd Street/Central areas downtown. Following construction that required 27 million pounds of structural steel, the competed bridge opened to traffic on August 18, 1959, as the world’s second eight-lane bridge. Meanwhile, phase two of the construction involved the ‘Trench’ roadway between the Memorial Shoreway and Chester Avenue. Construction began in April 1957, and the road was opened on December 16, 1959, after some pauses to settle land acquisition disputes with some residents. The east and west ends of the belt were complete by 1959. The third phase, the Central Interchange, began construction in early 1960 and opened to through traffic, completing travel east to west on December 5, 1961. Work yet remained to connect the Willow Freeway at the Central Interchange ramps and connectors by mid-1962.

Sixty years later, Inner Belt interchanges with intersecting interstate highways have been in service while other improvements remain in progress. The westbound Memorial Shoreway, including the Inner Belt, continues west at West 25th street and is known as Interstate 90 crossing the northern tier of the nation. The northbound Airport/Medina Freeway is now the northern end of Interstate 71, ending where it intercepts I-90. A recent adjacent connection also sends traffic due south to Parma on Route 176 (Jennings Freeway). To the east, the north/south Willow Freeway is now Interstate 77, terminating at the Central Interchange with I-90. The Central Viaduct (Inner Belt Bridge) was evaluated for replacement in 2008. Two bridges were designed to replace the structure with added lane capacity and staged construction commenced in 2011. In 2016 the final phase of the eastbound George V. Voinovich Bridge completed the $287 million dollar project doubling its capacity. Work continues on Interstate 490 to connect east and west neighborhoods from the Inner Belt across the industrial flats via the new Opportunity Corridor eastward to the Cleveland Clinic and University Circle. The spiderweb growth of the 1956 downtown highway plan has supported millions of vehicles passing into, through, and out of the central urban area to carry Cleveland’s notably efficient auto traffic and supporting the city’s commercial and industrial economy.

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It was not the first Sidaway Bridge. That one — the longest wooden bridge in Cleveland history — was a massive trestle bridge that stretched 675 feet across and 80 feet above the Kingsbury Run, connecting the Jackowo Polish neighborhood on the south side with the then largely Hungarian Kinsman Road neighborhood on the north. It was built as a pedestrian or "foot" bridge in 1909 by the Tom Johnson administration at the urging of three citizen groups from the two neighborhoods who believed, according to a Plain Dealer editorial at the time, that connecting the two communities–then largely white and ethnic–with a bridge would contribute to their mutual commercial and general welfare.

That bridge — initially called the Tod-Kinsman Bridge, but, within a year of its opening renamed the Sidaway Bridge after the new approach road that had been created during its construction — served that purpose for more than twenty years, and as well provided a convenient shortcut for folks on the north side of the Kingsbury Run to walk to Dahler's, a popular beer garden in the Jackowo neighborhood. In the late 1920s, however, the bridge's braced wooden framework became an obstruction for the Nickel Plate Railroad, now owned by the Van Sweringen Brothers, who desired to build several car barns at this location in Kingsbury Run for their Shaker Heights rapid transit line. The city and the railroad agreed that the trestle bridge would come down and that the railroad would bear the cost of replacing it with a new bridge, one that would allow for continued pedestrian travel between the Jackowo and Kinsman Road neighborhoods, while at the same time creating open space below for the new rapid transit buildings.

The new Sidaway bridge was designed in 1929 by Fred L. Plummer, a talented Cleveland engineer, who was both a professor of engineering at the Case School of Applied Science (later called the Case Institute of Technology) and a design professional at the engineering firm of Wilbur Watson and Associates. Plummer designed it as a suspension bridge, a popular type of bridge form in the United States in the 1920s. Using an intricate series of weight-bearing steel cables, suspension bridges allow for great expanses of bridge deck with a minimum number of support towers. Completed in 1930, the new Sidaway Bridge was the first (and remains to this day) the only suspension bridge ever built in Cleveland.

Just a few years after the new bridge opened and pedestrian travel across the Kingsbury Run resumed, the Run became locally notorious as the result of a series of grisly murders, known as the Cleveland Torso Murders, which occurred between 1935 and 1938. At least 12 men and women were murdered in the stretch and, in at least four of the murders, the victim's mutilated corpses were dumped at various locations there. On top of this, just several years later, in June 1942, as the memory of the Torso Murders was fading, the body of another victim was found on a hillside under the Sidaway Bridge.

Notoriety did not depart from this area of Cleveland even when the Kingsbury Run murders came to an end. In the next three decades, a new type of notoriety for the two neighborhoods arrived, when the Kinsman Road neighborhood transitioned from one that had been largely white and ethnic to one that was largely African-American. Portions of that latter neighborhood had severely deteriorated housing and, in the years 1955-1959, under a federal urban renewal program, 130 acres, between East 71st and East 79th Streets, was cleared of that housing and the 650-unit Garden Valley subsidized housing project built. An increased number of African-American children began using the Sidaway Bridge to walk to Tod Elementary School, the public school in the still largely white and ethnic Jackowo neighborhood. And now the Sidaway Bridge connected a black and a white community in a city where, in the early 1960s, racial tension was mounting.

In 1966, this tension erupted in the form of the Hough Riots. During the riots, the Sidaway Bridge became a flash point, literally, when someone (likely from the Jackowo neighborhood) removed planking from the bridge and attempted to set it on fire, preventing anyone, particularly residents of the Kinsman Road neighborhood, from using it. Rather than repair the bridge and keep it open to the public, the City of Cleveland elected instead to close it. A decade later, that decision came back to haunt the city, when, in 1976, federal district court judge Frank Battisti, in the course of issuing his busing order to desegregate Cleveland's public schools, cited the closing of the Sidaway Bridge as evidence that city and school officials had worked in concert to segregate the schools on the basis of race.

Fifty years have now passed since the Sidaway Bridge was closed during the Cleveland Hough Riots. All that time the beautiful suspension bridge erected in 1930 has patiently waited for repair and reopening. From time to time, such proposals have been made, but to date they have come to naught. Until it is repaired and reopened, it cannot serve the purpose for which it was built: to bring the people of the Kinsman Road and Jackowo neighborhoods together for their mutual commercial and general welfare. And until that happens, it will remain a symbol of the mid to late twentieth century troubles that separated these two Cleveland neighborhoods and a reminder that they have perhaps not yet bridged that gap.

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Even people who live nearby may not know about Duck Island. Among suburbanites, the name is even less likely to resonate. What’s more, if you do a Google Images search you’ll get pretty pictures of an island off the cost of Maine. Some of these photos include ducks, but none of them are Cleveland’s Duck Island.

So where is Duck Island and what does it have to do with ducks? The answer to the first question is that Duck Island is a small community (perhaps one square mile) between Tremont and Ohio City. Bisected by Abbey Avenue, Duck Island is bordered by Carnegie Avenue to the north, Train Avenue and Scranton Road to the south and east, and the RTA Red Line rapid tracks to the west. For municipal planning and management purposes, Duck Island is considered part of Tremont. The answer to the second question is that Duck Island has nothing whatsoever to do with ducks (although you may see an occasional duck sign or banner). Most folks believe that Duck Island got its name during Prohibition—a place where bootleggers would “duck” the law.

But Duck Island’s profile is rising rapidly. In fact, it might be hard to find a Cleveland locale whose popularity has increased more swiftly. Plans are underway for large “ultra green” housing developments at West 20th and Lorain; West 20th and Abbey; and West 19th and Freeman. Toney new homes dot Columbus Road and West 17th, 18th and 19th Streets. Abbey Park, located at the corner of West 19th Street and Smith Court is earmarked for a major facelift. Gateway Clinic on Abbey Avenue has become a haven for quality pet care. Several new breweries are on the books. And to the cheers of myriad residents, St. Wendelin Catholic Church on Columbus Road reopened its doors in 2012—two years after being closed by the Catholic Dioceses of Cleveland.

To be sure, a number of residents are squeamish about Duck Island’s burgeoning popularity. Concerns about inflation, noise, parking and population density are common and largely valid. Fortunately, organizations like Tremont West Development Corporation, the Duck Island Block Club, the Duck Island Development Collaborative, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and Kent State University’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative are working hard to build figurative bridges. That’s a good thing because Duck Island has become too hot to not trot: It’s equidistant between Tremont and Ohio City; a short drive, train ride or walk to downtown; and a hop/skip/jump to riverfront destinations like the Towpath Trail, Scranton Peninsula and Merwin’s Wharf. Plus it has killer views of the city.

Like Tremont and Ohio City, Duck Island is an old neighborhood. Most of its original housing stock dates to the late 1800s. These homes were inhabited primarily by blue-collar workers who staffed steel mills, factories, warehouses and river-shipping interests in the Flats. In fact, the geography of Duck Island is such that, until the early 20th Century, Tremont residents could not walk north or east without first descending into the Flats. In 1887, however, the Central Viaduct, was constructed. Initially, the Viaduct consisted of two bridges: The first structure (more than one-half-mile long) extended from Jennings Ave. (now West 14th Street) to Central Avenue (now Carnegie Avenue). It followed the same basic path taken by what is now Interstate 90. Deemed unsafe, the bridge was torn down in the early 1940s. The second structure—the Abbey Avenue Bridge—continues to bind Tremont and Ohio City, with Duck Island smack in the middle.

Even with the bridges, Duck Island retained most of its isolated, blue collar status throughout the 20th Century. That sense of sequestration was exacerbated by the fact that, over the years, Duck Island was alternately claimed and disowned by Ohio City and Tremont. In the mid 1920s, moreover, Duck Island became even more isolated on the west when a deep trench was dug to accommodate railroad tracks for passenger trains serving the new Union Terminal complex. A half-dozen city blocks were removed—thus separating Duck Island from Ohio City. The only bridge subsequently erected to cross the divide was on Abbey Avenue.

Beginning in the 1970s, populations declined precipitously throughout the area. Businesses closed and even fewer people than usual wanted to move to a disadvantaged neighborhood with elderly housing stock and close proximity to a downtown with little to offer. However, Duck Island might have been rediscovered sooner, were it not for residents’ extreme suspicions about redevelopment. This mindset peaked in the 1990s, when residents staunchly opposed any initiatives that smelled even vaguely of gentrification. Rosemary Vinci, a community leader with a frequently ambiguous agenda, urged residents to reduce density by acquiring neighboring properties and demolishing dwellings. Vinci was a former strip club manager who, at the time of her death in 2008, was being investigated alongside her superiors, Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo. Vinci also led opposition to a development next to the West 25th Street Station along Columbus Road south of Lorain. Rosemary’s father, by the way, was James Vinci, reputed organized crime figure and owner of the famed Diamond Jim's in the Flats.

Vinci or no Vinci, change is coming to Duck Island, including the kind of mixed-income, high-density residential development Rosemary so vociferously opposed. The plusses and minuses of urban renaissance will continue to be debated, but Duck Island’s unified wall of resistance is beginning to quack.

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It was, in the first place, road and bridge improvements that created the park — almost as an afterthought. For much of the first two decades of the twentieth century, the city of Cleveland had planned and then constructed Bulkley Boulevard (today, the west Shoreway) and then the Detroit-Superior Bridge, thereby providing more direct access for Clevelanders living on the east side to travel to Edgewater Park on the west side. To address anticipated congestion from traffic coming off the new bridge near West 25th Street, the city purchased, and in 1917 razed, several buildings on Detroit and Vermont Avenues, immediately west of West 25th, using part of the cleared land to create a fan-shaped entrance way onto Bulkley Boulevard. The land that was left over after the fan-shaped entrance way had been created? Well, little thought was apparently given to it until west side Councilman Michael H. Gallagher came along and decided that the remnant land should be a park serving as a memorial to Bernard "Brick" Masterson.

In 1917, Gallagher, a Republican, had been elected Ward Eight Councilman — the ward that then encompassed much of the near west side — defeating three-term incumbent Democrat, William J. Horrigan. Gallagher owed much of his electoral success to Brick Masterson, the Republican ward leader. Masterson, who also was owner of a popular saloon at 1313 West 25th Street, was known on the west side as "Mayor of the Angle." This was perhaps due to his success in turning out the Republican vote in 1909, which contributed significantly to the stunning defeat of Cleveland's most famous mayor, Tom L. Johnson. Nine years after Johnson's defeat, and just four months after he engineered Michael Gallagher's victory over incumbent Councilman Horrigan, the 44-year old Masterson died tragically from a fall he suffered on St. Patrick's Day.

While other politicians likely forgot the colorful ward leader soon after his very public funeral, Councilman Gallagher did not. In 1921, several years after the entrance way to Boulkley Boulevard at West 25th and Detroit had been created, he successfully sponsored legislation to make that small leftover piece of land a park named "Masterson Square." And while some may have poked fun at the little park, as the Plain Dealer did in an article published in 1926, for decades Masterson Square served as a gathering place for community events in the historically Irish Old Angle neighborhood. As late as 1944, it was the site of a gala fundraising event for the new memorial chapel at nearby St. Malachi Catholic Church. And then, apparently, as time passed, and the ethnic composition of the neighborhood changed, the park lost its public identity as a memorial to Brick Masterson.

In the year 2000, eight decades after the park had been first named as the result of one Cleveland councilman's efforts, another Cleveland councilman came along — Ward 14's Nelson Cintron, who decided that it would be a great idea to honor boxing great Jimmy Bivins by naming the park, which was by this time apparently only known to city officials as the "Detroit-West 25th Street park," after him.

James Louis "Jimmy" Bivins, an African American whose family moved from Georgia to Cleveland in 1921 during the Great Migration, was one of the city's best boxers ever, fighting both as a light heavyweight and as a heavyweight. His professional career lasted from 1940 to 1955, during which time he amassed a record of 86-25-1. During the years of World War II, he won the "duration" championship — awarded when Joe Lewis and others were away in the service — in both the light heavyweight and heavyweight classes. Bivins retired from boxing in 1955, but afterwards he became a trainer at the Old Angle Gym, which for many years was located in the Campbell Block, a building catty-corner across the street from Masterson Square. There, Bivins not only trained young men--many of whom came from impoverished areas of the near west side, but he also became a partner in the operation of the gym, contributing his money as well as his time to keeping the gym going, at a time when many Cleveland boxing gym owners were hanging up their gloves for good. After the Campbell Block was torn down in 1975, Bivins moved the gym first to the West Side Community House at West 30th Street and Bridge Avenue, and then in 1978 to St. Malachi School, where he taught boxing to kids there until 1996 when old age and personal tragedy ended his career as a trainer.

On October 4, 2000, Cleveland City Council passed Councilman Cintron's sponsored legislation to name the little park at the corner of West 25th and Detroit Avenue "Jimmy Bivins Park." But no plaque or other signage was ever put up to identify the park. And so it remained for fifteen years until 2015, when a redevelopment proposal came before the City that included the land upon which the park was located. During the redevelopment review process, the City not only learned that the proposal included land that was a city park, but also that the park had been named on two different occasions in honor of two different legendary Clevelanders. City officials are now considering the possibility of upgrading the park, and, hopefully, once and for all, resolving its name.

2021 Update: Apparently, the City has resolved the issue of the twice-named little park by reaffirming that it is Jimmy Bivins Park in honor of the late, great Cleveland boxer. Signage honoring Bivins has gone up in the park area on the northwest corner of Detroit Avenue and West 25th Street.

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The Campbell Block was for many years one of the most recognizable buildings in the Old Angle neighborhood on Cleveland's near west side. It was actually at one time two separate buildings located just east of Pearl (West 25th) Street, between Vermont and Viaduct Avenues. Both were built by Alexander Campbell and both came about as a result of the construction of the Superior Viaduct, Cleveland's first high level bridge, which opened to traffic in 1878. In the course of planning construction of the west side approach to the Viaduct, the City had purchased an eighty foot wide swath of land (part of the Alonzo Carter Allotment) located just east of the intersection of Pearl Street and Vermont Avenue. This purchase split a number of parcels of land and, among other things, created a triangular piece of land with frontage on Pearl Street, Vermont Avenue and the new Viaduct Avenue. During the period 1877-1882, Campbell, a Scottish immigrant who had settled in Cleveland in 1867 and had become a prominent paving contractor in the city, purchased all of the land interests which comprised the triangular area with the intent of constructing a commercial building and hotel on the land.

Campbell's first building, identified on early maps as "Campbell's Block" and located on the eastern part of the triangular piece of land, was a three-story wood and brick building which fronted on Viaduct Avenue. It was completed in 1880. The upper two floors were devoted to apartment suites, while the first floor was divided into seven store fronts for retail merchants, among whom over the years were butchers, confectioners, cigar-makers, barbers, saloon keepers and others. One of those store fronts was home to the offices of the Cleveland Graphic, a weekly Democrat newspaper. And, in 1886, according to the Plain Dealer, this was where Charles Salen, co-owner of the Graphic and County Democrat party leader, organized Cleveland's first amateur baseball league, which played its games on the southeast side at Beyerle's Park (later called Forest City Park) for several years, before moving to Brookside Park on the west side.

The second Campbell Block building—which many Clevelanders still remember—was built in 1892, just to the west of the first building. It was a red brick five-story building that was originally planned as a hotel, but became instead an apartment building with retail store fronts on the first floor. This building had frontage on both Viaduct Avenue and Pearl Street. In 1897, the building received acclaim for its innovative fire escape system—called the "Burden" fire escape, which enabled fire fighters to extract people from a burning building using a wire basket hauled along rails attached to projections from the roof and exterior sides. This new fire escape had been promoted and installed on the building by Isaac Kidd, Alexander Campbell's son-in-law and the father of the future-famed World War II war hero, Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd. Like the first building, this building also had a variety of retail tenants on the first floor. In the post World War II era, the most famous of these in the neighborhood were J & L Seafoods, Green's Cafe, and the Old Angle Gym.

By the time World War II arrived, Alexander Campbell's heirs now owned and managed the two Campbell Block buildings. In 1948, the first building--said by one County official to be in "very poor shape," was torn down and in the same year the second was conveyed out of the family. Gradually, as the surviving building aged and deteriorated, it emptied of its apartment residents and became--from a revenue perspective, primarily a site for billboard signs. It's three locally famous first floor tenants—J & L Seafoods, Green's Cafe, and the Old Angle Gym, however, continued to operate their businesses there until the very the end. That end came in late December 1975 when a wrecking ball knocked down the building, demolishing the Block that the Superior Viaduct and Alexander Campbell had created almost 100 years earlier.

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Republican Justice Harold Hitz Burton served as Cleveland's 45th mayor from 1936 to 1940, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1941 to 1945, and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice from 1945 until his retirement in 1958 due to failing health. Burton was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, in 1888, and graduated from Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School. Law was Harold Burton's calling, and in his various practices he sought to uphold it as dispassionately as possible. Upon the United States' entry into World War I, he sought commission as an officer in the 361st Infantry of the 91st Division and achieved the rank of Captain by fall 1918. In his service he fought in Verdun during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, was  awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre "for extraordinary heroism and gallantry in action," and was recognized by General John J. Pershing "for exceptionally meritorious and conspicuous services during the Argonne Offensive."

Following the resigning of his commission in 1919, Burton moved to Cleveland with his wife to practice corporate law in a local firm before forming his own firms: Cull, Burton & Laughlin and Andrews, Hadden & Burton. After a brief stint as Cuyahoga County Commander of the American Legion he was persuaded to join the world of politics by local Republican Party leader Maurice Maschke. In 1921, Cleveland constituents voted to create the position of City Manager, an individual to work closely with the city government to oversee city development and governance with the  goal of  eliminating party politics in the interest of the city's progress. Burton initially served under City Manager William R. Hopkins as City Law Director from 1930 to 1931, though some of his time in office was as interim City Director following the removal of Hopkins by the city council. The position of City Manager was  eliminated in November 1931, thereby restoring the mayoralty. Burton later ran for the recreated position of Mayor in 1935 as an independent Republican seeking to oust the corrupt Harry L. Davis. By 1936 Cleveland had become rife with corruption in the form of gambling, racketeering, and protection rackets. Burton's desire to eliminate corruption led him to hire Eliot Ness as City Safety Director, tasking Ness with cleaning up the city.

As a mayor during the Great Depression, Burton benefited from a number of New Deal programs designed to put people back to work and rebuild the aging infrastructure of the city. One of the most successful and influential of these was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal program that provided economic aid to workers and cities through construction projects and infrastructure renovations that often could not be afforded by the cities themselves. Cleveland's Memorial Shoreway, now a segment of Ohio State Route 2, was originally constructed to provide transit to the Great Lakes Exposition of 1936. This roadway was expanded using WPA funding to provide access to downtown Cleveland from the West Side as one of the nation's first limited-access expressways, with the majority of it completed in 1939. Mayor Burton worked closely with the WPA and its administrators to increase the funding given to Cleveland for its development. Under Burton and with federal assistance, Cleveland's unemployment declined from 125,000 persons to 75,000 using the almost $1.5 million that the WPA provided in relief funding to the city government each month. Following Burton's death, the Main Avenue Bridge, a segment of Memorial Shoreway, was later renamed the Harold H. Burton Memorial Bridge in his memory.

Harold Burton served as Mayor of Cleveland for only four years before pursuing election to the U.S. Senate, and he was ultimately appointed into the Supreme Court by Harry S. Truman in 1945. As an Associate Justice he later voted in favor of and helped produce unanimity in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which can be considered the highlight of his career on the court.

Harold Burton served as a model soldier, Republican Mayor, and Associate Justice throughout his life, seeking only to do what he considered to be righteous and just. It is because of this that he left a very noncontroversial legacy, and as such has been somewhat ignored by history which remembers great and controversial figures alike.

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The settlement of the Heights on Cleveland's east side was dependent upon electric streetcars with sufficient power to ascend the Portage Escarpment at Cedar Glen in the 1890s. From there, streetcars opened heights land for development progressively farther east until the Van Sweringen brothers faced the task of making their distant Shaker Heights project accessible to downtown. The Vans created the Cleveland & Youngstown Railroad to make this connection, envisioning an interurban train linking Cleveland to the growing east side, and specifically their Shaker Village development (later Shaker Heights). The C&Y became their means of performing a number of transportation projects, building freight yards for other railroads and, here, putting in place the infrastructure necessary to bring the Shaker Rapid down off the Heights.

Trains, including the Rapid, require gentle grades in order to be operated economically. Too steep a slope and additional engines have to be added, or less weight can be hauled up hill, or both. To traverse the eighty feet of elevation between Shaker Square and the base of the Escarpment cliff west of Woodhill Road, a long elevated roadbed was required, including several bridges to allow north-south traffic to cross below the tracks. This roadbed is a little over a mile in length, meaning the resulting 1.25 percent grade could permit the Rapid to run affordably between Shaker Heights and downtown Cleveland.

The grading of the Rapid's right-of-way actually starts at Shaker Square, as the roadbed gradually descends into a trench between the two lanes of Shaker Boulevard, eventually becoming deep enough to pass underneath Woodhill Road. From that point west the tracks emerge onto an elevated bed that gradually descends to the level of the city. In doing so, it crosses over nine streets and two sets of railroad tracks, each of which has a bridge carrying the Rapid overhead. The bridge at Holton Avenue is one of Cleveland's most interesting and unappreciated structures.

This roadbed was created by building a temporary trestle of logs to get the tracks sufficiently elevated. Then trains of hopper cars were brought in on these tracks to dump large quantities of dirt and stone ballast to fill in the trestle. This was more economical than trying to pile up the ballast from below and then place tracks on top later.

At first the Rapid reached the bottom of the roadbed and moved onto tracks in the city's streets to finish the journey to Public Square, but that was only a temporary expediency. The ultimate goal was to bring the Rapid into the lower level of the Van Sweringens' new Cleveland Union Terminal passenger station beneath their Terminal Tower complex. To do this, the trains needed to come into town near the level of the river, where the major railroad passenger trains would also be delivering passengers to the C.U.T. This entailed extending the Rapid's grade dozens of feet lower, which they did through the gradual descent of Kingsbury Run, a tributary of the Cuyahoga River. It was the need to secure rights to use existing tracks of the Nickel Plate Road that led to the Vans purchasing the Nickel Plate Railroad and becoming a major player in North American railroading in the 1930s.

But the original focus of their attention was developing Shaker Heights up on the Portage Escarpment and making it possible to move their homeowners quickly to their jobs in downtown Cleveland. This led to their building the Cleveland & Youngstown's elevated roadbed that is largely unseen by the multitude of people who still ride the RTA's Green and Blue Lines west of Shaker Square, but deserves to be recognized as an important piece of Cleveland's urban infrastructure.

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In 19th-century Cleveland, bridge-building was big. The Columbus Street Bridge—a 200-foot covered structure completed around 1836—was the city’s first major span. It supplanted a series of less-permanent crossings such as a chained platform of floating logs and a wood-surface structure supported by pontoon boats. The opening of the Columbus Street Bridge (combined with Cleveland’s destruction of an older bridge to the north) fomented the infamous Ohio City Bridge War. Other projects followed, including the Center Street Bridge, the Main Street Bridge and the Seneca (West 3rd) Street Bridge. Foreshadowing later disasters, the Seneca Street structure collapsed in 1857. The official cause was “overloaded with cattle.” In 1878 a milestone was reached when the Superior Viaduct was completed. This was the first Cleveland span tall enough to let river traffic pass under it without enacting a swing or levitation mechanism.

But the century’s largest bridge by far—as well as the one most beset by misconception and misfortune —was the Central Viaduct, built by the King Iron Bridge and Manufacturing Company and completed in 1888. What most people refer to as the Central Viaduct stood roughly where the Innerbelt Bridge (I-90) is now located. It was 2,839 feet long and extended from Jennings Avenue (now West 14th Street) to Central Avenue (now Carnegie Avenue). Known as a "stilt" type bridge, it had a turntable section that pivoted horizontally to let tall ships pass. However, the Jennings-Central span was only part of the Central Viaduct initiative. A second bridge—the Walworth Run section—connected Abbey Avenue to Lorain Avenue at W. 25th Street. Rebuilt in 1986, the 1,088-foot bridge continues to link Ohio City with what is now Tremont.

Even before the Jennings-Central portion of the Viaduct was completed, tragedy struck. On the afternoon of January 5, 1888, part of the structure collapsed, killing several workers. Investigators concluded that a large water-carrying machine ran off the end of a temporary wooden trestle. On the way down, it took out two sections of the nascent bridge which collapsed on workers beneath. In 1892, disaster struck again when a speeding streetcar jumped the tracks and crashed into an oncoming car.

Would that that were all. On the foggy evening of November 16, 1895, Railcar 642 of the Cleveland Electric Railway Company, heading west from downtown, crashed through a gate and plummeted 100 feet off the Viaduct into the Cuyahoga River. Unbeknownst to the passengers and crew, the center section (the “draw”) had been opened to permit the tugboat “Ben Campbell” towing a lumber barge to pass underneath. And unbeknownst to motorman Augustus Rogers, the power cutoff switch (designed to stop the streetcar when the draw was open) was broken. Of Car 642’s 21 passengers and crew, 17 died, including conductor Edward Hoffman who left behind a wife and 10-month-old son.

"Nothing like it recorded in the history of the Forest City," mourned the Cleveland Press. Interviewed by the paper, bystander Phil Beck recalled that "the car was running rapidly up until the time it reached the safety rail. It came to a standstill and the conductor jumped out and threw the switch. Then the motorman put the power on and the car moved forward at a high rate of speed. We all yelled to the motorman to stop, but he did not seem to heed nor hear us. [After crashing through a gate] he saw his peril and, without reversing the power, sprang to the bridge. He saved himself by catching the edge of the footwalk. Then the car dropped over the edge. It was going at such a high rate of speed that it did not seem that the front end dropped first, but seemed to sail out into the air and then drop down." On its descent, the car struck the bridge pilings and plunged head-first into the river. It took two days of searching with grappling hooks to recover the bodies from the river. Only one passenger, Patrick Looney, survived the plunge. Disabled and traumatized, Looney returned to County Clare, Ireland, where he lived out his life.

Upon seeing the open draw, motorman Augustus Rogers and three passengers had jumped from the car before it plunged. Rogers was accused of manslaughter and jailed. A month later he was freed and charges were dropped. Responsibility for the tragedy was placed on conductor Edward Hoffman, who had told the motorman to proceed through the gates.

The Viaduct’s draw span was replaced with a high-level truss bridge in 1912, but even that failed to put an end to the structure’s sad track record. On May 25, 1914, a fire at Fisher-Wilson Lumber Company underneath the bridge destroyed 300 feet of the Viaduct. The span was rebuilt but safety concerns remained, exacerbated by continuous sinking of land at the bridge’s western end.

Declared unalterably unsafe, the Central Viaduct was closed in 1941 and demolished shortly after World War II. By that time, plans for a grand “Innerbelt” project were underway, but funding and property-acquisition issues delayed the initiative. A new structure following the general path of the Central Viaduct was completed in 1962. Other than congestion, the new bridge was largely devoid of problems, although commercial truck traffic was banned from the bridge between 2008 and 2010 due to structural concerns. The entire span was replaced by the new George V. Voinovich Bridges, completed in September 2016. All that remains of the hard-luck Central Viaduct are several stone piers—fully visible from a ramped section of the Towpath Trail in northeast Tremont.

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Supported by a steel superstructure and faced with Euclid bluestone quarried nearby, Forest Hill Park Footbridge traverses Forest Hill Boulevard in East Cleveland on land that was once part of Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller's summer estate. Spanning 347 feet across a deep valley in the Dugway Brook watershed, the 48-foot-high pedestrian bridge was intended to nestle in the hilly landscape of the Heights (the westernmost foothills of the Appalachians) on Cleveland's east side.

Designed by Wilbur Watson and Associates in 1939 with consulting architects F. B. Walker and A. D. Taylor, Forest Hill Park Footbridge was built in 1939-40--the work of more than 1,000 men toiling for two years. The men were paid with Works Progress Administration funds as part of its plan to put unemployed Americans back to work on useful projects. Wilbur Watson was a nationally known civil engineer and bridge designer who also engineered the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge over the Cuyahoga River. Taylor, who planned Forest Hill Park for the Rockefellers, was president of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a protege of the Olmsted firm founded by Frederick Law Olmsted, the "father of landscape architecture" who co-designed New York's Central Park. Taylor's sensibilities are reflected in the picturesque bridge.

Over the years the bridge suffered from neglect. A wire fence "cage" to prevent pedestrian falls, marred its graceful span, while vandals broke and removed stones from its parapet. Park volunteers repaired this damage in 2021, helping to ensure that the footbridge remains a beautiful presence for park users.

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Passing by the Everett Road Covered Bridge, you can still hear the shuffle of feet moving to a lively tune. Both young and old come together at the bridge to share in a tradition passed down from the Cuyahoga Valley's first settlers from New England: the contra dance. Several times a year, friends and neighbors gather together to dance at historic locations near the Village of Peninsula. One of the most popular settings, the Everett Road Covered Bridge, allows dancers to connect to a tradition deeply rooted in the valley experience. Incredibly popular during the early 20th century, dances offered young men and women the rare opportunity to enjoy entertainment together. A local orchestra played while a caller announced instructions for the dances, which took place in nearby dance halls, or even in the street. The modern use of the Everett Bridge evokes these historic traditions of engagement with the local community.

The Everett Road Covered Bridge, which crosses over Furnace Run, is the only remaining covered bridge in Summit County. To take advantage of the Ohio & Erie Canal, and later railroads, valley residents needed roads. According to valley legend, the Everett Bridge was built in response to a local tragedy. In 1877, farmers John Gilson and his wife supposedly attempted to cross Furnace Run after melting ice made their usual ford impassable. Although Mrs. Gilson survived the stream, John Gilson's horse pulled him into the icy water where he soon drowned. Although historians concluded that the bridge was constructed in the late 19th century, its actual construction date remains unknown.

Nestled deep within the valley, the Everett community witnessed many changes since its beginnings in the 1820s. Visitors to the village in the 19th and early 20th century could cross Furnace Run through the covered bridge and enter a small neighborhood complete with a blacksmith, church, one-room schoolhouse, general store, saloon, dance hall, and railway station. After the establishment of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Department of the Interior purchased and rehabilitated many properties in Everett. Despite the sense of loss that accompanied the demise of the lively Everett village, the Everett Road Covered Bridge and contra dance participants testify to the persistent sense of community in the valley.

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Opened in 1964, the Clifton Park Bridge connects the cities of Rocky River and Lakewood. It is a section of Clifton Boulevard and the Grand Army of the Republic Highway (U.S. Route 6). The bridge crosses the Rocky River very close to where it empties into Lake Erie.

The Clifton Park Bridge was built by the State Highway Department to alleviate the congestion on the Detroit Rocky River Bridge. The project, however, was not without controversy. The seizure of private property through eminent domain was eventually required in order to build the bridge. Apart from angering the affected citizens, this measures would also mean that each city would lose the money from the property taxes on those sites. The tax issue led to a more than ten-year-long dispute between the cities of Rocky River and Lakewood as the two sides could not agree on the location of the bridge. Rocky River supported the location even though the city would lose tax money. Lakewood on the other hand opposed the location because the bridge would go through the wealthy Clifton Park neighborhood on the northwestern side of the city and cause $1.5 million worth of property to be lost to eminent domain.

Other plans were proposed, such as increasing the traffic on the Hilliard Road Bridge and turning the Nickel Plate trestle into a double-decker bridge for both train and car traffic. The Hilliard Road Bridge plan was highly favored and carefully discussed. The basic question at the center of this debate was whether or not cities had the right to refuse the building of a major highway. This is also known as the "ordinance of consent." In the end, eight homes and fifteen other parcels of land were seized by the state under eminent domain in order to build the bridge with both cities losing valuable property. The Clifton Park Bridge was thus built by the state of Ohio over the objections of the local governments.

The unique curving streets of Clifton Park distinguish it from the rest of Lakewood's grid pattern. It was built starting in the late 19th century and features many historic mansions. It has been the home of many of greater Cleveland's most prominent citizens. Despite Lakewood's fears, the Clifton Park neighborhood continued to thrive even after the Clifton Park Bridge controversy, remaining alive and well even today.

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The Detroit–Rocky River Bridge spans the Rocky River and connects the cities of Rocky River and Lakewood. Prior to 1819, Rufus Wright operated a ferry that carried Rockport residents across the Rocky River. He was a tavern owner as well. Wright later became Lakewood's second postmaster. His sons followed in his footsteps and members of the Wright family were the city's postmaster for several generations.

In 1819, the construction of the first Detroit–Rocky River Bridge began, with Wright paying half the cost. Each of the 18 resident families contributed money, labor, or materials. The bridge was completed in 1821, but crossing it required a hazardous descent and ascent along the river's slippery embankments. The bridge was so dangerous that in November 1848, two stagecoaches capsized on the bridge. Travelers were advised to avoid the Detroit–Rocky River Bridge and instead go along the beach to ford the river.

In 1850, the old bridge was replaced by a toll bridge made by the Detroit Plank Road Company. The new bridge made for slightly safer approaches. It was again replaced in 1875 with a wood and iron girder bridge before an even safer bridge was built in 1890. This high-level truss bridge with an oak plank floor and built of iron and stone avoided the embankments altogether. It was toll-free but cost taxpayers $60,000 to construct.

As electric interurban railcars began plying the bridge on the Lake Shore Electric line between Cleveland and Toledo in the early 1900s, the bridge's safety was soon at issue. On May 13, 1905, an interurban car derailed on the bridge and came perilously close to plunging into the gorge. As a result, a fifth bridge, built of concrete and steel, was completed in 1910. The latest Detroit–Rocky River Bridge was the longest stretch of unreinforced concrete in the world at the time, measuring 208 feet.

The current bridge was built in 1980 for $4 million. Today, the Bridge Building at 18500 Lake Road, built atop the western foundation, stands on the only remaining section of the 1910 bridge.

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Authorization for the Hilliard Road Bridge in Lakewood was given in 1923, along with approval for the Willow Bridge in Newburgh. The Walsh Construction Co. of Cleveland was contracted to build the bridge. The project was completed 19 months later at the cost of $930,000. Once completed, the Hilliard Road Bridge provided a vital link between Cleveland and outlying farms, and also helped the West Side expand and develop into a series of well-populated communities.

Since the Hilliard Road Bridge project was the largest construction project in the area in years, it was watched closely by organizations of both sides of the labor debate. The unskilled workmen who built the Hilliard Road Bridge came from all over the Midwest but especially from Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Kentucky. They were paid 40 cents an hour which was less than union pay. Workers and their families were housed on the construction site in buildings of pine lumber which a Plain Dealer reporter in 1924 described as being similar to military cantonments during the First World War. The construction site was also surrounded by fences of barbed wire. Picketers set up camp at either end of the bridge and protested at starting and quitting times. Signs carried by protesters decried the lack of unionized labor of the project and asserted that working conditions were unfair to the "organized workers of Cuyahoga County." This continued for over a month.

The Hilliard Road Bridge was not the first bridge on this spot. The earliest incarnation of the bridge was known as the "Swinging Bridge," and consisted of a rope bridge with wooden planks that was used by school children and Lakewood residents to cross the Rocky River. It hung thirty feet above the water and was located at the end of Detroit Avenue in what is now the Rocky River Reservation. It remained in place until the 1910s.

One Lakewood resident, Kathryn Coleman, recalls a particularly memorable experience on the Swinging Bridge when a mischievous boy began to jump up and down, causing the bridge to swing wildly, while she and her family were trying to cross. "I was 7-years-old at the time and walking beside my mother. In front of us, father was pushing a baby stroller that held my 1-year-old brother. We were frantic, but we finally made it across. Afterwards, mother vowed we would never use that bridge again."

The current Hilliard Road Bridge crosses the Rocky River and runs above the Rocky River Reservation. It is 860 feet long, and the length of the largest span is 220.2 feet. It was rehabilitated in the early 1980s, during which the deck was replaced. It reopened in 1983.

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Charles Schweinfurth (1856-1919) was one of the premier architects in Cleveland around the turn of the 20th-century. He arrived in Cleveland in 1883 and went on to design a number of structures in and around the city, including a number of the mansions that lined Euclid Avenue's famous "Millionaires' Row."

The four sandstone bridges Schweinfurth designed in Rockefeller Park cross over Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at St. Clair Avenue, Wade Park Avenue, Superior Avenue, and the railroad tracks just south of the Shoreway. They were erected between 1897 and 1900 and partially funded through a donation made to the Cleveland Park Board by John D. Rockefeller in 1896. The stone and concrete arched bridges feature winding staircases that lead down into Rockefeller Park. Although their condition declined somewhat over the years, the bridges have benefited from recent restoration work.

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Topography—both natural and man-made—is an integral part of Tremont’s history. The neighborhood’s most notable feature, for example, is its location at the top of a bluff. Before construction of the Central Viaduct in 1887, Tremont residents could not walk north or east without navigating the precarious and confusing Flats. Ironically, this terrestrial peculiarity contributed simultaneously to the area’s isolation (hard to reach) and to its residential popularity (close proximity to the many steel mills, factories, warehouses and river-shipping interests that populated the Flats). Earlier in the 19th Century, moreover, it was Tremont’s elevation—sweeping views of the Cuyahoga River and cool breezes from Lake Erie—that attracted wealthy settlers. This began to change, however, as the Cuyahoga River Valley grew more and more industrialized. Soon, the air in Tremont no longer seemed so fresh and the views became more smoky than scenic.

But as wealthy citizens moved out of the neighborhood, families whose men worked in the valley increasingly took their place. Accessibility also increased when the Central Viaduct was constructed. Initially, the Viaduct consisted of two bridges: The first structure connected what is now West 14th Street to what is now Carnegie Avenue. Deemed unsafe, the bridge was torn down in the early 1940s. The Viaduct’s path is more or less replicated by Interstate 90. The second structure, known today as the Abbey Avenue Bridge continues to link Tremont with Ohio City.

In 1912, Tremont residents received another ingress/egress opportunity when the Clark Avenue Bridge was constructed. This span (totaling 6,687 feet) consisted of three sections: The first comprised a series of trusses over the B&O railroad tracks adjacent to Quigley Road. The bridge’s west end connected to West 3rd Street and provided safe access to the Jones & Laughlin Steel plant. A third (east) section, which included the river span, extended from Pershing Avenue to West Third Street. The Clark Avenue Bridge was demolished in 1980. Its giant supports can still be seen at the base of Clark Avenue where it meets Quigley Road.

A third topographic change occurred during construction of the Cleveland Union Terminal complex (completed in 1927). Before that time, the Duck Island (west Tremont) area was tied into the street grid to Ohio City. Freeman and Willey Avenues (which now terminate on the west at Columbus Road) continued all the way to West 25th Street, as did a no-longer-extant street called Eureka Court. To create a rail path (now the RTA Red Line), all structures between the west side of Columbus Road and the east side of Gehring Street were razed. The area then was excavated downward some 30 feet to create the channel where the tracks run today. The only bridge subsequently erected to cross this divide was on Abbey Avenue, so the new excavation effectively increased Tremont’s isolation.

In the decades following World War II, many Tremont residents left the neighborhood for the suburbs. Multiple factories in the valley closed and many of the descendants of Tremont's original working-class residents grew prosperous enough to leave. A freeway construction boom exacerbated that exodus by making it easier to reach the suburbs. Interstate 71 (the Medina Freeway) created a wedge between West 14th Street and Scranton Road, while Interstate 490 (the Clark Freeway) subdivided Clark Fields on Tremont’s eastern border. A roundabout at the south end of West 14th Street—where it now meets Interstate 71 and the Jennings Freeway (Route 176) also truncated the south end of Tremont. Prior to the construction of these highways, drivers had easier street-based access to Cleveland City Hospital (now Metro Health) via Jennings Avenue and to Scranton Road via now-truncated streets such as Clover, Corning and Brainard Avenues.

Tremont’s revitalization began in the late 1970s with the organization of Tremont West Development Corporation. Urban pioneers, restaurants and art galleries arrived in the 1980s and accelerated in the 1990s. That transformation continues to this day, although Tremont’s strange geography and asymmetric street grid still confound thousands of visitors. Moreover, the myriad freeway under- and overpasses give Tremont an oddly segmented feel: diverse neighborhoods with widely varying financial, industrial and terrestrial personalities. It’s all part of the strange charm that (literally and figuratively) sets Tremont apart.

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Anyone who has lived in Cleveland for a while knows that a certain rivalry exists between its east and west sides, separated as they are by the Cuyahoga River. What most people don't realize is just how far back in history the rivalry goes, or that in the 1830s the building of a new bridge over the river sparked violence between residents of Cleveland (east) and Ohio City (west).

By the 1830s, Ohio City—a separate city until it was annexed by Cleveland in the 1850s—was falling behind its more prosperous neighbor on the east bank of the Cuyahoga. Ohio City residents became enraged when a Cleveland syndicate that included Cleveland's future mayor John W. Willey constructed a bridge on Columbus Street in the Flats to connect the new Cleveland Centre and Willeyville subdivisions. The new bridge took a southerly route that bypassed Ohio City's main commercial district on what is now West 25th Street. Given that this new bridge was far superior to the floating bridge further north that had previously been the only span connecting the two cities, Ohio City rightfully feared a drastic decline in traffic and goods moving through their city. Incensed, they decided to boycott the bridge. Cleveland retaliated by removing their half of the old floating bridge.

On October 31, 1836, an angry mob of Ohio City residents marched to the Columbus Street Bridge intending to destroy it. Cleveland's Mayor Willey and a number of Cleveland residents met them and fighting broke out, leaving three men seriously injured before the County Sheriff put a stop to the violence. The courts eventually resolved the issue, allowing for both bridges to be opened to traffic.

The old Columbus Street bridge was replaced by an iron bridge in 1870. After that, a double swing bridge—then the world's first—took that bridge's place. Later, in 1940, WPA workers installed a steel lift bridge on Columbus Road. This bridge underwent a substantial restoration in 2013-14.

Speaking to your typical Clevelander it becomes clear that while the original Columbus Street Bridge may be long gone, the rivalry between the east and west sides of Cleveland remains firmly in place. But perhaps a bit less violently.

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The Lorain-Carnegie Bridge opened in 1932, becoming the second fixed high-level span in Cleveland. It was built in part to relieve traffic on the Detroit-Superior Bridge (the city's other fixed high-level bridge) which opened in 1917. Construction began on the bridge in 1930, though plans for the bridge date as far back as 1902, when citizens of Cleveland presented a petition requesting construction of a high-level viaduct between Lorain and Central Avenues. In 1927, the city approved a bond issue of $8 million for the bridge's construction, changing the plan slightly to have the east approach connect with Carnegie instead of Central Avenue. Upon completion, the bridge stood 93 feet above the Cuyahoga River and had a span of 5,865 feet.

Perhaps the most memorable features of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge are the 43-foot tall "Guardians of Transportation" which line its sides. These four huge double-sided pylons, carved out of sandstone from nearby Berea, Ohio, represent technological advances made in transit, with each Guardian holding a different kind of vehicle in its massive hands. Frank Walker designed the pylons and Henry Hering did the actual sculpting with the help of a number of local stonecutters.

In the 1970s, Cuyahoga County Engineer Albert Porter wanted to tear down the pylons in order to add lanes to the bridge. He did not get his way. So, when the bridge reopened in 1983 after nearly three years of repairs, the Guardians of Transportation were still in place. The bridge was renamed at this time, becoming the Hope Memorial Bridge, in honor of actor Bob Hope and his family, English immigrants who came to Cleveland in 1908. William Henry Hope, Bob's father, was a stonemason who worked on the construction of the Guardians in the 1930s.

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Clevelanders met the opening of the Superior Viaduct in December 1878 with great fanfare, celebrating the city's first high-level bridge. The bridge in many ways symbolized Cleveland's continuing economic growth and  development into a major American city. Prior to the Viaduct's opening, low-level bridges were the only way for vehicles to cross the Cuyahoga River. To approach these  bridges, commuters had to navigate steep valley walls. Moreover, bridge traffic would come to a halt with the passing of each and every boat. While the Superior Viaduct's central span still had to swing open several times a day to let taller ships through, it was a vast improvement over the older bridges.

The building of the Superior Viaduct began in March 1875, three years after city residents voted to fund its construction. Costs eventually came to a little over two million dollars. Despite all its grandeur, the viaduct became outdated with the opening of the Detroit-Superior Bridge in 1917. That bridge was built high enough to let even the larger boats pass underneath without disturbing traffic.  

The viaduct was closed to cross-river traffic once and for all when its center span was removed in 1923. Over time, the once-celebrated structure was dismantled. Today, a number of the stone arches and other components of the viaduct's western approach are all that remain.  

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Bathed in blue light at night, the Detroit-Superior Bridge (also known as the Veterans Memorial Bridge since 1989) is a striking feature on the Cleveland skyline just west of Public Square. Cleveland's King Bridge Company built the span between 1912 and 1917 at a cost of over five million dollars. This 3,112-foot-long compression arch, suspended-deck bridge was the first fixed high-level bridge in the city and, for a time, one of the largest steel and concrete reinforced bridges in the world. Its single steel span over the Cuyahoga River provides 96 feet of clearance above the water, allowing for uninterrupted vehicle traffic. At the time of its completion this was a vast improvement over the older Superior Viaduct, whose center span was forced to swing open several times a day in order to allow boats to pass underneath, stopping bridge traffic for five or more minutes. 

Until the end of Cleveland's streetcar era in the mid-1950s, the lower deck of the Detroit-Superior Bridge carried streetcars on its four sets of tracks. To this end, a subway and underground passenger stations were built below its east and west approaches. Meanwhile, vehicular traffic on the upper deck of the bridge was heavy in the years following the bridge's opening on Thanksgiving Day 1917, and traffic tie-ups often occurred. These lessened with the opening of the city's second fixed high level span – the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge – in the 1930s. More recently, the development of the interstate highway system, with its various high-level spans over the Cuyahoga River, has further diminished the bridge's importance to commuters. However, the Detroit-Superior Bridge remains a key feature in Cleveland's built environment and an impressive example of architectural and engineering expertise. 

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