Tremont (10/15/2016)

Saturday, October 15, 2016
We hoped it was clear enough today to see the Cleveland skyline on a hike of the Tremont Historic District.

This area has had several names and incarnations. It was Cleveland Heights when it was incorporated as part of Ohio City in 1836. In 1851 it changed to University Heights when the Cleveland University was established, leading to street names like College and Professor. After the Civil War, it became Lincoln Heights to commemorate area being the site of the Civil War Camps Wade, then Cleveland. After being annexed to Cleveland, it was known as South Side, and in the 1970s the name changed to Tremont after the name of the elementary school.
Initially the area along what is now W 14th Street was settled by New England Puritans who founded Pilgrim Congregational Church. In the 19th century, it became the home of many working class Irish who established St Augustine Church. The 20th century saw the arrival of immigrants from Central Europe and the Middle East, including Poles, Slovaks, Ukrainians, and Syrians. They built social clubs and community institutions, as well as more churches. The population began to decline in the 1960s, especially later with the loss of steel industry jobs and the recession of the 1980s. Now in the 21st century, there has been a revival with young professionals and hipsters moving in and restoring historic houses. Tremont has become a mecca with restaurants, shops, and art galleries.

Lucky Park across the street from the local Lucky's Café

St Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral (1913, designed by
Frederick Baird, modeled on Church of Our Savior Jesus Christ in Moscow)
and it is said that Czar Nicholas contributed funds; the dome represents
Christ and the cupolas represent the 12 Apostles

St Theodosius Parish was founded in 1896 by Carpatho-Rusins (not Russians) who changed their allegiance from the Greek Catholic to the Russian Orthodox. The present church is famous for being in a number of scenes of the 1978 movie, "The Deer Hunter."

The building to the right is the former Cleveland University (1851-1853),
with the building to the left added by the Union Gospel Press, now
the Tremont Place Lofts/apartments

The Cleveland University lasted only one-and-a-half academic years, graduating 11 students before the main benefactor, Thirza Pelton died. The building was later used by the Humiston Institute (1858-1869), a college prep school that also provided education to Civil War soldiers. In 1907 the
Herald Publishing House and the Gospel Workers Society relocated here, becoming the Union Gospel Press in 1922 and leaving in 1950. By the 1960s the building was largely abandoned, until 1987 when Joe Scully, an iron worker, tried to make it an artists' colony. He sold it in 2003 and by 2009 the high end apartment complex was completed.

Tremont Place Lofts entrance through
extra-large folding doors

Remnant of the The Herald Publishing House

Sts Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church (1910, designed by
Stephen Paliwoda in Byzantine and Romanesque style);
the parish was founded in 1902 by the Ruthenian (East Slavic)
National Association; the onion dome was replaced
by a bell tower during a 1956 renovation

St John Cantius Catholic Church (founded 1898
by Polish residents, the church was built in 1925,
designed by Gabele & Potter in Polish Cathedral style

Dante, a restaurant of one of the top chefs in
Cleveland, Dante Boccuzzi, is located in the
former Lincoln Heights Savings & Loan (c 1930s),
then the Third Federal Savings & Loan Bank

Polish Veterans Alliance (est. 1933)

Street name ornamental bracket mimics a tree branch

Dendrite (2013) by Olga Ziemska,
inspired by the academic street names,
the sculpture represents humanity as part of nature

Rain garden for a more eco-friendly treatment of stormwater

House or business? This building has pre-rusted wall panels

Tremont has many sleek modern architectural designs that "blend" into the community.

A view of the Cleveland skyline

Another modern building

A view from a new overlook on Abbey Avenue

The overlook has a Cleveland Script art installation (June 2016),
seen here with Kent and Gus

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church (1918-1919) 

Charles Olney Art Gallery (1892, designed by the firm of
Forrest A. Coburn and Frank Seymour Barnum,
in Renaissance Revival style) was the first public art space
in Cleveland; it closed in 1907 after the deaths of the Olneys
and the art collection was donated to Oberlin College

Along with the Charles Olney House (1870s),
the Art Gallery appears renovated, but empty

Decorative touch on the Charles Olney House

The Olney buildings were purchased by the American-Ukrainian National Association and the gallery was used as the Ukrainian National Home in the 1930s.

The former Sacred Heart of Jesus Polish National
Church (1913), now the St Andrew Kim
Korean Church

St Andrew Kim Taegon was the first
Korean-born Catholic priest, was martyred,
and is the patron saint of Korea

The former Pelton Apartments (1890), now Tremont Terraces

Former Holy Ghost Greek Catholic Church (1910)
built for the Carpatho-Rusin immigrants, later
called the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church;
it closed in 2009 sadly after having rebuilt the
two towers in 1978 to hold the old copper crosses

The Ukrainian Museum-Archives located in a house (1920) used as
a convent for Ukrainian nuns and then was home to the
Ukrainian Boy Scout organization

The former Polish Library Home (1900), a social hall and library
built by the Polish National Alliance fraternal organization

Lemko Hall (1911, built as Koreny Hall)
was purchased in 1946 for the
Lemko Social & Civic Club, serving the
rusin or Lemkos from the Lemko region
of the Carpathian Mountains

Lemko Halll was also used in filming the 1978 movie "The Deer Hunter."

Our Lady of Mercy (1949 in Romanesque style)
which bears similarity to the St John Cathedral
in downtown Cleveland; since the same
architectural firm, Stickle, Kelly and Stickle, was used

The rectory of Our Lady of Mercy is also built with
crab orchard stone; the church and the rectory now
house several businesses, as normally you would not see
"The Christmas Story" leg lamp in the window of a rectory!

Checkerboard table in Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park was originally the private Pelton Park of the
benefactor of the short-lived Cleveland University; in the 1850s
the residents wanted the park opened to the public and would
tear down the fences; finally in 1879 the city negotiated with
Pelton heirs to purchase the land and open South Side Park,
renamed Lincoln Park in 1896

Lincoln Park

St Augustine Roman Catholic Church (parish founded 1860,
and in 1896 purchased the old Pilgrim Congregational Church
built in the 1860s), a blend of Gothic and Romanesque styles

Iglesia Pentecostal El Calvario (1908 built as the 2nd Emmanuel
Evangelical United Brethren Church in Gothic style for a German
population; it was sold in 1968 to the Cleveland Baptist Temple,
then in 1994 to the Puerto Rican Calvary Pentecostal Church)

Pilgrim Congregational Church (1893-1894, designed
by Sidney R Badgely in Richardsonian Romanesque),
organized in 1859 the congregation used the
former Cleveland University building for services
before building what is now the St Augustine
Roman Catholic Church; moving to this church in 1894

St George Antiochian Orthodox Church (1935 in Byzantine style),
established in 1911 by Antiochians from the area of
modern-day Turkey and Syria, who used the 1886 Lincoln Park
Methodist Episcopal Church that burned down in 1933

The intersection of W 14th Street and Starkweather Avenue has churches on three of the four corners: Iglesia Pentecostal El Calvario, Pilgrom Congregational Church, and St George Antiochian Orthodox Church. The fourth corner is Lincoln Park.

Zions' Schule/Zions' School (1906)

Zion United Church of Christ started as the
United German Evangelical Protestant Church in 1867,
and this is their third church built in 1885;
in 1927 the name was changed to Zion and in
1957 was the formation of the United Church of Christ

West 14th Street in Tremont has seven churches along five blocks!

Former Jennings Building (1898), now
the Chelsea Apartments is said to be the
first "high-rise" in Cleveland and it had
the first elevator in Ohio

Former Ukrainian Labor Temple (1927),
now a photography studio

The Dembowski family house was next door to their pub,
Dempsey's Oasis (named for boxer Jack Dempsey), opened in 1938,
and it stayed in the family until 2000; the current owner renamed it
Prosperity Social Club, a salute to the sardonic optimism
 that pervaded the Great Depression

Prosperity Social Club maintains the
interior as if in the 1950s and 1960s

Lincoln Park Baths (1921) the last of ten bathhouses built and operated
by the City of Cleveland to address the concern about health and
sanitation of neighborhoods where houses lacked plumbing

Built to resemble a Roman bathhouse, the Lincoln Park Baths became the Lincoln Park Recreation Center in the 1930s, and closed in 1984. By 1996 they had become the Lincoln Park Condominiums

Lincoln Park Baths detail

A former movie theater served as the Lemko
Social Hall from 1937-1946

The Merrick House Social Settlement was established in 1919
to respond to the struggles faced by the poor; unlike other
settlement houses, Merrick House was funded by the
National Catholic War Council using surplus funds from war relief;
the current building was constructed in 1949

Merrick House was named for Miss Mary Merrick who founded the National Christ Child Society in 1887, and was a proponent for social reform.

Hotz Café  (founded 1919) is believed to be
the oldest tavern in Cleveland and it is still in
the family of Rusin immigrants who arrived in 1905

Tremont Elementary School (1917, to replace an 1870s
schoolhouse) is thought to be the largest elementary
school building in Ohio

Four Freedoms Monument (of speech, or worship,
from want, and from fear) as stated by
President Franklin D Roosevelt during his
1941 State of the Union Address

Unusual fence on Tremont Avenue

Bottle Tree

Jefferson Library (1918, designed by Ora Coltman to be a
convertible building that could be adapted into a store or business),
was funded by Andrew Carnegie

Polish Legion of American Veterans

Na zdrowie!/Cheers!