AT LONG LAST......GENUINE PRESERVATION!

This is one of those rare posts that we really, really enjoy putting up -- the very rare "story-with-a-happy-ending".  Perhaps the most artistic feature to be found on any Victorian-era structure (excluding cemetery examples) in the Cleveland, Ohio, area -- the gracefully-curving, sinuous, Aesthetic-inspired staircase of the Wade Park Avenue bridge -- has been rescued from its severe deterioration and neglect.  Owned by the City, who could not have been compelled by anyone to take such an action, has done a very impressive job.  They either repaired or replaced perhaps as many as twenty of the individual stairs, plus anything needed along the staircase side-walls.  The City actually even hired an architectural firm!!  This is easily one of the most visually-distinctive and memorable 'constants' of Cleveland and it was nothing less than disgraceful that, initially, the only thing the City did was barricade the staircase -- something reported on this blog back in September of 2005 -- yes, six years ago.  We just can not imagine how this restoration/renovation project was even considered, much less executed.  Now, why can't this sort of thing happen once every six months??

FRATERNITY OF THE LANDFILL, PART TWO

Due to persistent inquiries, one fairly 'reliable' source, within the community that the demolished house discussed in the previous post was located in, says that this house was demolished in preparation for new construction for Case Western Reserve University -- likely a classroom building.  Most alarmingly, though, this source has also suggested that all of the remaining historic houses on Bellflower will also be demolished.  It was unclear if this was to happen in the immediate future, or just the 'eventual' future.  At the present moment in time, it at least appears that nearly all of the houses in question are still occupied and in use.  Of course this could cease to be the case within a relatively short amount of time.  More information -- particularly fully reliable information -- needs to be discovered and, so, the inquiries will continue.  In the context of this alarming report, we have added an image to this post of a house on Bellflower that, from an "educated guess", would seem to be the next most likely 'fatality'.  This is an archival image, found in the Photo Collection of the Cleveland Public Library.  This house was built in 1903 for Gustav Steinbrenner.  'Fate' has been especially unkind to this structure, as the elegant Ionic porch-columns have been replaced with something unattractively simplistic, and all the balustrades and the tiny dormer window

have been simply removed -- among other indignities.  It can only be hoped that this report is inaccurate, but, with the general disrespect for history that has thrived so long and so well in this area, it seems more likely to not be so.