Another Nail In The Coffin Of Cleveland's One-Time "Showplace Of America"

Here's the brand-new post -- posted one day later than expected.

Since so much time has passed since the last regular post, the subject matter of this post is obviously WAY later than just one day.

In a 'nutshell', not too very long ago, we lost one more of the tiny handful of survivors from Euclid Avenue's grand residential era.  This house was located at 7218 Euclid.  It was built in 1887, which made it the second oldest of the fore-mentioned survivors.  Its first owner-occupant was Frank Allen.  Additionally, it had been the ONLY frame example.

7218 Euclid - 2014

By the early-1900s, it had succumbed to the same fate that had afflicted a majority of the Euclid Avenue mansions -- being converted to commercial and/or institutional use.  Perhaps its most 'notable' post-residential use was when it served as a clubhouse for the Sons Of Italy fraternal organization, from 1935 to 1945.  The Sons Of Italy had immediately built a spacious and elegant hall, attached to the rear of the house, designed by local architect Frank Azzarelli.

Sons Of Italy clubhouse - 1935 
photo: Cleveland Press Collection, CSU Schwarz Library, Special Collections

Decades later, it served as the Coliseum Party Center for many years.  After they left in the late-1990s, it was vacant and stayed that way.  It was only a matter of time, with all the recent new development along Euclid Avenue east of East 55th Street, that someone with enough capital and resources realized the potential for the property -- but, sadly, not the structures.  These historic and important structures were demolished in June of 2021.

For a far more informative 'biography' of this house, please see the excellent story on Cleveland Historical written by Jim Dubelko.

https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/864

JUST A MESSAGE TO THIS BLOG'S LOYAL SUBSCRIBERS

How surprised some or all of you must now be to see a new post on this blog after the few years that have passed in which you saw none.  The only "excuse" for that is certain 'greater' priorities that persisted during that period.

But, right now, in the autumn of 2023, a priority strictly related to this blog suddenly appeared.  Google (the 'parent' company) does not like to see blogs with zero activity for somewhat long periods of time.  They served their official warning that either there be more posting or the blog would be taken down.  Regardless of any 'greater' priorities, taking down the blog was definitely not acceptable at this end.

There is at least one topic that would be typical for the theme of this blog that can be formulated and posted, 'forthwith'.  The present intention is to post it perhaps as soon as later today.  It's likely true that this post alone will 'rescue' the blog from 'extermination', which then should mean that there isn't a need to be in a hurry to post more, but the preference is to want to try to do it, anyway.

Thank you to all of you who ever chose to want to look at the posts on this blog.  It should be true you had no trouble finding others out there posting things of interest to you, and thereby you suffered no 'loss' due to the absence of the posting on this blog.  But, as of now, spotlighting on this blog more recent anti-preservation horrors, which have surely have continued unabated in our region, is back on track.