Euclid Avenue

     Page One Hundred Thirty-Five.
     I'm currently reading a book which is all about a major thorough fare here in Cleveland: Euclid Avenue. I've mentioned in this blog before that Cleveland has a long history of tremendous wealth and during the 19th century most of that wealth was concentrated in one five mile section of Euclid. Well, reading about those people and their homes is just amazing. Can you imagine a private home with a basement large enough to house a real boxcar so the inventor-homeowner can improve the national railroad system? Or, how about a backyard with the world's largest windmill so the inventor-homeowner can improve national electrical systems? How about a residence with an observatory in back so its inventor-homeowner can observe the stars and distant galaxies?
     Some of these homes were up to 40,000 square feet in size. The smaller ones on the strip were maybe 5,000. John D. Rockefeller's home was average sized coming in at under 10,000 square feet but his estate was 2 acres and over 200 feet wide, much larger than his neighbors.
     Nowadays, only about three or four mansions remain of the couple hundred which were sitting there in 1900. After World War One, some of the homeowners gradually moved to the suburbs to get away from the grit and grime of the city. Other homes were gobbled up by commerce as Euclid was slowly transforming from residential to commercial. Some of the homes were too big for 20th century lifestyles.
     That five mile strip today is (in order): Downtown; Playhouse Square (Cleveland's theater district); Cleveland State University; mixed use combined with future development and last but certainly not least, The Cleveland Clinic.
     If you ever make it to Cleveland, Ohio drive down Euclid which recently underwent a $197,000,000 overhaul and street-scape project. Just imagine the ghosts.