Euclid Avenue

Euclid Avenue is a name applied to streets in many American cities; however, Cleveland, Ohio’s Euclid Avenue received nationwide attention from the 1860s to the 1920s for its beauty and wealth. Today, the road is undergoing a large reconstruction project that will include a bus rapid transit system.

Euclid Avenue runs from Cleveland to the suburb of Willoughby. It passes through the cities of East Cleveland, Euclid and Wickliffe and forms part of the border between Wickliffe and Willowick. The Cleveland portion of the street begins at Public Square and extends to University Circle. The street passes Playhouse Square, Cleveland State University, the Cleveland Clinic, Severance Hall, and Case Western Reserve University.

At the turn of the century, Euclid Avenue was internationally known; Baedeker’s Travel Guides called the elm-lined avenue “The Showplace of America,” and designated it as a must see for travelers from Europe. The concentration of wealth was unparalleled; the tax valuation of the mansions along “the Avenue” far exceeded the valuation of New York’s Fifth Avenue in the late nineteenth century.

On August 5, 1914, the American Traffic Signal Company installed a traffic signal system on the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue, the first traffic light installed in the United States.Fact|date=January 2008

Families living along "Millionaire's Row" included those of John D. Rockefeller, Sylvester T. Everett, arc light inventor Charles F. Brush, George Worthington, Horace Weddell, Marcus Hanna, Ambrose Swasey, Amasa Stone, John Hay (personal secretary to Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State under William McKinley), Jeptha Wade (Cleveland benefactor and founder of Western Union Telegraph), and Alfred Atmore Pope (iron industrialist and art collector). Euclid Avenue's most infamous resident was con artist Cassie Chadwick, the wife of Dr. Leroy Chadwick, who was unaware that his wife was passing herself off to bankers as the illegitimate daughter of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.

In their 1949 musical "South Pacific," Rodgers and Hammerstein indirectly acknowledged the street's fame. In the script, Captain Brackett sends a grass skirt to one "Amelia Fortuna, 325 Euclid Avenue, Shaker Heights, Cleveland, Ohio."

As the Cleveland’s commercial district began to push eastward along Euclid Avenue, families moved east towards University Circle. However, southeast of University Circle, the topography of the area rises sharply into what is referred to as "The Heights," and the development of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights, along with more efficient means of travel, became more attractive than the increasingly commercialized Euclid Avenue.

By the 1920s, the former "Millionaire's Row" was in decline. During the Great Depression, many mansions were converted by their owners into rooming houses, which accelerated the decline. In the 1950s, Cleveland's Innerbelt Freeway cut through the Euclid Avenue between downtown and the rail crossing at East 55th Street. By the 1960s, the street that once rivaled Fifth Avenue as the most expensive address in America was a two mile long slum of commercial buildings and substandard housing. In the late 1960s, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Nick Mileti announced plans to move the basketball club from Euclid Avenue's Cleveland Arena to a new arena in suburban Richfield Township.

Today, eight houses from the era remain on Euclid, including the Samuel Mather and Howe Mansions owned and used by Cleveland State University. The most recent to be demolished was the Lyman Treadway Mansion, which served as part of the Cleveland Museum of Health from the 1930s until it was razed in 2002 for a new museum building.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is currently undertaking a complete refurbishment of Euclid Avenue as part of the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project. A bus rapid transit line will run from Public Square to the Stokes Rapid Transit station in East Cleveland, which is the eastern terminus of the Red Line rapid transit route.

Parts of U.S. routes 6, 20 and 322 follow Euclid Avenue.

In April 2006, parts of Euclid Avenue were closed to traffic for the filming of a scene from the film "Spiderman 3". No major stars were on location, but the filming drew thousands of gawkers. Most of the filming involved explosions and destroyed cars, with hired extras walking the sidewalks. The sections of the street that were closed off were redressed to resemble a city street in New York City, complete with magazine stands and poster-covered walls. [http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/plaindealer/index.ssf?/entertainment/more/stickyweb.html Cleveland.com: Filming to shut some downtown streets] ]

References

External links

* [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=EA Euclid Ave.] from "The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History"
* [http://www.euclidtransit.org/ Euclid Corridor Transportation Project]
* [http://www.cleveland.com/euclidavenue/ Euclid Avenue Memories] , "Plain Dealer" special section, June 19, 2006.
* " [http://www.cleveland.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/euclid_corridor_project_helps.html Euclid Corridor project helps drive $4 billion in Cleveland development] " by Steven Litt, "The Plain Dealer", February 10, 2008. Includes video.