This was the sixth and final run of the North Collinwood neighborhood.
Map: Run 1, Run 2
Distance This Run: 10.9 miles
Distance So Far: 616.8 miles
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| The Collinwood Recreation Center (163000 Lakeshore Blvd) is an amazing example of adaptive reuse. Local firm City Architecture took a sprawling 66,000-square-foot former Big Lots and turned it into a $11 million state-of-the art, environmentally-friendly community hub. It features a water slide, weight/fitness room, game room, computer room, art room, basketball courts, meeting room, 3-lane indoor track, playground and an indoor pool (with water slide). The design elements are also very cool. The glass panels that front the building mimic the waves of the nearby lake; solar cells provide hot water for showers; rain water is collected and used to irrigate trees; the basketball court is made out of bamboo and; the sun deck is made out of shipping containers. As a result, the building received a Gold LEED certification for sustainability. Here's some great interior photos. |
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| Little Free Library on the corner of Trafalgar & E. 163rd Street. |
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| This mural at E. 161st & Burbank was done by artist Lynne’s Holland-Weiss and was part of the Zoetic Walls project. |
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| This parcel on the northeast corner Trafalgar & E. 161st Street was recently acquired by a neighborhood resident and artist. In addition to being a painter, she is also very active with the Waterloo Alley Cat Project but it wasn't clear what she has planned here (my guess is perhaps something agricultural as this was all grass back in July. I think I saw a sign about a bee and butterfly garden but not sure). |
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| This church located at 1260 E. 167th was built in 1930 and is currently home to Eagle Wing Baptist Church. |
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| Felt like I was back in the 1970s when Danny Greene was roaming these streets. |
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| High profile vacant property is still an issue in North Collinwood. This 1934 apartment building on Grovewood Ave - self-titled the "Lucic Building" by its previous owners who owed tens of thousands of unpaid taxes on property throughout the city before selling this building - has flipped twice since 2019, both times for north of $470K. Despite that price point, it remains deteriorated, boarded and used primarily as a billboard for the "cash for home" vultures. Not surprisingly, it's now currently owned by an out-of-state LLC. |
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Talk about roof repair program candidate. Akron is spending nearly $20 million of its ARPA funding on such home repair programs. That's twice the amount of funding Cleveland plans to allocate, a city with 115,000 more housing units.
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| Wonder if the owner is a Black Flag fan or it's just a coincidence? |
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| Nottingham Road has a lot of beautiful old historic homes like this one which was built in 1878. It is located in an area once known as Nottingham Village, which was eventually annexed by Cleveland (along with part of Euclid) and eventually renamed Collinwood. By the way, Collinwood is named after Charles Collins, the chief engineer of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad. Collinwood was a major switching point for the line and provided the basis for the neighborhood's growth. |
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| The Rose Centers for Aging Well Paul W. Alandt branch (16600 Lakeshore Blvd) provides services for senior citizens such as meal delivery, transportation for personal appointments or their facilities and health and wellness programs. There are six such locations throughout the Cleveland area. |
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| Beachcrest Towers (16800 Lakeshore Blvd) is a CMHA residential property with 250 units and built in 1971. |
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| At 26-acres and located right behind Collinwood Rec Center, Humphrey Park features five baseball diamonds, tennis courts, a playground and walking path. It's named after Dudley Sherman Humphrey who was the owner and operator of Euclid Beach Park and the Elysium, which stood at E. 107th & Euclid Ave (close to where Wade Lagoon is today) and was once the largest indoor ice skating rink in the world as well as the birthplace of professional hockey in Cleveland. In a fate sadly all too familiar, it eventually fell into disrepair, was acquired by the City and demolished to widen Chester Ave. That's a bit of divergence from the story of this park but interesting nevertheless. Thanks for staying with me. |
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| Calhoun Funeral Home (17010 Lakeshore Blvd) is a Black, family-owned funeral service company which started over 65 years ago in Akron. They expanded to this second location on Lakeshore Blvd over 15 years ago and also have a third location in Bedford Falls. |
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| E. 170s streetscape |
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| G Spot Style Studio (17201 Grovewood Ave) opened in 2019. Their motto is: "Where we embrace the beauty in you." From Google Reviews: "I went there with a friend and decided to get my hair done. George was very professional! This was the first time since 2013 I got my hair done. He really did a great job. It looks like I have a perm! I will be going back!" |
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| St. John Nottingham Lutheran Church (15220 Lakeshore Blvd) is longstanding religious institution in the neighborhood. This building was dedicated in 1961. |
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This veterans memorial at the intersection of Lakeshore Blvd and Nottingham Road was dedicated in 2016. It’s part of a little island-style City park that also includes a gazebo and some benches. The monument was made by nearby Nagy Monuments on Waterloo Rd.
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| St. John’s Nottingham Lutheran School is a Pre-8th school affiliated with the nearby church of the same name. The school component of the parish was was founded in 1892 (before the neighborhood was even part of Cleveland), making it one of the oldest parochial schools in Ohio. This structure was built in 1936. |
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| This home is actually located on a pretty solid street but distressed property like this are still present in many of the stronger sections of the neighborhood. North Collinwood is considered a ‘Middle Neighborhood’ in Cleveland, places which are neither severely distressed nor where there’s strong market demand. As a result, they are often lost in the triage of service but could can quickly spiral into a distressed state if intervention (like the property above) are not addressed in a timely manner. There’s an initiative to attempt to surgically intervene in specific areas of these neighborhoods. Here’s a great article by Governing Magazine about this and Collinwood, specifically. |
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| This mural on E. 177st was done by artist Megan Dardis in 2017. It was a partnership project with the Salvation Army and funded by the Cleveland Foundation. |
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| The Salvation Army Temple Corps Community Center at the corner of Grovewood & E. 177th was built in 2015. In addition to recreational amenities like sports fields and a playground, it also offers hot meals, clothing, youth development programs and case management services for Collinwood residents in need. |
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| Pretty sweet new crosswalk on Villaview Road connecting North and South Collinwood over I-90. |
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| Award for most colorful/creative private drive sign thus far. |
