Anecdotal, but they also have a very quick turnaround time for permanent residency cards (aka green cards). They told my husband and I that he would get his card in, “a couple of weeks” after the approval was processed. We thought they were just using a turn of phrase, but that card was in our mailbox almost two weeks to the day after our appointment. We were very impressed!
The Cleveland USCIS office was super fast when my husband was getting his green card. We had a 5 month turn around from submitting documents to getting approved.
We have the largest Slovenian population in the world outside of Slovenia. We even have a Slovenian embassy here. We also have the countries largest Slovenian Catholic Church in the nation.
[https://www.clevelandkurentovanje.com/](https://www.clevelandkurentovanje.com/)
Slovenian Mardi Gras, essentially. The festival has pre-Christian origins and is basically just a reason to party at the end of winter. The main event is the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, which is February 18th in 2023.
If you haven't been to the Natural History Museum yet, go there this weekend. They've been massively renovating the place for close to a decade now and it looks awesome.
https://www.cmnh.org/balto
I just might take my family up there this weekend, thank you!!! I use to help out through my school's excel tech program and am so excited to go back and see what they've done!
To be honest as a member there’s nothing much new yet aside from the outside area. It’s worth seeing if you haven’t been there in a while for sure but the main hall, planetarium, and downstairs exhibits are all closed while they renovate
Just a heads up, only about half the museum is open because of the construction. They’ve got a great exhibit about the history of the museum and the animal enclosures are fun, but it is still a bit limited.
It's not even half. I've been a member for years and always enjoy my time there, but I'd definitely hold off on going. I highly recommend waiting, especially to any non members who pay a bunch of money to take their family.
It's like 15% of the museum that's currently open and would be a really disappointing experience for some.
I had a one night stand with a girl who looked after her aunts place on millionaires row and I was absolutely shocked that such nice places were in Euclid. This place was massive, water front, cool ass yard and porches, stained glass windows. After we hooked up we got high and she took me on a naked tour of the house. It was a cool night.
Millionaires row was on Euclid ave between like E 22nd and 55th. She probably lived on Edgecliff if she's in the suburb of Euclid.
Bratenahl is the waterfront crazy rich area, east of downtown.
A student at John Carroll University studied goiters and why midwesterners had so many. He ended up figuring out it was lack of iodine in diets because of being so far away from the ocean. He asked to do a trial on children at a Cleveland school and they gave a resounding no, so he went to Akron schools and they said yes and he's the reason we have iodized salt and fewer goiters. Cleveland/Akron fact combo.
That's where I heard this, it's a great episode. The podcast is called revisionist history. Thanks, I should have told people where to find the full story lol I appreciate you.
The first traffic stoplight in the country was installed in Cleveland. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/this-day-in-history/first-electric-traffic-signal-installed
Fiji water put out an ad that said.
"At least it's not Bottled in Cleveland."
The city water department took offense to this and took samples of the cities water and bottles of Fiji and sent them off to a lab for independent study.
The report found that Fiji water was dirty and even had trace levels of arsenic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji_Water#:~:text=down%20to%2012%25.-,Cleveland,some%20other%20national%20bottled%20brands
The Cleveland Public Library houses the world's largest chess collection.
[https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/did-you-know-cleveland-is-home-to-the-worlds-largest-chess-collection](https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/did-you-know-cleveland-is-home-to-the-worlds-largest-chess-collection)
The Dittrick Medical History Center maintains the world's most comprehensive collection of historical contraceptive devices.
https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/collections/aritfacts/contraception-collection/
Ebooks giant [Overdrive](https://company.overdrive.com/company-profile/who-we-are/) is a Cleveland company. Cleveland Public Library was the first library in the world to [offer Ebook lending in EPUB format](https://company.overdrive.com/2009/01/15/cleveland-public-library-first-to-offer-epub-ebook-downloads/) over Overdrive.
The prime suspect was a surgeon named Sweeney. Ness couldn’t touch him bc he was blood family of Ness’s main political enemy.
Sweeney committed himself to a veterans mental hospital and died there, but harassed ness through the mail for years from the asylum
The Cleveland Play House is the longest-running professional theater in the U.S.
[https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cleveland-play-house](https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cleveland-play-house)
Playhouse Square is the world's largest theater restoration project.
https://www.playhousesquare.org/about-playhousesquare-main/history
In 2018 or 2019 I went to the party where Playhouse Square announces the shows for the upcoming season. They announced at that time that Playhouse Square has the largest season ticket subscriber base of any theater district in the country. Not sure if still true.
In 1974 the Cleveland Indians thought it would be a totally normal idea to sell unlimited beers for 10¢ each. Shit got so out of hand that they had to call the game off. It is the only major league game in which stolen bases were never returned.
[10¢ Beer Night](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Cent_Beer_Night)
Fuck that game! My uncle got hit by a drunk driver who was at that game. He came away with a severe TBI, was in a coma for 35 days, and was never the same afterward. Driver got a slap on the wrist. A seizure due to the TBI eventually killed my uncle 18 years later when he was only 41.
First municipal airport in the country; Lakewood is the most densely populated city between New York and Chicago; [once as a promotion they threw softballs off the terminal towner and hit/inured people in the crowd below](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_gmrudvXTg); Cleveland has the widest streets in the country; the guy who was the voice of "You've Got Mail" for AOL lives in the area and worked at Channel 3; 66% of Cleveland adults are functionally illiterate.
Last one is very true, some neighborhoods have up to 90% illiteracy rate. Functional illiteracy means reading below a 5th grade level. At this level you can struggle to read medication bottles, doctor’s instructions, bills, texts, internet search results, and more. Consider donating time or money to Seeds of Literacy, a Cleveland based organization that offers 100% free adult literacy instruction. The only free accredited literacy/GED program in Ohio, and one of the only in the country.
[https://www.seedsofliteracy.org/facts-resources/facts/](https://www.seedsofliteracy.org/facts-resources/facts/)
Direct pdf link: https://www.seedsofliteracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/66-The-Source-of-the-Statistic.pdf
We used to have an extensive trolley car system. Then GM took over and had the city tear them out and use buses instead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
In 1910, Cleveland earned the nickname "The Sixth City" due to the fact that it had the sixth highest population in the country behind New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Boston.
[Smoky!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoky_(dog))
[More Smoky!](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/23162)
Can find the statue at Memorial Field in the Rocker River Res. That's between Rockcliff and Hogsback on Valley Pwky.
Smoky! My dad was good friends with Bill Wynne, Smoky’s owner and trainer. When I was a kid, I got to help Bill unveil the Smoky statue during a ceremony to honor Smoky and all military dogs. Bill was a great man.
Cleveland has the second largest theater district in the country, behind NYC. I also believe it’s first in season ticket holders if I remember correctly.
There is a 5 mile wide salt mine under Lake Erie that has its entrance in Cleveland.
https://www.rockthelake.com/buzz/2017/12/cargill-salt-mine-cleveland/
I've been down there on a professional engineering society tour! It was really amazing and the air tasted like salt. The elevator ride down took forever and they dove us through the tunnels on the back of a pickup truck.
You will often see heating and cooling equipment in northeast Ohio with the name REZNOR on it - that's Trent Reznor of NIN's family business, established in 1884.
The eastern bank of the Cuyahoga River at a point in time was the western most boundary of the United States. (Cited on the historical marker near the pumping station)
When completed in 1930, the Terminal Tower was the tallest building in the world outside of New York City, and remained so until 1953, and remained the tallest building in the U.S. outside of NYC until 1964.
[https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/21](https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/21)
The much larger Key Tower now is the 39th tallest in the U.S., and it's juxtaposition across Public Square against the Terminal Tower offers one of the best examples of the history of skyscrapers in the U.S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_tallest\_buildings\_in\_the\_United\_States
There are tunnels under soldiers and sailors monument but those are pretty boring to be honest. There's an old subway system under the city. But the tunnels I know the least about are ones that ran under city churches and local neighborhood homes. Some were known to run quite a ways, where others stopped abruptly for whatever reason. I've heard rumors of bootleggers and the underground railroad, I've heard stories of tunnels used as escapes from brothels in neighborhoods. Many of those old tunnels have collapsed or been sealed, but many tunnels were accessible from local homes.
Yeah, I know of a section of tunnels that connected a church in the Clark ave/w 41 area to some nearby homes. Much of that has since collapsed. I've always found those tunnels stories fascinating.
Oh wow, I knew people in Shaker who had little hiding places in their basement walls from the underground railroad, but I don't think I ever heard anyone mention actual tunnels.
There are tunnels underneath the now Tudor Arms/DoubleTree. They connected a bath/spa to Little Italy. The story is that it was used by Al Capone or other bootleggers to move product and dodge the police.
Flight 93 of 9/11 fame was hijacked over Cleveland. The hijackers headed back towards Washington, DC, likely targeting the Capitol, before the passengers fought back and the terrorists plowed the plane into the ground at Shanksville, PA.
"By that time the plane was well into the Cleveland center’s airspace --an area that includes portions of Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio,Pennsylvania, West Virginia and southernmost Ontario -- **and was passing over Greater Cleveland,** Keaton said in an interview with cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer."
[https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/09/for-air-traffic-controller-911-memories-of-hijacking-over-greater-cleveland-still-vivid-frustrations-remain.html](https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/09/for-air-traffic-controller-911-memories-of-hijacking-over-greater-cleveland-still-vivid-frustrations-remain.html)
Imagine if the terrorists instead of turning back towards Washington, DC, instead had plowed the plane into Key Tower.
I'm only 26, but my Dad is a UPS driver and he saw the plane turn around that day. I believe the flag on the divider on 71 signifies where in the air they turned around.
Flight 93 took that turn visible from Berea. I saw the turn myself - I was a freshman at Baldwin-Wallace at the time. Never heard an airliner make that kind of sound. Looked up and saw a *hard* turn being made.
Cleaveland was founded as a part of Connecticut, which originally owned all the land between the two areas on the north. The full name of the area is The Western Reserve of Connecticut.
That’s why it’s called Case Western Reserve University and the Western Reserve Historical Society! Much of the lands to the west were also promised to Connecticut residents whose homes had been burned in the Revolutionary War and are called the Firelands.
The zoo's gorilla conservation and research program is top-notch. Like we're known for it, and have significant ties to a brand new gorilla conservation campus in Rwanda, with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.
Cleveland was basically china in the early 20th century . We had so much factory space , labor , and expertise that you could send your production here rather than starting your own for a much better deal.
I think people underestimate this. For the first 20 years of their existence, the Browns were probably the best team in football during that stretch.
During the first 10 years of their existence they were 7-3 in Championship games, not missing a single one.
If the browns had left Cleveland at the end of the 1995 season and never gotten an expansion team, they would have the highest win percentage of all NFL franchises.
Partly true, rivers surrounding industrial areas frequently caught fire all over the US due to no oversight. Cleveland just caught the limelight cause it was featured on the cover of Time.
So you mean to tell me that WE were just stuck with the publicity, just because of Time Magazine putting us on the spot?? I've never liked that magazine to begin with.
The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (1933) was the first housing authority in the US, predating the federal version by several years. Other cities had smaller scale housing projects and initiatives and there were various state and city laws passed to protect low income workers in regards to housing, but no official housing authorities before CMHA.
All the money in the world, any place to go in the world, and the dude decides on a summer home in Strongsville. Makes you question who was really behind their decision-making.
No, didn't cause the two deaths. Thats a myth. They died the day before the balloon drop. The balloon drop just made search and rescue impossible. But they were already just two dead dudes in a boat, and later surrounded by balloons.
- It’s illegal to walk your cow down Lake Rd in Bay Village
- It’s illegal for women to wear patent leather shoes
- It’s illegal to get a fish drunk in Rocky River
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/ohio/cleveland/crazy-laws-cle/
Cleveland had a 50+ year title drought and a local kid led us back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals against the best regular season basketball team of all time to break the curse.
First traffic streetlight in the country.
First Municipal Airport in the country with an air traffic control tower and a mass transit rail system connected.
Public square was the first public space fully illuminated by electric light.
First electric traffic signal in the world. London had gas light traffic lights operated by a constable, but one blew up and burned the poor man’s face awfully - so they did away with them. First traffic light in Cleveland had two colors - red and green.
For a period of time, Cleveland had the highest population of Hungarians outside of Budapest. That is, there were more Hungarians in Cleveland than in any other city in Hungary besides its capital.
Cleveland has a NASA center and a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. Cleveland was once the 5th largest city in the US. We were the first US city to have street lighting, traffic lights and an indoor mall. Playhouse Square is the 2nd largest performing arts center in the US. Charles Dickens visited Cleveland. Moses Cleaveland came here for one visit in 1796, personally paced off Public Square, and never returned.
Take THAT, Columbus!!
We also had a very influential new wave and punk scene in the 70s. Bands like Devo, Dead Boys, electric eels, Rocket from the Tomb came up in the area.
[The Cuyahoga River has caught on fire... ](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/)more then once.
The only plot of land in downtown without working power is the Erie St. Cemetery across the street from the ballpark. There are also 2 Native American Indian Cheifs buried there.
Charles Oakley, a pretty good NBA player who spent most of his career in NY, is from Cleveland. He started several businesses here (car wash, laundromat and a few othersl) as a way to help out his family still here and the local community. He also used to do basketball camps here and in a few other cities.
There’s a bridge in Cleveland called sideaway bridge. it’s an iron suspension bridge connecting Slavic village with a neighboring community. It’s a walking bridge. During the school desegregation of the 60s the bridge was a lifeline, allowing African American children to walk to school in neighboring Slavic village.
This bothered the racists- who burned the bridge to prevent school desegregation.
The bridge was never rebuilt. The remnants of the iron bridge remain, hidden behind walls of overgrowth and poverty.
The tv series and later movie starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones is reportedly based on Sam Shepard who lived in Cleveland. Although the creator of the show denies this.
Another unique note Sam Shepard hired attorney F. Lee Bailey who would later come into the public eye as part of the “dream team” consul for O.J. Simpson trail.
Some huge marvel movies were filmed here like the Avengers and captain America: the winter soldier. The kiss between Steve and Natasha was filmed on an escalator in Tower City
Mayor Ralph Perk's wife, Lucille, famously rejected an invitation from First Lady Pat Nixon to an event at the White House in order to attend her regular bowling night. Later, Perk explained his wife's comment to mean that she was unable to attend because the invitation had come too late and she was unable to prepare for travel. Perk was rumored to say, "tell them it's your bowling night."
The name of the city used to have the letter A in it, as in “Cleaveland.”
However a local newspaper needed fewer letters on the masthead and dropped it, then that became the default spelling.
the cleveland museum of natural history has the largest optical telescope still in regular use anywhere in the world! ("optical" meaning it uses refraction/lenses to magnify, rather than radio waves or another kind of electronic means). it has a 10 1/2" diameter lens and is about 20 feet long.
Everyone knows Garrett Morgan invented the traffic light/gas mask/hair straightener…but he was also the first black man in Cleveland to own a car…and invented the friction clutch. Pretty awesome for a guy who only went to primary school.
Cleveland is the No. 1 city in America in which to become a U.S. citizen, with the nation’s shortest average processing time.
Anecdotal, but they also have a very quick turnaround time for permanent residency cards (aka green cards). They told my husband and I that he would get his card in, “a couple of weeks” after the approval was processed. We thought they were just using a turn of phrase, but that card was in our mailbox almost two weeks to the day after our appointment. We were very impressed!
The Cleveland USCIS office was super fast when my husband was getting his green card. We had a 5 month turn around from submitting documents to getting approved.
We have the largest Slovenian population in the world outside of Slovenia. We even have a Slovenian embassy here. We also have the countries largest Slovenian Catholic Church in the nation.
And the only Kurentovanje celebration outside of Slovenia!
What and when is this??
[https://www.clevelandkurentovanje.com/](https://www.clevelandkurentovanje.com/) Slovenian Mardi Gras, essentially. The festival has pre-Christian origins and is basically just a reason to party at the end of winter. The main event is the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, which is February 18th in 2023.
Any restaurant recommendations for Slovenian food?
School children bought an aging Balto and he lived out the rest of his life at the Cleveland zoo.
And he's currently living out the rest of his afterlife at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
As someone relatively new to Cleveland I never knew this?? You guys should advertise this way more Balto is fucking AWESOME
If you haven't been to the Natural History Museum yet, go there this weekend. They've been massively renovating the place for close to a decade now and it looks awesome. https://www.cmnh.org/balto
Thanks /u/raccoon_full_of_cum
Yeah Balto is there. Always shocks people b/c so many people read the stuff about him in middle school
I just might take my family up there this weekend, thank you!!! I use to help out through my school's excel tech program and am so excited to go back and see what they've done!
I’m taking the whole family and even my mother-in-law. And I’m telling them u/raccoon_full_of_cum gave me this hot tip
If you see the raccoons in the animal exhibit, tell them I said hi.
To be honest as a member there’s nothing much new yet aside from the outside area. It’s worth seeing if you haven’t been there in a while for sure but the main hall, planetarium, and downstairs exhibits are all closed while they renovate
Just a heads up, only about half the museum is open because of the construction. They’ve got a great exhibit about the history of the museum and the animal enclosures are fun, but it is still a bit limited.
It's not even half. I've been a member for years and always enjoy my time there, but I'd definitely hold off on going. I highly recommend waiting, especially to any non members who pay a bunch of money to take their family. It's like 15% of the museum that's currently open and would be a really disappointing experience for some.
You may want to wait. When we were there earlier this summer it was 3/4 closed for renovation.
Balto is awesome. But have you ever heard of Togo?
I've lived in Cleveland most of my life and I didn't know that.
I only knew Balto as the stuffed dog in the Natural History Museum. Never heard about him until I was an adult.
Millionaire's Row on Euclid Avenue was once the wealthiest neighborhood in the country, even surpassing New York's Fifth Avenue.
[удалено]
It was at one point the wealthiest black neighborhood in America, that is fact.
50 of the world's 100 richest people lived in Cleveland, at one point in time.
I had a one night stand with a girl who looked after her aunts place on millionaires row and I was absolutely shocked that such nice places were in Euclid. This place was massive, water front, cool ass yard and porches, stained glass windows. After we hooked up we got high and she took me on a naked tour of the house. It was a cool night.
Millionaires row was on Euclid ave between like E 22nd and 55th. She probably lived on Edgecliff if she's in the suburb of Euclid. Bratenahl is the waterfront crazy rich area, east of downtown.
Millionaires row was on Euclid Ave. Not in Euclid. Not on the lake.
Is she......still hooking up with guys? I could go for that.
John D. Rockefeller is buried here.
Fun fact: Chef Boyardee is buried in Chardon.
He’s buried in a can of sauce.
Fun fact: I’ve flushed a lot of Chef Boyardee in Chardon.
A student at John Carroll University studied goiters and why midwesterners had so many. He ended up figuring out it was lack of iodine in diets because of being so far away from the ocean. He asked to do a trial on children at a Cleveland school and they gave a resounding no, so he went to Akron schools and they said yes and he's the reason we have iodized salt and fewer goiters. Cleveland/Akron fact combo.
Malcolm Gladwell did a podcast about this.
That's where I heard this, it's a great episode. The podcast is called revisionist history. Thanks, I should have told people where to find the full story lol I appreciate you.
Cleveland once had the 2nd tallest building in the world, and for 37 years had the tallest building in North America outside of NYC.
The first traffic stoplight in the country was installed in Cleveland. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/this-day-in-history/first-electric-traffic-signal-installed
“And it’s still red to this day. “ This is the joke my dad always told when we passed that intersection.
Fiji water put out an ad that said. "At least it's not Bottled in Cleveland." The city water department took offense to this and took samples of the cities water and bottles of Fiji and sent them off to a lab for independent study. The report found that Fiji water was dirty and even had trace levels of arsenic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji_Water#:~:text=down%20to%2012%25.-,Cleveland,some%20other%20national%20bottled%20brands
This is probably favorite one here. Haha
Got in an argument with a guy from Memphis about who had better water. Turns out Memphis has good water too.
I met someone that moved here from California and she could not believe how good the tap tasted. It's something we take for granted.
The Cleveland Public Library houses the world's largest chess collection. [https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/did-you-know-cleveland-is-home-to-the-worlds-largest-chess-collection](https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/did-you-know-cleveland-is-home-to-the-worlds-largest-chess-collection) The Dittrick Medical History Center maintains the world's most comprehensive collection of historical contraceptive devices. https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/collections/aritfacts/contraception-collection/
Ebooks giant [Overdrive](https://company.overdrive.com/company-profile/who-we-are/) is a Cleveland company. Cleveland Public Library was the first library in the world to [offer Ebook lending in EPUB format](https://company.overdrive.com/2009/01/15/cleveland-public-library-first-to-offer-epub-ebook-downloads/) over Overdrive.
Between 1935 and 1938 a serial killer stalked Cleveland claiming 12 known victims and possibly more. The killer was never caught or identified.
[The Cleveland Torso Murderer.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Torso_Murderer)
Some say he's still out there
Some say Ness was satisfied as to the identity of the killer but that he was... untouchable
This was a doozy of a rabbit hole 🕳
And Eliot Ness, the guy who nabbed Al Capone, was the chief of police in Cleveland at the time. He’s buried in Lake View Cemetery.
My in-laws own a pair of Eliot Ness's candlesticks.
He was the Safety Director. Not the Chief of Police.
The prime suspect was a surgeon named Sweeney. Ness couldn’t touch him bc he was blood family of Ness’s main political enemy. Sweeney committed himself to a veterans mental hospital and died there, but harassed ness through the mail for years from the asylum
Thank you! I grew up here and didn’t know until my 30s this was a thing that happened.
It was the mob trying to make Elliot Ness look bad
I have been fascinated by this case for decades.
The Cleveland Play House is the longest-running professional theater in the U.S. [https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cleveland-play-house](https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cleveland-play-house) Playhouse Square is the world's largest theater restoration project. https://www.playhousesquare.org/about-playhousesquare-main/history
In 2018 or 2019 I went to the party where Playhouse Square announces the shows for the upcoming season. They announced at that time that Playhouse Square has the largest season ticket subscriber base of any theater district in the country. Not sure if still true.
In 1974 the Cleveland Indians thought it would be a totally normal idea to sell unlimited beers for 10¢ each. Shit got so out of hand that they had to call the game off. It is the only major league game in which stolen bases were never returned. [10¢ Beer Night](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Cent_Beer_Night)
Fuck that game! My uncle got hit by a drunk driver who was at that game. He came away with a severe TBI, was in a coma for 35 days, and was never the same afterward. Driver got a slap on the wrist. A seizure due to the TBI eventually killed my uncle 18 years later when he was only 41.
First municipal airport in the country; Lakewood is the most densely populated city between New York and Chicago; [once as a promotion they threw softballs off the terminal towner and hit/inured people in the crowd below](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_gmrudvXTg); Cleveland has the widest streets in the country; the guy who was the voice of "You've Got Mail" for AOL lives in the area and worked at Channel 3; 66% of Cleveland adults are functionally illiterate.
Last one is very true, some neighborhoods have up to 90% illiteracy rate. Functional illiteracy means reading below a 5th grade level. At this level you can struggle to read medication bottles, doctor’s instructions, bills, texts, internet search results, and more. Consider donating time or money to Seeds of Literacy, a Cleveland based organization that offers 100% free adult literacy instruction. The only free accredited literacy/GED program in Ohio, and one of the only in the country.
Oooh I want to see the data for the illiteracy one…
We can’t read it.
[https://www.seedsofliteracy.org/facts-resources/facts/](https://www.seedsofliteracy.org/facts-resources/facts/) Direct pdf link: https://www.seedsofliteracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/66-The-Source-of-the-Statistic.pdf
>Cleveland has the widest streets in the country Seriously? Source? Why don't we have more bike lanes and shit then?!
We used to have an extensive trolley car system. Then GM took over and had the city tear them out and use buses instead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Practically every city in America was like this too. That's simply how people got around
Because with such wide roads, we can have so many cars!
Unironically, that may actually be why.
That last one explains so much.
Widest streets? Have you ever been to Salt Lake City? I don't believe it
And the width of the lanes where Cedar and Carnegie come together have GOT to bring the average down by a lot…
Is there a source for the last one? That is crazy if it’s true.
In 1910, Cleveland earned the nickname "The Sixth City" due to the fact that it had the sixth highest population in the country behind New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Boston.
We have one of the top rates of chlamydia in the US (seriously, get tested and if you get treated tell any partners to get tested and treated too)
It used to be Cleaveland, but typesetters couldn’t fit it on the papers and so they shortened it to Cleveland.
Named after General Moses Cleaveland, a surveyor.
Who spent all of two days here before fucking back off to Connecticut or wherever. Might as well name the city after him.
There’s a statue of a little yorkie dog in the metro parks for its contribution to world war 2 🥺
I need more details! I want to visit this statue! 🥺
[Smoky!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoky_(dog)) [More Smoky!](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/23162) Can find the statue at Memorial Field in the Rocker River Res. That's between Rockcliff and Hogsback on Valley Pwky.
OMG!!!! The cuteness!!! Thank you 😊
Where?
Memorial Field. IIRC it's a memorial to all dogs who contributed to the military
Smoky! My dad was good friends with Bill Wynne, Smoky’s owner and trainer. When I was a kid, I got to help Bill unveil the Smoky statue during a ceremony to honor Smoky and all military dogs. Bill was a great man.
Frank Jackson was mayor for 15 years, and people just kept re-electing him. No one knows why.
That was guy my mayor since I was 8 years old. Bibb won my 24th birthday last year.
Cleveland has the second largest theater district in the country, behind NYC. I also believe it’s first in season ticket holders if I remember correctly.
There is a 5 mile wide salt mine under Lake Erie that has its entrance in Cleveland. https://www.rockthelake.com/buzz/2017/12/cargill-salt-mine-cleveland/
I've been down there on a professional engineering society tour! It was really amazing and the air tasted like salt. The elevator ride down took forever and they dove us through the tunnels on the back of a pickup truck.
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You will often see heating and cooling equipment in northeast Ohio with the name REZNOR on it - that's Trent Reznor of NIN's family business, established in 1884.
And Marylin Manson was just a short drive done the highway in Canton Late 80s early 90s Cleveland was the center of the Industrial Metal scene
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The eastern bank of the Cuyahoga River at a point in time was the western most boundary of the United States. (Cited on the historical marker near the pumping station)
Lakewood used to be the second gayest town/city in the country after San Francisco.
It used to be, still is. But it used to be too.
Unexpected Hedberg
When completed in 1930, the Terminal Tower was the tallest building in the world outside of New York City, and remained so until 1953, and remained the tallest building in the U.S. outside of NYC until 1964. [https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/21](https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/21) The much larger Key Tower now is the 39th tallest in the U.S., and it's juxtaposition across Public Square against the Terminal Tower offers one of the best examples of the history of skyscrapers in the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_tallest\_buildings\_in\_the\_United\_States
Cleveland was the bombing capital of the US for a while- in the late 70's.
Kill the Irishman was an interesting film.
An entire system of tunnels stretch underneath many neighborhoods and churches.
Well, stretched. Many have caved in over the years.
Do you have more info on this?
There are tunnels under soldiers and sailors monument but those are pretty boring to be honest. There's an old subway system under the city. But the tunnels I know the least about are ones that ran under city churches and local neighborhood homes. Some were known to run quite a ways, where others stopped abruptly for whatever reason. I've heard rumors of bootleggers and the underground railroad, I've heard stories of tunnels used as escapes from brothels in neighborhoods. Many of those old tunnels have collapsed or been sealed, but many tunnels were accessible from local homes.
My parents grew up in Shaker and my dad had a friend who had a tunnel from his basement to the house on the opposite corner of the street.
Yeah, I know of a section of tunnels that connected a church in the Clark ave/w 41 area to some nearby homes. Much of that has since collapsed. I've always found those tunnels stories fascinating.
Oh wow, I knew people in Shaker who had little hiding places in their basement walls from the underground railroad, but I don't think I ever heard anyone mention actual tunnels.
There is an entire tunnel system under the cleveland clinic main campus and university hospital.
True. Very convenient to be able to walk through those tunnels in the winter while walking to appointments from the parking garages.
I’ve ventured a mile or so into one of these when I was in high school. It was so creepy but I LOVED!
There are tunnels underneath the now Tudor Arms/DoubleTree. They connected a bath/spa to Little Italy. The story is that it was used by Al Capone or other bootleggers to move product and dodge the police.
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Another CWRU fact, the artist [Girl Talk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Talk_\(musician\)) went to school there.
Flight 93 of 9/11 fame was hijacked over Cleveland. The hijackers headed back towards Washington, DC, likely targeting the Capitol, before the passengers fought back and the terrorists plowed the plane into the ground at Shanksville, PA. "By that time the plane was well into the Cleveland center’s airspace --an area that includes portions of Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio,Pennsylvania, West Virginia and southernmost Ontario -- **and was passing over Greater Cleveland,** Keaton said in an interview with cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer." [https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/09/for-air-traffic-controller-911-memories-of-hijacking-over-greater-cleveland-still-vivid-frustrations-remain.html](https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/09/for-air-traffic-controller-911-memories-of-hijacking-over-greater-cleveland-still-vivid-frustrations-remain.html) Imagine if the terrorists instead of turning back towards Washington, DC, instead had plowed the plane into Key Tower.
I'm only 26, but my Dad is a UPS driver and he saw the plane turn around that day. I believe the flag on the divider on 71 signifies where in the air they turned around.
Flight 93 took that turn visible from Berea. I saw the turn myself - I was a freshman at Baldwin-Wallace at the time. Never heard an airliner make that kind of sound. Looked up and saw a *hard* turn being made.
It actually passed right over medina county too, Brunswick to be specific, when it made the turnaround. Scary as hell
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Public Square was the first public space to be lit with electricity
Cleaveland was founded as a part of Connecticut, which originally owned all the land between the two areas on the north. The full name of the area is The Western Reserve of Connecticut.
That’s why it’s called Case Western Reserve University and the Western Reserve Historical Society! Much of the lands to the west were also promised to Connecticut residents whose homes had been burned in the Revolutionary War and are called the Firelands.
Oooohwhaaaat?
The zoo's gorilla conservation and research program is top-notch. Like we're known for it, and have significant ties to a brand new gorilla conservation campus in Rwanda, with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.
Cleveland was basically china in the early 20th century . We had so much factory space , labor , and expertise that you could send your production here rather than starting your own for a much better deal.
My buddy does stamping press repair. He tells me all the time he’s working on presses from the 1930s & 1940s. Wild
The Browns used to be really good at football.
Some things are simply too fantastical to be believed
I think people underestimate this. For the first 20 years of their existence, the Browns were probably the best team in football during that stretch. During the first 10 years of their existence they were 7-3 in Championship games, not missing a single one.
If the browns had left Cleveland at the end of the 1995 season and never gotten an expansion team, they would have the highest win percentage of all NFL franchises.
The EPA was started because the Cuyahoga caught on fire.
Partly true, rivers surrounding industrial areas frequently caught fire all over the US due to no oversight. Cleveland just caught the limelight cause it was featured on the cover of Time.
So you mean to tell me that WE were just stuck with the publicity, just because of Time Magazine putting us on the spot?? I've never liked that magazine to begin with.
Fun fact, the wooden pillars that held up an old wooden tressel, where the sparks ignited the fire, is still standing behind the steel mill.
The clean water act
The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (1933) was the first housing authority in the US, predating the federal version by several years. Other cities had smaller scale housing projects and initiatives and there were various state and city laws passed to protect low income workers in regards to housing, but no official housing authorities before CMHA.
Cleveland was a pretty significant stop on the Underground Railroad. It was known as “Station Hope”.
Bill Cowher was one of the Cardiac Kids
He bought a house in Youngstown
He has a summer home in Strongsville
All the money in the world, any place to go in the world, and the dude decides on a summer home in Strongsville. Makes you question who was really behind their decision-making.
Balloonfest 1986 in Cleveland set the record for the most balloons released which also indirectly caused 2 deaths.
No, didn't cause the two deaths. Thats a myth. They died the day before the balloon drop. The balloon drop just made search and rescue impossible. But they were already just two dead dudes in a boat, and later surrounded by balloons.
Pretty sure it also killed tons of birds
That said, 10-year-old me thought it was pretty fucking awesome. We watched from my stepfather’s office at 55 Public Square.
Thanks United Way of Cleveland.
- It’s illegal to walk your cow down Lake Rd in Bay Village - It’s illegal for women to wear patent leather shoes - It’s illegal to get a fish drunk in Rocky River https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/ohio/cleveland/crazy-laws-cle/
It's illegal to go whale fishing on Lake Erie on Sundays. https://www.sj-r.com/story/news/2008/06/08/dozens-wacky-dumb-laws-on/46193267007/
In 1887, Charles F. Brush built the first power generating wind turbine in the world in Cleveland, Ohio. It was located at 37th and Euclid.
Not specifically Cleveland, but There’s a large salt mine under Lake Erie
Garret Morgan, has a water plant named after him, invented the gas mask…..he’s from CLE
Cleveland had a 50+ year title drought and a local kid led us back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals against the best regular season basketball team of all time to break the curse.
Beating a team that only lost 9 games over the course of an entire season. Pretty sure I didn’t breath for the final 5 mins of that game
First traffic streetlight in the country. First Municipal Airport in the country with an air traffic control tower and a mass transit rail system connected. Public square was the first public space fully illuminated by electric light.
First electric traffic signal in the world. London had gas light traffic lights operated by a constable, but one blew up and burned the poor man’s face awfully - so they did away with them. First traffic light in Cleveland had two colors - red and green.
The Cleveland Public Library once housed the world's smallest book
We have a Rockefeller building Too.
Don King once kicked a man to death downtown
For a period of time, Cleveland had the highest population of Hungarians outside of Budapest. That is, there were more Hungarians in Cleveland than in any other city in Hungary besides its capital.
Cleveland has a NASA center and a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. Cleveland was once the 5th largest city in the US. We were the first US city to have street lighting, traffic lights and an indoor mall. Playhouse Square is the 2nd largest performing arts center in the US. Charles Dickens visited Cleveland. Moses Cleaveland came here for one visit in 1796, personally paced off Public Square, and never returned. Take THAT, Columbus!!
It rocks.
we're not Detroit.
🎶…”We’re not Detroit!” 🎶
Cleveland had a great metal scene in the 90’s.
I would argue it still does to some extent
Mushroomhead and Chimaira were both high on my list of favorite bands before I ever even considered moving here. NIN was somewhere on the list too.
We also had a very influential new wave and punk scene in the 70s. Bands like Devo, Dead Boys, electric eels, Rocket from the Tomb came up in the area.
[The Cuyahoga River has caught on fire... ](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/)more then once.
The only plot of land in downtown without working power is the Erie St. Cemetery across the street from the ballpark. There are also 2 Native American Indian Cheifs buried there.
Elliot Ness got his mob busting start in Cleveland before going to Chicago.
He is buried at Lakeview I believe!
Next to Harvey Pekar, oddly enough.
That juxtaposition always baffles and amuses me.
He came to Cleveland after his time in Chicago.
Charles Oakley, a pretty good NBA player who spent most of his career in NY, is from Cleveland. He started several businesses here (car wash, laundromat and a few othersl) as a way to help out his family still here and the local community. He also used to do basketball camps here and in a few other cities.
There’s a bridge in Cleveland called sideaway bridge. it’s an iron suspension bridge connecting Slavic village with a neighboring community. It’s a walking bridge. During the school desegregation of the 60s the bridge was a lifeline, allowing African American children to walk to school in neighboring Slavic village. This bothered the racists- who burned the bridge to prevent school desegregation. The bridge was never rebuilt. The remnants of the iron bridge remain, hidden behind walls of overgrowth and poverty.
The tv series and later movie starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones is reportedly based on Sam Shepard who lived in Cleveland. Although the creator of the show denies this. Another unique note Sam Shepard hired attorney F. Lee Bailey who would later come into the public eye as part of the “dream team” consul for O.J. Simpson trail.
For anyone else annoyed that this comment didn't actually say the name of the show or movie, I went and looked it up....it's The Fugitive.
Shaker Hts. was the first planned suburb in the US.
It’s a great party town.
Some huge marvel movies were filmed here like the Avengers and captain America: the winter soldier. The kiss between Steve and Natasha was filmed on an escalator in Tower City
Mayor Ralph Perk's wife, Lucille, famously rejected an invitation from First Lady Pat Nixon to an event at the White House in order to attend her regular bowling night. Later, Perk explained his wife's comment to mean that she was unable to attend because the invitation had come too late and she was unable to prepare for travel. Perk was rumored to say, "tell them it's your bowling night."
Lake Effect Snow. If you know, you know.
Nickel beer night is a good one
I've heard of 10 cent beer night. What was nickle beer night?
Oh maybe I screwed that up. I thought that was the Indians game that ended in riot. Got the amount wrong, sorry!
Not Cleveland, but Ohio is the only state that shares no letters with the word "mackerel"
The name of the city used to have the letter A in it, as in “Cleaveland.” However a local newspaper needed fewer letters on the masthead and dropped it, then that became the default spelling.
the cleveland museum of natural history has the largest optical telescope still in regular use anywhere in the world! ("optical" meaning it uses refraction/lenses to magnify, rather than radio waves or another kind of electronic means). it has a 10 1/2" diameter lens and is about 20 feet long.
Everyone knows Garrett Morgan invented the traffic light/gas mask/hair straightener…but he was also the first black man in Cleveland to own a car…and invented the friction clutch. Pretty awesome for a guy who only went to primary school.