Site History

Kingsbury Run was named for James Kingsbury, an early New England immigrant to Cleveland. It was once a free-flowing creek that has since been contained in culverts. Before the Sidaway Bridge, there was a massive wood pedestrian trestle bridge built circa 1909 to connect the two neighborhoods (Garden Valley and Jackowo) on either side of Kinsman Way.

1800s

The neighborhood of Slavic Village was originally part of the Newburgh Township (org. 1814), forming one of the earliest settlements in Cuyahoga County with New Englanders first arriving in 1796.  Newburgh's growth resulted from its location on high ground, away from the mosquito-infested lowlands of the Cuyahoga River. By the mid-1870s, most of Newburgh Township was annexed to Cleveland.

The heavy industries and numerous rail lines divided the neighborhood into distinct sub-areas, Jackawo was one of these areas.   Jackawo is near 65th Street and Francis and took its name from the parish of St. Hyacinth (Jacek in Polish), which was established by St. Stanislaus parishioners who desired a place of worship closer to their home and work.  Today only 15% of the area citizens are still involved in manufacturing trades.

Like the North Broadway – Slavic neighborhood, Kinsman was originally part of Newburgh Township and developed in much the same way with heavy industry, oil refineries, and 14 steel mills.  In the 1860s and 1870s, horse-drawn transit lines were running on Kinsman Road and Woodland Avenue, which combined with local manufacturing, spurred the development of modest houses for factory workers.  On the northern border of Kinsman, the Nickel Plate (est. 1881) railroad tracks ran southeast through Kingsbury Run and then northeast to University Circle.  

Early 1900s

By the end of the 19th Century, Cleveland had become the 7th largest city in the nation with a population of 381,768 in 1900. The Nickel Plate (est. 1881), railroad tracks that ran southeast through Kingsbury Run and then northeast to University Circle was purchased by The Van Sweringen brothers for $8.5 million in 1916 to gain the right of way for their Shaker Heights Rapid Transit.  Today, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's (RTA) Red Line follows the path of the Nickel Plate and uses the area on their parcel north of the Sidaway Bridge for a balloon loop train turn around. 

The decade of the 1930s in Cleveland started with a discouraging impact from the 1929 stock market crash that had worldwide repercussions. Cleveland’s leaders focused on working toward recovery with some of the greatest undertakings in the city’s history which would influence “the prestige, health, and culture of Cleveland for generations.” The SIdaway Bridge was among several construction projects including Terminal Tower, Severance Hall for the Cleveland Orchestra, the lakefront Stadium for civic, sporting, and entertainment events, gigantic Public Auditorium for national gatherings becoming the top convention site in the nation, and The Arena, home to championship hockey teams. The bridge was designed by Fred L. Plummer, a leading civil engineer whose body of work is notable within Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.  

During the Great Depression, many displaced and out-of-work people took up residence on abandoned plots of land and formed communities known as shantytowns. One of these settlements formed in Kingsbury Run and it became notorious as a crime scene of the still-unidentified Kingsbury Run Butcher. Part of the mystique includes Elliott Ness, Cleveland's Director of Public Safety from 1935-42 who following his Chicago days with the "Untouchables" oversaw the investigation into the "torso" murders serial killings, whose name hinted at the gruesome nature of the killings. They were never solved.

Late 1900s

In the decades following World War II, housing deterioration and new outlying neighborhoods free of industry drained the population from the Kinsman area. In the late 1950s, in an attempt to revive the neighborhood and as part of the first Urban Renewal projects in the state of Ohio, 130 acres between E. 71st and E 79th Streets were cleared and a 650 unit Garden Valley Estates public housing project was completed. African Americans from the South (the 2nd Great Migration) moved to Kinsman along with others displaced by urban renewal projects closer to downtown. More housing additions followed in 1961, 1965, and 1971. Garden Valley included the removal of commercial stores from Kinsman Avenue, renovation of private homes on many streets, the filling of Kingsbury Run Valley for playfields, two elementary schools, and a community center. The property had problems from the beginning and was described by federal housing officials as “the second-worst public housing in the nation, plagued by crime, inadequate maintenance, and mismanagement. 

The Sidaway Bridge deck was set afire in the July 1966 Cleveland Hough Riots, was decommissioned by the city, is a lasting physical symbol of racial malaise, and is associated with the theme of racial desegregation in housing and public education in Cleveland and the United States.  Federal Judge Frank Battisti identified the bridge in a landmark 1976 NAACP lawsuit as a contributing factor to school segregation and neighborhood separation. Children living on the north side used the bridge for many years to reach Tod Elementary School in Slavic Village. The school boundaries were changed in the 1960s, which divided the two neighborhoods to attend schools on either the white Jackowo side or the black Garden Valley side. When the city refused to repair the bridge after the 1966 riots and vandalism, it was read by one public official as an omission "aimed at fostering the virtual total segregation of both these neighborhoods."

Between 1950-1980, multiple manufacturers closed in the Kinsman neighborhood. Widespread deterioration, demolition, and illegal dumping caused the area bounded by Kinsman Road, Woodhill Road, and Woodland Avenue northeast of the Sidaway Bridge to become known as the “Forgotten Triangle.” The poverty rate is much higher and the median household income is much lower in Kinsman than Cleveland as a whole (52%, $15,788 respectively.) Between 1960-2014, the area’s population fell from over 20,000 to 6,985.8 and the proportion of African-American residents rose from 53% to 97%.

Today

During the Great Recession of the late 2000s, zip code 44105 (Kinsman and Slavic Village) recorded more home foreclosures than any other area in the country. In 1977 RTA acquired the land from the City of Shaker Heights. Today, the RTA-owned parcel stores unused train cars and maintenance materials for this intraurban rail line. This land is enclosed with a tall chain link fence and padlocked gate on the south end.

The bridge stretches over green space in the midst of urban neighborhoods and industrial buildings, which have existed since the early settlement of Cleveland.  The extreme topography of the site has limited further residential development in the valley. It was a lesser-used area in 1930 and still is a remote parklike parcel today.