by Lynette Fillips

   (Plain Press September 2025) Over a year and a half ago when I started writing these articles for the Plain Press, I visited the Historical Society of Old Brooklyn’s (HSOB’s) museum, 3430 Memphis Ave., to check some historical information in their files. While there I met a thirty-something year old man who apparently stops by occasionally. And when he learned about the purpose of my visit, he made a comment which fits right in with the mentality of this series. He said that when people decide where to travel to experience something different, they don’t choose a place because it has modern buildings; rather, they choose a place because it has the charm of historic buildings. The public square in Medina was a nearby example that he cited.

   I fear that Old Brooklyn’s downtown has already lost too many buildings to ever have the charm that Medina’s downtown has, but that doesn’t mean that we should continue to tear down the history which remains. We should still preserve all that we can of our heritage.

   At article-writing time last month I was wondering what would happen to the Historical Society of Old Brooklyn and the other remaining tenants of the Greenline Building who would probably still be in their respective spaces on August 19th (the date the Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation (OBCDC) told them to vacate by to avoid being evicted.) Since then, they have received second certified letters from OBCDC with a slightly different “vacate by” date — September 1st.

   It’s not likely, though, that 13 more days will make much of a difference for the HSOB because appropriate space in Old Brooklyn’s central business district is hard to come by. The old city hall/fire station/jail on Broadview Rd. (across from the former Rite Aid drug store) and the previous South Brooklyn branch of the Cleveland Public Library (on Pearl Rd. at Henritze Ave.) both have owners who are using the buildings for storage rather than as rental properties. And none of the buildings in Old Brooklyn’s downtown historic district have vacancies. Maria the Barberette hasn’t found a new location yet either.

   At writing time last month, I was also attending an event which the Cleveland Restoration Society (CRS) conducted to showcase Ariel Pearl Center and Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation’s proposed Memphis Pearl project. While the Plain Press did already publish the basic facts about the CRS Snoops! tour, I was unable to include everything I wanted to say in last month’s article since the event took place the day before the August issue of the Plain Press went to the printer.

   A particularly engaging story Pearl Road United Methodist Church (PRUMC) Trustee Tom Hite told the group involved two church members inviting nearby neighborhood boys (who were unaware of the church’s existence) to shoot hoops on the basketball court in the gym on their third floor. It is quite a fine gymnasium, because it was once the home of the Brooklyn branch of the YMCA, before the Y’s (now-demolished) building on the northeast corner of the Brooklyn Brighton Bridge was constructed.  (Yes, the PRUMC gym has outlived its successor!)  One of the church building’s best kept secrets, it is still looking good according to three CRS attendees who asked to see the gymnasium after the morning’s formal presentations ended.

   But here’s what’s confusing — although it hasn’t been advertised in any of the news releases, a significant portion of PRUMC is also slated to be demolished in OBCDC’s  current revitalization plan. And although I have thus far been unable to find out exactly what portions of the building that will be, I have been unofficially told that the gymnasium is on the hatchet list.

   I’ve also been told by two members of the congregation that what the PRUMC building needs (and what they want for it) is a face lift — basically a deep cleaning and new paint — not a whole makeover.  I’ve also heard that some members of this already small church community have already left it because they don’t agree with this project and that more will leave if OBCDC’s proposed plan for the corner of Memphis and Pearl comes to fruition. The dissenters don’t want an 80-unit apartment building built right next to and on top of their worship space.

   Although I did not have any official part in the CRS event, it was announced that I have long been involved in researching Old Brooklyn’s history and that I would be available for questions afterwards. So immediately after the talks ended, a woman seated next to me, who was from Chesterland, pointed to the handout we’d been given and said to me, “Do you like this?” I shook my head “No”, to which she replied, “I thought so.”

   I then asked her how she knew my feelings and this time she pointed specifically to the rendering of the six-story building which will dominate the half of St. Luke’s which is slated to remain standing.  She wasn’t convinced by any of the glowing talk about what’s to come.

   The woman sitting on the other side of me wasn’t convinced either; she lives in Lakewood and has been picking up the Plain Press and reading these articles. I, of course, wonder what the other 50-60 people in attendance thought. Since they were all employees or members of the Cleveland Restoration Society, I want to believe that they also stand with preservation and adaptive reuse.

   Some readers may have seen the online article which Ideastream Public Media ran about the proposed project on August 12th. It didn’t end up the way we hoped it would when we requested coverage, but here’s how we happened to pitch the idea to them in the first place: Ideastream journalist Stephen Langel contacted Brooklyn Centre activist Laura McShane in the hopes of writing an article about transportation issues related to what was then the upcoming merger between Senior Citizen Resources (SCR) in Old Brooklyn and Benjamin Rose. I was one of the people included in the email and I invited Liz Kilroy Hernandez, outgoing SCR executive director, to join us for a meeting at the Historical Society of Old Brooklyn’s museum. 

   Liz supplied Stephen with seemingly every possible piece of information about the change.  And I told Stephen that what we really wanted was coverage about the Memphis Pearl project from the perspective of adaptive reuse. He explained that such a topic was not in his “health writing” area but that he would pass it along to the person who deals with neighborhood issues.

   We were subsequently contacted by Ideastream journalist Abbey Marshall.  Again, we met at the HSOB’s museum, but this time our group was just a threesome — HSOB President Constance “Connie” Ewazen, cemetery researcher and author William “Bill” Krejci (because of the historic cemetery on the St. Luke’s property), and me.  The discussion and my tour of the exterior of the property with Abbey lasted a little over an hour. At that time, she told us that she had already spoken to Ward 13 Councilman Kris Harsh and that she was waiting for a reply from OBCDC Neighborhood Development Director Charles Kennick. We still hoped that our points would be equitably represented in her analysis of the situation.

   When the article came out, we were disappointed to see that the coverage had been slanted against adaptative reuse — There was no mention that Bill Krejci was even present, no mention of any of the realities I shared with her, and only a few generic preservation comments from Connie. The bulk of the article consisted of quotes from Tipping Point Real Estate Development President Jim Ambrose (the Memphis Pearl project’s manager); OBCDC Interim Executive Director Amber Jones; and Ward 13 Councilman Kris Harsh. We learned from Abbey Marshall’s byline that her writing specialty is “Cleveland area government and politics” and what the government folks want is obviously the stance she took.

   In other online news — no doubt many readers noticed at least one of the obituaries written online to honor the life and legacy of Tim Donovan, who expectedly passed away on August 13th.

   In 1991 Tim Donovan became the founding executive director of Canalway, an organization which was incorporated as North Cuyahoga Valley Corridor. He served in that capacity until his retirement in 2019.

   Donovan also co-founded the ever-expanding annual Take-A-Hike walks and Cleveland History Days.  Although I didn’t mention him or his title when I wrote my November 2024 history article about how part of downtown Old Brooklyn became a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, I probably should have.

   Donovan was at the helm in 2000 when a main route through Old Brooklyn (Pearl Rd. south to Broadview Rd. east to Schaaf Rd.) became recognized as one of America’s Byways — officially the “Ohio & Erie Canalway”.  And to complement that, our “South Brooklyn Commercial District” was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

   Thanks to Tim Donovan’s vision and the organization’s three founding Board members — Mike Giangrande, Jeff Lennartz and Tom Yablonsky — four counties in Ohio have a restored Towpath Trail passing alongside the Ohio and Erie Canal. And in addition to that, Old Brooklyn has green space connecting to it. When I worked with Tim on a neighborhood event in the early 1990s called “Canalabration”, I could never have imagined how far he would go in advocating for preserving Cleveland’s heritage on multiple levels.

   Tim Donovan’s life will be celebrated on Saturday, September 6th, at 11:30 a.m. at Historic St. Peter’s Catholic Church, 1533 E. 17th St., at Superior Ave.  A reception will follow at the Market Garden Brewery in Ohio City.

   The Historical Society of Old Brooklyn’s first meeting of the 2025-2026 season will be held on Friday, September 12th, at 7 p.m.  at the usual place, Pearl Rd. United Methodist Church, 4200 Memphis Ave. In addition to a business meeting which will include time for discussion about the Memphis Pearl project, author Tom Kaschalk will be speaking about his book which was released in June —
Cleveland’s Neighborhood Taverns:  A Pub Crawl Through History.  Arcadia Publishing has it listed for $24.99.

   Till next month, remember that you can access past articles in this series on the Historical Society of Old Brooklyn’s website, www.oldbrooklynhistory.org, or on the Plain Press’ website, https://plainpress.blog.