Sidaway Bridge is a bridge in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. It spans the

Kingsbury Run Kingsbury Run is the name that refers to an area on the southeast side of Cleveland, Ohio, located near the suburb of Shaker Heights. The area stretches westward through Kinsman Road. It contained a natural watershed that ran through East 79th Str ...

ravine, between Sidaway Avenue and East 65th Street, and is Cleveland's only

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...

. The

footbridge A footbridge (also a pedestrian bridge, pedestrian overpass, or pedestrian overcrossing) is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians.''Oxford English Dictionary'' While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at a ...

spans with steel towers tall. It connects the neighborhoods of

Slavic Village Slavic, Slav or Slavonic may refer to: Peoples * Slavic peoples, an ethno-linguistic group living in Europe and Asia ** East Slavic peoples, eastern group of Slavic peoples ** South Slavic peoples, southern group of Slavic peoples ** West Slavi ...

and Kinsman.

Planning and construction

The first bridge in this location was built in 1909 under the regime of Mayor Tom L. Johnson. This wooden, trestle bridge was called the Tod-Kinsman Bridge. While the Tod-Kinsman Bridge successfully connected the adjacent neighborhoods, the structure became an obstacle for the

Nickel Plate Railroad The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad , abbreviated NYC&St.L, was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. Commonly referred to as the "Nickel Plate Road", the railroad served parts of the states of New York, Pennsylva ...

traveling below. With funding from the railroad, now owned by the

Van Sweringen brothers Oris Paxton Van Sweringen (April 24, 1879 – November 22, 1936) and Mantis James Van Sweringen (July 8, 1881 – December 12, 1935) were American brothers who became railroad barons in order to develop Shaker Heights, Ohio. They are better know ...

, a new bridge was designed in 1929. Designed by Fred L. Plummer, working for Wilbur Watson & Associates, the bridge opened in 1930.

Torso murderer

During the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, the Kinsbury Run area became a shanty town for displaced and out-of-work people. Starting in 1934, bodies began appearing in Kingsbury Run. The serial killer responsible would become known as the

Cleveland Torso Murderer The Cleveland Torso Murderer, also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, was an unidentified serial killer who was active in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, in the 1930s. The killings were characterized by the dismemberment of twelve known ...

. The killer was never caught, and brought increased notoriety to the area. Safety Director

Eliot Ness Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) was an American Prohibition agent known for his efforts to bring down Al Capone and enforce Prohibition in Chicago. He was the leader of a team of law enforcement agents, nicknamed The Untouchables. H ...

burned the entire shanty town in an attempt to stop the murders.

Hough riots

During the 1966 Hough riots, which occurred 2 miles north of the bridge, someone set fire to the bridge. No one was ever charged with the crime, but the act was widely interpreted as a racially motivated effort to separate the majority white neighborhood of Slavic Village, from majority black Kinsman.

Closure

Following the vandalism in 1966, the city of Cleveland removed most of the wooden planking from the bridge and closed it to the public. It has remained closed and abandoned since. In the 1976 case '' Reed v. Rhodes'', Judge

Frank J. Battisti Frank Joseph Battisti (October 4, 1922 – October 19, 1994) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Battisti's career featured groundbreaking—and sometimes controversial—ruli ...

said in a court memorandum and order that the city of Cleveland and the school district had chosen not to repair the bridge in order to continue the neighborhood segregation and prevent black students from easily walking to the white schools on the other side of the bridge. The bridge was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in October 2022.

References

External links