St. Clair–Superior
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St. Clair–Superior is a
neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...
on the East Side in
Cleveland 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. ...
,
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, in the United States. Largely settled in the 1880s and 1890s by Eastern European immigrants,
white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...
in the 1990s left the neighborhood largely
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
. It is one of the oldest and most culturally diverse neighborhoods in Cleveland today.


About the neighborhood

St. Clair–Superior boundaries are: E. 55th Street from
Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...
south to Superior Avenue; Superior Avenue east to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive; Martin Luther King Jr. Drive north to Lake Erie. The neighborhood lacks access to Lake Erie and
Gordon Park Gordon Park may refer to: Places * Gordon Park, Cleveland, a city park located on the lakefront *Gordon Park, Milwaukee, a county park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA *Gordon Park, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Australia * Gordon Park, Zimbabwe P ...
due to the presence of
Interstate 90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and ...
and major railroad tracks. Access to
Rockefeller Park Rockefeller Park is a city park named in honor of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller Sr., located in Cleveland, Ohio. Part of the Cleveland Public Parks District, Rockefeller Park is immediately adjacent Wade Park to the southeast, and across Euclid A ...
is also highly limited. The neighborhood's main retail district lines St. Clair Avenue.


History of the neighborhood

St. Clair–Superior was largely rural and sparsely populated until the 1880s and 1890s, when extensive construction of heavy industry and manufacturing plants occurred along the railroad tracks and the area north of St. Clair Avenue. Large numbers of immigrant
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
ns and
Lithuanians Lithuanians ( lt, lietuviai) are a Baltic ethnic group. They are native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,378,118 people. Another million or two make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Uni ...
moved into the area to work in these plants. The historic St. Vitus's Church, at E. 61st and Lausche Avenue, was the first
Slovenian Slovene or Slovenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe * Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia * Slovenes The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( sl, Sloven ...
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
church built in Cleveland, and at one time was among the largest Slovenian congregations in the United States. Eastern European immigrants brought with them a long
beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...
-making tradition, and during the 1800s and early 1900s the St. Clair–Superior neighborhood was known as "the mecca of breweries in Cleveland." In the summer of 2016, the brewing tradition returned to the neighborhood, with the opening of Goldhorn Brewery, which takes its name from a Slovenian folktale and features beers named to commemorate neighborhood specific people and places. The majority of residents in the neighborhood were whites of Eastern European ancestry at least as late as 1991. A major demographic shift occurred in the 1990s and 2000s, so that by 2020 75.6 percent of residents were
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, and 18.8 percent white and 5.8 percent were
Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
. Connected to its Slovenian cultural roots, Cleveland Kurentovanje has been celebrated every year the weekend before
Ash Wednesday Ash Wednesday is a holy day of prayer and fasting in many Western Christian denominations. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and falls on the first day of Lent (the six weeks of penitence before Easter). It is observed by Catholics in the Rom ...
since 2013. In 2015, some redevelopment began to occur in the area. One of the biggest projects was Hub 55 on E. 55th Street, a redevelopment that housed a café, market, meeting space, and office space. Most of Hub 55 opened in June 2015. The investors in Hub 55 planned additional redevelopment as of the fall of 2017. By 2015, 33 percent of all homes in the neighborhood had been demolished after falling into disrepair. Another 25 percent of homes in the neighborhood are vacant. Of these vacant homes, the Western Reserve Land Conservancy's Thriving Communities Institute property survey rated nearly 12 percent rate as "distressed" (an extreme degree of disrepair). This compares to just 9 percent in distressed neighborhoods like Buckeye–Woodhill, Glenville,
Hough Hough may refer to: * Hamstringing, or severing the Achilles tendon of an animal * the leg or Tibia, shin of an animal (in the Scots language), from which the dish potted hough is made * Hough (surname) Communities United Kingdom * Hough, Alderle ...
, and Kinsman. The level of reported crime in St. Clair–Superior is not much different from those in gentrifying neighborhoods like Ohio City or Tremont. Unreported crime, however, remains high.


Schools

St. Martin de Porres High School (a Catholic school) and a branch of
Horizon Science Academy Concept Schools is a nonprofit charter management organization. The group currently operates or manages thirty tuition-free science, technology and math-focused schools in six Midwest states. Serving more than 13,500 students, Concept-managed sch ...
(a
charter school A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of auto ...
) are both located in St. Clair–Superior. In 2003, St. Martin de Porres High School, which was located in the former St. Vitus School building, began construction of a $30 million new campus a block away. The first, $21 million phase of the project opened in April 2018. The new building incorporated the facade and copper domes of the historic Kausek Brothers building, a former department store.


References


External links


St. Clair Superior Development Corporation
{{DEFAULTSORT:St. Clair-Superior Neighborhoods in Cleveland Slovene-American culture in Cleveland