Bellaire–Puritas, Cleveland
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Bellaire–Puritas is a
neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...
on the West Side of
Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
,
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
, in the United States. Originally part of the Village of West Park, it was annexed by the city in 1923. Formerly known as Puritas–Longmead, the neighborhood takes its name from the two streets which form its northern boundary: Puritas Avenue and Bellaire Road.


History

The area which became Bellaire–Puritas was initially organized as part of Rockport Township in 1819. It remained a highly rural, thinly-populated area until the end of the 1800s, when the Linndale development began to be built. In 1900, Cuyahoga County created West Park Township from what remained of Rockport Township. Transportation in West Park was limited to a few rutted dirt roads, which led to the area's nickname as the "lost city." West Park agreed to be annexed by the city of Cleveland in 1923.


Boundaries

The Chicago Line of the
Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...
(NS) (completed in 1851) forms the western boundary of the neighborhood. The NS' Rockport Yard,
CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...
railroad tracks (completed in 1910), and Interstate 480 (opened in 1987) form the neighborhood's southern boundary, and CSX tracks (constructed in 1851) largely define its eastern boundary. Another set of NS tracks run diagonally southwest-to-northeast, cutting the neighborhood roughly in half.
Interstate 71 Interstate 71 (I-71) is a north–south Interstate Highway in the midwestern and Southeastern United States, southeastern regions of the United States. Its southern terminus is at an interchange with Interstate 64, I-64 and Interstate 65, ...
forms the area's western boundary. These highways and railroad tracks leave the neighborhood relatively cut off from surrounding neighborhoods and cities, and break the neighborhood into two distinct residential districts. The Chevy Branch of Big Creek drains much of the northeast and east sections of the neighborhood.


Economy

More than 20 percent of Cleveland's industrial activity occurs within the Bellaire–Puritas neighborhood. A large number of industrial parks exist along I-480 and the NS and CSX railroad tracks in the southern part of the neighborhood. This is the heaviest concentration of industrial parks in the city of Cleveland. Manufacturing is the predominant economic activity in Bellaire–Puritas, followed by employment in the education, healthcare, and social welfare assistance fields. The main retail corridors in the area are on Puritas Avenue between W. 156th and Bellaire Road, and on W. 130th between Bellaire Road and Sprecher Avenue.


Housing and residents

Most of the housing in the neighborhood dates from the period immediately after World War II. Houses were built first in the neighborhood's eastern section, with development moving west. Single-family homes are generally small, under . Much of this housing stock is deteriorating, even though residents of Bellaire–Puritas have a median household income of $32,900 (20 percent higher than that of Cleveland as a whole). Residents in the neighborhood have relatively low levels of education, with just 14 percent of citizens having an
associate degree An associate degree or associate's degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of academic qualification above a high school diploma and below a bachelor's degree ...
or better. Almost 30 percent of all Bellaire–Puritas residents depend on
Social Security Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance ...
as their sole source of income.


Attractions

Gilmore Park is a nearly 6-acre (2.41 ha) park located at W. 134th & Puritas Av. It offers a baseball field and two basketball courts, as well as a children's play structure with rubberized Terrasoft play surface. It was established in 1956. Crossburn Park is a 5.28 acres (2.14 ha) park located between Sprecher and Crossburn Av., west of W. 130th St. It offers a baseball field, a basketball court, two tennis courts, a children's play structure and a splash pad. Ralph Schumitsh Park is a 3.66 acres (1.48 ha) park located at McGowan Av. & W. 124th St. It offers two baseball fields and a children's play structure. Puritas Park Shopping Plaza on Puritas Avenue includes two discount stores, a pharmacy, daycare, jewelry store, cigarette store, restaurant, a nail salon, a hair salon, and a US Post Office.


References


Bibliography

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External links


Bellaire–Puritas Development Corporation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellaire-Puritas, Cleveland Neighborhoods in Cleveland Economy of Cleveland