I meant to congratulate Ed earlier for not only mentioning Cleveland’s famous “Rolling Road,” but providing more photos of it than I ever knew existed. Thanks to you, too, pennytrains.
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Mayo Clinic has another big facility near Phoenix, AZ.
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Scottsdale to be precise. My wife had a test there a couple of years ago - fortunately in November so the weather was a bit on the cool side as opposed to feeling like the inside of an oven.
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I don’t think it was Pickle Bills, it was Diamonds Jim Steakhouse, if I’m correct, formerly the Erie Station building since the Erie had trackage rights over the Big 4 to access it.
Erie came out of Literary street yard which was the classification yard for ore trains, which eventually went to the Erie ore docks (NYPANO) ore docks as we use to call them.
The Erie had a large ore storage facility in Bedford near north field.
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Jim’s Steakhouse on Scranton Road was not near any railroad track. It was located directly on the river at Collision Bend.
The old Erie/Big Four station under the Detroit-Superior High Level Bridge housed at least three restaurants: First, it was Pickle Bill’s, then it became Diamond Jim’s:
and then it became Shorty’s, a 1950’s-themed diner.
Pickle Bill’s went bankrupt and then re-opened in Fairport Harbor, where it thrives to this day. The owner of Diamond Jim’s was murdered by the mob when he was set to testify against them.
I don’t know why Shorty’s failed after a few years. Subsequently the building was demolished, as was Jim’s Steakhouse later on.
The Erie had a million-ton ore storage yard in North Randall. Ore from there was sent to the furnaces in the Mahoning Valley.
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I keep seeing references in the Cleveland Memory Project archives to the “Cleveland and Youngstown” railroad but I haven’t found anything yet on wether it was part of a larger system or an independent road. Some searches bring up the Mahoning Valley but I’m not sure if they’re related.
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Regarding the Cleveland & Youngstown. Here’s an excerpt from The Shaker Heights Rapid Transit by James Toman (1990):
“In 1911 the Vans [Van Sweringen brothers] incorporated the Cleveland & Youngstown Railroad (C&Y); its charter called for a steam-powered railroad connecting downtown Cleveland and the City of Youngstown. What exactly the Vans intended for this railroad is unclear. Some speculate that they had an interest in competing with the Erie Railroad’s service between the two cities. Others suggest that the C&Y simply represented the brothers’ first thinking relative to developing suburban service to their eastern real estate holdings and then–possibly–beyond.”
“The following year the Vans’ thinking relative to the C&Y became a little clearer. On May 6, 1912, City of Cleveland Ordinance 23307-B granted a franchise for the railroad to run from East 15th Street in downtown Cleveland, east through Kingsbury Run (a natural ravine running through the city’s southeast side) to East 110th Street. Then, in March 1913 the Vans incorporated the Cleveland Interurban Railroad (CIRR). This new company was granted, in its own name, trackage rights east of East 110th Street and was specifically chartered as a non-steam passenger service.”
In other words, the C&Y was a paper precursor of the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit Lines.
I hope this helps clear things up for you.
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Yes I know where Jim’s steakhouse was right next to the river and the fire station on the river and the eagle road lift bridge.
Yes Jim was shot in the back of the head, was a mob hit….that was the old Erie station building.
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Also the Erie freight station was right across the way from Jim steak house on Scranton road.
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With regard to the Big 4, the Conrail real estate office had all the property maps (valuation maps) of the Erie-Lackawanna, the Pennsy and the New York Central.
I walked and Hy-railed most of the property from 1971 to 1981 when they closed the Cleveland real estate office of Conrail.
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