The Observation Deck

I read an interesting story about the Van Sweringen Brothers.
As some of you may know, they were the visionaries who designed the City of Shaker Heights and built the Terminal Tower.

Long before they built Shaker, they apparently were active in Lakewood.
Early in their career, they bought "a number of" lots in Lakewood. However, they were foreclosed upon and never returned. In 1909 turned their sights east and purchased the large piece of land formerly owned by the Shakers.

Does anyone know the backstory?
Is it possible that Lakewood would have been the "designed community" that Shaker became?
Had they not been foreclosed, would we today have a rapid train running down the middle of Clifton Road?

Here is their biography from Belt Magazine:

http://beltmag.com/train-dreams-part-1/

Here is an Observer article from a few years ago that makes reference to their Lakewood investment.

http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/read/20 ... ride-again

CSU and the Cleveland Public Library have special collections with articles about the Terminal and the Van Sweringens. Walter Leedy, a professor at CSU, was especially interested in the Terminal and the Van Sweringen's and wrote much about them. Try to find things he wrote.

As I recall, they were interested in making money any way they could. They started in real estate speculation because it was booming at the time and Lakewood just happened to be one of the areas that was ripe for development. Their Lakewood venture did not turn out well and they went bankrupt so they started a new company in their sister's name to avoid the Lakewood trouble. The Shaker development was patterned somewhat after Ebenezer Howard's Garden City movement that was in vogue after the turn of the century but it was meant from the beginning to be a wealthy enclave - a place for the rich city dweller to escape the increasingly dirty and congested city. However, it was too far for an easy daily commute to Cleveland and the lots were slow to sell. That's when they got the idea for the rapid. The purchased the Nickel Plate Railroad and pushed the rapid idea - they actually did plan to eventually expand it across the area.

Lakewood never had that problem of distance. They were closer to the downtown and there was already easier access to the city via streetcar.The land was already being purchased by multiple developers, the VS brothers only bought a few lots. I don't think Lakewood ever would have ended up like Shaker - too different a situation.

BTW, the Van Sweringen's died broke after the Stock Market crash wiped them out. The Union Terminal was supposed to be built on the lake, as part of the Group Plan buildings, but the city had trouble acquiring land and hassled with the railroad companies over some lots so VS brothers pushed the Public Square location because they had built the Cleveland Hotel there and wanted the rapid and trains to all meet there. And the terminal was originally designed with a short stubby tower, not what was eventually built! Again, Walter Leedy has written extensively about the Terminal and you should be able to find some very interesting information about the Van Sweringen's there.

There are also short articles at this site that are interesting:
http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=VSOP

And this, which implies that the Lakewood venture was a bust perhaps because it was their first attempt at real estate development:
http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/415#.U24Ublcqngs