The fascinating irony at ground zero of zoning history. #planninghistory 
After the U.S. Civil War, Cleveland, Ohio boomed industrially. Euclid Avenue was the pinnacle of the city's wealth, with a portion of it known as Millionaires' Row. John D. Rockefeller lived along it for years until he decamped to New York. This is another Euclid Avenue home.
Euclid Ave's glory faded in the 20th century with commercial development & increased traffic caused, in part, by automobiles of the rich now able to live in more secluded areas. After WWI Euclid Ave Assoc. was established to improve the avenue in & beyond Cleveland's city limits.
The association was connected to the City Plan Committee of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. Charlotte Rumbold was part of both and like other Progressives of the day advocated zoning to achieve beauty, prevent overcrowding and land speculation and protect community amenity.
In part concerned that Ambler Realty, owner of a large site between Euclid Ave and a railroad, would develop unsightly industry to the detriment of their village character, the Village of Euclid east of Cleveland adopted a zoning ordinance in 1922 modeled on New York City's.
Three different zones dissected the Ambler site. Two-family homes (duplexes) were required to front onto Euclid Ave to a depth of 620 feet. Apartment housing was to take 130 feet more, leaving roughly the rear half of the site along the railroad for industrial uses.
Given the policy aspiration (a nobler Euclid Ave) it was a pragmatic decision, allowing some industry, just not along the avenue -- though I hope the social reformer in Rumbold winced at the idea of concentrating the poorest residents closest to polluting industry.
But Ambler felt that the zoning ordinance reduced the value of its property -- constituted a "taking" without due process -- and took the village to court. Euclid won at the state court, lost at federal court and then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prominent planner Alfred Bettman of Cincinnati convinced his home-town friend William Howard Taft, chief justice and former U.S. president, to allow him to file a brief on behalf of Euclid past a deadline. In 1926 the Supreme Court ruled in Euclid's favour.
With this victory, zoning, which was being adopted by hundreds of municipalities in the U.S. and Canada, was entrenched as the dominant modernist planning tool. Separation of land use exploded.
If you went to planning school you probably know about the Euclid v. Ambler Realty case, though if like me you weren't paying close attention in the relevant lecture you might wonder if Euclidian zoning has anything to do with an ancient mathematician.
But it's what happened at 20001 Euclid Avenue AFTER the Supreme Court that is really interesting. The Ambler site sat empty for twenty years. Better a field than a factory, Euclid officials may have thought, though during the Depression they ruefully may have wanted more jobs.
Then after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Government requisitioned the site for the war effort. Over the complaints of Euclid residents, a large factory was built in plain view of (though set back from) Euclid Avenue. Industry where the precedent-setting zoning code restricted industry.
Cleveland Pneumatic Aerol manufactured landing gear & rocket shells. After the war, as part of the industrial pivot from military manufacturing to consumer production, GM bought the building for its Fisher Body Division. GM expansions brought the plant to almost 1 million sq ft.
The plant rolled out vehicle bodies for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, and Oldsmobile. As the factory aged, though, body production moved to more modern plants in Michigan and in 1970 the Euclid Ave facility was converted to make auto upholstery and interior trim.
The U.S. auto industry began to suffer from Japanese competition in the late 1970s. GM announced the plant's closure in 1982 (when employment was down to 1,143 from a 1955 peak of 2,958) as deindustrialization began upending the economy of the Great Lakes states.
Union concessions (plus a contract to make boat seats and cushions) kept the plant open until 1992-93 when GM let the remaining 596 employees go.
In 1998 HGR Industrial Surplus opened in the building "buying and selling used manufacturing machinery, industrial equipment and surplus items." Think 500,000 sq. ft. industrial flea market complete with eBay auction office. hgrinc.com/history/
HGR began as a tenant in the building. A few years ago, after the owner walked away from the site, HGR bought it with help from the City of Euclid and a land reutilization non-profit established in 2009 in the wake of the foreclosure crisis. cuyahogalandbank.org/aboutUs.php
HGR invested $10 million in the building and rechristened it Nickel Plate Station after the local name of the rail line at the back of the site. HGR's staff complement at the site in 2015 was 120.
More recently HGR landed DriveTime as a tenant occupying more of the building's space. DriveTime, the second largest used car retailer in the U.S., refurbishes vehicles at the site for sale at its northeast dealerships. Between DriveTime and HGR, another economic pivot.
Visiting the site on a Saturday evening, the tidy front lawn and spiffy DriveTime sign were juxtaposed against a parking lot being reclaimed by weeds and the still-vacant front office wing.
Euclid Ave is more than the planning history curiosity I thought I was looking for. It's a case study in economic change and an unfinished story of desperate attempts to hold onto what we didn't think we wanted: the ongoing epic of North American industrial civilization.
