Central's early history was one of expansion and opportunity. But there were omens even then of tougher times ahead.
But, by the 1920s the neighborhood was changing, with those residents able moving away from the overcrowded and industrial neighborhood and fewer immigrants were moving in.
That change coincided with what was known as the Great Migration during the 1920s and 1930s where a large number of African Americans moved from the South north into industrial cities such as Cleveland for jobs and economic opportunities. And many of these new arrivals moved into the Central Neighborhood.
By the time the Depression hit, Central was Cleveland’s most populated neighborhood. The overcrowding and economic downturn turned the tenement homes into slums and led to a decision by a powerful Cleveland City Councilman Ernest Bohn that continues to have repercussions for the neighborhood to this day.
Bohn believed a good replacement for the tenements were public housing and Central was one of the first places in the country to have such housing constructed.
Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority was established in 1933, with Bohn at the helm, the first public housing authority in the nation.
An anchor to the neighborhood has been St. Vincent Charity Medical Center. The Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine staffed and managed the hospital, which first opened in 1865 as Cleveland's first permanent general hospital. In 1898, a school of nursing was established at St. Vincent, the city’s first Catholic diploma school.
In the 1950s, the Central Neighborhood was one of the areas Cleveland city planners targeted for redevelopment. Homes and other structures were torn down to create “super blocks” to encourage large scale development, including the area around St. Vincent Hospital. At about the same time, homes were also being demolished to make way for interstate highway expansion.
The city’s goal of redevelopment was partially realized. Organizations such as the Visiting Nurses Association and the Boy Scouts of America moved into the area.
Cuyahoga Community College, known as Tri-C, opened in 1963, some two years after state lawmakers approved establishing a system of community colleges. In 1966, the downtown Metropolitan campus opened on the edge of Central Neighborhood.
And just two years later, Cleveland State University, Ohio’s seventh state university, opened nearby assuming the operations of Fenn College. The university has continued to expand over the years, now encompassing more than 20 acres.
However, the number of public housing projects continued to increase in Central which now has the largest concentration in the city.
Carl and Louis Stokes grew up in Outhwaite, a public housing development in Central Neighborhood. Carl Stokes was the first black mayor of Cleveland and first black mayor of a major U.S. City. Later he served as a judge and then U.S. Ambassador.
But like the early tenements, many of the housing projects fell into disrepair by the 1990s.
In Central, the 820-unit Longwood Estates turned dangerous and deplorable and was shut down in 1998 after a series of newspaper stories highlighted the slum-like conditions, including lead paint, cockroaches and rodents. Inspectors found 4,800 code violations. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ultimately foreclosed on the property which was demolished.
Nearby, Arbor Park, a new townhouse community was built to replace Longwood. And one of the first retail developments in Central in decades, Arbor Park Place, a retail plaza, opened a few years, anchored by a Cleveland-based supermarket, bank and other retail outlets.
Meanwhile, Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority has plans to redevelop another housing development in Central.
Other future plans, including the “opportunity corridor” which would link an interstate to University Circle would skirt Central’s boundaries and could impact the neighborhood in the future.