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Circa 1905. "Williamson Building, Cleveland." Bonus points to the first person to transcribe all those windows. 8x10 inch glass negative. View full size.
I transcribed all the windows in the Corner Building -- as much as was readable. The pdf is here.
The cluster of rail offices are offline freight agents. I have no idea what they actually did or how one went about determining how to route freight shipments but almost all cities had dozens of freight agents representing various lines. Baltimore & Ohio apparently has the largest offices and they served Cleveland through a branch line but had multiple routes through Ohio and neighboring states.
Great photo!
Wonder about the dominant businesses of the day? More railroad offices than I've ever seen in one place; bankers, brokers,insurance; and so much coal. (And some ice.) This was clearly commerce central.
Few people gather to admire the beauty in the construction of old buildings. BUT Implosion!!! they gather in the hundreds.
This photo overlaps this recent one.
Euclid Avenue exits to the right in the current photo. The big arch on the Williamson Building is at the extreme left edge of the previous photo. The "Otis" building was home to the Painless Dentist and Weiss Credit, as can be seen by matching up the upper Moorish windows. The streetcar switch on the upper (westbound) track at the far right of this photo would be the one controlled by the trolley wire contactor in the previous photo.
Signage such as this on a 'modern' skyscraper. I can just imagine the dentist's office on the 25th floor with a nice, hand painted tooth in his window, touting his painless services.
My son and I watched and photographed the final moments of the Williamson Building but, as the huge dust cloud rolled across Public Square we, and hundreds of others, became quite alarmed. There was a telephone booth nearby so we ducked into it and continued to shoot photos of the bewildered spectators. Scan of prints from 35 mm color negs.
Imploded in 1982 to make way for the Sohio (later BP) skyscraper. It served as the headquarters for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland from 1914 to 1923.
Can anyone tell me the type of camera that would have taken this photo? The edge to edge clarity is pretty remarkable for something 100+ years ago.
[This photo was taken with a view camera on a photographic glass plate that measured 8 x 10 inches. -tterrace]
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