This month, Cleveland City Planning Commission voted to support historic landmark status for the Sidaway Bridge, an out-of-service pedestrian bridge between the Kinsman and Slavic Village neighborhoods, raising hopes for new green space and restoration of the landmark bridge. The suspension bridge – Ohio’s only – is impassable and overgrown with plants, but its distinctive framing remains intact. Cleveland City Council must approve the landmark status for it to become official, and the council is expected to consider it next month.
The original bridge, built in 1909, connected the Polish and Hungarian populations living on either side of Kingsbury Run, a natural watershed that runs through southeast Cleveland. With the advent of the Nickel Plate railroad in the late 1920’s, a new bridge was constructed that would accommodate both the pedestrian traffic and new railroad transit buildings.
In 1966, during the Hough Riots, planking from the bridge was removed and set on fire. Rather than rebuild the bridge, the City of Cleveland decided to close it. This decision figured prominently in a 1976 federal court busing order to desegregate Cleveland schools. Judge Frank Battisti cited the closing of the bridge as evidence that city and school officials intended to segregate schools on the basis of race.
In early October 2022, the Sidaway Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in acknowledgement of its role in the Civil Rights Movement. Community development corporation Burten Bell Carr, working with Perspectus architecture firm, led that application as well as the recent appeal to the Cleveland Landmarks Commission for landmark status. (The Jan. 6 planning commission meeting approved the landmarks commission’s nomination of the bridge, and now it goes to City Council.) Mayor Justin Bibb supported both the federal and local applications, saying that these historic designations would advance efforts to restore the bridge, establish a park, and set the stage for possible future development in the surrounding area. The bridge is owned by the city of Cleveland.
Joy Johnson, the director at Burten Bell Carr, the nonprofit community development corporation for the Kinsman neighborhood where the bridge is located, told The Land that the CDC completed a neighborhood planning process in 2016 that highlighted a need for more recreational green space.
Because the closest recreational center is a few miles uphill, people in the community don’t have easily accessible space for recreation. Johnson said the vacant land surrounding the bridge would make good green space for the neighborhood. Burten Bell Carr owns several parcels of land around the bridge while RTA also owns other land in the area. Conversations continue with RTA in an effort to further the planned development, said Johnson. A site visit with representatives from RTA and Burten Bell Carr is scheduled for February as a first step towards developing a conceptual design for the park.
The forward momentum is not just about the green space, but also the bridge itself, said Johnson. “The bridge itself represents Cleveland’s history and repairing it indicates what could come for Cleveland’s future,” Johnson said, stating that restoring the bridge would be symbolic of righting the wrong of that history.
This is a view echoed by Chris Alvarado, executive director of Slavic Village Development (SVD). “There are important lessons to be learned from the closure of the bridge, the decades of neglect,” he said. “Not just the structure, but also neglect when it comes to those relationships between African Americans, whites and Latinos.”
Conversations around these relationships are important and can and should take place on a daily basis, he added. “Having something tangible, having a tangible symbol of not just the pain that our communities went through in the 60s and that reverberates over half a century later, but also a tangible symbol of a reconnection, that’s vital,” he said.
Alvarado likens the bridge to a hidden gem that has been neglected for decades, and he says SVD has had a longstanding interest in seeing the bridge redeveloped. Funding has been a stumbling block. The recent historic designation opens up opportunities for funding from the federal government and protects the bridge as plans continue for redevelopment, said Alvarado.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Sidaway Bridge had already received landmark status. Cleveland Planning Commission voted on a mandatory referral. The matter must now go back to Cleveland City Council for review and approval.
Learn more about the Sidaway bridge at Cleveland Historical: Sidaway Bridge – A Bridge over Troubled Neighborhoods | Cleveland Historical. Learn more about the Cleveland Planning Commission at Cleveland City Planning Commission (clevelandohio.gov).
Sharon Core participated in The Land’s community journalism program.
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