Going Downtown

Tuesday marked the first day of early, in-person voting in Ohio.  I went to the Cuyahoga County Board of Election in Cleveland.  I suspected that there would be a lot of people turning out, and I did not know what the parking situation would be.  So, I decided to drive to the Rapid Transit station and take the train downtown.  The new headquarters for the Board of Elections is located about one mile from the center of downtown.  It was a sunny, brisk, autumn day, so I decided to walk the rest of the way.

I drove to the Brookpark station, and bought a round trip ticket for the train.  It cost 5 dollars.  (Two rides on the Mexico City Metro would have cost the U.S. equivalent of 55 cents.)

The Rapid Transit train was almost empty, a big contrast to the crowded subway and buses in Mexico City.

Granted, rush hour was over and I got on at the second stop on the route to downtown.  A couple people at most would get on at each stop.  I suspect that even if I had left at the height of rush hour, there would have still been plenty of seat.  In the U.S., people simply prefer their cars to public transportation.

After about a half hour, the train arrived downtown at the Tower City station.  It is located beneath the Terminal Tower where, in the era of train travel, Cleveland's terminal was located.

In 1990 the area was converted into a three story shopping mall.  Unfortunately, today most of the stores are vacant.  They say that shopping malls are dying in the U.S., but long before that, Tower City was dying because people would prefer to shop in suburban malls.

The beautiful lobby of Tower City which dates from the late 1920s when the Terminal Tower was built.

Exiting Tower City, you are on Public Square, the heart of downtown Cleveland.  It is surrounded by the city's tallest skyscrapers.

With 52 stories, the Terminal Tower was the second tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1927.  For several decades it was the tallest building in North America outside of New York City.

The headquarters of Huntington Bank is a skyscraper originally built for Sohio (Standard Oil of Ohio) in 1985.  It is 46 stories high and was deliberately built lower than the Terminal Tower so that it would continue to be the tallest building in Cleveland.

The Terminal Tower lost that distinction in 1991 however when the 57 story Key Tower was built.  It is the tallest building in Ohio.

Public Square's newest skyscraper is the world headquarters of Sherwin-Williams Paints.  It is 36 stories high, and was completed in 2025.

The oldest building facing Public Square is the Old Stone Church, a Presbyterian church that was built in 1855.

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on Public Square was built in 1894 and honors the men and women of Cuyahoga County who performed military and patriotic duties during the Civil War.

I saw a sign saying that on Tuesdays and Thursdays in October there will be food trucks on Public Square during lunchtime.

Several food trucks were already getting ready for business.

From Public Square I walked down Superior Avenue.

After walking about twenty minutes, just beyond the core of downtown, I came to the Board Elections.  Their new headquarters moved last summer to the building which used to house the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.