Cleveland's Triangular Buildings

The angular architecture of Cleveland’s West Side

As someone who grew up on the East Side, I find myself consistently drawn toward the West Side for exploration on foot and by bike. Throughout my childhood, I often visited destinations in Ohio City and Tremont; however, I often only ventured off of the main roads quite recently. This has led to new architectural discoveries that are often 1 or 2 blocks off the major corridors. 

Over the last year or so, I have frequently noticed an increasing number of interesting buildings that are located on triangle-shaped lots. To be clear, these types of buildings do exist on the East Side, but I’m finding that their frequency is much higher on the West Side. This is especially true in Ohio City, Tremont, and Detroit - Shoreway, most likely because those are some of the oldest parts of the city. 

This post features 4 examples of angular buildings on Cleveland’s Near West Side, along with some research on each.  

W. 11th & Literary - Lemko Hall 

Starting off in Tremont, we have the historic Lemko Hall. While I knew about this building previously and had seen it many times before, I wanted to include it here because it is absolutely beautiful. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, the building was built in 1910 as a saloon. Later, the building was converted to be a branch of the Lemko Association of the US and Canada, a cultural home for people originating from Lemkovina (now part of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine). The building was turned into apartments in 1987. 

Architecturally, the building is fantastic; from the color of the brick to the cupola. I love everything about it.

Chatham & W. 36th

This house, which is currently vacant, is located on a very narrow lot at the corner of Chatham & W. 36th in Ohio City. Cuyahoga MyPlace shows that the house was built in 1870 and that it is in a colonial style. It is also currently owned by an LLC, which bought the property in 2021. Despite the narrow lot size, it is over 2,000 sq ft and has 5 bedrooms, which reflects the fact that many of the European immigrants who settled in the area tended to build rather large houses. 

I discovered this house very recently while I was wandering around the neighborhood. This part of Ohio City (south of Lorain near Fulton) often feels hidden from its surroundings and is bisected by narrow, winding streets. 

W. 73rd & Dudley 

This beautiful little church is located right off of W. 73rd in Detroit - Shoreway, between Lorain and Madison. I was recently going down W. 73rd when I looked to my left and saw this wonderful building. I’ve noticed in the past that many buildings located on triangular lots are churches and that many of these are highly symmetrical as if the road network were designed around the church. 

Anyways, this one was built in 1926, according to MyPlace. I especially love the landscaping because of the bright green color against the dark brick of the church. 

Woodbine & John

Finally, we circle back to Ohio City for this rather interesting house at the corner of Woodbine and John. I find this one fascinating because of its relative lack of symmetry compared to the others. 

According to MyPlace, it was built in 1900, although it really doesn’t look like it. Also, while you might think this is a regular house, it actually contains 4 apartment units. You can’t see it in this picture, but the left side of the building has a porch with multiple residential units off of it. If only we could build more housing like this today, we might be closer to becoming a more walkable and equitable city. 

How does this differ from the East Side?

From what I’ve seen, buildings with sharp angles on the East Side tend to be much larger and are almost exclusively masonry structures. There are also definitely far fewer comparable intersections on the East Side. That being said, I would like to do another post about triangular buildings on the East Side, but that will be for another time. For now, what I can say is that there are plenty of examples of quirky architecture in Cleveland if you know where to look. 

As always, thanks for reading! Next week’s post will be a profile on the Goodrich - Kirtland Park neighborhood, an area that has changed much over the years but still retains remnants of its past.