blizzard

Lovely wallpaper

November 9-11, 1913: a blizzard, an ice storm, a gale, a hurricane -- all ravaged the Great Lakes in the area of Cleveland, Ohio. At least 235 sailors were drowned when twleve commercial ships sank in Lake Erie. A brief history of the disaster: www.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/swio/pages/content/...

This image, of the Hotel Collinwood, was taken in what was at the time Collinwood village, and what has since been annexed to the city of Cleveland. The hotel was located on the west side of Collamer Avenue (now East 152nd Street), the fourth building north of Collins Avenue (now Saranac Road). The approximate location can be seen in Google Maps.

How do I know this? In the plate glass window in the center of the picture, I've noted the name "Collinwood Hotel Restaurant". It can be seen in the center of the inset in this detail of the 1903 Sanborn fire insurance map for the area:


The shape of the building in the photo corresponds exactly to the shape of the Hotel Collinwood building on the Sanborn map. The street numbers do not correspond due to a change in the numbering system for the streets that occurred in 1905.

Further evidence of the location is provided by this plate from the 1921 Plat Book of the City of Cleveland. It shows the correct profile for the building, and gives the address as 630 - the number shown on the building in the photo. A streetcar is visible, slightly out of focus, at the right edge of the photograph. This corresponds to the streetcar tracks shown on the map in the Plat Book.

Northwest corner of the square.

Other photos of the New York City snowstorm of February 14, 1914: And the elevated car that slipped off the tracks two days later: