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| A 1969 view of the area |
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were still large undeveloped properties on the West Side of Lorain in the Masson School area. One of these big chunks of land was south of W. 40th Street, bordering on Marshall Ave. to the east, Temple Ave. to the west and Tower Boulevard to the south.
Developer Anthony Murello hoped to get part of this land rezoned so that high rise apartments and townhouses could be built. The architectural renderings of the proposed buildings were quite nice; naturally, however, the homeowners in that area were not crazy about the idea.
The article above from the August 7, 1970 Lorain Journal tells the story of the developer’s presentation of the proposal to the community, and the expected resistance that was encountered.
As we know, the rezoning ultimately didn't happen, because W. 41st Street was eventually extended through that area, populated with single family homes.
South of W. 41st Street, however, things get a little odd, with the various churches and their parking lots eating up much of the real estate and preventing W. 42nd Street from going through to Temple.
Ironically, with the Lighthouse Village Shopping Center nearby, as well as ongoing redevelopment of the old Emerald Valley Golf Course and surrounding area, the proposed high rise apartments would not have looked out of place there today.
4 comments:
I see that the hospital notices list the birth of my cousin Garnetta Griffin.
Hi Alan! The Stork Club and hospital notices were nice concepts, they really connected the Journal readers with their neighbors and fellow Lorainites. It’s too bad that privacy laws, etc. would make them impossible today. Same thing with obituaries, they used to note what the person died of and did it in an eloquent way.
Dan,
Is there any relationship between the Murello project and the current Oberlin Acres Apartments, just west of Oberlin between West 37th and West 35th? I remember that at about the same time as the Murello project was when we first started hearing about developments in what we then just called the Field. We lived at 1317 West 37th, so my parents were always keeping an eye on any proposed construction in that area.
Hi Mike,
The Oberlin Manor apartments on W. 37th, designed to house low-income elderly or disabled residents, were built by Transcon Builders of Cleveland. An article in the C-T on June 29, 1979 noted, "Several developers have requested the property be rezoned to permit construction of multi-family dwellings in the past, but each time area residents voiced strong protests to the move.” This time, however, the Lorain City Planning Commission approved the rezoning.
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