CLEVELAND — Brick by brick, a woman in Cleveland’s West park neighborhood is preserving a tangible piece of Cleveland’s mostly forgotten past. For two years, on walks along the beaches of Lake Erie and throughout her neighborhood, Kathleen Kelly collected enough bricks to create her own masterpiece at her home that resembles the old brick-paved streets in Cleveland.
Her collection of bricks from Cleveland plants that have since shuttered turned into an obsession, and it all started when she was gifted with a "Bessemer Youngstown Block" from a mutual friend. She collected many from the local beaches of Lake Erie where they were likely thrown for erosion-control purposes or following the demolition of buildings.
“I just thought it was really cool," she said. "Started researching them. And I would find them, like if I'd be walking my dog and somebody had one around their flat flower bed, I'd knock on their door and ask for it. I would say, ‘I'll replace it with one, a plain one’, and then a few friends gave me some.”
Her constructed brick sidewalk is a conversation starter for anyone who sees it in person or in photos. When she posted the final outcome of the project, she didn’t expect it would resonate with so many people.
“When I put it on Facebook, I got like 4,000 likes in two days. It was weird. People started posting their own. It [the sidewalk] looks pretty cool,” she said.
Her bricks are stamped with the names of Cleveland’s brick makers. Among the featured bricks are “The Cleveland Builder’s Block,” “The Bessemer Youngstown Block” and “The Metropolitan Block.” The cobbled self-made pathway evokes a pride in Kelly that one imagines that is similar to the masons who meticulously placed each brick on a street, building Cleveland’s infrastructure.
“I sit out here in the mornings, and it just gives you something to read if you forget your phone,” said Kelly.
From collection to construction was a laborious and therapeutic process for Kelly, who on some occasions had to take excess concrete and debris off each brick.
“This is one of my favorite projects, and it took me two years. But it’s like putting together a puzzle of all different sizes. Some of them are chipped, getting around the curve was a little difficult,” Kelly said as she pointed to the round part of the sidewalk.
Brick-making in Cleveland can be traced back to the 1880s when cities made the switch from using wood and cobblestone to bricks. Because of the area’s rich clay deposits, Ohio became one of the largest producers in the country and paved more brick streets that any other state.
The thunderous noise underneath a car driving on a red brick street is an instant reminder that one is driving on history—a history that represented the growth of a city.
Drive down Murray Hill Road in Cleveland’s Little Italy neighborhood, and you’ll find this celebrated history.
“It’s all red brick. It's never been asphalted over,” said John Grabowski, professor of history at Case Western Reserve University. “And that is largely because Italians began coming to the United States in large numbers in the 1880s, turn of the 20th century, when many cities, Cleveland included, were basically building their urban infrastructure.”
A lot of the Italians ended up laying the red bricks that made up much of what is now known as the historic Little Italy neighborhood.
“I would argue that that's why Murray Hill Road has remained as a red brick street, because that really echoes the heritage of the people that were there,” Grabowski said.
Another street where Clevelanders can get a sense of the past, and a taste of nostalgia so many crave, is Hessler Road, located in University Circle. It still has wood block paving.
If you're looking for stamped bricks, you'll likely only find them when they are loose, washed up on the shore or in abandoned lots because the name-side of the bricks were placed faced down on the soil when streets were built.
"I think it was basically so you knew what they were, but I suspect it was to give them more purchase because they were on beds of sand that was tamped down," said Grabowski.
Like Kelly, there are brick collectors all over the country, so much so that there is an International Brick Collector’s Association.
Jim Graves might know more than anyone about the bricks that lined the streets of cities across the United States. He is the librarian of the International Brick Collector’s Association, and he answers questions from brick collectors and curious treasure hunters looking for answers about a particular brick.
Graves and dozens of other collectors from across the country gather to exchange forgotten bricks.
“Several times a year we bring extra bricks that we have and put them out and give them to anybody that wants them. So the whole idea is to take what is common to me that you've never seen before. So it's really handy for collecting anything because bricks are mostly local,” Graves said.
Look around Cleveland, and you’ll find the level of mason craftsmanship it took to build the buildings many admire today.
“One of the things that fascinates me about brick and stone construction versus concrete is every one of those pieces was hand-placed by a person. So every brick in a building, in older buildings was put in place by a mason. Every brick in the street was a human hand putting that, don't you know? And that may have been mechanized at one point.”
Kelly isn't done laying the foundation of her own legacy. A pile of 100-year-old bricks will be the feature of her next project to expand the walkway around her front porch.
"It's a labor of love," Kelly said.
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