page_title: Union–Miles Park
section_title: 1980 to 1999: Destabilization and recovery
hierarchical_section_title: Union–Miles Park / 20th century / 1980 to 1999: Destabilization and recovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Houses at E. 97th Street and Pratt Avenue in the Union-Miles Park neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States.
context_page_description: Union–Miles Park is a city planning area on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. The neighborhood draws its name from Union Avenue, and Miles Park in its far southwest corner.
  Union–Miles Park was originally part of Newburgh Township, which was organized in 1814. Settled by whites as an area of farms and orchards, Union–Miles Park became one of two centers in the Cleveland steelmaking industry beginning in 1856. The steel mills drew Irish, Scottish, and Welsh immigrants to the area, with the intersection of E. 93rd Street and Union Avenue becoming known as "Irishtown". After an 1882 strike at the steel mill was broken using Polish and Slovak strikebreakers, the large Irish and Welsh communities were displaced by these two new immigrant groups. Railroads cut through many areas of Union–Miles Park, defining the area. The steel industry in Union–Miles Park collapsed during the Great Depression. White flight from the area in the 1960s, and a strong influx of African Americans eager to take advantage of inexpensive housing, radically changed the demographic nature of the neighborhood.
context_section_description: The 1980 recession and the early 1980s recession both hit Union–Miles Park hard, leaving the community with 25 percent of its residents living below the federal poverty line. The congregation at St. Joseph Byzantine moved to the suburbs in April 1980, selling its building to Greater Zion Hill Baptist Church. The Boulevard School closed in the fall of 1980 due to falling enrollment.
  The Union-Miles Community Coalition had taken on an increasing number of tasks since its formation. Initially, it pressed the city to provide improved basic services, and to tear down abandoned, decrepit, or vandalized housing. It formed neighborhood watch programs and safety patrols, and it pushed local banks to establish branches in the neighborhood and provide more lending in the area. To enable it to take on increasingly complex problems requiring full-time staff and public and private financing, the coalition formed the nonprofit Union Miles Development Corporation (UMDC) on May 1, 1981. Working with the Center for Neighborhood Development, UMDC won passage of a new state law allowing nonprofit community development corporations to act as receivers for abandoned housing. UMDC also established the Cleveland Housing Receivership Project, which acted as a clearinghouse and advisory body to member neighborhood housing groups interested in using receivership to improve their Cleveland neighborhoods.
  In 1982, the city built a new, $1.8 million ($4,800,000 in 2019 dollars) Union Branch library at 3463 E. 93rd Street. The 1906 library building on Miles Park, which had been vacated since the construction of the Union "station" library years before, remained open for community use until 1987.
  The early 1980s recession crippled U.S. Steel's few remaining operations in Cleveland. The corporation closed its last large plant, the Cuyahoga Works, in May 1984. One of the neighborhood's landmark structures, the Newburgh Town Hall, burned in 1984. The structure was sold in 1923 to the Thomas Funeral Home (later known as the Thomas-Wheaton Funeral Home). It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, converted into an apartment building some time between 1978 and 1984, and rented by a motorcycle club as its clubhouse. The fire on November 18 caused more than $50,000 ($100,000 in 2019 dollars) in damage, and it was demolished in October 1985. The continuing job and population losses among blue-collar workers in Union–Miles Park left 40 percent of the area's housing stock abandoned and demolished. By 1989, housing foreclosure rates in the area reached 35 percent, causing runaway neighborhood decline.
  By the late 1980s, Union–Miles Park had become a transitional neighborhood. As poor African Americans in the Kinsman neighborhood achieved a measure of financial stability and wealth, they moved into Union–Miles Park. As working-class African Americans moved into the middle class, they left Union–Miles Park for suburbs like Warrensville Heights. Despite improvements in some city services in the late 1980s, including the refurbishment of Bisbee and Dove parks, Union–Miles Park suffered a 10 percent population loss between 1980 and 1990. By 1990, the racial composition of the neighborhood had risen to 95 percent African American. Poverty had also worsened in the neighborhood. Union–Miles Park was ranked 13th in 1970 in terms of the Cleveland neighborhoods with the highest level of poverty. By 1990, it was ranked 8th, with 60.9 percent of all residents living below the federal poverty line—making it one of the poorest neighborhoods anywhere in Cleveland or Cuyahoga County.
  Aging housing stock and more closures in what was left of the steel industry continued to negatively impact Union–Miles Park in the 1990s. Although a few market-rate housing developments were built in the 1990s, the area population declined 10.8 percent from 1990 to 2000. The population loss was greatest among middle-class families, which led to even greater disinvestment in housing and the loss of the neighborhood's few retail districts. Poverty levels rose to 28.0 percent, and
caption: Houses on Pratt Avenue at E. 97th Street
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D7100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2017:08:24 21:15:28", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1014", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9811", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "140", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:08:23 14:50:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:08:23 14:50:28", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "995723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "55", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "20", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1498", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "83841555/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "83841555/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "82", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "2534693", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[18, 55, 7/2, 28/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "18.0-55.0 mm f/3.5-5.6"}