page_title: Union–Miles Park
section_title: Pre-depression Union–Miles Park
hierarchical_section_title: Union–Miles Park / 20th century / Pre-depression Union–Miles Park
caption_attribution_description: English: Main entrance (south facade) of the Boulevard School at 9700 Kinsman Road in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. Opened in 1910, it closed in 1980 and was sold by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to a private buyer.
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: In 1904, the Newburgh Town Hall was moved from 9250 Miles Park Avenue slightly to the north at 9213 Miles Park Avenue to make was for a new library building. In 1905, one of the major landmarks of the area was radically changed when the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad (C&P) won approval of a plan to build new, wide tracks on the south side of Broadway Avenue in order to eliminate an at-grade crossing nearby. The plan required digging a new channel for Mill Creek and moving the Mill Creek Falls some 300 feet (91 m) to the south. The waterfalls were moved in 1905.
  Large areas of the Union–Miles Park area continued to be under-developed in the early 20th century. Hamilton Avenue was renamed Harvard Avenue in 1905, but the dirt road did not begin to be paved until 1914. Roads were so bad that when St. Catherine Church (at E. 93rd and St. Catherine Avenue) caught fire in March 1899, the poor condition of the roads prevented firefighting personnel from reaching it in time and the new church burned to the ground (and was rebuilt). Even as late as 1906, most of Union–Miles Park still consisted of fields and dirt roads.
  Residential growth continued, however, leading to the establishment of more social institutions. The town hall was demolished in 1906, and a new library building erected on the site from 1906 to 1907. The neighborhood's population, which was just 11,000 in 1910, more than doubled to 28,000 in 1930. A new Catholic church, St. Catherine Church, opened in December 1898, and St. Catherine's School opened in the fall of 1900. Another Catholic church, St. Lawrence Church, opened in 1902, as did the associated parochial school, St. Lawrence's School (at E. 81st Street [formerly Rural Street] between Crofoot and Union avenues, just outside the neighborhood's boundary). Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church (a.k.a. "Nativity B.V.M." and "St. Mary of the Nativity"), a Catholic church ministering specifically to the Slovak community, opened at 9510 Aetna Road in 1903. It was a small, two-story structure with classrooms on the second floor. Strong growth in membership due to continuing high rates of Slovak immigration into the neighborhood led Nativity B.V.M. to move its building to the Dunlap Avenue side of its lot so that the erection of a large new parish school could begin in 1915 on the original church site. 
  although its associated parochial school was not dedicated until 1916. The $100,000 ($0 in 2019 dollars) structure opened in December 1916.
  The iron and steel industry continued to play a large role in the Union–Miles Park economy in the first 25 years of the 20th century.  Champion Rivet moved its factory in 1901 to Harvard Avenue between E. 110th and E. 116th streets. The first large metal industries company to open in Union–Miles Park in the 20th century was Champion Machine and Forging, which opened a factory at E. 78th Street and Osage Avenue about 1908. The second was the Allyne-Ryan Company. Founded by C. C. Bohn, E. E. Allyne, Daniel Ryan, and Rollin H. White, it manufactured automobile cylinders and hard-to-cast items at its plant at Aetna Road and E. 91st Street.
  The fourth public school in Union–Miles Park, the Boulevard School, opened in 1910. Located at the intersection of Carton Avenue and Kinsman Road, it was designed to alleviate overcrowding at the Mt. Pleasant School.
  Infrastructure, too, received a boost in Union–Miles Park when, some time between 1900 and 1910, the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad opened its Newburgh station at Harvard Avenue and Broadway. The Cleveland Short Line Railway began construction in May 1906 from the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (LS&MS) main line on the border between the Riverside and Bellaire–Puritas neighborhoods of Cleveland (an area known to railroads as "Rockport"), to the LS&MS rail yard in Collinwood, Ohio. The first 10.08-mile (16.22 km) section, from Rockport to the Lake Erie and Pittsburgh Railway (a block south of the intersection of Broadway and Harvard Avenues in the Slavic Village neighborhood, an area known to railroads as "Marcy") o
caption: The Boulevard School, opened in 1910, in 2017
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