Abstract
Norbert Wallington, a resident of Tremont since 1946, recounts his family's relocation from Pennsylvania and his diverse work history, which includes positions at Railway Express, the Federal Reserve Bank, and Ford Motor Company, as well as his volunteer efforts at St. Michael's Church. He discusses significant changes in the Tremont neighborhood over the years, particularly the effects of highway construction (I-71 and I-90) on the community, including population decline, loss of tax base, and disruption of neighborhood connections. Additionally, Wallington addresses changes in transportation, the decline of local businesses, and the evolution of social life in Tremont.
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Interviewee
Wallington, Norbert (interviewee)
Project
Tremont History Project
Date
2003
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
56 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Norbert Wallington interview, 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223072.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1373
Transcript
Norbert Wallington [00:00:01] Alright. First, I’m supposed to ask you some basic questions and ask your name and how to spell it for the record.
Norbert Wallington [00:00:13] N, O, R, B, E, R, T. W, A, L, L, I, N, G, T, O, N.
Interviewer [00:00:24] Okay. And you said that you lived in the Tremont area for over 50 years?
Norbert Wallington [00:00:30] 56 years.
Interviewer [00:00:31] 56 years? And you moved from- Where did you live before you moved to Tremont?
Norbert Wallington [00:00:41] I lived in Pennsylvania.
Interviewer [00:00:43] Oh, really? Okay, great. And your parents, did they live- Did they move from- Did they- Would they live there? Did they move from somewhere else there or they-
Norbert Wallington [00:01:00] Well, my mother came from Poland.
Interviewer [00:01:02] Oh, great.
Norbert Wallington [00:01:03] My dad was born in Pennsylvania.
Interviewer [00:01:11] So do you know why they decided to live in Tremont? Why?
Norbert Wallington [00:01:16] Well, I come out of the service in 1946, January 1946. Had a brother-in-law that lived here in Cleveland. He also came out of the service and there was a lot of work here at that time and I needed a job when I come out of the service, so I came out to Cleveland. Been here ever since.
Interviewer [00:01:46] Were you in the steel worker?
Norbert Wallington [00:01:50] No, I worked. I started out- I worked for Railway Express. That’s probably something you never heard of.
Interviewer [00:01:58] Nope.
Norbert Wallington [00:01:59] Okay. It was like the United Parcel Service or FedEx. They package delivery worldwide. But it was- It was under the railroad at the time. Okay? I worked there for a while and then I got a job at the Federal Reserve Bank as a security guard.
Interviewer [00:02:25] Okay, that’s cool.
Norbert Wallington [00:02:27] I worked there three years and then Ford Motor Company was starting to build in Cleveland and I went out there and I got a job there for more money than I was getting at the bank. So I left the bank and I went out to Ford Motor in 1951.
Interviewer [00:02:52] How did you know about the jobs around Tremont or in this area? Did they talk about it over there? Was it just word about. Yeah. Like how did you know to come to Cleveland for. To get a job?
Norbert Wallington [00:03:06] Well, my. I told you, my brother-in-law lived here.
Interviewer [00:03:08] Oh, okay. And how long did he live here then?
Norbert Wallington [00:03:12] Well, he lived here from ’45 until- Let’s see, when did he die? In 1988? Somewhere around there. He passed away.
Interviewer [00:03:26] Now, did your parents move with you here or did they stay in Pennsylvania?
Norbert Wallington [00:03:31] My mother- My mother moved out here. My dad died in 1946.
Interviewer [00:03:37] Okay.
Norbert Wallington [00:03:39] And my mother moved out here. I don’t know what year. That’s so long ago I can’t remember the dates. But then she passed away. That had to have been in the ’60s, early ’60s.
Interviewer [00:04:07] Hmm. Alright, well, let’s talk about your work again for the Railway Express. And you did that? I’m sorry, you did that for how many years?
Norbert Wallington [00:04:19] Railway Express? That was a sorting, what they call sorting, sorting packages according to address. Different parts of the city, you know, had to be separated and loaded or separated, billed, loaded and then delivered. I didn’t do any delivery. I worked at the warehouse where they mostly separating packages, like, you know.
Interviewer [00:04:55] Is the warehouse pretty close by?
Norbert Wallington [00:05:02] Railway Express there was that on East 26th street off St. Clair. That was between, well, Route 2 at the time in St. Clair, because 90 wasn’t even in the making. I mean, it wasn’t even started.
Interviewer [00:05:26] Right. And how’d you get over there? Did you take a bus?
Norbert Wallington [00:05:29] I went there by streetcar.
Interviewer [00:05:35] Oh, yeah, the streetcars.
Norbert Wallington [00:05:36] They had streetcars, and it was- The fare was pretty cheap, a dime or something, you know, so we rode the streetcar.
Interviewer [00:05:48] Did a lot of your neighbors do the same thing? Did you know if they worked in the same places or-
Norbert Wallington [00:05:55] No. Like I say, I started the Federal Reserve Bank as a security guard and then I went to Ford as security guard, and I worked there for 30 years and retired. Retired in 1981. Been retired ever since.
Interviewer [00:06:14] Okay. Your neighbors, did you know them well or did you-
Norbert Wallington [00:06:26] I had neighbors come and go over the years.
Interviewer [00:06:28] Yeah, I know. There’s-
Norbert Wallington [00:06:31] Where I live. I mean, all the good neighbors that lived there when I moved there, some of them passed away and the kids sold houses. And my next door neighbors, I’ve had, I think, four different neighbors on the one side of me and on the other side, I don’t even want to start counting. [laughs] They were like in and out, you know?
Interviewer [00:07:09] I know there’s-
Norbert Wallington [00:07:12] But now the neighborhood is starting to settle down. People are starting to live longer. People are buying by an end to the neighborhood now.
Interviewer [00:07:24] Yeah, I know there was a- There’s a significant Polish community that lives in Tremont. Were you involved with that at all? Since you came partly from a Polish family? Did you. Did you speak Polish at all?
Norbert Wallington [00:07:37] No, not really. I worked too much. I worked two jobs, a lot. And I wasn’t too involved with anything at the neighborhood, with anything in the neighborhood at the time, you know, until later in life. And I didn’t want to become involved in politics or anything.
Interviewer [00:08:12] Why’s that?
Norbert Wallington [00:08:13] My dad was a politician. He was back in Pennsylvania, he was the mayor of the town. And it’s a cutthroat thing, and I didn’t want to get involved in it, so I never became involved in politics. And I still don’t want to become involved in politics.
Interviewer [00:08:33] It’s probably a safe thing. Did you go to church? Which church did you go to?
Norbert Wallington [00:08:43] Did what?
Interviewer [00:08:44] Did you go to church?
Norbert Wallington [00:08:46] Every Sunday.
Interviewer [00:08:47] Do you- What church did you go to?
Norbert Wallington [00:08:51] St. Michael’s Church on Scranton Road.
Interviewer [00:08:54] And that’s-
Norbert Wallington [00:08:55] But I go to Saint, now I go to Saint Augustine’s on West 14th over here. But I, for about 53 years I went to Saint Michael’s. I still occasionally go over there. Not occasionally because I’m working over there now. Not working, volunteering, actually. I do a lot of restoration work.
Interviewer [00:09:22] Oh, do you do it for the Tremont area?
Norbert Wallington [00:09:26] No, at the church. I do a lot of restoration. They have a lot of statues and stuff that are broken and I repair and repaint. That’s what I was doing today. That’s why I forgot all about this. I was involved in a project, carving and stripping job.
Interviewer [00:09:53] There’s a lot of churches in Tremont, I noticed. There’s a lot of churches in Tremont I noticed.
Norbert Wallington [00:09:59] The whole Tremont area. I don’t know how many. There’s got to be at least 14 that I know of.
Interviewer [00:10:09] Did you know what churches your neighbors went to or do you know anything about the other churches?
Norbert Wallington [00:10:17] The only. Well, most of my neighbors went to St. Michael’s, some of them went to a neighbor. There was a church on Scranton Road, block from where I live. It was a Lutheran church. One of my neighbors went there for years, till they moved out, and some went to the Greek Orthodox church over here. My brother-in-law went to the Russian Orthodox church, not Russian, the Orthodox church down here on Professor and some of my neighbors went to St. John Cantius. Mostly Catholic.
Interviewer [00:11:16] Yeah. Is the area around you mostly Catholic?
Norbert Wallington [00:11:20] Yeah. For years it’s been that way.
Interviewer [00:11:26] Now what language did they speak at the church? Was it Latin?
Norbert Wallington [00:11:29] I speak mostly English, but I’m supposed to be Polish. But I can’t talk. I can’t speak Polish. My parents never spoke to me in Polish. Everything was in English. My wife speaks real good Polish. She writes some Polish, but we don’t speak it because, you know.
Interviewer [00:11:53] Did you get married here in Tremont?
Norbert Wallington [00:11:55] Did what?
Interviewer [00:11:55] Did you get married in Tremont?
Norbert Wallington [00:11:57] Oh, no, I got married in Pennsylvania when I came out of the service.
Interviewer [00:12:00] Oh, okay. Well, you want to talk about the building of the highways? I was wondering maybe what it did to the city.
Norbert Wallington [00:12:17] That was- Everybody, you know, everybody was for that project. I wasn’t too happy about it. We lost a lot of tax base, city tax base. A lot of people moved out of the city, went to the suburbs, and it sort of broke up the neighborhood. It’s like split the neighborhood in half. And then when they built, that was when they built 71. Okay, 71 was the first one to come on. Then they started on 90 and boxed- We were hemmed in by highways, which wasn’t good. I mean, it was traffic noise, people were moving out, rumbling, you know. That divided the city. Not the city, but the neighborhood. You know. It sort of broke up the neighborhood too. And there was a lot of tax base laws there. Did you read today’s paper?
Interviewer [00:13:47] No, I didn’t.
Norbert Wallington [00:13:48] Read Dick Fealer’s column in today’s paper where he asked, he tried to find a boy, a young boy, about 14 years old, 15 years old, that didn’t know anything about the city of Cleveland. Well, today you don’t- You can’t find that. Years ago when I came here, the population of Cleveland was a million something. A million- Almost a million and a half people, you know. Today the population of Cleveland is about 500,000, something like that. A lot of people moved out of homes. Well, the highways had a lot to do with that, chased the people out into the suburbs, you know, and Cleveland lost a big tax base. That’s why the city today is in dire straits.
Interviewer [00:14:54] It is, yeah.
Norbert Wallington [00:14:56] You know, they’re complaining about services, police, you know, not enough police, not enough fire. Well, that’s the reason there isn’t enough because of what happened.
Interviewer [00:15:12] Why do you think that other people wanted the highway? Why, why didn’t you? Why did you- Did you know?
Norbert Wallington [00:15:20] It wasn’t, it wasn’t the people in the city that wanted the highway. The people in the suburbs wanted the highway so that they could get to the downtown area in a hurry.
Interviewer [00:15:32] So then the people that lived around you were against it or-
Norbert Wallington [00:15:35] Sure.
Interviewer [00:15:37] Did you know people that lived where they had to destroy houses or did I know people?
Norbert Wallington [00:15:42] Yeah, I knew a lot of people that had their homes destroyed. Then the hospital, Metro Hospital? Boy, there was, I don’t know how many blocks of homes that were destroyed for their expansion that they bought. Streets were closed down. You know, I think there was about four streets up there in a sort of V-shaped thing. They bought all the homes on all those streets up there and closed all that in.
Interviewer [00:16:24] Do you know where those people went? Where they had to go?
Norbert Wallington [00:16:28] Where else could they go? [laughs] Suburbs. They weren’t building homes like they, like we are are now with, you know, Tremont building, Clark Metro, I suppose Clark Metro is the same as Tremont, but on the other, other side of West 25th Street. And they’re starting to build homes there to try and get people back into the city, And eventually, if the economy keeps going the way it is right now, people will be looking to come back to the city, but there isn’t going to be any room for ’em because of all the expansion that’s going on with business and tearing down of homes, you know. And if they do come back, it’s gonna cost ’em. Gonna cost ’em.
Interviewer [00:17:38] So here Tremont is isolated, so I know there’s bridges on the east side over a river that there was bridges. And I was told that the bridges were often out, that they had- They weren’t working or they were closed or whatever?
Norbert Wallington [00:17:59] So I don’t know how many are down there that aren’t working. Yeah, I know the one on Carter Avenue isn’t working, and there’s one down farther that isn’t working.
Interviewer [00:18:11] So what was that like before when people weren’t really driving around in automobiles too much from Tremont?
Norbert Wallington [00:18:18] You had a transportation system that really took you where you wanted to go. Today you don’t have that. You have buses, which are noisy, bouncy, you know, and the transportation cost, you know, what does it cost you? We live like eight minutes from downtown, okay? That’s what it used to take by streetcar. And today you get on a bus, it takes about 15, 20 minutes to get downtown because they have to circle around through streets to pick up people. You know, their routes are changed and they can’t, actually can’t go the way they used to go. You know. And you used to be able to get on a streetcar going down West 25th Street if you wanted to get out at Harvard Avenue and go that way, there was streetcars going across Harvard Avenue, across Clark Avenue. You know, before you got downtown. Now to go across Clark Avenue and come out on East 55th Street without having to go downtown. Now, to go anyplace, you have to go downtown to go anyplace on the east side, you didn’t have to do that when there was streetcars running.
Interviewer [00:19:46] So when did the streetcars. When did they get rid of those and when did they build the highway? Was it at the same time or was it-
Norbert Wallington [00:19:54] Yeah, around that time, in the ’70s.
Interviewer [00:19:56] So when they got rid of the streetcars, they went to Toronto and they had-
Norbert Wallington [00:20:01] They went to Toronto, Canada. They’re using them in Toronto, Canada, and they’re using them in California, out in San Francisco.
Interviewer [00:20:11] But when they. When they got rid of them here and. And you’re surrounded by the highway, what then? What did people do then? How did they get it when the bridges were closed and if they brought-
Norbert Wallington [00:20:21] In buses, they brought in buses.
Interviewer [00:20:23] So the people that started taking buses.
Norbert Wallington [00:20:24] You had to use a bus. Yeah, they had to go by bus. And like I say, you had to go downtown before. You didn’t have to go downtown to go on the east side. You could get off at- Anybody coming from, from Brookpark Road and wanted to go to the east side. They could come down West 25th Street, get off at Denison, grab a, and get a transfer and grab a streetcar going east or come down here to Clark Avenue. And there was streetcars going east. Now at Clark Avenue, that used to be a big bridge going across there.
Interviewer [00:21:07] Okay.
Norbert Wallington [00:21:08] From, from, from West 11th Street all the way over to East 40 what, 47th Street, 49th Street? That was a bridge, spanned that whole, that whole valley. And there used to be streetcars going right across that bridge.
Interviewer [00:21:26] And so what happened to that? Did they-
Norbert Wallington [00:21:29] They had to tear it down because it was rusted. They couldn’t repair it.
Interviewer [00:21:37] The people or you yourself, did you shop then in Cleveland or did you just- Was there local-
Norbert Wallington [00:21:45] We had local stores. We had- Yeah, in those days, Fisher Foods was a big change store on West 25th Street. There was one, there was one down here, I don’t remember. It was on West 14th or Professor, somewhere down there there was one Kroger’s had stores in the neighborhood. And then you had the market, which you could walk to.
Interviewer [00:22:15] Now these big chain stores, were there smaller?
Norbert Wallington [00:22:21] They were smaller in size. Yeah, we had an A and P, you know, I mean, competitive stores in the neighborhood. You didn’t like one, you went to the other.
Interviewer [00:22:35] Was there family, family stores at all, family-owned stores?
Norbert Wallington [00:22:38] Oh, yes, small, small neighborhood corner grocery stores, mom and pop stores.
Interviewer [00:22:46] Did you go there as opposed to the-
Norbert Wallington [00:22:49] Oh, sure. You needed bread or something in a hurry, you know, that’s where you went. And there were a lot of those around. A lot of those around. And I see, I see these big, big change stores one of the days going all broke and you’re gonna see more, more small grocery stores popping up.
Interviewer [00:23:19] Because they’re more convenient, you think, or because-
Norbert Wallington [00:23:20] Well, they were more convenient, you know, the big, the big change store. They’re not convenient. You know, they put a big, big store up in a neighborhood, in one neighborhood, so that it takes care of what, four or five neighborhoods, you know. Where’s the closest big store here? Tops on Clark and 32nd or something? You know. Or go over here today. You have to go over to Dave’s up West 25th or you know, over by St. Ignatius over there down by the market [West Side Market]. Or go to the market.
Interviewer [00:24:09] What was the market like?
Norbert Wallington [00:24:13] The market is a good shopping place. It’s a good shopping place. You can get just about anything there that you want. They probably have stuff there that some of the big change stories don’t have. And reasonable.
Interviewer [00:24:37] Why is that?
Norbert Wallington [00:24:38] Better quality.
Interviewer [00:24:40] Why do you think that is?
Norbert Wallington [00:24:47] They have- Well, it’s better because they see the market, people come from all over to shop at the market and it’s- They have a better quality food because they have to keep up their clientele. They’re not open every day, you know, the market’s only open about three or four days a week now.
Interviewer [00:25:15] Oh, really? And it’s always been like that, just a few days a week?
Norbert Wallington [00:25:19] It’s always been like that. Saturday is a big shopping day there. And they just closed in the outside vendors, produce, mostly produce, where they sell produce, they just enclosed most of that. All of it, in fact, is closed now. So that you don’t. You don’t. If you’re not outside like it used to be in the wintertime, it used to freeze. They had canvas, they put up canvas and stuff, you know, to stop the wind from blowing and the weather from coming in. Well, now it’s all enclosed.
Interviewer [00:25:58] So winter was pretty, still, was pretty cold to go down there.
Norbert Wallington [00:26:04] In the wintertime, oh yeah, sure.
Interviewer [00:26:05] But people still did it because you got better selection.
Norbert Wallington [00:26:08] Oh, [inaudible] was crowded. Yeah, it was crowded. You couldn’t walk- You couldn’t walk like you normally do. You had to crawl along, you know, that’s how crowded it was. And it’s still that way. It’s still that way.
Interviewer [00:26:28] Did you go with your wife to-
Norbert Wallington [00:26:31] Sure. Sometimes we went alone.
Interviewer [00:26:36] Was it a family event either? I mean, did people go with their kids or anything like that?
Norbert Wallington [00:26:40] Oh, yeah, they have vendors there that, you know, you can buy- You can buy food to eat there, you know. They have a little restaurant in there and they have some of the vendors have sandwiches and stuff that you could buy, you know. You ever been there?
Interviewer [00:27:08] No, I haven’t.
Norbert Wallington [00:27:09] You better make a trip over there one Saturday, Wednesday or Saturday or whatever. Friday, I think.
Interviewer [00:27:18] What I’m gonna do is flip this tape so it doesn’t run out over half an hour. [recording stops and resumes]
Norbert Wallington [00:27:25] Our age, the people our age have seen so many changes in this world that you will never get to see. You live in an electronic world right now, you know, and everything is electronic. It’s not- Color may change a little bit on your TV or your telephone will change. You know, you got all of that. But could you imagine living with the horse and buggy? And then came the automobile, the airplane, electric streetcar, electricity, telephones, radios and TV, jet planes, and then rockets. Will you ever see that in your lifetime? I doubt it. I doubt if you’ll ever see that many changes, you know. It would have- The world would have to go through a pretty extensive change for you to see half of what we’ve seen, you know.
Interviewer [00:28:51] Yeah, well, I think that’s why this is important that we have this project, actually, just so we can at least get an idea so it’s not just something we don’t know about.
Norbert Wallington [00:29:02] You know, you talk about history, ancient history, you know. Well, I lived ancient history, but ancient history when I was going to school was different than ancient history that you’re studying. It’s a lot different.
Interviewer [00:29:20] You bring up an interesting point about, I mean, you’re talking about how all these changes have happened. One thing we were learning about Tremont was, or in any city for that matter, is telephones. Did all your neighbors have telephones? Did you have a telephone?
Norbert Wallington [00:29:40] Years ago. Well, when I came to Cleveland, just about everybody had telephones. Telephones were pretty popular then. If you go back to the- Before I came to Cleveland, you know, in the ’30s, back in the ’30s, late ’20s, there weren’t too many telephones because in those days they didn’t have electronic switching like they have now. They had telephone operators that when you made a call, they would connect you to the party that you called. And it was time- It was time-consuming.
Interviewer [00:30:34] When you had a phone in Cleveland, did they have that or when did they do away with that?
Norbert Wallington [00:30:37] They’d done away with that in the ’40s.
Interviewer [00:30:40] Okay.
Norbert Wallington [00:30:41] Not entirely, because my wife worked for the telephone company and she was. But she, hers was mostly long distance. They had switching operators for long distance. Locally, you didn’t have that. You didn’t have operators when I moved here, but before I moved here, you know, back in, like I say, in the late ’30s, early ’30s, late ’20s, you know, they had telephone operators that you’d talk to and they would connect you with your party. And it’s- It was quite interesting. I mean, you know, fascinating because it was something new.
Interviewer [00:31:26] Yeah, kind of like-
Norbert Wallington [00:31:28] Today, it’s not like today, you know, today you get on a phone, you just dial numbers and you’re there, you know. And then sometimes now they have redialing. You know, you dial a number, you don’t get your party, you can redial it. You know, all you do is hit a redial number and it redials that number. Now I got a phone at home and my Wife don’t know how to work it yet. I hadn’t shown her how to work it. That somebody called you. We have Caller ID, okay? Somebody called you and you’re not at home, and it shows on your Caller ID that you can redial that. That number that they call you, okay, without- All you do is pick it up and hit a button, you know, and it redials that number. It’s fascinating, you know. Now you got cell phones where I’m watching these advertisements where it’s like TV, you know, where they can- Picture. See your picture, you know, you dial, and you calling in.
Interviewer [00:32:47] Yeah.
Norbert Wallington [00:32:50] And it’s a fascinating world. It’s fascinating.
Interviewer [00:32:55] Do you think when you first moved there, since there aren’t all those things to keep us- I mean, now we can be busy with so many different things like you were talking about, was there- What were the things that you did then for to socialize or to do? Did you go to like bars and stuff like that?
Norbert Wallington [00:33:15] Well, there was always something to do. Here at Lincoln Park, there was always something going on. And where I live, it’s about maybe 10, 15 blocks, we used to walk that distance. And the kids, our children used to walk with us. You could walk down the street. You walk down the street, there was a lot of people walking up and down the street. It’s not like today. You look out and if you see one person walking down the street all day long, that’s a lot of people. [laughs] But in those days, you know, in Lincoln Park, well, you see, there was- There was always a picnic or a band playing or something going on in the park. You know, you don’t see that today. It’s not-
Interviewer [00:34:21] So this was almost a daily thing, or is this like a weekly thing?
Norbert Wallington [00:34:25] Or almost three, four times a week. There was something going on.
Interviewer [00:34:31] And during the winter, was there?
Norbert Wallington [00:34:32] Well, in the wintertime, it was a little bit different. You know, there wasn’t anything that you could do in the wintertime, you know, but we used to- Churches, a lot of churches, ran social parties. You know, you used to be able to go to that.
Interviewer [00:34:49] What was that like?
Norbert Wallington [00:34:50] And have something to do. And then there was a lot of movie theaters. In those days, there was a lot of movie theaters around. Oh, on West 14th there was a movie, movie theater. It was on West 25th. I can’t remember. 1, 2, 3, 4, the 4 theaters that I knew on West 25th street you used to be able to go to, you know, and they weren’t as expensive, are they? You didn’t pay over a dollar. You used to go to, to a movie for 50 cents, you know, and a lot of people went, visited the movies.
Interviewer [00:35:47] Did you go to the movies a lot yourself?
Norbert Wallington [00:35:49] Used to.
Interviewer [00:35:50] You? Yeah.
Norbert Wallington [00:35:50] Not anymore.
Interviewer [00:35:51] Yeah. What kind of movies did they show?
Norbert Wallington [00:35:55] We had a lot of musicals. You had musicals, you had westerns, you had mysteries, you know, you had the same thing then that you have now. But they weren’t as elaborate as they are now, you know, because movies were just starting to get sophisticated all kind of equipment and stuff like they have now. Most of your movies now- Well, they’re computer operated. They’re computer made. I should say not operated, computer made. We went to, we got relatives in Florida, in Orlando, and we went to, what was it, two or three years ago, to Universal Studio down there. And they have a big movie studio there, you know, and you go in there and they show you exactly how they make a picture. If they need, let’s take for instance, they’re making like a war picture and they need 10,000 soldiers. Well, they’ll dress one person up as a soldier-
Interviewer [00:37:41] Duplicate him by computers.
Norbert Wallington [00:37:42] And duplicate him by computer onto film. [laughs]
Interviewer [00:37:49] Well, so you think that- But movies back then were still entertaining to everybody, right? I mean, because there wasn’t anything else? Or was it-
Norbert Wallington [00:37:57] Yeah, but people congregate. People used to sit out on their porch, on their front porch and talk, you know, they would converse with one another. You knew your neighbor, you know. You live in Strong- Do you know your neighbor in Strongsville? You’re right. You don’t know that neighbor because you don’t converse with them. Well, years ago we used to- Everybody used to congregate. They maybe 10 people would come and sit on my porch. We’d talk. Next night we’d go to next neighbor’s house and 10 or 15 people congregate and sit and talk.
Interviewer [00:38:46] So everybody pretty much knew everybody then.
Norbert Wallington [00:38:48] Sure, everybody knew everybody. Today you jump in your car and get out of my way. Here I come. Yeah, I don’t care who you are. [laughs]
Interviewer [00:38:58] So we talked about the movies and the church, the church has social-
Norbert Wallington [00:39:07] The church was the center of the community.
Interviewer [00:39:09] Okay. Did the people that went to different churches, were they still pretty tight knit or did they stick to their-
Norbert Wallington [00:39:17] They were a little, a little hesitant about one another years ago, I would say maybe 40 years ago, up until about 40 years ago. And then about 40 years ago the churches start drawn to one another. In the last 20 years, you know, I mean, it doesn’t make any difference. Churches are all speaking to one another and trying to get people to understand one another and different religions, different customs, you know, And I think that’s great. To me, it should have happened years ago, you know.
Interviewer [00:40:10] Was it hard to talk to other people that were in their-
Norbert Wallington [00:40:14] Not really. If your neighbor was, you know, if you’re- Some of your neighbors didn’t go to the same church you did, you talked to them, you know, but you never discussed religion.
Interviewer [00:40:26] Okay.
Norbert Wallington [00:40:30] You discussed politics more than you discussed religion. [laughs] It wasn’t a thing that people didn’t- They like, shied away from one another. You’re a religion. Well, it isn’t that way anymore. It’s more open.
Interviewer [00:40:56] So. And I was also asking about bars and stuff like that. Bars or dance halls, anything like that in Tremont that you remember going to?
Norbert Wallington [00:41:05] There was a lot of bars.
Interviewer [00:41:08] Yeah.
Norbert Wallington [00:41:10] They weren’t- They weren’t- You didn’t have go-go bars. You didn’t have- Well, when did go-go bars start? ’60s, ’70s? Somewhere around there, you know, then you started having problems. But most of the bars were neighborhood bars. People would go there and have a couple beers, you know, and then go home. They’d stop in and maybe after supper, after they finish work, they’d go home and have something to eat and then they go sit in the bar for an hour or two, you know, it isn’t like it is today. Bars became boisterous, noisy, you know, and they started becoming a pain in the neck to people.
Interviewer [00:42:04] So it wasn’t a family thing, though, to go to the bar. [Oh sure.] Was it?
Norbert Wallington [00:42:11] Oh, sure, kids used to go in. They used to have a Coke or, you know, pop, some kind of pop. And the people would sit and talk. The kids would be playing. They had games for the kids, you know, to ring toss and stuff like that, you know, and the kids would amuse themselves with that, and that’s the way it was.
Interviewer [00:42:44] So, with all these things, and before we were talking about the building of the highway, when the highway was built, did those things start to decline when the neighborhood was breaking apart?
Norbert Wallington [00:42:59] Yeah, the neighborhood started to decline.
Interviewer [00:43:02] What was first? Was it the churches? I mean, I know the church is still here, but what started to fall apart first in the community, do you think?
Norbert Wallington [00:43:11] Which started to fall apart first? Well, the thing that started to fall apart first was the neighborhood services. That was the first thing that started to fall apart.
Interviewer [00:43:28] And by services you mean schools?
Norbert Wallington [00:43:29] I’m talking about police, garbage pickup, neighborhood going down the drain, you know, people moving out. You know, I don’t, I really don’t know how many houses they destroyed or took, tore down and families that moved out. You know, like I told you, the population of Cleveland when I first came here was a million and a half people. Now it’s- Now it’s 500,000 or something like that. You know, that’s a lot of people-
Interviewer [00:44:06] Right, right.
Norbert Wallington [00:44:08] To move out. And when they move out, you know, everything goes down the drain. I mean, everything starts declining.
Interviewer [00:44:21] So it’s almost like everything started decline at the same time.
Norbert Wallington [00:44:23] Like everything stopped, you know, it- Services stopped, you know, because there wasn’t enough people around.
Interviewer [00:44:34] Is there a school in Tremont? Was there a school in Tremont?
Norbert Wallington [00:44:38] Schools in Tremont? We had- Yeah, you had St. John Cantius. You had Tremont School over here on where Jefferson starts. Tremont School there. There was St. Michael’s had a school, the big school from kindergarten to 12th grade. St. John Cantius, kindergarten to 12th grade. Lincoln West was on Scranton Road. That was kindergarten. That was a public school. Kindergarten. And Tremont was a public school from first grade 12, Lincoln West, first grade, kindergarten to 12th.
Interviewer [00:45:40] What happened with all that? When the highways were built, did they change districts or did the school shut down?
Norbert Wallington [00:45:47] The people all moved out. You had all these schools and, you know, children- Children left with their parents, you know. So the schools declined.
Interviewer [00:46:03] Do they still have them?
Norbert Wallington [00:46:04] There was enough. Well, we got schools, yeah, but not- Not as- Not as many. St. Michael’s the diocese took that over. St. John Cantius, the diocese took that over and made Cleveland Central Catholic out of it. And they have three. They have- They have three campuses right now. And I understand pretty soon two of those are going to close Scranton Road or St. Michael’s and Cantius, and they’ll only have the one on the east side at St. Stanislaus or something or someplace over there off 65th, East 65th, Lincoln West, they tore that building down and built- Well, they didn’t tear it down. They remodeled the building, but they only had it from first grade to eighth grade there. And they built a new high school over on West 32nd Street and Meyers. Then they had closed Tremont. They want to close Tremont up. And they built Scranton School on Barbor and Scranton Road. And then they built Buhrer School on Buhrer Avenue. They closed a lot of schools because of decline in population. It hurt. It hurt. You know. It hurt the whole city. The whole city was hurt by the highway, by all these highways.
Interviewer [00:48:06] What about- You were talking about how people would congregate. You know, you would talk to people. And so right away, when your neighborhood started declining the people-
Norbert Wallington [00:48:17] It disappeared.
Interviewer [00:48:18] really quick too? It was-
Norbert Wallington [00:48:19] Sure, it hurt. You know, people moved out. They start moving because they were afraid, you know, that they were afraid of what was gonna happen to their homes, you know, and, well, it became like a transient city, you know, people moving in, moving out, moving in, moving out. But yet myself and some other people stayed.
Interviewer [00:48:52] Now why was that?
Norbert Wallington [00:48:54] And, well, why- You know, I bought a house. It wasn’t a new house. It was a house that we liked. We’ve done with it what we wanted. We repaired it. We remodeled and repaired and we still do. We still take good care of our house, you know, and why should I sell my house? My house was paid for. I had no mortgage on it. Why should I sell it? Went to a bigger house, which I didn’t need. My wife and I don’t need. There’s only two of us. We don’t need a big house, you know, and we don’t have a big house. We got four bedrooms in our, and we don’t need it, you know, and be strapped with a big mortgage, you know. And keep paying.
Interviewer [00:49:55] Is that how your other neighbors that didn’t move out felt? They didn’t just- It didn’t make sense.
Norbert Wallington [00:50:01] It didn’t make any sense to me. I don’t know. You live on Strongville, do you? Do you live in a newer home?
Interviewer [00:50:13] Yes, pretty much, yeah.
Norbert Wallington [00:50:14] Your parents?
Interviewer [00:50:15] Yeah.
Norbert Wallington [00:50:16] They have a big mortgage, you know, and, you know, I don’t- That’s what they wanted. That’s what they got, you know, so I can’t complain, you know, about them moving out there, doing what they want to do. It’s their life, you know.
Interviewer [00:50:42] So what now? What is there to do in Tremont now, as before? I mean, they still have, I saw there’s some still bars and there’s still some shops. Right?
Norbert Wallington [00:50:53] We’re trying to get- We’re rebuilding here in Tremont. We’re rebuilding Tremont. And we’re getting people to move back. There’s people moving back into Tremont from the suburbs and people that moved out and remember, they remember Tremont, you know, of old. Well, now it’s a little bit more modern now and there are homes being built. You know, if you go down here, going down the hill, you’ll see a lot of building going on down there. Not only there, but throughout the Tremont area. Right across from me was an old, an old building. It was the Cleveland, what they call the Cleveland Dental Works. They made- Years ago they made dental tools, tools for dentists and stuff there. Not a big- It’s not a big, real big factory, but it’s a pretty good sized building. It was built in 1920, somewhere around there. 1920, 1917 somewhere. And it’s become a historic building. Well, for last 20 years, it’s been vacant. Not completely vacant, but they haven’t been doing anything there. Right now, a man bought the building, and he’s an engineer. Not a- Yeah, he’s an engineer. So he’s turning it into apartment building, an apartment building. They’re building loft, what they call loft apartments. You know, high ceilings. They can’t do any- He can’t do any remodeling on the outside of the building. The building has to stay on the outside as it was originally.
Interviewer [00:53:22] Because it’s historic?
Norbert Wallington [00:53:23] Yeah, it’s because of the historic designation. But they can do anything on the inside that he wants.
Interviewer [00:53:30] Did they tear down a lot of historical buildings when they built the highway?
Norbert Wallington [00:53:37] They tore down some historical buildings. A lot. You know, they tore down a few that they shouldn’t have torn down, you know, but they were in their way, so they tore ’em down.
Interviewer [00:53:55] Do you think any type of sensitivity went into their planning, or did they just kind of draw a line and if you were in the way, you were in the way, or did they-
Norbert Wallington [00:54:05] Evidently. Evidently they just drew a line. We’re going through here. We need a highway through here. We need a highway through here. [crosstalk] And they- They never even. They never even came to the people and say, what do you think of putting a highway through here? You know, they just went. Gonna put a highway through here. We’re gonna take care. We’re gonna take your home. You have to move. We’re gonna pay you so much, you know, market value for your home, and you’re gonna have to go someplace.
Interviewer [00:54:44] What about the people on the other- Did you know the people on the other side of the highway or anything like that?
Norbert Wallington [00:54:49] Never even- Never even consulted with anybody.
Interviewer [00:54:53] Well, I’m asking. Did you- Did you- Like, you knew the people that lived in the area where the highway.
Norbert Wallington [00:54:59] Yeah, right.
Interviewer [00:55:00] Right. Did you know the people that lived on the other side ended up becoming isolated?
Norbert Wallington [00:55:05] Sure.
Interviewer [00:55:05] Did you still talk to those people, or was that cut off?
Norbert Wallington [00:55:08] Well, it was like cut off?
Interviewer [00:55:10] Yeah.
Norbert Wallington [00:55:11] You were cut off. Like putting up a wall, like a Berlin Wall, you know, only not as violent or not as, I don’t know what you’d call it, you know, but you were cut off from those people, you know. It was harder to get to, you know.
Interviewer [00:55:40] Well, we’ve done an hour, actually, so we’ll stop the tape.
Norbert Wallington [00:55:45] I hope-
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