The Standard Building, (originally the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Cooperative National Bank Building and later the Standard Bank Building), is a high-rise apartment building located at the southwest corner of Ontario Street and St. Clair Avenue in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...

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. Rising to a height of 282 feet (86 meters), the Standard Building was the second tallest building in Cleveland when it was completed in 1925. Its north and east facades are clad in cream-colored

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracot ...

with a recurring starburst

motif Motif may refer to: General concepts * Motif (chess composition), an element of a move in the consideration of its purpose * Motif (folkloristics), a recurring element that creates recognizable patterns in folklore and folk-art traditions * Moti ...

. The south face, which can be seen from

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, is unadorned and windowless. It was designed by Knox and Elliot architects, and was built for $7 million. It was built by the

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) is a labor union founded in Marshall, Michigan, on 8 May 1863 as the Brotherhood of the Footboard. It was the first permanent trade organization for railroad workers in the US. A year lat ...

who owned the building until 2014, when it was sold to Weston, Inc.

History

During the Great Depression, Standard Bank ran into financial difficulties and was sold by the BLE. It merged with two other Cleveland banks in 1930, forming Standard Trust Bank. This bank subsequently failed in 1931 and its assets were liquidated. From

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

until July, 1967, the bank lobby served as an induction station (after 1965, known as an Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station) for the U.S. military. In the 1940s the building house
Cleveland College
a downtown campus of

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, and was the last building of that campus. To the east, across Ontario Street, is the Marriott at Key Center, built on the site of the landmark Engineers Building, which the BLE sold in 1988 for development, moving into the Standard Building. To the north, across St. Clair Avenue, is the Cuyahoga County Justice Center. The Old Stone Church abuts its south side. Currently it is the 21st highest building in Cleveland. It was designated a Cleveland Landmark in 1979. In 2007, the boundary of the Euclid Avenue Historic District was increased to include the building, among other structures. In 2014, it was purchased by Weston, Inc. for $3.9 million, and was converted into an apartment building.

References

External links

The Standard Building
{{coord, 41, 30, 2.98, N, 81, 41, 43.47, W, type:landmark_region:US-OH, display=title Apartment buildings in Cleveland Skyscraper office buildings in Cleveland Office buildings completed in 1925 Downtown Cleveland Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen

History

See also

References

External links