This story is about a part of my life in the 1950s. It was fun, it was exciting, it was scary, it was about bad behavior. It was about an introduction to other worlds and in so many ways it was about realizing that life was not always going to be like it was then. —Ralph Horner

There were many factories in the neighborhood. In those days, the owners of the factories built them where the population was dense. That strategy provided good access for the workers, and they could walk to work.

A lot of neighborhoods had small shopping districts that were very handy. The biggest factory near us was the Richman Brothers factory, which nearly filled an entire city block on East 55th Street. There were even some small factories in the backyards of some of the houses. The building next to mine, which housed Charlotte's Deli, had a small machine shop in the back.

Our backyard had no grass, but it did have a lot of metal shavings on it from the shop next door. My mother raked up the shavings so my sister and I could play back there. I think my mother enjoyed doing that because after she cleaned up the metal shavings, she used the rake to make designs in the dirt.

Amazing! My mother was making a Zen Garden before anyone on 49th even knew what Zen was. It was very mystical.

There was a very unusual building on the corner of East 49th Street and Superior Avenue. I was always puzzled by it. It did not look like any other building in the neighborhood. Due to my youth and inexperience, I didn’t how to find out why it was so different than any other building in the neighborhood.

When I did get old enough to know how to research things, I was able to solve that mystery. The building was torn down by then, but I was lucky enough to find a picture of it. The large stone 19th-century building has plenty of curves and flourishes.

It was the powerhouse for a cable car railway line on Superior. Yes, there was a rare cable car line on Superior, one of only a handful of cable car lines in the city, I believe.

The power cable was under the road and the driver had an apparatus that, when he wanted to go forward, he pulled a lever, and the apparatus grabbed the moving cable, and the streetcar was pulled forward. When he wanted to stop, he released the grip on the cable and the streetcar’s forward motion slowed and he braked.

I have a feeling that the cable, the underground rooms, and all the equipment might still be there under the street. When the line was discontinued it seemed it would be an unnecessary expense to dig it all up. It would seem to make more sense to just close it up.

Are there any archaeologists out there looking for a new Cleveland history project? I have a shovel and would be glad to lend a hand!