Coventry Village
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coventry Village is a commercial business district in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, situated on Coventry Road between Mayfield Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard. Coventry is associated with Northeast Ohio's artistic, musical, bohemian and hippie communities and is the center of Cleveland's creative class, inviting comparisons to the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco and Greenwich Village in New York City, although on a smaller scale.
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[edit] History
Coventry Road was originally intended to be part of Patrick Calhoun's upscale planned community called "Euclid Heights", which Calhoun conceived in the 1890s. Euclid Heights was designed to be a New England-style upper-income community of Protestants of Anglo-Saxon heritage. As demand for large houses declined, and Calhoun's realty company became insolvent in the 1910s, unbuilt lots in the portion of Euclid Heights near Coventry Road were sold at foreclosure sales. Developers built apartment buildings on these empty lots.
The Euclid Heights and Mayfield streetcar routes met at the Coventry-Mayfield intersection, making the area a convenient commuter transfer point after 1907. Most of the buildings on Coventry were constructed between 1913 and 1933, with the greatest growth occurring between 1921 and 1925, when 18 commercial buildings were erected. Buildings erected for retail walk-in traffic typically included second story apartments. The new Coventry business district served streetcar passengers and the increasing populations of the Euclid Heights and Mayfield Heights developments. Before then, the nearest commercial center was at Doan's Corners.
By the early 1920s, the newly-built apartment district attracted a large, thriving Jewish community. This influence was reflected in the commercial district by, among other things, a kosher poultry slaughterhouse.
The motion picture Les Amants ("The Lovers"), was first shown locally in 1959 at the Heights Art Theatre, then located at the Coventry Road/Euclid Heights Boulevard intersection. Theatre manager Nico Jacobellis was arrested and convicted on obscenity charges for showing the film. By its decision in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction. Agreeing that Jacobellis' criminal conviction was improper and that the film was not obscene, Justice Potter Stewart famously described his perspective on obscene material: "I know it when I see it..."
In 1967, Coventry became the gathering place for Cleveland's "counterculture" and drug users, owing partly to the popularity of the C Saw Café with bikers, and also its nearness to the predecessor schools to Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University and to John Carroll University. Over the years, the Jewish influence in Coventry gave way to businesses that served a younger and more affluent market, including Frankel's Jewelry, Irv's Deli, Heights Art Theatre, Dobama Theatre and the Arabica coffeehouse, Renaissance Parlour, Generation Gap, and High Tide Rock Bottom, which have all since closed.
[edit] Current attractions
Coventry boasts a thriving music scene, including rock club the Grog Shop and its liquor lounge counterpart, the B-Side. Area mainstay Record Revolution sells classic vinyl, and the CD/Game Exchange (formerly the Record Exchange) sits in its original location near Coventry's intersection with Mayfield Road. A bookstore, Mac's Backs, serves as an unofficial home for the Cleveland literary community.[citation needed] Restaurants include Hunan Coventry, Tommy's, Grums Sub Shop, Mint Cafe, Pacific East, and BD's Mongolian Barbeque. Other food options include Doghouse, Jimmy John's, Dave's Cosmic Subs and Chipotle. The district also houses many sports bars such as Winking Lizard Tavern, McNulty's, Panini's and Johnny Malloy's. La Cave du Vin serves a large selection of wine and beer. Other attractions are the retro/kitschy/classic toy store Big Fun, the clothing store/"head shop" Sunshine, and Heights Hardware.
[edit] References
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Coventry Village Business District, [1]
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Jacobellis v. Ohio, [2]
Barrow, William C., The Euclid Heights Allotment: A Palimpsest of the Nineteenth Century Search for Real Estate Value in Cleveland's East End, Chapter VII, Cleveland State University (Master's thesis)(1997), [3]
