Lakewood Lore

Streetcar memories ring bell with many old-timers

Remembering streetcars is a nostalgic pastime for many Lakewood old-timers who grew up riding the yellow electric pachyderms that once clattered and swayed up and down our main arteries.

However, for Melvin J. Lewis, 76, of Edwards Avenue, the long-gone lifestyle tugs at a particularly tender heartstring. Lewis, you see, worked as a motorman-conductor on the Madison Avenue line from 1942 to ‘52 with time out for military service.

"When I started for the old Cleveland Railway Co. 50 years ago at a pay of 73 cents an hour, the passenger fare from downtown Cleveland was a dime, but you could ride from West 117th Street west to the end of the line for only a nickel," Lewis recalled.

The Madison line opened in 1893 and originally was routed from downtown only to West 117th. It was extended to Belle Avenue in 1917 and later that year to Riverside Drive. In 1920, the end of the line was cut back a block to Spring Garden Avenue. It remained there until its final run in 1954.

The rest room structure for the former Spring Garden turnaround in Lakewood still stands. It has been redone into an examination annex of a building occupied by Dr. Nelson E. Abrahamsen Jr., prominent Lakewood optometrist. Today, as one of Abrahamsen’s customers, Mel understandably gets a feeling of deja vu when he visits the doctor’s office.

"Although the line ran smoothly for the most part, we did have our problems," Lewis recollected.

"Kids would hitch free rides by jumping on the back of the cars, and now and then pulling the trolleys off. Some passengers who showed us a weekly $1.25 pass upon boarding would then hurry to the rear of the car and hand it out a window to a friend.

"Each fall wet leaves on the rails were a big hazard, making the wheels slip and slide. In the winter, sub-zero temperatures could cause overhead wires to snap, and our sweeper streetcars, with their large rotating brooms to remove snow, would frequently jump the tracks."

Lodged in Lewis’s memory are the testy, pot-belly, coal-burning stoves of the older units. "They had to be stoked continually and, even so, it was hard to heat the cars properly," he said.

Lewis recounted how during World War II, when pennies were made of a grayish lead alloy to save on copper, tricky riders buffed up the coins and tried to pass them off as dimes. He said he could always tell they weren’t dimes by the dead sound the cents made when dropped into the fare box.

Along the route, he pointed out, it was difficult for automobiles to pass because of the limited space between the right side of the streetcar and the curb. He claimed he often knocked off power to permit motorists to pull ahead of him, even though such courtesy made it rough to keep a time schedule. During rush hours that schedule had cars running at three minute intervals.

My own experience as a Lakewoodite riding the Madison line to and from downtown daily during most of the ‘40s was only half bad.

I hated making the return trip because during the evening rush hour my streetcar always was jammed, and I had to stand and hold onto a leather strap the whole way.

However, in going to work, I lucked out in a sense. Each morning I boarded at the same time and same stop as my wife’s uncle, who favored an overmeasure of garlic on his breakfast toast. Suffice to say, the other early riders invariably gave us a wide berth.

Detroit and Clifton trolley car lines also bear remembering. The Detroit line opened the same year as the Madison, and before the street was paved. It carried 19 million riders during 1920, its busiest year. It closed in 1951.

The Clifton route, which started in 1902, was an unusual one. It traveled on the tree lawns of both sides of Clifton Boulevard. There were numerous collisions with autos along the way because the tracks crossed so many home driveways. Clifton streetcar service ended in 1947 with the widening of the street and the advent of Clifton express buses.

This article appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post October 10, 1991. Reprinted with permission.

More Lakewood Lore