Shaker Square:
Cleveland or Shaker?
EDWINS is the latest high-profile addition to the ever-evolving
menagerie of restaurants and stores that make up Shaker
Square, which was only the second planned shopping district in
the United States, after Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. The
brains behind EDWINS, Brandon Chrostowski, told Shaker Life
that the Square “sets the pace in terms of racial, gender, and
ethnic diversity.”
It wasn’t always that way. The Square was developed
by Oris and Mantis Van Sweringen (who famously developed
Shaker Heights) between 1927 and 1929. “The Vans saw
Shaker Square as a focal point and gateway to their suburb to
the east…” according to the website shakersquare.net, written
and maintained by Shaker Square resident Arnold Berger.
Shaker Square is an odd duck. It is and it isn’t part of
Shaker Heights. While it is technically in Cleveland, it’s part of
the Shaker Heights School District. Arnie Berger’s website has
some suggestions as to how that might have happened:
“Old maps suggest that the Shaker Square neighborhood
was never in Shaker Heights, but rather in Newburgh, which
was annexed to Cleveland around the time Shaker Heights was
carved out of Warrensville Township.
One old news account, from the September 5, 1912 Plain
Dealer, tells of an exchange of land… Such a ‘swap’ would
serve the interests of both communities. Shaker Heights wanted
more students (and more taxes) to support a new school.
Cleveland city officials and judges were glad to create an
area where they could live in the city…yet have their children
educated with those of the city’s elite who were moving to
Shaker Heights.”
Bruce Marshall’s book, Shaker Heights (2006), adds
more layers to the telling. It seems the Vans wanted a purely
residential village, but understood that Shaker residents would
appreciate having somewhere nearby to shop. “Most of Shaker
Square was within the boundaries of Shaker Heights… the Van
Sweringens returned a section of Shaker Heights to the City of
Cleveland and created Shaker Square as a commercial district.”
Nor did the Vans want any apartments in town, so
making the Square part of Cleveland allowed them to build the
venerable and beautiful Moreland Courts.
And there’s yet another reason why Shaker Heights’
borders were, as Marshall writes, “fluid” in those early years.
“When a portion of Shaker Heights was returned to Cleveland for
the development of Shaker Square, the odd extension on the
Northwest corner” – Larchmere Road – “was retained because
Mayor William Van Aken’s property was located there.”
Shaker Square was put on the National Register of Historic
Places in 1976. SL
SHAKER LIFE | SUMMER 2014 43