photographs of abandoned places #13

Warner & Swasey Observatory 1919-1980/2

Of this series, this building is lamented, and well fotographed on the 'nets'. The domes of telescope houses resemble a Trojan helmet, becoming immediately picturesque. But, the copper scrappers have attacked here. This was a 'nice' neighborhood, it was one of Cleveland's earliest suburbs, it is now an urban wreckage, yet very close to big money.

ivy covered halls

Last purchased by a real estate/mortgage wheeler-dealer (read felon) at sheriff's sale for the minimum bid of $115 thousand. Warner & Swasey built machined tools and devices, including telescopes. They were generous to Case School of Applied Science (now part of CWRU). They gave this wonderful building, and the stuff in it to the school. Earlier, in 1909, Warner & Swasey built a marble observatory for Denison College.

The Taylor Road facility was a genuine world class research observatory. They helped prove the Milky Way was a spiral galaxy. On a hill, in East Cleveland next to Cleveland Heights,there was housed and operated multiple telescopes. One was moved to a new observatory in Geauga County, where there is no city lights. It stayed there from 1957 to 1979, then to Arizona's Kitt Peak National Observatory.