Talk:Tower City Center

Names

I'm having a bit of difficulty with the wording of this entry. While I understand how Tower City Center is a name that can be applied to the entire redevlopment, Terminal Tower is still Terminal Tower - one piece of the whole.

Wouldn't it more sense to introduce section headers that break out Terminal Tower (skyscraper) and then Tower City (entire complex)? user: stude62 talk:stude62 16:53, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It seems to me that in regular usage, when people say "Terminal Tower" they mean something different than Tower City Center, and in fact vice versa. People who work in the office tower rarely say they work at "Tower City" and those that work in the mall aren't likely to say they work at "Terminal Tower." I guess my feeling is that the two names aren't interchangrable and therefore it may be misleading to say that "Tower City Center is also known as Terminal Tower" or to even say that "Tower City Center...is a landmark skyscraper," when most consider the tower to be the skyscraper and Tower City Center to be a shopping center and transit hub. 69.171.46.152 05:24, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I am going to put Terminal Tower into a separate article from Tower City Center because the two are not the same. (For those not familiar with Cleveland/ Tower City, the current way the article is set up would be as if Radio City Music Hall were listed as the same thing as Rockefeller Center.) My basis for this comes from the signage of the outside of the main entrance to Tower City on Public Square. Above the main doors, in large letters are the words "TOWER CITY CENTER," which names the entire complex. Then, to the left and right of the sets of doors is a list of the "elements" which make up the complex - Terminal Tower, The Avenue, MK Ferguson Plaza, Chase Financial Tower, Skylight Office Tower, Higbee Building, Ritz Carlton, Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, and RTA Rapid Transit Station. I think that the confusion comes from the fact that the complex was just renamed "Tower City" in the early 90s. But, also remember that the original name of the complex was not actually Terminal Tower to begin with, but instead "Cleveland Union Terminal." user: nick_krol 08 Nov 2005

Obviously, the Terminal Tower is a part of Tower City Center/Cleveland Union Terminal. If you want to add more details about the tower, why not put include them in this article, instead of creating more confusion by splitting it up across multiple pages? If something's unclear to you, try to improve the article. - EurekaLott 20:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Dates

Okay, I think I've got everything straight now. I had a look through Eric Johannesen's Cleveland Architecture, Clay Herrick's Cleveland Landmarks, and Holly Rarick's Progressive Vision, and they all seem to agree on the dates. - EurekaLott 23:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that construction began in 1922. I've never heard of that before. From my sources, they all state 1926 as the first year of construction, with 1924 being the first excavation of the site and 1925 being the first public showing of the structure's plans. I changed it back to 1926 for now, but other than that, everything looks great. I also must apologize for the fuss I made about the tower's completion. Now that I've looked into it, Shawn Patrick Hoefler's book, Cleveland's Downtown Architecture states the following:

This 708-foot structure has remained a symbol of the city ever since its completion in 1930.

-- Clevelander 00:07, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History is mistaken in its dates. One of the books I mentioned has a picture of the site in 1923. The site had been cleared, but excavation had not yet begun. What date you use for the start of construction depends on your definition of construction, I suppose. - EurekaLott 00:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

While doing further research, I have discovered that indeed the demolition for the site began in 1922-23 (I'm flipping through the Landmarks book as I type this). However, many sources including the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History and this website (http://www.clevelandmemory.org/cut-coll/) still state that the building's actual construction began in 1926. I think a good compromise would be to note that demolition for the site began in 1922 and construction began in 1926. -- Clevelander 01:30, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

2,200 buildings were demolished

Are there even 2,200 buildings in the entire downtown area? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.100.236.149 (talk) 02:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Succession templates

@Cards84664: regarding the succession templates, I'm not seeking to "censor" anything. I simply don't see the point in redundant templates conveying the same information three times. There's one rail route here--the Erie. That it passed to the Erie Lackawanna and later Conrail is interesting but doesn't need to be in the infobox. Mackensen (talk) 22:47, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mackensen: If you want to look at it with an accurate retrospective, the line name takes priority over the company name. While nostalgically, the 1st sub was an Erie line for the most years, it ended service as a Conrail shuttle. (If the pink line of the Chicago L were to close today, we wouldn’t list it as a defunct former branch of the blue line, we would list both services.) Cards84664 (talk) 23:08, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

The infobox is confusing the issue by listing both physical infrastructure and commuter services, all of which link to the same place. This isn't good navigation. We don't need to list every corporate iteration which owned the line; we need to list the one which makes the most sense contextually. That's the Erie. Similarly, it makes little sense to list both the Penn Central and the New York Central Railroad, nor does it make sense to list both the Nickel Plate and the Norfolk & Western. It'll just confuse anyone who doesn't already understand the situation. Mackensen (talk) 23:28, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

That’s what the listing of years are for. Selective details defeat the purpose of the “Services” header. If you want to list just the station succession, change the header to “Station succession”, and drop the Erie header. Note, the “Erie” is not physical infrastructure, the line itself was built long before the Erie RR was founded. Cards84664 (talk) 23:36, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

The infobox is already unmanageable without listing every predecessor of the Erie. Normally we adopt a limiting factor to prevent it from growing out of control: current services, and the physical infrastructure as the last major private owner knew it. Listing every iteration of owner/operator isn't helpful, especially when there's no linkage. How is anyone not intimately familiar with the topic to know that Penn Central is the successor to the New York Central? Why is the Mercury listed, but no other named trains? (Note, no named trains should be listed at all). This article is dramatically different from almost all other articles on railway stations in the United States in its use of services/lines in the infobox, and I don't see this as an improvement. Mackensen (talk) 23:53, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the Mercury should not be listed, and I will remove it. Currently, former services are limited by the stations they served, the LS&MS never served C.U.T., it served C.U.D. on the lakefront until 1914 with the merge into NYC. NYC entered C.U.T. in 1930, so there is no need to list LS&MS. I'm still certain that at the very least, Conrail should be prioritized. if a station on the MNRR commuter rail were to close, you wouldn't change the listed service branch(es) back to NYC, would you? Cards84664 (talk) 02:32, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Most stations served by the Metro-North list both the current service (MNRR and others) and the physical line of the predecessor private company. Depending on where you are that's the New York Central, the New Haven, or maybe the Erie. The primary reason for doing this is to show abandoned stations and routes, of which there are many. This doesn't require showing every predecessor railroad, just the one that's most relevant (hence the New York Central and not the Penn Central, the Erie but not the Erie Lackawanna). I can see a justification for showing the Conrail commuter service, but I wouldn't also list the Erie-Lackawanna. Mackensen (talk) 02:46, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

In that case, I’m certain that the Penn Central can stay, because if you look further east from Cleveland, many stations had overlapping openings and closings. (Painesville is a good example of this). I’ll start thinking of a way to declutter the 1st sub, while still retaining disambig. Cards84664 (talk) 18:13, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Painesville is a supreme example of overkill. It could be represented by one template where it has six. Heaven knows what a casual reader would make of it. The main text of the article is where the ownership transitions and eventual loss of passenger service can and should be described (though they aren't). Mackensen (talk) 01:04, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

How is it overkill? It's easier than trying to explain each succession in prose. If only one template is used, it's a lot easier to confuse the reader, as they may be looking for a station that existed pre NYC. Cards84664 (talk) 05:28, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm definitely in agreement with Mackensen here. The idea of these templates is to convey information to readers, not to list every single iteration of every service; if you can't clearly explain something in prose, how in the world could the reader understand it from a contextless template? Painesville is a perfect example of how not to use s-rail templates. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 06:44, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

What are your suggestions for finding a way to display adjacent stations accurately? Cards84664 (talk) 14:30, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

A single template is fine for geographic accuracy. If you're looking to show closures, you could do something like this:

New York Central Railroad
Elyria toward Chicago		Main Line		Painesville toward New York
Linndale Closed 1961 toward Chicago				East Cleveland Closed 1962 toward New York

I'm opposed to this approach in a situation such as this where the entire service is shown for historical purposes. We're not representing the totality of LS&MS/NYC/PC service east and west of Cleveland; we're showing the physical lay of the line pre-Amtrak (effectively pre-nationalization as far as passenger service is concerned). Pi.1415926535 and I have been kicking around the best way to handle this with the New Haven lines. You have to straddle a line between inclusiveness and usefulness. If you include every station which ever existed, you have a mass of red links. One way you could handle it is show the first red link to each side of the station, and the "nearest" blue link. That gives you this:

New York Central Railroad
Elyria toward Chicago		Main Line		East Cleveland toward New York
Linndale Closed 1961 toward Chicago

You can get to Painesville from East Cleveland, there's no need to include Painesville itself. If you include Linndale but not Elyria, then the reader is stuck. Mackensen (talk) 21:52, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

New York Central Railroad (Until 1968)
Elyria Closed 1971 toward Chicago		Main Line		East Cleveland Closed 1962 toward New York
Linndale Closed 1962 toward Chicago

@Mackensen: I think this will be better off if we disambiguate all years (finding them isn't a problem), red-linked or not. Cards84664 (talk) 03:33, 6 June 2018 (UTC)