CTS crane in Hilton Garden Inn
The old Cleveland Transit System repair shop on Carnegie, near Progressive Field, was incorporated into the new Hilton Garden Inn and serves as meeting rooms. I found it fun to look up one day and notice the Armington overhead crane still in place, along with some other historic remnants on the stairways and elevator. The Hilton sent me this description:George Armington founded the Euclid Crane & Hoist Company in 1924. The company specialized in earth moving vehicles and equipment. One project was to design and build a crane for CTS (Cleveland Transit System). This crane, known as the Armington Crane, was built to service the electrical transformers inside what is now the Hilton Garden Inn Gateway Conference Center on Carnegie Avenue. These transformers operated the street car system for the city of Cleveland. There was a central control panel located on the second floor that monitored any transformer/electrical outages. The Armington Crane was built to lower and hoist the transformers for servicing. The crane is geared and can be operated by a single person and uses a hawser rope that will handle 15 tons of lift. Today the Armington Crane can be seen in the Armington room and is still operable and the name plate is gilded in gold with the “Armington” name.
Another funny little historical survival.
Labels: Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland history, Cleveland OH, Cleveland Transit System, CTS, RTA, streetcars
posted by Bill Barrow @ 4:27:00 PM
2 Comments:
I attended the Notacon conference this weekend and was curious about this room. Thanks for sharing the history.
I'm currently working there now. Good to know a little more back story on that crane. Didn't realize it was still operational though.
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