ANGLE

The ANGLE was an Irish ghetto that developed on Cleveland's near west side in the late 1860s. The Angle was generally defined as the parish of ST. MALACHI'S CHURCH, an area north of Detroit Ave., east of W. 28th St., and down Washington Ave. to WHISKEY ISLAND, which it included. This area had long been an Irish neighborhood, as it overlooked the ore docks where the early IRISH found employment. By the late 1860s, the Irish had become numerous enough for divisions to form within their own enclave, the poorer Irish remaining in the near west side area. Despite their poverty, the "Angle Irish" were considered the most chauvinistic of Cleveland's Irish community. Closely knit, and resentful of outsiders, as an Irish parish ghetto the Angle was a virtually "closed" community. Second and third generations of its sons and daughters married each other and endeavored to remain in the parish by building additions onto the rear of their parents' homes or buying homes vacated after the deaths of older parishioners. The Angle raised countless numbers of distinguished sons, such as Tom Patton, a president of Republic Steel, and the boxing champion JOHNNY KILBANE. The encroachment of warehouses caused its eventual dispersion in the 1910s.


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