Bill Blasko Goes Car Shopping

Still standing in downtown and midtown Cleveland are quite a few car dealerships from the 1920s and 1930s. Unlike dealerships today, these multi-story edifices were beautifully designed and built to last. Like the barn-shaped hulks that housed the now-defunct Red Barn fast-food joints of the 1960s, they've proved especially adaptable to creative re-use.

This Pierce-Arrow dealership on Carnegie Avenue just west of East 55th Street now houses a neighborhood center with a Head Start program.

The Packard dealership on East 55th Street seems empty at the moment, but the painted sign has been relatively resistant to Cleveland's harsh weather. In the background is the old WHK auditorium, formerly the Depression-era Metropolitan movie theater, site in the 1950s and '60s of many top rock and roll acts; in the late '70s, nicknamed the Disastodrome and host to most of the punk and new wave bands then touring.