“Train Avenue” is a true crime documentary examining a road notoriously known as Trash Avenue due to decades of being Cleveland’s illegal garbage dumping destination.
Every major city has a Train Avenue of their own. A place tucked away out of plain view, inviting crimes of opportunity by nefarious characters.
“Train Avenue” is a film with a purpose, meant to open dialogue about what’s been allowed to occur in downtrodden neighborhoods, while exploring our trash crisis.
For over a century, Cleveland’s Train Avenue has been the destination for illegal dumping on the city’s westside. Because of that, it would be impossible to discuss this road without first explaining its past.
Train Avenue wasn’t always called Train Avenue. It wasn’t even always a road…It was once a thriving stream of water called Walworth Run up until the mid-1800s.
What changed the fate of Walworth Run is simply put – industry. Slaughterhouses, breweries, oil refineries and other manufacturing, as well as the railroads, dumped waste and other runoff into Walworth Run.
Area residents, who used the waterway for their fresh water source, began filing complaints with the city over the odor and dire conditions of Walworth Run.
This continued for a couple decades until Cleveland City Council passed a measure to bury Walworth Run and turn it into an extension of the sewer system around the turn of the century.
Sections of it were then paved, and Train Avenue was born.
The birth of Train Avenue didn’t prevent or curtail environmental hazards from occurring, as it faced new issues of pollution soon after the road was paved.
Mounds of old tires, mattresses and other trash pollute the neighborhoods Train Avenue passes through. The remains of a random car that was lit on fire abandoned under one of the many bridges.
The dozens of deceased dogs routinely found in garbage bags tossed off the side of the road.
Train Avenue has also had its share of armed robberies, rapes and homicides occur along this two mile stretch of pavement.
When local news media reports about Train Ave., those stories are almost exclusively about something horrible that just happened.
The problems Train Avenue faces are plentiful. For decades, Train Avenue and the areas surrounding it have been largely ignored by nearly every administration. And very few attempts were made at changing its course.
The Train Avenue Greenway Plan from 2008 would have transformed a portion of the road into a recreational path for walkers, runners and bikers, connecting it to the Cleveland Metroparks trail system. But, those plans to reinvent Train Avenue never materialized into action.
This all gives the impression that Train Avenue is beyond repair or a dead issue. It’s easy to say Train Avenue is hopeless.
But, there’s another side to Train Avenue. Even with all the terrible things that has occurred throughout history – an eerie sense of peace exists.
On June 22, 1969, the seemingly impossible turned possible when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire. The images of the Cuyahoga shocked and horrified the nation, but it actually marked the thirteenth time it occurred in its recorded history.
