Glendale Steps — Attraction in Akron

A pretty neat feature of Akron, the Glendale Steps date back to the 1930s when the USA was working to recover from the Great Depression by spending money.

The steps are beautiful thanks to the efforts of locals who cleaned up the weeds and the other vegetation and the trash. I wasn't feeling up to climbing 200+ steps but it is rumored that there's a tremendous view of the Rubber City from up there.

The marker here reads, "Built over a two-year period, from 1936-1937, by the Federal Works Progress Administration, the Glendale Steps survive as a monument to the work of stone craftsmen during the Great Depression. Spanning a 200-foot slope, the purpose of the Glendale Steps was to enable Akron residents to descend from South Walnut Street to a city park along Glendale Avenue. The 242 sandstone steps were dressed on site and hand laid by WPA laborers at a cost of $22,000. Depression-era budget problems prevented the City of Akron from completing planned improvements to the park."

This is marker number 36-77 and it was erected in 2006 by Progress Through Preservation and The Ohio Historical Society. There is parking across the street at the lower end...

Glendale Steps Glendale Avenue

Ohio Historical Marker here states:

Built over a two-year period, from 1936-1937, by the Federal Glendale StepsWorks Progress Administration, the Glendale Steps survive as a monument to the work of stone craftsmen during the Great Depression. Spanning a 200-foot slope, the purpose of the Glendale Steps was to enable Akron residents to descend from South Walnut Street to a city park along Glendale Avenue. The 242 sandstone steps were dressed on site and hand laid by WPA laborers at a cost of $22,000. Depression-era budget problems prevented the City of Akron from completing planned improvements...

Looks like this may be an old bunker of some sort built into the side of a steep hill. The archway that suggests this to me is out of place, and even painted. If it wasn't used as an entrance of some kind that sits between 2 equal stone steps that go down diagonally, then cut back towards the archway, and about a quarter of the length of the same diagonal pattern going up the hill. Here is my good friend Ken's reaction to this bewildering waste with it's archway way door perhaps...