Built in 1940, the art deco Cleveland Coast Guard Station was designed by renowned Cleveland architect J. Milton Dyer. Located on a pier at the end of Whiskey Island near Wendy Park, it cost $360,000 and contained officer, crew and staff quarters as well as recreation, communication and storage rooms and a mess hall. It also contains a boat house, vehicle garage, and lighthouse. The pier is public property and there are usually people fishing there. They've made it fairly clear that they don't want people in the building but I'm pretty sure a Coast Guard boat saw us and didn't do anything. The city of Cleveland closed the Coast Guard Station in 1976 and it later became either a restaurant or a nightclub for a short time (Sources are conflicted on this). Today the inside is pretty well gutted and the second floor no longer exists so getting into the lighthouse is a bit tricky but we managed it. Today a friend of mine joined me for his first UE experience. Before this, we explored a large factory that I won't post pictures of because I explored it a few months ago and posted a detailed write-up thread. But this was both of our first times at Whiskey Island. They've talked about renovating the building for a while now but haven't done much outside of replacing the roof over the boat house.

1. Looking down the pier which is was fairly busy as it was warm out.


2. That sign on the fence is a faded trespassing warning but there are no signs on the building itself.


3. The lighthouse


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6. The entire first floor looked like this. A maze of cement walls with small, empty rooms an no ceiling overhead. There is nothing to distinguish what each room was.


7. When we stepped down into the basement, we found it flooded.


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9. Suddenly, lots of colors.


10. It appears the city is using one room as storage for signs for some event.


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12. We ascended a stairwell that abruptly ended at the second story where was no floor. The only way to access the lighthouse was to hold on the railing where the stairwell used to continue and walk on the tops of the first floor walls.


13. After an enclosed set of spiral stairs, we came to a graffiti-covered room that had an open spiral staircase that went higher.


14. Some of the graffit.


15. The top of the second spiral staircase. There was once one more staircase that led to the very top of the lighthouse but it was mostly gone and definitely not climbable. So unfortunately, we didn't get any views from the top of the lighthouse.

While we were at the first factory, we did run across an abandoned playground that I missed the first time I was there.

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I did not know that 50,000 aluminum cans are made in the time it took me to read that sentence in 11. Nice set though! I remember seeing something on this building the other day too. I think I was looking up abandoned places in Ohio... Definitely abandoned!

Posted by Jac Steel I did not know that 50,000 aluminum cans are made in the time it took me to read that sentence in 11. Nice set though! I remember seeing something on this building the other day too. I think I was looking up abandoned places in Ohio... Definitely abandoned!

Thanks! This one got pretty popular a few years back when it appeared on a couple of public Ohio UE sites so I'm not surprised you've seen it. Cleveland also comes out with an article every few years detailing plans for its renovation but none of it ever happens save for replacing the boathouse roof. For the longest time, I didn't bother with it because all indications were that it was completely impenetrable. We kind of tacked it onto the end of this trip as an afterthought thinking it would make for good exterior shots even if we couldn't get it. Lo and behold, we got there and while definitely more closed off than it used to be, it's easy to get in. Definitely a pleasant surprise. I guess that's why you always check.

This is really cool and your pics were great.

Posted by KD20 This one got pretty popular a few years back when it appeared on a couple of public Ohio UE sites so I'm not surprised you've seen it.

Yeah I remember reading about it, but not where. I really liked the Forgotten Ohio website, but looks like it hasn't been updated in about a year, and the update before that was quite some time ago.

Post by Bilvavi This is really cool and your pics were great.

Thank you!

Yeah I remember reading about it, but not where. I really liked the Forgotten Ohio website, but looks like it hasn't been updated in about a year, and the update before that was quite some time ago.

If I remember correctly, Illicit Ohio has a page on it. Forgotten Ohio is a good site but unfortunately, it's pretty outdated. Most of the places featured on the site have been demolished, burned, or renovated.

A classic Cleveland spot. Nice.

I really like lighthouses.

Any idea when it stopped operating?

The Coast Guard station stopped operating in 1976. I can't find dates for when the restaurant/nightclub was there.

Just FYI, there are USCG Alumni groups & web pages, where you could probably track down numerous Coasties that were assigned to that Station over the decades & they'd probably love to see the photos, plus tell you what certain rooms were used for back during their day, etc.


Usually when the federal gov't gives-up some property, the federal GSA then tries to find another federal agency that may want it, & barring that, they have to try to give/sell it to some state/county/local gov't or non-profit organization that's going to use it to somehow help the public -- turn it into an educational institution, homeless shelter, public museum, etc. so it's interesting that the place may have been used as a commercial nightclub.


/-/ooligan

Posted by /-/ooligan Just FYI, there are USCG Alumni groups & web pages, where you could probably track down numerous Coasties that were assigned to that Station over the decades & they'd probably love to see the photos, plus tell you what certain rooms were used for back during their day, etc. /-/ooligan

Good idea! Sounds like a fun project.