Weird Collinwood: the stories that get washed ashore

Nothing extraterrestrial has to happen for Collinwood to be weird.  I’m never sure if it really is weird, or if there are just too many weird stories being told. Sometimes the stories are so detailed, that it doesn’t matter whether they actually happened or not. What does matter is that they are being passed out and keeping Collinwood history alive. Look up Collinwood, Ohio in Google and the top sites that come up are haunted sites, highlighting the Collinwood school fire. Many of the stories are contradicting each other, and I’m not sure who knows the true story, but this is what keeps people talking.

Another popular and nationally known Collinwood story is that of Danny Greene. He was president of the local union in the sixties and an Irish American mobster, who eventually got blown up outside his dentist’s office. Some say the lot adjacent to the previous Shoparooni storefront is haunted, because that is where his home was once located.

Collinwood’s rich history lends itself to strange happenings. During prohibition, the bars that covered East 156th had to get their alcohol somehow. Rumor has it that alcohol was delivered straight from Canada to the basements of some of the lakefront homes. The basement of the Café at Arts Collinwood was even allegedly an underground speakeasy. Don’t go down there alone, or you may feel the presence of Collinwood’s deviant history.