One of our most popular stories last year was about where to find the famed Tiffany glass in Cleveland. But Tiffany wasn’t the only stained glass game in town at the turn of the last century. We don’t get a lot of sunlight during the winter, but when we do, it’s worth checking out these stained glass windows. Follow along with our weekly series this winter highlighting stained glass in Cleveland.
Heinen’s downtown
This is perhaps the best-known stained glass in Cleveland.
In 2015, Heinen’s opened a downtown store in the former Cleveland Trust/AmeriTrust space at East 9th Street and Euclid Avenue. The Warrensville Heights grocery chain recently revamped the store, but the striking opalescent glass dome remains visible to shoppers. The glass in those windows was made by D’Ascenzo Studios of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Karl Brunjes, a Cleveland city planner, put in the legwork to confirm the Heinen’s dome was not Tiffany glass. While working on his master’s at Ursuline College, he focused on the history of the Cleveland Trust Co. (along with other banks that had been adapted for new uses).
“I became interested in the story behind the dome and that it had not been confirmed as Tiffany or not,” Brunjes told Signal Cleveland in an email. “I like a good mystery and being able to debunk or confirm myths.”
He did most of his research at the Western Reserve Historical Society library, where he reviewed more than 200 containers of Cleveland Trust records. He also scoured digital collections from, among other sources, the Cleveland Public Library and the Smithsonian Institution, and he interviewed people involved with adapting the space for Heinen’s.
“In all of that, there was no mention of the glass maker for the dome,” he said.
He traveled to the New York Historical Society, where he found Cleveland Trust records listing payments for, among other things, “Leaded Glass, D’Ascenzo Studios, Philadelphia, PA.”
Then he headed to review the D’Ascenco records at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. There they had two photos of the dome and line entries in the record book noting ‘Cleveland Bank.’
“So, this was how I found my ‘holy grail,’” Brunjes said.
