An influx of Germans in the 1830s marked the first in several waves of immigration to what would be gateway community for many ethnic groups in the Cleveland area.

[3] The neighborhood had large, working-class populations of Jews, Italians, and African Americans, as well as communities of Czechs, Hungarians, and Poles.

[6] Reflecting a national trend in other major American cities at the time, the imposition of segregated housing in Central and the redlining of the neighborhood by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation became significant catalysts in its economic decline.

[9] Soviet Russian futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky gave a poetry recitation and "proletarian culture lecture" in Central during his visit to Cleveland in 1925.

[10] The jazz orchestras of Don Redman and Fletcher Henderson also performed in the neighborhood, as did singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson.