While some of the children died from burns and smoke inhalation, most were either crushed or suffocated in the frantic attempt to escape the building.

[5][6] By the eve of World War II, Collinwood's economic vitality had drawn large numbers of both ethnic white Europeans and Southern Appalachians.

The housing and foreclosure crisis, though somewhat detrimental to the urban fabric of the neighborhood, has provided opportunities for artists to acquire properties very inexpensively.

A collective known as Arts Collinwood has been instrumental in helping to revitalize the Waterloo Road business district on the north side of the neighborhood.

[11] Although today it is largely African American, South Collinwood has historically been an enclave of European immigrants, as well as migrants from the Southern United States.

Its American immigrants, many relocated Southerners – mostly from Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky – began arriving in the 1940s to work in the factories.

Mainly they settled along the western edge of the neighborhood, especially along the E. 140th section; many bars in that area featured live country music and Southern food.