Glenville borders the Collinwood area to the northeast at East 134th Street, and St. Clair–Superior to the west at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the Cleveland Cultural Gardens in Rockefeller Park.

[3] In its early years, Glenville had been a small village, serving mainly as a resort community to Cleveland's upper-middle class residents.

From a period beginning shortly after its annexation in 1904 and into the 1950s, Glenville was predominantly a Jewish neighborhood with a small African American population.

While having been so for over a half century - being one of Cleveland's most visible examples of poverty, crime and urban decay - Glenville has in the early 21st century gained more positive national media attention, particularly in its high school football team, which has rapidly become one of the better known preparatory programs in Ohio as well as the nation.

Built on land donated to the city by John D. Rockefeller in 1897, the wooded 276 acres, through which a section of Martin Luther King Boulevard runs, is known for its historic greenhouse and the Cultural Gardens, and is the largest park located completely within the city limits of Cleveland.