The Glendale Steps are a long ceremonial stone staircase built by the Works Progress Administration in 1939, connecting the Glendale Cemetery neighbourhood with the lower Cascade Valley. There are three flights, broad sandstone treads, retaining walls, and a small landing with stone benches halfway down. The whole thing is overbuilt for what it does — a quiet, slightly grand piece of New Deal civic infrastructure that almost nobody outside the immediate neighbourhood notices.
The steps are best in autumn, when the maples along the hillside turn, and in late spring when the dogwoods bloom. Park near Glendale Cemetery and walk in; the steps themselves are open at all hours and free.
A small plaque at the upper landing credits the WPA crews. The cemetery just above, established in 1839 and laid out in the picturesque rural style, holds the graves of several of Akron's early industrialists and is itself worth a wander.