I found this article from in the New York Times recently and thought I'd post it. 

Hopefully this is readable, if not I'll mess around with it later today.

 

 

Oh yeah....... it's from 1973...

Hmmm, that didn't work too well.  I'll fix it here in a minute.

either im old and my eyes are bad or that was some tiny print.

Not everyone likes Ada Louise Huxtable's style but I liked that article - and so much of what she said back then still holds true today.

It was interesting that the article said that the center city survival would be won or lost in the next few years.  It's strange that 35 years later it's much the same story in Cleveland.  The projects they talked about Gateway and Tower City being somewhat of a silver bullet and hopefully turning the city around.  While they helped it's unfortunate we can't be looking back at this article and saying great job Cleveland for making that turn.  Well here's to the next 35 years and still keeping hope alive.

Well, the Tower City and Gateway that they are talking about aren't the Tower City and Gateway that happened 20 years later.  I also found it interesting that they were talking about Tremont and Ohio City getting some level of gentrification.  I know OC started in the late 60's, but I didn't think any interest was shown in Tremont till the mid 80's or so.  Also, I didn't think the theaters at Playhouse Square were rebuilt before the 80's.  Maybe they are referencing something else, as they don't say restored, just that the "lights are back on".

 

Interesting also that they lauded the design of Perk Park, when we are so keen on redesigning it.

Well, in my eyes, Clevelands downfall was very hard from about this time, 1973, to 1985.  Even though Tremont may have started then along with OC, a lot stalled in that time with the department stores doing poorly, terrible economy from 78-81, manufacturing jobs starting to leave etc.  I think people stepped back from Cleveland in a way, and said, wait a minute, lets see what this town is going to do.  And then in the mid 80's, a more service based industry Cleveland started developing, and certain players started coming back into the development industry.  In my eyes, and my opinion, what we are cleaing up in Cleveland right now is not so much do to the mass exodus or the 50's, but rather the stagnant Cleveland of the 70's and 80's.  It is just my opininon.  I always look at the 70's as the dark days of Cleveland.   

If Perk Park had better upkeep it could be a pleasant little park.  A lot of different vantage point with the topography, mature trees.  Not many around downtown otherwise.

Well, the Tower City and Gateway that they are talking about aren't the Tower City and Gateway that happened 20 years later.  I also found it interesting that they were talking about Tremont and Ohio City getting some level of gentrification.  I know OC started in the late 60's, but I didn't think any interest was shown in Tremont till the mid 80's or so.  Also, I didn't think the theaters at Playhouse Square were rebuilt before the 80's.  Maybe they are referencing something else, as they don't say restored, just that the "lights are back on".

 

Interesting also that they lauded the design of Perk Park, when we are so keen on redesigning it.

the Ohio opened in '82 because they were looking for volunteers for the Shakespeare festival and my cousin went to volunteer but they told here she was too young.

 

The palace or state wasn't up until '84, I remember because my cousins graduation was going to take place there, but Glenville ended up moving it to Music Hall or the Front Row (I can't remember).

It was interesting that the article said that the center city survival would be won or lost in the next few years.  It's strange that 35 years later it's much the same story in Cleveland.  The projects they talked about Gateway and Tower City being somewhat of a silver bullet and hopefully turning the city around.  While they helped it's unfortunate we can't be looking back at this article and saying great job Cleveland for making that turn.  Well here's to the next 35 years and still keeping hope alive.

 

I never thought anyone looked at the stadium's etc., as silver bullets.  I think they have helped in a positive manner.

 

 

^and that is the idea of a silver bullet project.

Well, after this article Kucinich became mayor, the city went into default....

 

the Ohio opened in '82 because they were looking for volunteers for the Shakespeare festival and my cousin went to volunteer but they told here she was too young.

 

The palace or state wasn't up until '84, I remember because my cousins graduation was going to take place there, but Glenville ended up moving it to Music Hall or the Front Row (I can't remember).

 

Keep in mind that this is just when the theaters reopened.  The Playhouse Square Foundation got off the ground in 1973 and immediately started hosting events in the theater spaces and lobbies to get people interested in saving the theaters.  I think the run of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris in one of the lobbies started in 1973 too- it's this one show which people often credit for saving the theaters because of its popularity.

 

Playhouse Square really was an amazing example of grass roots preservation.

If Perk Park had better upkeep it could be a pleasant little park. A lot of different vantage point with the topography, mature trees. Not many around downtown otherwise.

 

Yeah, part of it is the upkeep.  Part of it is that the design doesn't fit the social circumstances of the neighborhood.  It creates lots of interesting nooks and crannies that get filled with lots of homeless men and junkies.

Pretty awesome you kept that.

I found it going through some folders at work, and there it was.  Thankfully I wasn't born for another 7 years.

Great article.  It is interesting to see that a lot of the right thinking about pedestrian scale and urban development was known some time ago.  And it goes to show just how long cities like Cleveland have been struggling.

 

Was 1973 when the oil embargo hit?  We had the oil crisis, Watergate, stagflation, and elsewhere if not Cleveland major labor strife and late 70's strikes, the '82 Volcker recession with 22% prime rates that broke the back of inflation but also really was the massive triggering event of the industrial restructuring that continues to this day, and onslaught of Japan and Mexico.  I'm not one to blame all troubles elsewhere, but this was not a great environment for Cleveland or most of the Midwest.  There were serious headwinds.

 

I think the embargo hit in 1973, later that year.  There was a bad recession in 74.  Inflation was already an issue in 1971, when Nixon tried wage & price controls, but got worse with the oil price shock.

 

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The article was interesting in what it says about the Flats, that things were already happening there, "...a kind of bohemia is already sprining up",  but that Highbees was backing a bigger plan for the area. 

 

I had thought the Flats happened in 1980s, but I guess things were starting up there already in the early 1970s.

 

 

 

 

I've heard that things were starting in the Flats as early as the late 60's.  Of course, there were always a ton of bars down there, but they used to be places for the longshoremen, stevadores, and steelworkers that worked down there.