By Roldo Bartimole
We have a new convention center. But we lost our historic Mall.
Now we’ll have a double whammy. We face a money-losing Convention Center and Cuyahoga County promises to build and own a big money-losing hotel.
Are we on a roll or not?
First, I looked and walked on what used to be Cleveland’s historic Mall area. You once could look from Mall A past Mall B (aside the old convention center) out to Mall C (between city hall and the County courthouse). No more.
It has been shattered.
Here’s a paragraph from Eric Johannesen’s Cleveland Architecture – 1876-1976:
“The last remaining older structure within the mall area was demolished in 1935, and the Mall was used for the Great Lakes Exposition of 1936. The fact that the Mall was finally realized a third of a century after the conception of the Group Plan is an affirmation of Burnham’s famous assertion that “a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.”
Not anymore.
I used to walk from the rapid at Tower City, across Public Square to Mall A and then B to Cleveland City Hall, just east of Mall C. Mall C was often badly treated. Sometimes as a parking lot. Now its makeover has some 10 pylons, three cement stairways to nowhere (or are they cement seating) intruding.
I walked from Mall A to Mall B, across St. Claire Avenue. What an experience.
The new Convention Center is built below Mall B.
More truthfully, Mall B is lifted to accommodate the center.
It is no longer The Mall.
This is what long-time planning board chair said about the future of the Center and Mall planning, according to the Plain Dealer:
“I think we have to really look at it and see if it’s going to work,” Planning Chairman Anthony Coyne said, “… I’m not making a mistake on this.”
Too late, Tony.
The commission voted 7-0 for this gross plan.
Now the downtown establishment has more in store for its historic civic center. All very, very costly.
A Group Plan Commission was named by Mayor Frank Jackson. The task: connect Public Square and the Malls. He rounded up the usual gang. Al Ratner of Forest City; Dan Gilbert of the Cavs; Larry Dolan of the Indians; someone from the Browns and a few from our foundations. Real experts on public places and civic life.
They wanted a “vibrant connection” between the Mall areas and Public Square.
Impossible now.
The Malls were made for a flat surface natural walk. You were able to look out and see Lake Erie.
Now when you start walking Mall B from St. Clair you begin to trod up hill.
The lake is nowhere to be seen.
After reaching the top of the first incline you begin another incline. If you walk to the end where formerly you would be on Lakeside Road you find a glass barrier.
And you’re high in the air.
Look out and you find that you are actually about two-stories up over Lakeside and Mall C.
You can no longer walk from grassy Mall to Mall, as in the past.
It is no more the historic Group Plan Mall concept.
It has been destroyed.
Here’s how Steve Litt, Plain Dealer architect critic, describe it would be in 2010:
“Think of it: A hill rises gently from the center of the Mall, creating a dramatic new vista toward Lake Erie. Just below this elevated promontory is a wall of glass that will glow at night like a wedge of light emerging from the earth.”
Here’s how Crain’s Stan Bullard quoted Carol Poh, co-author of Cleveland – A Concise History, 1796-1990 and historical consultant:
“As seen from the south, the new convention center has despoiled the Mall with a Chinese wall — an insuperable barrier that obliterates once-expansive views. From the north (along Lakeside), seeing the project for the first time caused my heart to sink. That banal hodgepodge of ramps, glass and steel protrudes where no building should be, and effectively usurps public space for private use.”
At the “wall of glass” I found myself about at the height of the second floor of Cleveland City Hall, which is across the street to the right. It might be the third floor of an ordinary building.
At my age a tape recorder becomes my memory. Here’s how I saw my trip a week ago in early afternoon in bright sunshine:
After perusing Mall A, under which is a parking garage given tax abated to Dick Jacobs, it is much as it was except for a vehicle entrance/exit to the garage plus two tall structures, apparently to allow fumes to escape from beneath. I find a door open in one with stairs leading down to another door I don’t take.
The wonderful War Memorial fountain remains. There are benches around but what little grass remains behind low barriers. You can still enjoy the splash of the fountain.
Then I go across St. Clair to Mall B, previously open to walk easily through to Lakeside Road. Here’s where one becomes disturbed.
I report to myself, “It used to be a flat surface of greenery. Now it looks like a high almost unwelcoming grass (area).
“I’m going up it now. I can see in the horizon only the upper (ugly) part of the (Browns) stadium and part of the moving windmill (on the lakefront but no lake view? Where’s Lake Erie?)
“It’s a fairly steep kind of walk. Not hospitable – let’s put it that way – to the person who just wants to stroll along. (And once did.)
“Now I’m coming to the first part of the first level and there’s a sidewalk (obstructing the entire grass area) and then we face the rest of the mall, which goes up more steeply.
“At the sidewalk – starting up another incline toward the top. This incline is not too steep and it looks like I’m nearing once again another sidewalk (again impeding the green space).
“Now I’m going up the major incline, which is rather steep, especially for me since I’m an old man… Now it’s getting tough for me to walk because of the incline, which is rather steep at this point.”
At the top there is a place to sit, concrete benching. A glass wall serves as a place to look out at Mall C and to the stadium, science center and the lake beyond. The lake view is very limited.
I note to myself, Mall B “completely separated itself from the other Mall (Mall C across Lakeside Road). Formerly you could walk all three malls (unobstructed)… It ruins the idea of the Mall as it historically was.”
Anyone who says the Mall concept survives isn’t speaking truth. And must know it.
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Are Parents Really the Problem?
We continually hear parents are the big problem of the Cleveland schools. Likely there’s some truth to that.
What we seem to forget, however, is that the parents of today were the children of yesterday that we didn’t educate and the children of today will be the ill-educated parents of tomorrow who we will blame for their children’s lack of learning.
This started long ago with a very bad system that including segregation and poverty with all its wrenching consequences. Nothing we didn’t know. Just something we didn’t correct.
The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the sons is one version of an oft quoted declaration. The sins of our leaders have led to today’s “leaders.”
It’s hard to see any “school reform” that overcomes the treatment of today’s children and their parents because yesterday already determines today.
Roldo Bartimole has been reporting since 1959. He came to Cleveland in 1965 to report for the Plain Dealer where he worked twice in the 1960s, left for the Wall Street Journal in 1967. He started publishing his newsletter Point of View in 1968 and ended it in 2000.In 1991 he was awarded the Second Annual Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in Washington, D.C. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Professional Journalists, Cleveland chapter, in 2002, and was named to the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, 2004. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]
7 Responses to “ROLDO: Big Mistakes We Make – Mauling the Mall”
Roldo Bartimole
Rasmichael: I hope you are right about all the good things coming.
However, I see financial troubles there.
And the placement of the convention center means that the
mall as it was will never again be.
The deserted part is because it was left deserted. It wasn’t
always so.
John Ettorre
This is masterful, Dr. Bartimole, even for you. Rendered as only you can, through your unique combination of institutional memory, subtle reporting and the soul you bring to your subjects.
Snarky
Remember with great fondness the hazy late sixties clouds of hashish smoke that drifted lazily above the ” Hanna falls mountain “.
Daniel Burnham is flipping around in his grave like a sheepshead out of Lake Erie waters , while the sociopathic village idiot disguised as architecture critic for the Podunk Daily , crows about his biased aesthetic opines while toting the water pail about for his publisher.
A failed state , and gross corporate welfare project the medical mart , convention center is.
Great job Roldo!
I would be dizzy from all the zig zags you hoofed for this important review of our devolved once public Mall!
Roldo Bartimole
John: Thanks for your kind remarks. It’s difficult at this late date
to write something off my usual topics and style. So you give me
faith maybe to do some more of it.
Snarky: Pithy as usual and you have some of the same memories.
Renate: I wish if you are going to comment that it be on the subject
and not a promotional response unrelated to the subject.
b
TIME will tell….Is done. HOPEFULLY leads to good things. In a few years accountants will be able to tell us all that. A magnet,anchor for our version of a techie hub? TIME will tell on that tooo…Hotel? Time will tell on that tooo…I SUSPECT THIS will be the END of projects… for various reasons. POLITICO heat, not enough money (tax),other. SUSPECT LAST big local project is gonna be OPPORTUNITY corridor or whatever they call that…LOT of Big Interests,construction unions,Medical Establishment,etc. involved in THAT one… NOT gonna have ‘spinoff affects’ from THAT OTHER then some fastfood, gas station businesses…
KNEW some nurses,etc. who work or had worked in Univ.Circle and then run home to their affordable semi low cost McMansion wayyy out there in FAR corners of like LORAIN or MEDINA county. Were or are married…But almost getting into a reverse exurb niche population that don’t represent the area even with all the folks working in the medical,info technology,services fields…
PS. I know I can ramble on and mix up my syntax but NOT as bad as Renate…who apparently tried to take advantage of a ‘opportunity’ of own…INDICATOR there above of our economy,society… BE amazed how many Yuppie hoods,etc.have THOSE kinds of shops,etc. CAN infer or interpret THAT anywhich way can…
Roldo Bartimole
Ruben: You are correct. I misspoke that you could see the lake
from the Mall since the old stadium was there blocking a view and the Science
center and Rock Hall are additions to the lakefront. However, even from the elevated
center mall the lake view is blocked by the stadium. A narrow slice of lake
can be seen and it isn’t that enjoyable because it is so limited
between the east side of the stadium and the west side of City Hall,
as best I can remember it.
Thanks for your correction.
Ruben Garcia Jr.
Roldo: let me clarify my position, I think if we talk about the shoreline (port authority docks) then absolutely, you are correct, the view is limited and blocked off to the west by the stadium and to the east by City Hall. However, as you look higher and further out into the horizon, the view of the lake is clear and much “longer” than it was before, simply because of the higher vantage point.
Having said that, we can have different perceptions on the level of improvement from that vantage point, but what I don’t think is in doubt is that Cleveland has traditionally done a pretty terrible job of providing access and views to the lake and this project had an opportunity to change that and yet did not provide a radical improvement.