Cleveland’s Signs of Renewal

Returning to his native Ohio, author Charles Michener marvels at the city’s ability to reinvent itself

  • By Charles Michener
  • Photographs by Greg Ruffing
  • Smithsonian magazine, April 2011, Subscribe
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East 4th Street Cleveland Ohio
"I couldn't resist a call to return" to Cleveland, says Charles Michener. The revitalized East 4th Street is home to high-end bars and restaurants. (Greg Ruffing / Redux)

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On Saturday mornings when I was 11 or 12, my mother would drop me off at the Rapid Transit stop nearest our home in Pepper Pike, an outlying suburb of Cleveland. There, I would board a train for the 30-minute trip to an orthodontist’s office downtown. Despite the prospect of having my braces fiddled with, it was a trip I could hardly wait to take. From my seat on the train, nose pressed to the window, I was spellbound by the city to which I have lately returned.

First came the procession of grand houses that lined the tracks along Shaker Boulevard in Shaker Heights—in the 1950s, one of the most affluent suburbs in America. Set behind giant elms, their picturesque fairy tale facades transported me into my favorite adventure stories—The Boy’s King Arthur, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Hound of the Baskervilles. After the stop at Shaker Square, an elegant Williamsburg-styled shopping center built in the late 1920s, we entered a world of small frame houses with rickety porches and postage-stamp backyards. These belonged to the workers who produced the light bulbs, steel supports, paint and myriad machine parts that had made Cleveland a co­los­s­us of American manufacturing.

The train slowed as it passed the smoke-belching Republic Steel plant. Then we plunged underground and crept to our final destination in Cleveland’s Terminal Tower, which we boasted was “America’s tallest skyscraper outside New York.”

From the orthodontist’s chair high in the tower, I could see the city’s tentacles: spacious avenues of neo-Classical- style government and office buildings; graceful bridges spanning the winding Cuyahoga River, which separated the hilly East Side (where I lived) from the flatter, more blue-collar West Side. Stretching along the northern horizon was Lake Erie—an expanse so big you couldn’t see Canada on the other side.

Once free from the orthodontist’s clutches, the city was mine to explore: the gleaming escalators in the bustling, multifloored department stores; the movie palaces with their tinted posters of Stewart Granger and Ava Gardner; the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument with its bronze tableau of Lincoln and his Civil War generals; the sheet-music department at S.S. Kresge’s where I could hand the latest hits by Patti Page or the Crew-Cuts to the orange-haired lady at the piano and listen to her thump them out. There might be an Indians game to sneak into, or even a matinee performance by the Metropolitan Opera if the company was making its annual weeklong visit to the Public Auditorium.

This was the magical place that Forbes magazine, in one of those “best and worst” lists that clutter the Internet, named last year “the most miserable city in America.” Several statistics seemed to support this damning conclusion. During the 50 years since I left for college back East and a career in New York, Cleveland’s population has declined to something around 430,000—less than half of what it was when, in 1950, it ranked as the seventh-largest city in America. The number of impoverished residents is high; the big downtown department stores are shuttered; many of the old factories are boarded up.

And yet four years ago, I couldn’t resist a call to return. The spark had been an article I wrote about the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra, still flourishing in its opulent home, Severance Hall, where I acquired my love of classical music. Across the street, waterfowl still flocked to the lagoon at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which had begun a $350 million renovation to house its superb holdings of Egyptian mummies, classical sculpture, Asian treasures, Rembrandts and Warhols.

The region’s “Emerald Necklace”—an elaborate network of nature trails—was intact, as was the canopy of magnificent trees that had given Cleveland its Forest City nickname. Despite the lack of a championship in more than 45 years, the football Browns and baseball Indians were still filling handsome new stadiums—as was the local basketball hero LeBron James, who was making the Cleveland Cavaliers an NBA contender.


On Saturday mornings when I was 11 or 12, my mother would drop me off at the Rapid Transit stop nearest our home in Pepper Pike, an outlying suburb of Cleveland. There, I would board a train for the 30-minute trip to an orthodontist’s office downtown. Despite the prospect of having my braces fiddled with, it was a trip I could hardly wait to take. From my seat on the train, nose pressed to the window, I was spellbound by the city to which I have lately returned.

First came the procession of grand houses that lined the tracks along Shaker Boulevard in Shaker Heights—in the 1950s, one of the most affluent suburbs in America. Set behind giant elms, their picturesque fairy tale facades transported me into my favorite adventure stories—The Boy’s King Arthur, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Hound of the Baskervilles. After the stop at Shaker Square, an elegant Williamsburg-styled shopping center built in the late 1920s, we entered a world of small frame houses with rickety porches and postage-stamp backyards. These belonged to the workers who produced the light bulbs, steel supports, paint and myriad machine parts that had made Cleveland a co­los­s­us of American manufacturing.

The train slowed as it passed the smoke-belching Republic Steel plant. Then we plunged underground and crept to our final destination in Cleveland’s Terminal Tower, which we boasted was “America’s tallest skyscraper outside New York.”

From the orthodontist’s chair high in the tower, I could see the city’s tentacles: spacious avenues of neo-Classical- style government and office buildings; graceful bridges spanning the winding Cuyahoga River, which separated the hilly East Side (where I lived) from the flatter, more blue-collar West Side. Stretching along the northern horizon was Lake Erie—an expanse so big you couldn’t see Canada on the other side.

Once free from the orthodontist’s clutches, the city was mine to explore: the gleaming escalators in the bustling, multifloored department stores; the movie palaces with their tinted posters of Stewart Granger and Ava Gardner; the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument with its bronze tableau of Lincoln and his Civil War generals; the sheet-music department at S.S. Kresge’s where I could hand the latest hits by Patti Page or the Crew-Cuts to the orange-haired lady at the piano and listen to her thump them out. There might be an Indians game to sneak into, or even a matinee performance by the Metropolitan Opera if the company was making its annual weeklong visit to the Public Auditorium.

This was the magical place that Forbes magazine, in one of those “best and worst” lists that clutter the Internet, named last year “the most miserable city in America.” Several statistics seemed to support this damning conclusion. During the 50 years since I left for college back East and a career in New York, Cleveland’s population has declined to something around 430,000—less than half of what it was when, in 1950, it ranked as the seventh-largest city in America. The number of impoverished residents is high; the big downtown department stores are shuttered; many of the old factories are boarded up.

And yet four years ago, I couldn’t resist a call to return. The spark had been an article I wrote about the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra, still flourishing in its opulent home, Severance Hall, where I acquired my love of classical music. Across the street, waterfowl still flocked to the lagoon at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which had begun a $350 million renovation to house its superb holdings of Egyptian mummies, classical sculpture, Asian treasures, Rembrandts and Warhols.

The region’s “Emerald Necklace”—an elaborate network of nature trails—was intact, as was the canopy of magnificent trees that had given Cleveland its Forest City nickname. Despite the lack of a championship in more than 45 years, the football Browns and baseball Indians were still filling handsome new stadiums—as was the local basketball hero LeBron James, who was making the Cleveland Cavaliers an NBA contender.

Signs of renewed vitality were everywhere. Downtown warehouses had been turned into lofts and restaurants. Several old movie palaces had been transformed into Playhouse Square, the country’s largest performing arts complex after Lincoln Center. The lakefront boasted the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, in a futuristic design by I. M. Pei. The Cleveland Clinic had become a world center of medical innovation and was spawning a growing industry of biotechnology start-ups. How had so depleted a city managed to preserve and enlarge upon so many assets? And could a city that had once been a national leader in industrial patents in the 19th century reinvent itself as an economic powerhouse in the 21st?

“It’s the people,” a woman who had recently arrived in Cleveland said when I asked what she liked most about the place. As with so many transplants to the area, she was here not by choice but by virtue of a spouse’s change of job. They had traded a house in Santa Barbara and year-round sun and warmth for an old estate on the East Side and gray winters and sometimes torrid summers. And yet they didn’t look back. “We’ve been amazed by how welcoming everyone is,” she added. “We’ve never lived in a place where everyone is so involved in its future.”

For me, returning to Cleveland has given new meaning to the idea of com­munity. Clevelanders, as even people in the outer suburbs call themselves, are early risers—I’d never before had to schedule so many breakfast appointments at 7:30 a.m. And they find plenty of time to attend countless meetings about how to reform local government, foster better cooperation among the checkerboard of municipalities or develop a more “sustainable” region. The appetite of Clevelanders for civic engagement was implanted nearly a century ago when city fathers created a couple of models that have been widely imitated elsewhere: the Cleveland Foundation, a community-funded philanthropy, and the City Club of Cleveland, which proclaims itself the oldest, continuous forum of free speech in America.

Clevelanders aren’t exactly Eastern or Midwestern, but an amalgam that combines the skeptical reserve of the former with the open pragmatism of the latter. (My mother would say the Midwest really began on the flat west side of the Cuyahoga.) There is still a strain of class resentment, a legacy of Cleveland’s long history as a factory town. But since my return, I’ve never been embroiled in a strident political discussion or a show of unfriendliness. Clevelanders may not tell you to your face what they think of you, but they’re willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.

If there’s one trait that Clevelanders seem to possess in abundance, it’s the ability to reinvent oneself. I’m thinking of a new friend, Mansfield Frazier, an African-American online columnist and entrepreneur. When we first met for lunch, he blandly told me that he had served five federal prison sentences for making counterfeit credit cards. With that behind him, he’s developing a winery in the Hough neighborhood—the scene of a devastating race riot in 1966. A champion talker, he takes his personal motto from Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”

Then there’s the bookseller I met one afternoon in a run-down section of the West Side that has recently transformed itself into the hopping Gordon Square Arts District. The shop (which has since closed) had an intriguing name—84 Charing Cross Bookstore. Inside, I discovered a wall of volumes devoted to Cleveland history: books about the Connecticut surveyor Moses Cleaveland who founded the city in 1796; the 19th-century colony of Shakers who imbued the region with its value of industriousness; and “Millionaire’s Row,” a stretch of 40 mansions along Euclid Avenue that once housed some of America’s richest industrialists, including John D. Rockefeller.

As I handed the elderly man behind the counter a credit card, I asked how long he’d had the bookstore. “About 30 years,” he said. Was this line of work always his ambition? “No,” he said. “I used to be in law enforcement.” “How so?” I asked. “I was the city’s chief of police,” he said matter-of-factly.

Unlike the gaudy attractions of New York or Chicago, which advertise themselves at every opportunity, Cleveland’s treasures require a taste for discovery. You might be astonished, as I was one Tuesday evening, to wander into Nighttown, a venerable jazz saloon in Cleveland Heights, and encounter the entire Count Basie Orchestra, blasting away on the bandstand. Or find yourself in Aldo’s, a tiny Italian restaurant in the working-class neighborhood of Brook-lyn. It’s a dead ringer for Rao’s, New York’s most celebrated hole-in-the-wall, only here you don’t have to know someone to get a table, and the homemade lasagna is better.

The nearly three million residents of Greater Cleveland are as diverse as America. They range from Amish farmers who still refuse the corrupting influence of automobiles to newly arrived Asians who view the city’s inexpensive housing stock and biotechnology start-ups as harbingers of a brighter tomorrow. Despite their outward differences, I’m sure that every Clevelander was as outraged as I was by Forbes’ superficial judgment about what it’s like to actually live here. And they rose as one in unforgiving disgust when LeBron James deserted them for Miami last summer.

Cities aren’t statistics—they’re com­plex, human mechanisms of not-so-buried pasts and not-so-certain futures. Returning to Cleveland after so many years away, I feel lucky to be back in the town I can once again call home.

Charles Michener is writing a book about Cleveland entitled The Hidden City.


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This is a very nice article. I have to say that Cleveland has a really great future. http://www.infoexplainer.com

Posted by lemar on August 20,2012 | 10:42 PM

Dear Mr. Michener,
I so appreciated your article. It was just recently shown to me by a friend going through her older copies of Smithsonian. I enjoyed the way you wove the old Cleveland and the new Cleveland together. It painted a beautiful panoramic view of the cities many great historical qualities, while adding touches of "new", " current" paint, unfolding a vivid picture of what/who Cleveland is today. I am looking forward to the day I will be reading your book! :). Will it be published any time soon? Thank you for such a fine story.
Sincerely,
Marie Netti

Posted by Marie Netti on March 29,2012 | 11:03 PM

I agree with MJ Lipka wholeheartedly. I was so excited when I saw this article in the magazine but that quickly turned to disappointment. Not only was most of the article fluff but it was unfocused fluff. Either take a trip down memory lane or don't.

Michener cited evidence of renewal that was purely his opinion and somewhat racist on top of that. Why start off with how an African American man served 3 prison sentences and not bother to mention how it was he turned his life around if you only mentioned him because of his business? I was willing to overlook that tidbit since reinforcing stereotypes is as American as apple pie but then Michener's implication that Asians come to Cleveland for nanotechnology was really too much. REALLY!? This article was a great big #facepalm.

Posted by Mary on October 13,2011 | 09:46 PM

I can identify with the Cleveland article. I never lived there but made many trips, (work related) in the 60's and 70's. It was the epitemy of a big industrial town. I was a Mfg. Engr. for 43 years during the golden years of manufacturing in this USA. A bygone era I am sad to say.

Hope Cleveland will realize a golden future similar to the past.

Thanks for the article.
Ron Palmer

Posted by Ron Palmer on September 19,2011 | 06:35 PM

Hey! I grew up in Pepper Pike, too! And I used to ride the Rapid each week to see my orthodontist, too!

His name was Dr. Broadbent. I can still (now 61) feel, on leaving his cloistered waiting room, descending into the bowels of the Terminal Tower with a mild tightening ache in my molars, the thrill of newfound freedom to explore a whole city on my own, before heading home, sweatily fingering a dime in my pocket for the call to my mom to meet me at the last Rapid stop at Green Road. That dime was my only connection to home, to Life As I Knew It.

My favorite place downtown was a wonderful cluttered bookstore on East 9th and Prospect (what was the name?), a block from my father's office at the Union Commerce Building.

Thanks for the memories!

Posted by Tim Hughes on August 10,2011 | 08:50 AM

Thank you so much for this positive look at my beloved hometown. And of course, welcome back. I too used to ride the Rapid to the Terminal Tower and attend real doubleheader Indian's games where you could stay for both games on sunny beautiful afternoons. Thank you Smithsonian.

Posted by C. Koehler on July 4,2011 | 01:21 PM

This week I walked by the American Center in Jerusalem, and decided to spend a little time in its reading room. Since I'm going to the U.S. next week and my first stop will be Washington, D.C. I picked up the April 2011 Smithsonian magazine. What a happy surprise to read your glowing comments about Cleveland.
I was born and spent a lifetime in Cleveland until moving to Israel three years ago so that I could live closer to my children who had moved here after college. I loved your remembrances of Cleveland's sights and culture. You are much younger than I, but at the age of 14 I also went downtown for my orthodontist appointments - except that I took the street car from Cleveland Heights. There was no rapid train yet. My orthodontist was in the Republic Building in the Terminal Tower group. We grew up with the Cleveland Indians at League Park and the old Stadium. In high school I ushered at the event of the year in Public Hall every spring, when the Metropolitan Opera came to town. My first summer job was at the first Heinen's store in Cleveland Heights; I rode my bicycle to work. So many wonderful Cleveland experiences.
Cleveland is a wonderful city to raise a family and cherish friendships. Since moving to Israel, I return every year to "catch up" with family and friends. I'm looking forward to visiting in July, and the opportunity to hear the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom and to tour the "new" art museum. Thanks for the memories (with acknowledgement to Cleveland's Bob Hope).

Posted by Edith Paller on June 14,2011 | 02:40 PM

Thank you for publishing a POSITIVE article about Cleveland! I absolutely swelled with pride reading those few pages. This city has its ups and downs like every other...but for some reason, we get bullied the most! Cleveland has so many wonderful attributes and some truly amazing, hardworking people just trying to do the best they can, every day. We are so tired of hearing all of the negativity!

Do we long for the flourishing Cleveland of the early to mid 1900s? Of course! Do we hope, each year, for an outstanding showing from our sports teams? You bet! Do we pray, each March, for a reprieve from the snow and wind? YES!

And while we imagine what these days, this future will be like, we appreciate and take in all that we can of our amazing parks, cultural institutions, family-run shops and restaurants, and of course our fresh markets and farms, wineries, neighborhood parks, beautiful lake scenery, the gorgeous seasonal changes (yes, even those harsh winters CAN be appreciated)...the list could go on!

It is easy to be cynical, to crack a joke about how changed our city is...but it's so much more refreshing to feel optimistic, to see the beauty, and to really truly believe in Cleveland and its people. I take great pride in being a Clevelander and can't imagine living anywhere else and it's obvious that many feel the same way!

Posted by Lisa on May 20,2011 | 06:56 PM

This is an amazing article. The author has done a fabulous job with recognizing and sharing what's really happening here in C-Town. We know what we have, and I constantly defend my great city to not only outsiders (that only go by what they read negatively), but also Clevelanders. We need MORE articles like this... I couldn't believe what I was reading, because I felt every word that was used to describe Cleveland. The sense of community and connectivity is the strongest out of the whole nation. Fortunately, outsiders can see it for themselves, just based on how we support our teams, even when they're not performing to out expectations. Cleveland is a fabulous gem and a well kept secret. It is nice, however, when others recognizes it to...

Posted by McBride on April 29,2011 | 03:25 PM

I am a born and bred east-side Clevelander. We had opportunities to move south to the Carolinas but I always prayed we'd never go. I have 2 brothers in North Carolina but my 3 other brothers and I love the Cleveland area. So many memories: Higbee's, Halle's, Mr. Jing-a-ling, the Rapid Transit rides, Indian games, trips to the Cleveland Zoo, the Art Museum, the Botanical Gardens, Euclid Beach, boating and fishing on Lake Erie, movies downtown (without Mom and Dad!). We still enjoy every Tribe game, the Great Lakes Science Center, the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, the West Side Market, Tremont, Little Italy, Lakeview Cemetery, the Cleveland Clinic, the Goodtime III...wow, I could go on forever! I love Cleveland.

Posted by Susan Krovontka on April 23,2011 | 12:39 PM

A riveting fluff piece of Mr. Michener's exciting trip down Memory Lane. He does reel off a nice list of Clevelands' finer atrributes (w/ the # of years in existence): Severance Hall (80yrs), Cleveland Museum of Art (98yrs), the Emerald Necklace (91yrs), new stadiums for the Browns (12yrs) and Indians (17yrs), Playhouse Square (90yrs), Rock n Roll HOF (16yrs).

As a contrast, here is what Mr. Michener offers as way of current "renewal" efforts: a bookstore, a venerable jazz saloon (45yrs in business), and an Italian restaurant (23yrs in business).

Seriously? This is the best you could do citing renewal efforts in Cleveland? As a 4th generational Clevelander, I can't wait to read your new book.

Posted by MJ Lipka on April 22,2011 | 08:25 AM

Thank you Charles Michener and Smithsonian magazine! Cleveland is an amazing place, and there is a real feeling of hope and community here. We need more stories like yours.
Take care,
Erin

Posted by Erin on April 21,2011 | 09:41 AM

Thank you Mr. Michener and Smithsonian magazine,thank you for bringing me hometown memories. Now living in Israel, I grew up in University Heights and loved going downtown on Saturdays, pressing my face to the window of the Rapid (remember the Carling brewery at E 93rd and Quincy?) while my father told me stories about Cleveland that only an old timer would know. As was said above, you can move but can never leave, and I'm glad about that. Thanks so much for the memories.

Posted by anne steiner on April 16,2011 | 10:59 AM

Although not born in Cleveland, I grew up on the west side, and cherish many fond memories of Cleveland in the 50's and 60's. I still go back to visit family and lifelong friends who are still there, and it is always a trip "home." Mr. Michener is correct that the people in Cleveland are the best you'll find anywhere. I remember the terrific children's librarian at West Park Library, Miss Anderson, who recommended books, presided over the Summer Reading Club, and held us spellbound at storytime. There were always many things to do in the Cleveland area. Skating rinks, public pools, and parks were within walking distance. Cudell offered art and crafts instruction at minimal cost. Museums and even the old Euclid Beach amusement park were accessible via "the Rapid." And The Press gave out seven PAIRS of tickets to Indians games to each straight-A student each year!

Posted by D Straker on April 14,2011 | 10:23 PM




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