There’s easy photo pickens, for industry-crazed phodogs like me, down in Cleveland’s Industrial Flats. My recent ramblings down by the river with a friend from Germany reminded me of how much I love that “ugly” part of our city. Instead of promoting just the new and clean Cleveland (aka CLE+), we need to also market our vintage and rusty heritage, what I like to call “CLE-.” Last night I spewed out the following opinion, sort like the steel mill used to stink up downtown…
The Cleveland Metal Hall of Fame
This past weekend Cleveland celebrated rock-n-roll. Metallica may have been inducted into the Rock Hall, but Cleveland’s true metal hall of famers are down in the Flats. And we better look fast.
Our iconic lift bridges, crossing the Cuyahoga, may end up as the last links to our past industrial might, sadly standing alone in the Flats. The powers that be will continue to tear down our historic mills and machinery. They destroyed the west side steel mill for a mall. They took down smoke stacks that stood sentinal. All of the Hulett Ore Unloaders that faithfully welcomed boats to our shores for a hundred years, and could have proudly stood another hundred, have been removed from their perches. Of the battery of four Huletts on Whiskey Island, two now lie unprotected, their parts rusting and sinking into the earth, while our leaders ignore their promise to preserve the Huletts as a monument to our ingenuity.
Why Cleveland strives to break the bond to it’s industrial heritage is up for discussion. Does it remind us of our dirty past, when our river burned? Is it the embarrassment of being perceived as a Rust Belt city? Or is the old cliche “out with the old” being taken too literally? We cannot hide our past, we cannot escape being in the rust belt, so we may as well stop throwing out the old—and make the most of it.
Other cities have found positive ways to make Industrial Archaelogy a cool thing. In Birmingham, Alabama, residents saved their Sloss Furnaces, and now their National Landmark hosts tours, concerts and metal arts classes. In Seattle, they cleaned up an industrial site, preserved a few cool elements and created Gas Works Park on their lakefront. And New York City managed to preserve their old overhead transit line and make it into a public greenspace, the High Line, opening this summer. And Germany… don’t even get me started on Germany! Just click on this link to see a cool industrial park—like no industrial park we know around here.
Cleveland still has a chance to be a Museum to Industry, capitalizing on our past. Future generations could learn about our history, if it isn’t hidden. Like the lift bridges rusting under the weather, our Industrial Archaeology could last another hundred years, teaching generations about how we got here—if we would stop sweeping it under the rug.
I have available a 20 page photo booklet which includes images of Cleveland landmarks, including the Flats. Contact me if interested.
