The January 14, 2008 Cuyahoga County Commissioner's meeting started sounding much like a New England Town Meeting.  

Coming down the hall towards the fourth floor Commissioner’s public meeting room, the Town Crier's sharply ringing hand bell competed with his yells of  Hear Yea! Hear Yea!

Happy New Year 2008 to all the top-through-under dogs of Northeast Ohio. My resolution is to question everything.

Global warming will bring an end to white Christmas and winter as we've always known in, here in NEO, so during the first real snowstorm of this season, December 16, 2007, I went in search of a visual symbol of NEO, in my neighborhood, strong enough to stand out in white-out conditions, and I came to the Breuer! Not the Breuer Tower, of global controversy, but the Breuer Museum wing of global celebration, design elements of which are featured in the latest additions to the Cleveland Museum of Art, shown on the left here, now evolving form in the hands of Vinoly.

George Nemeth, over on Fresh Brewed Daily, has picked up this bellweather post which has the metrics on blog discussions re topics of local interest around the US.   The blog index is a new and, I believe, very important statistic.

As part of the Star Neighborhood Development planning for the Star Complex and surrounding one mile radius, I have been planning the redevelopment of the current Cleveland Institute of Art Gund Building and land, on East Boulevard in Cleveland, shown below (full size image here).

November 28, 2007, renowned architect Carl Stein, FAIA, Principal of elemental architecture, llc, of New York City, shared his valuable understanding about the environment in Northeast Ohio and the world, focusing on the energy of buildings and a specific analysis of the Breuer Cleveland Trust Tower, in downtown Cleveland. This is the only high-rise by revolutionary architect Marcel Breuer, and it is globally appreciated as a masterpiece of modern design and construction... yet it is planned for demolition by Cuyahoga County Commissioners Dimora and Hagan.  Stein worked with Breuer for many years, including when Breuer built the Cleveland Trust Tower, and Stein's conclusion is there is no rational excuse for demolishing the Breuer. As Stein states, "just that Breuer and this building are so important is enough reason to preserve the Breuer"... although Stein gives many other reasons!

Third and Last of 3 Bauhaus-Breuer events this week: Wednesday, November 28 at 6 pm at Judson Manor —Green building and modernism; are they antithetical?  (I'm  posting this for Susan Miller who's one of the organizers)

I wanted to enjoy and capture a last glimpse of Fall 2007 so stopped by the second most important battleground in the history of the environmental movement in NEO, after Whiskey Island, being the Shaker Lakes Nature Center, above (see full size here). Were it not for 11 exceptional women from Shaker, including REALNEOan Martha Eakin's mother, a seriously crude, corrupt, foolish Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chairman, former Cuyahoga County Engineer Albert Porter, would have driven freeways through this exact spot in the Shaker Lakes. The scenario is very much like we have in NEO today, with seriously crude, corrupt, foolish political bosses attempting to do seriously crude, corrupt, foolish things to our region, like demolishing the Breuer, over-bridging and retrenching I-90, and likely the "Opportunity Corridor", which is driving far more than 11 exceptional women to take on the latest generation of seriously crude, corrupt, foolish leaders... and, like the Shaker 11, we are winning.

There’s a little mystery on the plywood construction wall around the Marcel Breuer designed Ameritrust Tower in Cleveland, Ohio.

Neither the Gund Foundation nor the Cleveland Foundation made a peep to preserve the Breuer, and two of our County Commissioners (with the exception of Mr. Lawson-Jones) are (at best) too ignorant to appreciate the international architectural jewel which Jacobs bought and sold to the County  (The Breuer Tower, like the Coast Guard Station, shows Jacobs has erudite architectural taste?).

Though you might not get down to see the show in its current installation in the windows of the Cleveland Chapter of the AIA, you will have a chance to see it reprised when you attend Bauhaus in America/ a film by Judith Pearlman at Cleveland Cinematheque on November 17.

Location

As part of the Greening the modern preservation movement: Bauhaus at the brink series, Anthony Hiti, chair of the historic resources committee of the AIA, Cleveland Chapter will review the history and significance of the Breuer Tower and discuss the challenges of preserving buildings of the recent past.  He will also update those in attendance with the latest developments on the building's fate in his edifying talk, "The Cleveland Trust Tower - is it worth saving?" This is an opportunity to hear and see the biography of Marcel Breuer and see the breadth of his work from an early age through the Cleveland buildings, Ameritrust and Cleveland Museum of Art, two of his last.

Location

Years have past since our REALNEO team first presented a vision for a holistic and sustainable East Cleveland transformation at a town hall meeting held by former Mayor Saratha Goggins.  Since then, our team has pushed forward with a diverse group of advocates for positive change and today we are poised to introduce many of the concepts we originally envisioned as part of the Star development project.  

While looking on Green City Blue Lake for a posting on the Breuer, I came across an interesting article by Marc Lefkowitz called "Warm up to district geothermal in Cleveland", which writes "Representatives from Case, UCI, Cleveland Clinic, city of Cleveland, Flats East Bank and Neighborhood Progress, Inc.— which is considering geothermal district power at its St. Luke’s development—met yesterday (October 22, 2007) at the Cleveland Foundation" to discuss "The economics of district-wide geothermal". It seems these groups are exploring large scale geothermal projects to help meet large energy needs, like for University Hospitals.

Star Neighborhood Development is rapidly nearing completion of the first phase of historic renovation and greening of "the finest house on Roxbury" - interior above - a wonderfully designed and constructed, classic 3,000+ square-foot 1906 American Tudor home, in a transitional urban historic neighborhood of East Cleveland, a transitional city bordering dynamic University Circle and Cleveland Heights.

There are many big industrial sites around Cleveland I pass regularly - some are active brownfields, like the Flats, and some are abandoned. Some feature Cleveland Landbank signs and are in stages of redevelopment... the one featured here is on the West Side of Cleveland, at Bishop Road and Madison, by W. 117, and the city has clearly spent $millions clearing up this huge property of many acres.

Bill Callahan, a private concerned citizen (where’s the County in this expose?), has taken a keen, focused interest in minding the "sub-prime" statistics.  

 

When you visit downtown Chicago or Toronto you can feel those places are more civically healthy than downtown  Cleveland.