Awesome Cleveland: The Cleveland Sign Painter Guy

Hand Painted Sign, Cleveland Heights 

Hand painted sign, Cleveland Heights 

Hand painted sign, Cleveland Heights 

In a high tech world the human hand is obsolete right? Not in Cleveland where one man has fought a battle with technology and won! There are literally thousands of his signs throughout Cleveland and its eastern suburbs. I took these shots myself.

Cleveland SGS interviews this smart and hard working man and gets advice every business person should hear.

Cleveland Heights' Park Synagogue, An Underappreciated Modernist Masterpiece

Hard to describe the magical, peaceful creative energy I felt when I discovered this modernist gem walking around Cleveland Heights. This is true, organic architecture, tucked into the landscape and community- sadly my images don't do it justice, I was not able to tour inside or spend adequate time. Technically, I may have been trespassing- I apologize.

The complex combines a temple, school, library, gallery and community center unified into a simple, yet complex whole. Nothing seems pretentious or overly tricky.

The original Congregation had been on Cleveland's East Side but followed the growth of the suburbs eastward to Cleveland Heights.

  From The Cleveland Historical Society 

"Rabbi Cohen was already familiar with the work of Eric Mendelsohn, an architect working in New York and then San Francisco. Together with his family, the architect had escaped Nazi Germany, moving to England and Palestine. Mendelsohn had had an illustrious career in Europe. Among his most admired creations were the De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, England; Expressionist-style department stores in several German cities; and the Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany.....

Shortly after Park’s dedication in 1950, one critic referred to the synagogue as “the outstanding example of modern Hebrew architecture in America . . . the forerunner of a modern, functional synagogue design.” A curator of the Jewish Museum in New York wrote: “I regard Park Synagogue as the most significant structure of its kind in our generation.” The Cleveland Heights facility is now referred to as Park Main, as the congregation built and maintains a second facility in Pepper Pike."

The location is not easy to find- and Google Maps seems to redirect one to the second location in Pepper Pike, Ohio.

Hopefully, this is right.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Park+Synagogue/@41.5140308,-81.5665016,17z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0000000000000000:0xd87382acfa6cd127 

Filmmakers trying to fund documentary about Cleveland's lost, Rock Hotel, Swingo's Celebrity Inn

The 70's and 80's were a dark time in Cleveland. The river caught on fire, crime was rising and industry was leaving. But at the same time, a huge list of celebrities and especially musicians were drawn to one hotel- Swingos was the place to be!

The story probably starts when Elvis decided to rent 100 rooms and make it the base for his Ohio tour. Later, almost every actor, comedian and especially musicians Sinatra, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Bruce Springsteen etc.. passing through seemed to stay there.

From Cleveland.com

"One relationship that became very lucrative was with the British heavy metal band Led Zeppelin. They had a habit of “redecorating” their rooms wherever they stayed -- even going so far as pushing a piano out of a hotel window in Chicago. “I loved Led Zeppelin, because they always traveled with their accountant,” Swingos says. “Whatever damage they did to their rooms, the accountant always took out his checkbook and paid for everything down to the penny. I didn’t mind because I always got new stuff for whatever rooms they stayed in after they left.”

Actual Kickstarter page

A lot of the known stories have become legends and who knows what we don't know?

Mott the Hoople's Ian Hunter said "Swingos was a place you remember checking in and out of, but can't remember anything in between" (Quote from the Guardian)

Bay Village, Ohio hosts first History, Mystery Bike Tour: October 4th

An Interesting way to tour and learn about this Cleveland, suburb's history while raising money for the town bike cooperative

"The first annual History Mystery Ride (HI MY) to support the Village Bike Cooperative will be held on Saturday, October 4th in Bay Village, OH. The inaugural ride will have three route options, including an easy-paced, family friendly 12 mile History Mystery [HI MY] cruise.
This ride includes stops designed to educate riders about Bay’s History as well as to sharpen detective skills.

• Bicyclists desiring endurance options will have 25 and 50 mile routes.

• All three ride levels will end morning travels with a meal at the Village Bicycle Cooperative where riders will enjoy a historic style picnic experience.  

• Food will be catered by strEAT Mobile Bistro

• VBC Volunteers will host programs in the afternoon.

The Cooperative is adjacent to the Bay Skate and Bike Park, Disc Golf Course, and Huntington Beach Reservation, so we welcome you to ride, learn, eat and enjoy some fall fun in Bay... a lovely place to visit.
All riders will receive a ride packet that will include a T-Shirt. Cost for the ride, packet, and food is $40.00. For more information, contact Rebecca @ 440.346.0560"

Details & ticket info:

The Beatles: Cleveland Sheraton Hotel Press Conference, September 15, 1964

50 years and one day ago.



I doubt the films of many press conferences exist.

This Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of their only show in Pittsburgh.

There is also an exhibit of photos of their Cleveland show, which I should post about.

Melvin Rose, master craftsman and son of Cleveland's Rose Iron Works founder dies

From The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"He was the custodian of one of the great legacies of the Arts and Crafts movement of Cleveland," said Stephen Harrison, curator of decorative arts and design at the Cleveland Museum of Art. "He wore that mantle with humility and pride, and that pervaded everything he did."

Harrison said that Melvin Rose continued to ensure that Rose Iron Works "became a haven for craftsmanship and artisanship when machines took over and began taking the men out of the craft."

In 2008, Melvin Rose was awarded the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award for Design."

Cleveland should get more attention as a center of great craft manufacturing and industrial design.

A great in depth profile of The Rose Iron Works from The Plain Dealer

Rose had founded the company that bore his name in 1904, and Feher, who had moved here from Paris at his behest, would be his most famous colleague and collaborator. While the iconic screen was used to illustrate the breadth and depth of American Art Deco, you could also say, zooming in more tightly, that no one could write the history of design and architecture of 20th-century Cleveland without considering Rose Iron Works. "It's the best Art Deco ironwork ever done in the United States," says Henry Adams, an art historian and professor at Case Western Reserve University, who once devoted a graduate seminar to the firm's work. "Not only is their workshop extraordinary, but the story of Rose is the great American story."

Examples of the firm's artistry have been featured at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C.

In Cleveland, the company's legacy penetrates the present and past -- whether manifested in elaborate dressing-room doors at Halle Bros. department store, the sculptural sign for the G.W. Mercer floral shop on West 25th Street or the gates of the Van Sweringen estate in Shaker Heights. Not far from the art museum, you can find an iron mural by Martin's son Melvin on the walls of the Cleveland Botanical Garden and an adjacent gate Melvin designed at the Western Reserve Herb Society.

Through the early 1950s, the company was one of the nation's leading designers and creators of ornamental and functional works, crafted in wrought iron, stainless steel, aluminum-copper alloys and glass.

Rose Iron Works website

Eat Your Heart Out, Pittsburgh: Cleveland's West Side Market Celebrates 100 Years

Warning--this video is not for vegetarians.

Why is it so hard for a Pittsburgher or Clevelander to acknowledge one great thing about the other city? Just admit this is pretty great.



A whole bunch of celebrations are planned.

From Cleveland.com

A traffic-stopping street festival is planned for Oct. 7, a rare Sunday that the market will be open, and will include food by local restaurants and celebrated food trucks, as well as a parade with costumes created in workshops led by the Cleveland Museum of Art's Parade the Circle organizers.

The market's actual birthday is Nov. 2, a Friday. The gala event will be celebrated Saturday, Nov. 3 (billed as the first day of the market's next century), featuring homeboy restaurateurs and award-winners Jonathon Sawyer and Michael Symon -- along with a dozen or so of their nationally renowned chef friends. Tickets will be priced at three levels, with the most expensive providing the closest access to chefs. The Great Lakes Brewing Co. will be releasing a centennial brew.

Street Art Project In Cleveland Plays On Local History

From a distance, the main focus of the Art Collective, known as Cleveland SGS has been to document historic signs, and the unrecognised locals that make the city unique.

A recent project, took things a step further by covering a large building's windows with cryptic signs that reference a forgotten part of Cleveland's past.

From Vandalog: Cleveland SGS pays tribute to a neighborhood icon

The widely held belief is that this area, didn't have much of a past, or any prospects, until the Cleveland Foundation and The Cleveland Clinic, came along. The signs bring back the much more complex story of a highly successful local entrepreneur and a decades long fight to save his property.

From the Wikipedia

Winston Earl Willis (b. October 21, 1939) is a formerly successful American real estate developer who first came to local prominence in Cleveland, Ohio during the early 1960s. At the time, one of the most successful business owner/operators in the country, he created and controlled a corporation, University Circle Properties Development, Inc. (UCPD, Inc.) that owned one of the most strategic and valuable real estate parcels in Cleveland and was the largest employer of blacks in that part of the country. Under his solely-owned UCPD corporation at East 105th and Euclid, upwards of 23 successful businesses were running simultaneously and exhibiting tremendous success.

Winston was quick to see the opportunity to create businesses in the area near University Circle.

The acquired experience of having operated several successful small businesses led to a quick assessment of the local college community that would prove to have been very shrewd. After securing a lease on a building that was previously an automobile dealership showroom, 19-year-old Willis opened The Jazz Temple, a liquor-less coffeehouse/night club, to immediate success. Situated on a small triangular lot on Mayfield Road near Euclid Avenue and adjacent to the Western Reserve University campus, his institutional neighbors were the Cleveland Museum of Art, University Hospital, and Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra. The club also bordered the ethnic enclave known as Murray Hill/Little Italy.

Willis approached such legendary jazz artists as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzie Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderley, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, and Dinah Washington and convinced them to come to Cleveland to appear at his club. Not only did they appear and perform before standing-room-only crowds, but such notable acts at the trendy establishment also attracted visits from Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael, and booked performances from other notables such as comedians Red Foxx, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and Dick Gregory. The popular night spot, frequently referred to as “the Jazz Mecca”, was hugely successful and became a regular hang-out for college students from throughout and around the State of Ohio. But that success was short lived. As is typical of jazz establishments – there was much race-mixing and numerous interracial couples in attendance. This triggered community wide resentment in the racially polarized community, and after months of threats and intimidation, a vanguard of vengeful racists planted a bomb in the club, thereby ending the brief history of one of the most successful jazz spots of the region.

So anyway, as you might guess, the major power players like the universities, foundations and The Cleveland Clinic conspired to take his properties away.

Having found no support in the courts from a campaign of fines and other harassment. Winston turned desperately to putting up billboards.

I like the way, this project subtly brings up this injustice without being just angry and bombastic. It's a tribute to the man.

More about the project on Cleveland SGS

More

Cleveland Museum's Rodin Bombing Mystery Tonight on The Travel Channel

The Cleveland Museum is home to a lot of great sculptures by Rodin, including one his most famous, The Thinker, outside the main entrance.

The Travel Channel show, Mysteries at the Museum, focuses on the mysteriously senseless bombing of The Thinker in 1970. Might be worth a look, if you have cable.

Mobile App Unveiled Highlighting Cleveland History

The story on Cleveland.Com

"It also includes "tours" of the city's neighborhoods, industrial areas and historical sites.

"We're trying to curate the city as a living museum," said CSU history professor Mark Tebeau. "Cleveland has such a rich past and we're trying to expose that past layer by layer."

Available videos range from old newsreel footage of the National Air Races at Cleveland Hopkins Airport to a 1930s film clip of Herman Pirchner, owner of the Alpine Village restaurant downtown, setting a world record by carrying 50 steins of beer at one time."

Even more interesting is that this App which connects to videos and oral histories from more than 700 Clevelanders is not just the product of one college, library, museum or institution-though it looks like Cleveland State spearheaded it.

Building content for the new app has been a community-wide project, said Tebeau, noting that teachers across the region, along with students, nonprofits and historical societies have all contributed.

And that mass contribution, said Nancy Proctor, head of mobile strategy and initiatives at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is what makes the Cleveland Historical app unique.

Check out the free app on clevelandhistorical.org

New Film: Kill The Irishman Recalls Cleveland In The 70's: Bomb City USA

A Hollywood fact is that what's scary, upsetting and horrible in real life, will probably make a great movie.

Two new movies, one a documentary bring back the life and times of Danny Greene. Cleveland Magazine has a long story and feature about them, giving lots of info and links about this period.

NYC, has changed so much since the 70's that films about this era of Son of Sam, The Westies, graffiti and Fort Apache seem nostalgic. For Cleveland, it's not quite that way, the grit and history is close to the surface.

"It is a strange moment in the history of Cleveland pride. Kill the Irishman proves that 1970s Cleveland's rakishly charming crooks and killers are as worthy of a gangster film as those in '20s Chicago and '40s Los Angeles.

In 1976, 37 bombs exploded in Cuyahoga County — and legend aside, Danny Greene and the Mayfield Road Mob were probably responsible for less than half of them. Add City Hall's default, industrial decline, the rise of the Cleveland joke and a cellar-dwelling sports team or two, and the '70s may have been Cleveland's low point, its gloomy, unrelenting era of gray despair. But just as locals celebrated surviving the Blizzard of '78, they celebrate outlasting the blizzard of bad news, the drought of default, the epidemic of dynamite. Hitting bottom forges character — and characters.

So, to see back in time to the real Danny Greene, we consulted people who knew him well, writers who've tackled his story before, and documents and footage from his lifetime. We also talked to the lead actor, director and co-producer of Kill the Irishman to hear how they aimed to capture Greene's essence. The story takes us back to an era when the city's ethnic neighborhoods produced fierce rivalries and Clevelanders watched their high school classmates grow up to be union leaders and judges, cops and gangsters, nodding warily toward one another over lunch at the Theatrical Grill."

Kill The Irishman


Danny Greene:The Rise & Fall of the Irishman Documentary