Taken out of context, one would have no idea of the abandonment, the failed economy, the heartbreak that Cleveland has suffered alongside its Rust Belt brethren. alongside its rust belt brethren. Mazzola has been to other great American cities and had a good time, he says. But to him, Cleveland, and especially the Flats, are places that ooze a history, an Americana, that others cities simply lack. “This place,” said Mazzola. “This place can just get in your bones.” For Mazzola, the moment in time that most perfectly represents the realization of the vision he had from on top of the rail bridge was a night during River Fest, an annual celebration of the Cuyahoga, in 1983. He and his wife Jeanette, then his fiancé, sat on top of the same piles of rock that he climbed as a teenager watching thousands of people enjoying the river, some waltzing along the banks with others meandering along the curvy tributary in their lake cruisers, all with the backdrop of the warm pinks and tangerines and violets of a Lake Erie sunset. “What my friends and I saw in the ’70s I saw that night,” said Mazzola. About two decades after his factory experience Mazzola got his chance to help shape the district, becoming the executive director of the Flats Oxbow Association, the group that represented business owners including manufacturers, bar and restaurant owners and, eventually, real estate developers. And he got in at exactly the right time. Signing on in 1991, Mazzola walked in as a movement that had sprung up organically beginning in the 1970s was reaching a fever pitch. Mazzola credits Herb Strawbridge, then president of Cleveland’s Higbee’s department stores, with providing the original spark. Strawbridge put up a few entertainment venues in the Flats, including Sammy’s, a five-star restaurant, causing other entrepreneurs to see the value in the waterfront land. “The rest of it just happened,” said Mazzola. “Gradually.” When Mazzola took his leadership role local restaurants and bars had already populated the open spaces between industrial outfits, but some in the local press were questioning whether the Flats had exhausted its potential.
Mazzola knew that the stars were aligning at that moment for there to be another surge in demand. The Cleveland Indians were beginning to plan for a new stadium, as were the Cleveland Browns. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum was on its way to becoming a reality. And the city had the perfect opportunity to celebrate the rise of the Flats with the 1996 bicentennial only a few years off. “There’s going to be millions of people coming downtown,” said Mazzola, recounting the beginning of his tenure in the Flats. “They’re going to be hungry and thirsty and, if we’re ready for them, they’re going to eat and drink down here.” He was right. Bars and restaurants exploded and eventually major national chains were beating down the door for an opportunity to get in on the action. “We nearly doubled the amount of entertainment venues down here and the ones that came on later were the larger ones,” said Mazzola. And it wasn’t just companies who started coming around. Planning directors from city halls around the country—Louisville, Philadelphia, Rochester—began visiting the Flats to see what was going on. “By the time we started making things happen down here, I mean really happening, they came to visit us,” said Mazzola. But it wasn’t to last. While the success of the many bars and restaurants brought millions visitors and their money to the district, the nature of the entertainment district— often perceived by out-of-towners and Clevelanders as the spot to go for a wild night—sowed a certain chaos that would prove to be too unstable to persist. Collapse Back at the Harbor Inn a group of men were busy putting the finishing touches on their meal. Every Saturday they use the bar’s kitchen to fix a family style dinner, gathering around a table to share sustenance, life. This week the redfaced men hover over a steaming pot of mussels, picking out the mollusks with tongs before returning to the bar.
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