L I V I N G & D ES I G N
vehicle, Hot in Cleveland, which suggests that the city’s people are so unattractive that an average-looking Los Angeleno is a hottie there). But Cleveland has something going for it. Perhaps quite a few
Positively Cleveland
Artist Rendering
Dean Kaufman
(GG9CLE.com) in August 2014. Cleveland’s games follow Cologne’s in 2009 and precedes Paris’ in 2017. That’s illustrious company for a city that’s the butt of so many jokes (including the title of the Betty White
→ BEautiful bones For being one of the US rustbelt cities, Cleveland has some pretty fine architecture. (From the top ) Museum of Contemporary Art; artist rendering of proposed outdoor chandelier at Playhouse Square; and a rear view of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. 16
things. “We bend over backwards to show people a good time, and nine times out of 10, we really succeed in doing that,” says Tom Nobbe, executive director of Gay Games 9. “We can’t compare ourselves to Paris, but we have lots of neighbourhoods and attractions where people can have a great time.” Cleveland is one of the US rustbelt cities, metropolises that depended too much on a handful of huge corporations whose fortunes waned as the global economy shifted its attention elsewhere. But its boom times blessed it with beautiful old bones, infrastructure and institutions built by industrialists like J. D. Rockefeller, an oil man and philanthropist who was the anchor tenant on Cleveland’s Millionaire’s Row. Rockefeller and his peers made pots of money and spent much of it on their hometown. The city’s historic museums, theatres, athletic centres and other public buildings, which have been maintained through good times and bad, highlight a lavish civic pride that never infected dowdy old Toronto. In its heyday, Cleveland played Steel Town to Detroit’s Motor City. The industrial mess around the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, which divides the city in half, makes our Don River look like pristine Amazonia. But while Detroit fell off a cliff—witness a city trying to evacuate neighbourhoods it can’t afford to service—Cleveland’s post-industrial present day has been less traumatic. While the city’s population fell to about 400,000 from 500,000 over the last 20 years, the population of Greater Cleveland, which includes many leafy suburbs, as well as nearby Akron, hasn’t strayed far from the 2.8-million people it had in 1960. Recently the city has embraced healthcare as a key to its future. The new Cleveland Convention Centre, which will host many Gay Games events, is attached to the equally new Global Center for Health Innovation (theglobalcentre.com). The city also seems to be following Detroit’s methods of trying to repopulate its core by nurturing a culture of quirky entrepreneurship— urban farming, high-tech startups,
increased emphasis on the arts. But Cleveland doesn’t feel nearly so desperate as Detroit; it never fell so far. Despite a dearth of shopping in the downtown, the vibrant pub and resto is having a genuine renaissance. Across the Cuyahoga, the area at West 25th Street and Lorain Avenue, near the historic West Side Market (a foodie haunt similar to our St. Lawrence Market except with much nicer architectural finishes), has been lovingly gentrified. Over the last few years, local mover-andshaker Sam McNulty has opened no fewer than five drinking establishments in the ’hood, all of it unapologetically beer-loving. McNulty’s Market Garden Brewery and Distillery (marketgardenbrewery. com), for example, serves flights of ale, lager and pilsner with the confidence a New York lounge would serve up flights of wine. As for cultural attractions, Cleveland’s number one destination has to be the deconstructed glass pyramid that’s home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (rockhall.com), which will host the Gay Games closing ceremonies. Though Rock Hall’s target demographic is Middle America—fathers explaining Elvis Presley to their bored sons—it contains enough camp to keep a queer occupied: Madonna’s shoes, Little Richard’s jumpsuits, Donna Summer’s waitress outfit, Elton John’s piano. Rock Hall does have the air of a manufactured Disney-esque “build it and they will come” attraction. Strangely enough, Cleveland’s more patrician entertainment institutions actually seem closer to the hearts of locals, who rave about picnicking on the Blossom lawn while listening to the Cleveland Orchestra (clevelandorchestra.com). In fact, despite the city’s working class ethic and mid-western lack of pretentions, high culture may be where the city shines brightest. Playhouse Square (playhousesquare.org) is a not-for-profit arts centre comprised of nine grandiose theatres which were built in the 1920s, making Cleveland an essential stop in the Vaudeville era. As likely to host Patti LaBelle and the musical Once as to present The Paul Taylor Dance Company,
December 2013
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