Located prominently on downtown Cleveland’s Public Mall A, the Fountain of Eternal Life, also known as the War Memorial Fountain, stands to honor the bravery and sacrifice of Americans lost in armed conflicts from the Spanish-American War to the present day. Envisioned as a memorial to Clevelanders lost during the Second World War and Korean War at the time of its initial dedication in 1964, the fountain has served as a site of reflection of Clevelanders' attitudes towards armed conflict as well as a subject of debate on historic preservation over the decades of its existence.
The Fountain of Eternal Life’s sculptor, Marshall Fredericks, was a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art and had served in the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the United States Air Force during the Second World War. As the conflict came to an end in 1945, several organizations and media outlets in Cleveland began formulating a plan to develop a memorial to honor local residents who were lost. By the end of 1945, the Cleveland Press had raised $104,000 through a public subscription drive, enough for the initial planning and sourcing of materials for a monument to take place and for Fredericks to be officially selected as the designer and sculptor of the memorial. By 1946, it was decided that the memorial, dubbed the War Memorial Fountain in the media, would be built on Cleveland’s Mall.
March 25, 1955, marked the official groundbreaking ceremony for the memorial. The event was highlighted by the first turning of dirt being performed by Cleveland’s then-mayor Anthony J. Celebrezze alongside the president of the Cuyahoga County Gold Star Mothers, Stella Stark. As the monument was initially planned ten years earlier as a memorial to Clevelanders lost during the Second World War, organizers already had to contend with the fact that another conflict, the Korean War, would have to be addressed upon the memorial’s completion. This restructuring of exactly which conflicts are being represented by the monument would be a constant throughout the memorial’s life.
As the monument’s development and construction continued beyond the initial groundbreaking, it would not be without some adversity. In 1959, the City of Cleveland held public hearings on a proposal to lease Mall A to build a skyscraping Hilton hotel. If approved, the memorial would have been forced to relocate, potentially undercutting its significance by not allowing for a prominent location to be held. Although some on Cleveland’s City Council highlighted financial upsides to the hotel’s existence on the Mall, voters ultimately rejected the plan in a special referendum, permitting development of the monument to continue.
After 19 years of preparations and construction, the memorial was ready to be officially dedicated. On May 30, 1964, thousands of residents and spectators descended on Cleveland’s downtown Mall for Memorial Day celebrations and the dedication of the “Press War Memorial Fountain,” which featured the Fountain of Eternal Life sculpture. The sculpture itself featured four large granite slabs and a towering bronze figure arising upwards out of flames and a sphere meant to represent the universe. In all, the monument towered 46 feet above the ground. Marshall Fredericks described his work on the sculpture, stating, “This figure expresses the main theme of the Memorial Fountain, namely, the spirit of mankind rising out of the encircling flames of war, pestilence, and the destructive elements of life, reaching and ascending to a new understanding of life. Man rising above death, reaching upward to his God and toward peace.” Placed around the monument and inlaid upon the granite labs would be inscribed bronze tablets containing the names of local residents who perished during the Second World War and the Korean War.
In the years following the fountain’s dedication, the site was consistently utilized as a location for parades and speeches in celebration of patriotic holidays and days of remembrance. However, coinciding with this continued use of the Fountain of Eternal Life as a place of honor was the entrenchment of the United States in another major armed conflict: The Vietnam War. By 1971, the fountain had transitioned from a location seen as primarily honoring Cleveland’s perished soldiers to one that often hosted rallies and protests against all war. News publications of the time often highlighted the symbolism of holding such antiwar gatherings around a sculpture that depicts a figure striving upwards for peace, as Marshall Fredricks had originally intended.
Moving into the 1980s, the Fountain of Eternal Life experienced yet another major evolution in its perception and meaning. On May 30, 1983, the 19th anniversary of the monument’s dedication, Plain Dealer columnist William F. Miller ran a story with the very provocative title “Memorial fountain in sad shape.” In this piece, Miller detailed the current condition of broken concrete, failed water pipes, and cracked granite across the basin of the fountain. Miller went even further in describing the cracked sidewalks and rusted-over trash cans in the immediate vicinity of the fountain, further detracting from any aesthetic quality or any attempt to convey the memorial’s meaning. By 1987, discussion amongst media publications and within City Council meetings regarding the possible removal of the Fountain of Eternal Life had sparked Marshall Fredericks himself to comment on the matter. Fredericks depressingly stated to a reporter shortly before the fountain's 23rd anniversary, “I spent my whole life… doing sculpture. But what’s the point of it all when the most important one I did in my life is about to be torn down.” Ultimately, plans to preserve the Fountain of Eternal Life moved forward, and by November 1989 the monument was being hoisted from its place in Mall A and taken to a local restoration center. The occasion, which occurred on November 6, 1989, was marked by a small performance from a United States Marine color guard, in which the soldiers saluted the monument as it was taken away.
The Fountain of Eternal Life was returned to its place atop the now-named Memorial Plaza in 1991. With this, the sculpture itself was rededicated and became the centerpiece of what would now be named the “Peace Memorial Fountain.” Moving forward to the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, the fountain continued to serve as a site for both military memorialization and occasionally for antiwar and peace rallies. In 2004, the monument was once again rededicated, with this occasion officially marking the site’s commemoration of Clevelanders lost in all conflicts from 1899 to the present day.
]]>While the Second World War was raging across the globe, a different war was being fought on the homefront against food shortages. But victory gardens were more about supporting the U.S. war effort than fighting hunger. The Mall, a park-like civic space in downtown Cleveland, was selected by the city to host a community victory garden as a wartime demonstration project to inspire and educate students and people unfamiliar with growing vegetables. With land donated by the city, the victory garden grew as a successful community project that even lasted for some time after the end of the war. Victory gardens were a nationwide federal initiative promoted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture with the purpose of feeding people amid wartime food rationing and farm labor shortages during World War II. Victory gardens were intended to grow a wide array of vegetables that would feed families while most processed food was shipped overseas to feed the military fighting the war. Victory gardens were thus seen as a patriotic duty towards the war effort.
While many rural Americans already grew their own food, this was less true of people in cities, towns, and suburbs. Most gardens were in suburban residential areas or in small towns, but cities also had gardens in parks, on school grounds and vacant lots, and on rooftops in the most urban areas. It has been estimated that victory gardens produced about 40% of all produce consumed by Americans during the war. However, after the D-Day landings, as an Allied victory looked increasingly attainable, victory gardens slowly declined in popularity. Cleveland's demonstration victory garden was located on Mall B (the southern portion of the Mall), between Rockwell and St. Clair Avenues. Mayor Frank Lausche and city officals approved the Mall site because it was the a highly visible, central space with natural ground for growing vegetables.The groundbreaking for the Mall Victory Garden did not come until February 1943, during the height of the victory garden craze across the nation. Breaking ground was difficult due to contractors' fear of damaging their plows and equipment on rocks while plowing the ground for the plots. Planting of seeds for the various vegetables started in May, the start of the growing season.
After planting, Bee Taylor was assigned by the Cuyahoga County Victory Garden Committee to be the full-time attendant of the gardens for day-to-day duties. A resident of South Euclid, Taylor was a member of the Harvey Rice Garden Club. The Garden Center (later renamed the Cleveland Botanical Garden) paid her salary. By June, the garden began holding demonstrations to educate people on how to tend to certain vegetables. With twenty-four different kinds of vegetables under cultivation, the garden was a popular attraction for people who came and see the garden grow as well as watch demonstrations. Most of the produce raised there was either sent to local institutions or canned for display purposes. In the 1943 season alone, Bee Taylor counted 50,000 people visiting the garden "to ask questions, compare the growth of their own vegetables with those on the Mall, and hear experienced growers" in 24 lecture demonstrations. The garden was so popular that it expanded to include more plots for crops. By April 1944, the garden was open again with the new expansion. The garden surely played a role in inspiring the planting of some of the 115,000 victory gardens in the Cleveland area.
However, as the war started to shift in favor of Allied victory after D-Day, attendance started to decline slightly. Despite the decline, the Mall Victory Garden remained popular for students and those who wanted to learn gardening. There were even talks and demonstrations held by editors of victory garden columns and other publications. By the end of the 1944 growing season, the gardens closed and prepared for the 1945 season. When victory came in 1945, victory gardens decreased significantly after the surrender of the Axis forces and the government program ended a year later. Despite the end of the victory garden program, the city of Cleveland wanted to keep the community gardens around years after the end of the war. However, popularity was never the same as during the war. The Mall Victory Garden finally closed in late 1947. The former Mall Victory Garden site was later repurposed in 1964 for a "war memorial fountain" that is now known as the Fountain of Eternal Life.
]]>The story of Cleveland’s Global Center for Health Innovation is almost as multifaceted as the products, services, and solutions offered by its myriad members. Even the organization’s name has twists and turns: Readers are more likely to recognize its original moniker, the Medical Mart.
The Global Center’s tale began in 1982 when a taskforce looked into the possibility of creating the healthcare equivalent of Chicago’s Merchandise Mart in the Old Post Office Building adjacent to Tower City Center. Key participants in this early-stage effort included Dr. William Kiser, M.D., chairman of the Cleveland Clinic Board of Governors; Albert Ratner of Forest City Enterprises; and Thomas King, James Bidwell, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy representing the Merchandise Mart. The project was curtailed when market studies found that the current economic climate could not support a shopping mall concept for healthcare products.
The project’s next phase unfolded in 1995 when Dr. Toby Cosgrove, then chairman of Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, visited Saudi Arabia, where an influential sheik told him that a medical mart and hotel would be built in Dubai. Fast forward to 2005 when Dr. Cosgrove—by then Cleveland Clinic president and chief executive officer—concluded that the time was right to reprise the Medical Mart idea. Shortly thereafter, Cosgrove was introduced to Chris Kennedy, then president of MMPI, a company that manages industrial showrooms across the country, including Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. Cosgrove and Kennedy discussed the project with Mayor Jane Campbell and her Chief of Staff Chris Ronayne. With their backing, the Cuyahoga County Commissioners, led by Tim Hagan, took the reins.
By 2008 the commissioners approved two relevant tax measures: The first—a quarter-cent countywide sales tax—would raise $425 million to construct a Medical Mart and rebuild the Cleveland Convention Center. The second measure was a 1 percent increase in the County bed tax. Combined with tenants’ rent payments, the latter source could be expected to cover the Mart’s and the Convention Center’s operating costs.
Cuyahoga County and MMPI signed a development agreement in April 2009. At this time, several locations were still in play, including the Mall, University Circle, and a plot behind Tower City Center. The County chose a site on the western edge of the Mall along St. Clair Avenue.
In January 2010 the County signed a construction agreement with MMPI. The following month LMN Architects of Seattle was chosen to design the facility. By August the Cleveland Planning Commission also approved a massive revamping of the downtown convention center. Like the previous facility, the new structure would be underground. But instead of a below-grade driveway ingress on the building’s side, the new structure would feature a grand entrance along Lakeside Avenue, with Mall B raised significantly along a south-north slope from St. Clair Avenue to Lakeside.
In late 2010 Cuyahoga County purchased the Cleveland Convention Center from the City of Cleveland for $20 million and finalized negotiations with the owners of five buildings slated for demolition at St. Clair and Ontario. The path now was clear to begin construction of the Mart and the Convention Center, which officially began on January 3, 2011.
Construction crews removed more than 500,000 tons of debris and demolished six buildings, including the old Cleveland Convention Center, Justice Center parking garage, the 113 office building, Sportsman Restaurant, Chicago Title, and the old County Annex building. More than 12,200 tons of steel—the most for any project in downtown Cleveland history—was then used to create the complexes’ infrastructures.
In October 2012 GE Healthcare Systems and Cleveland Clinic signed on as the Medical Mart’s first tenants. Four months later, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald announced that the facility would be formally named the Global Center for Health Innovation. MMPI then secured a lease from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), one of the largest medical organizations in America with more than 50,000 members. Like no other milestone, HIMSS’ commitment helped solidify the Center’s future—giving Cleveland a chance to become the epicenter of healthcare information technology.
Convention Center construction was completed in June 2013—just in time to host the highly successful National Senior Games. First Merit Bank purchased the naming rights to the Convention Center in 2015. In early 2016 Huntington Bank purchased First Merit and assumed the naming rights. The Global Center for Health Innovation opened in October 2013.
In late 2013 the county parted ways with MMPI and awarded a five-year management agreement to SMG, the nation's largest operator of convention centers. That same year, the Cuyahoga County Convention Facilities Development Corporation (CCCFDC) was formed to promote convention business, enhance county-wide economic growth, expand employment opportunities and promote tourism. CCCFDC also oversees SMG’s operation of the Convention Center and the Global Center for Health Innovation. In June 2016 the final leg of the stool was completed: A 600-room, 32-story Hilton hotel was built on Lakeside Avenue on land formerly occupied by the Cuyahoga County Administration Building.
Since its 2013 opening, the Global Center for Health Innovation has become a national focal point for healthcare advancements, conventions and industry conferences. Its tenants include 45 of the world’s leading healthcare brands and it hosts more than 300 industry meetings annually. The Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland already has hosted more than 600 events, including its role as the media center for the 2016 Republican National Convention. In 2016 alone, the complex logged 237 events and attracted more than 440,000 visitors.
]]>In the 1920s Cleveland's Public Auditorium was among the largest and most popular meeting venues in the United States. By the end of the 20th century, Cleveland and Public Auditorium were fighting tooth and nail for second-tier convention business. Two decades later Cleveland hosted the 2016 Republican National Convention—leveraging a new convention center connected to a large hotel and a revamped Public Auditorium.
Public Auditorium was one of seven public buildings constructed as part of the Cleveland Group Plan of 1903. Reflecting the goals of the “City Beautiful” movement (attractive public buildings and open spaces), the Group Plan emphasized Roman Revival and Beaux Arts architecture surrounding a large mall. All of the resultant structures survive to this day, except for the Cuyahoga County Administration Building (the least iconic of the group) which was demolished in 2014.
Design plans for Public Auditorium were created by city architects Frederic H. Betz and J. Harold McDowell in conjunction with Frank R. Walker of the architectural firm Walker & Weeks. Planning and fundraising commenced in 1916. Construction began in 1920 and the building was completed in 1922. The result was magnificent in scale and aesthetic allure: A 21,780-square-foot registration lobby, a 10,000-seat auditorium with color frescos lining the balconies, a 3,000-seat Music Hall and a 600-seat Little Theater. Small wonder that the auditorium’s heyday was long and fruitful: Republican National Conventions in 1924 and 1936. Concerts ranging from the Cleveland Orchestra and Duke Ellington to the Beatles and David Bowie.
Unfortunately, Public Hall began to languish by mid century. In 1957, an issue to expand the convention center beneath the Mall was rejected by Cleveland voters. The resolution reappeared in 1958 and again was struck down. In 1959, voters also rejected a 1,000-room Hilton hotel, controversially sited on the south end of the Mall. Not until 1963 did Public Auditorium receive a much-needed subterranean addition. Auditorium business and attendance rebounded but only temporarily. For nearly another half century, Public Auditorium remained static.
A positive new stage for Public Auditorium emerged in 2011. First the Global Center for Health Innovation was conceived (initially as the Medical Mart) and eventually built on the west side of the mall. Voters also approved a 0.25 percent sales tax increase to fund development of the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland—a massive renovation of the convention space beneath the Mall and the adjoining Public Auditorium. Adding to the allure of the new meeting spaces, the Hilton Cleveland Downtown was finally erected on the former site of the County Administration Building. Voila: 390,000 total feet of meeting space and underground access to a 600-room hotel. With the help of some powerful new neighbors, Public Auditorium saw new life.
]]>When the city approved the Group Plan of 1903, it was believed that the Mall would become the city’s functional and symbolic center. The long stretch of land northeast of Public Square would turn a former slum into a parklike space, and a half-dozen neoclassical government buildings surrounding the Mall would instill a sense of civic pride and duty. These goals fit the aims of the City Beautiful reform movement, whose proponents worried that the attractiveness and dignity of American cities were being compromised by poverty, overpopulation and the perceived deleterious effects of immigration. Daniel Burnham, who played a leading role in designing Cleveland’s Group Plan, was a major figure in the City Beautiful movement. He may best be remembered for designing Chicago’s White City at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. In Cleveland, however, as Walter Leedy wrote, “Instead of a ‘White City’ the Mall turned out to be a ‘White Sepulcher.’”
The Mall’s transformation into a true city center was quashed in the 1920s by the Van Sweringen brothers’ decision to build their Union Terminal train station on Public Square, a decision that answered a federal government concern about mixing local and national rail traffic on the strategically important tracks along the lakeshore. The 1903 Group Plan specified that the city’s main train station would be built at the north end of the Mall. When that didn’t happen, it became clear that Public Square would remain the city’s center. In retrospect, this was a propitious choice: Public Square was Cleveland’s transportation hub and it was closer to the booming commercial district taking shape along Euclid Avenue. The Mall, meanwhile, became somewhat of an afterthought, used occasionally for concerts and other events but serving mainly as a cut-through for downtown workers.
A number of plans over the years promised to inject new life into the Mall, including unrealized plans for embellishments in the late 1920s and again in the late 1930s, the short-lived amenities brought by the 1936-37 Great Lakes Exposition, a failed bid in the late 1950s for a "hotel on the Mall," and the addition of the Hanna Fountains in 1964 (but removed in 1987). In the 2010s the Mall received a new carpet of grass atop the ramp-like rise on Mall B necessitated by the most recent expansion of the convention center. New buildings, including a "medical mart" and a convention hotel were added on the Mall's western flank in anticipation of the city's hosting of the 2016 Republican National Convention. Yet the Mall still struggles to serve as a civic space, calling attention to the challenges that face all efforts to create such places.
]]>Until 2013, the administrative headquarters of the Cleveland Board of Education was an iconic sandstone, Beaux-Arts structure located at 1380 East 6th Street on the east side of Mall A. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975, the 1931 building was designed by Walker & Weeks, which arguably may have done more to define Cleveland architecture than any single firm. In addition to the Board of Education Building, Walker & Weeks designed Cleveland’s Public Auditorium; Federal Reserve Bank; Public Library; Severance Hall; Allen Memorial Medical Library; Lorain-Carnegie Bridge; Cleveland Municipal Stadium; Warner & Swasey Observatory; and numerous churches including St. Paul’s Episcopal, Epworth-Euclid Methodist and First Church of Christ, Scientist.
Completed in 1931, the Cleveland Board of Education Building was the last piece in the Group Plan vision for Cleveland’s three Malls (A, B and C). Around that time, the Malls were expected to replace Public Square as the center of downtown. The idea was to honor the Progressive Era and the City Beautiful Movement by creating urban paradises to counter the upheavals caused by rapid industrialization. The “re-centering” idea obviously didn’t pan out, but the Board of Education building nonetheless took its place as an aesthetically pleasing cornerstone to a space that may never have looked better than it does now.
The Board of Education building’s two-story lobby features marble columns, massive arched windows, bronze chandeliers and two Depression-era murals that flank the space: "The Progress of Education" and "The Branches of Education" by Cleveland artist Cora Holden. Further enhancing the structure is a statue of Abraham Lincoln located on the west side of the building facing the Mall. Sculpted by Max Kalish, the statue was installed in 1932 in front of the building which, at that time, faced west toward East 4th Street (East 4th was removed in 1988). Donations from Cleveland schoolchildren helped pay for the statue. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is carved on its base.
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District occupied only about half of the building when Drury Hotels bought it at auction in early 2013 for $4.5 million. Three years later, following a three-year, $52-million renovation, a 189-room Drury Plaza Hotel opened in the 85-year-old structure. The school district’s administrative functions are now located at 1111 Superior Avenue, in the former headquarters of Eaton Corporation.
]]>During the summers of 1936 and 1937, Cleveland's civic and business leaders sponsored the Great Lakes Exposition. Held along the lakefront on a reclaimed refuse dump, the Expo was intended to foster civic and regional pride, attract visitors and businesses to Cleveland, and provide an entertaining diversion in the midst of the Great Depression.
Local businesses and industries from the region sponsored exhibits designed to celebrate American progress and promote their own products. Standard Oil of Ohio produced souvenir maps to the city, while the Higbee Company hosted a branch store on the expo's grounds, housed in an impressive tower. Visitors learned about regional industries at exhibits such as "The Romance of Steel", and watched patriotic pageants.
Municipal Stadium acted as the western anchor of the grounds, which stretched to East 24th Street. The main grounds extended to East Ninth Street, where the Midway began. The main area featured imposing, albeit temporary, structures and pageantry, while the Midway "Streets of the World" area provided carnival style entertainment with an international theme. Controversy over appropriate entertainment on the Midway swirled around the expo. Originally, nudity and "exotic" dancers were banned, but in 1936 several venues featured scantily clad females and striptease dancers. In 1937 the nudity rule was again enforced.
The Expo garnered some international attention but was never a full blown world's fair. Attendance was not as large as hoped for, and plans to construct more permanent lakeside recreation facilities never came to fruition. Even so, the Great Lakes Exposition provided two summers of excitement and entertainment for many Cleveland residents and out of town guests at a time when spirits needed a lift.
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