Tech Czar Notes

A few weeks ago I was finishing up my Bridge Builders class with a presentation at the West Tech Lofts. The West Tech Lofts was an old high school (true story - at one time the largest high school in the state of Ohio) that has been converted into loft apartments. Very, very cool place. As we wrapped up our Bridge Builders session, I took up an offer to tour the facility (a choice move - if you get the opportunity). It is an impressive redevelopment. While on a tour of the top floor I got a choice view of I-90, when I was struck by an endless array of streets that dead-end into the highway with the other half of the street cut from the other side - meaning I was looking at a street that was once unencumbered by the highway. (This made me think of a photo that was presented to me a few weeks back showing President Kennedy in Cleveland, during September of 1962, waving from his limousine. The photo noted that the shot was taken from W. 65th and Detroit Avenue. The reason for the drive was that Detroit Avenue at the time was the only way to get to the airport from Downtown. Quick Note: the limousine was the same one he was in when he was assassinated in Dallas two short months from then. I understand that I-90 does not take you to the airport but it reminded me of how young the highway system is in the U.S.) Street after street die at the hills that overlook the highway. These streets were once connected - full neighborhoods ripe with life and vigor. Long, long streets that had a rich history. Sad to see them cut up for a large highway.

Fast forward a few weeks and I am enjoying a fine dinner @ Jak's (W. Sixth and St. Clair - go there) with Jacob, a good friend. During our conversation Jacob mentions that he went to high-school at West Tech and remembers when he could walk from his old street south of West Tech all the way to the school. No highway. The near West Side at the time was a working-class, middle american neighborhood that was torn asunder by a federal highway project. Eminent domain forced thousands, not hundreds mind you, but thousands of tax paying working class out of the culturally rich neighborhoods of Cleveland and into the suburbs. The original plan for I-90 was to also go right through the east side (i.e. - Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights - but those neighborhoods were a bit more wealthy and more vocal about the highway) but was quickly scuttled. The west side of Cleveland had no such hope. I-90, then, became an accelerator for the loss of the population base for the City. Opened the far west side of Cuyahoga County for development (hey no I-90 no Crocker Park, no Avon Lake, no Westlake). All in the name of progress. I am a bit shocked at the number of people who lost their homes and made way out to the burbs. Thousands! Just imagine the sense of neighborhood that could exist if I-90 were built a few miles south. Instead a great neighborhood with a dramatic history were cut to the bone.