tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6742219136731283325.post7451295787796130501..comments2023-02-18T07:12:28.427-08:00Comments on Bauzeitgeist: Bewahrung, ErweckungUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6742219136731283325.post-21028194410627279392014-02-19T07:50:53.957-08:002014-02-19T07:50:53.957-08:00Thanks for your comment, David. Interesting what y...Thanks for your comment, David. Interesting what you say about the Cleveland Clinic, which of course is among the first names trotted out in speaking of Cleveland's remaining vitality: the eds-and-meds University Circle area. Downtown is in a very strange circumstance: relatively high demand (and rental rates) for housing, but still too little housing, too few large employers, too little street life. What's remarkable about the Cleveland Trust complex's new life is that its various components: housing, hotel, and grocery store, is the best possible outcome for that property to contribute to a revitalization of the downtown area, even if it does mean that Cleveland's erstwhile Wall Street no longer has enough corporate residency to retain it's financial district atmosphere (which maybe isn't something to lament, anyway). Thanks again for reading and commenting. MM Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04913345404567542768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6742219136731283325.post-51009230075481805612014-02-15T04:31:44.969-08:002014-02-15T04:31:44.969-08:00Positive preservation stories in Cleveland are all...Positive preservation stories in Cleveland are all too rare. Typically, in Cleveland, there seems to be no perception of the significance of a building or the value of preservation among the stakeholders in any redevelopment project. Hence the initial proposal to demolish the Breauer building. This attitude seems to inform decisions to demolish significant vacant buildings as well. And when a neighborhood group or the Restoration Society pushes preservation for a property all kinds of arguments like "We can't save everything" or "don't stand in the way of progress" are typical. I've read down right hostile, vitriolic remarks made by regular people in comment sections on-line venting their hatred for preservationists. I've noticed in the Midwest as opposed to the East Coast there is a latent sensibility that who ever owns a property should be able to do what they like with it. The corollary of this is that owners feel little responsibility toward the community or for anythig like the history of a place.<br /><br />I can't figure out what motivates these sorts of attitudes. I think many people do still think OLD is bad and NEW is good. And it is possible that many are contemptuous of Cleveland because they see it as a nexus of crime, poverty, dereliction and failure. There are very few people still around who experienced the urban vitality of downtown Cleveland 40 or 50 years ago. And there are very few public institutions or commercial developers that have made a virtue of adapting an old building for a new purpose instead of wiping it away. The Cleveland Clinic is the worse imaginable example. The Clinic has had a hostile relationship to it's context from day one. Within the last six months they have demolished two historic churches to clear the zone for their expanding suburbo-urbanish campus full of massive medical buildings sporting zippy-zoomy contemporary design. And government is delighted to leave their grand old buildings and move into something new instead of renovating those buildings. The magnificent police headquarters on Prospect will be vacated and staff will move into a suburban office park like building now under construction.<br /><br />(Well....I've really overdone this comment!)<br /><br />Iit is a fine thing that the old Cleveland Trust complex, including Breuers tower and the rotunda building (Geo. B. Post & Sons, architects) has managed to survive and may have a more inspired fate. David J Gillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10760087405580284041noreply@blogger.com