VIEWPOINT - CUDC Quarterly 1:4 - Summer 2001
Regional Forecast: Wet and Green
Steven Litt
Architecture and Art Critic, the Plain Dealer
Clevelanders hate to hear it. But 32 years after the fact, this city is still known around the world as the place where the river caught on fire. No amount of public relations puffery has erased the image. Nor has construction of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Browns Stadium or the Gateway sports complex. Despite the impressive accomplishments of the past two decades, the combustible river is still with us.
How can this memory be laid to rest? One way is to rediscover and reclaim the city’s underused waterfronts on the river and the lake, to uncover waterways buried in culverts and to knit the region together with greenways along restored streams. Water, in short, can be our theme. Nothing could be more fitting for the city whose flaming river helped inspire passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
Reconceiving the region’s relationship to its watersheds and waterways would improve the livability of Cleveland and surrounding communities, help develop green industries for the future, and change the city’s image. If this sounds farfetched, consider that many of the greatest cities in the world are recovering their waterfronts and using rivers, harbors, lakes and streams as focal areas for revitalization. Chicago is famous for its lakefront, which is a continually evolving work in progress. Toronto’s lakefront has a regional bike path, beaches and housing for more than 5,000 residents. In Milwaukee, the lakefront art museum is building a spectacular addition designed by Santiago Calatrava of Spain. Providence, R.I., recently tore up seven blocks of parking lots that had once covered the Providence River. Now, on warm summer nights, city residents gather around the new bridges that span the river to enjoy outdoor concerts and public art performances. Architecture critics around the world have praised Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. But the project’s success stems not only from Gehry’s brilliant design, but from the way his building reconnects central Bilbao to the Nervion River.
Water is a vital part of regional identity and history in the industrial Midwest. And yet, despite significant improvements in water quality over the past three decades, our rivers and streams still are are hidden, forgotten and abused. In Cleveland much of the Lake Erie shoreline and the Cuyahoga River are off limits.
Fortunately, opportunities to reconnect with the river and the lake are on the horizon. One of the best is the Ohio and Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor, a federally supported project aimed at connecting Cleveland to central Ohio with a 110-mile bike and hike trail following the path of the old Ohio & Erie Canal. This project has achieved extraordinary success over the past decade, particularly in areas south of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. But corporate and political leaders here have been slow to realize the potential benefits.
Kent State University’s Urban Design Center helped raise awareness about the potential of the project in April by co-sponsoring a thought-provoking charrette on the future of Canal Basin in downtown Cleveland, the proposed northern gateway of the Heritage Corridor. Another major opportunity has emerged at University Circle, where trustees of Case Western Reserve University last month approved a new campus master plan that calls for restoring a now-buried section of Doan Brook that flows past the western edge of the campus. In arguing for the stream’s restoration, architects from Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore planning firm, said that daylighting Doan Brook would:
- Improve water quality
- Recreate aquatic habitat
- Provide a greenway centerpiece for University Circle
- Reconnect people to nature
- Reduce flood damage
- Create educational opportunity
It would be easy to envision students and faculty turning Doan Brook into a model project in which new techniques of flood management, landscape design and bio-engineering could be explored. Ultimately, the experience could be applied to the Cuyahoga Valley, in joint programs involving KSU, CWRU, Cleveland State University and Oberlin College. One way to jump start such an effort is for all four educational institutions to convene a national conference in Cleveland on restoration of urban streams and rivers, and on environmentally sensitive ways to develop adjacent land. The lessons could be applied throughout the watersheds of Northeast Ohio. Is anyone game?
