Michael Ceraolo- A Poem

from Euclid Creek Book Three

"Hundreds of homeless and unemployed men

have built themselves tiny houses

from sheets of tin and wooden boxes

and live in peaceful,

                             if not lavish,

                                               contentment"

(A few years later they would all be gone:

                                                            where they went,

and what happened to them,

                                          was not remarked upon)

                                                                              because

"Cleveland has for several years

been so depressed by adverse circumstances

that a forward-looking enterprise is needed

to revive the spirit of civic pride

that formerly characterized the city"

                                                      and

"Now the country is getting out of the depression,

                                                                        and

Cleveland should show the whole United States

in 1936 that it is leading the procession"

                                                              And

on Saturday March 7, 1936

ground was broken for the first building

of what would be called the Great Lakes Exposition;

it couldn't call itself a World's Fair

because there was official participation

from only one foreign government (Canada),

                                                                though

there was plenty of unofficial participation

from many foreign governments who had

officials stationed in Cleveland

                                             (and,

proving that photo-ops for politicians

have been around as long as photography,

there is a picture of the Mayor

'using' an antique shovel

from the time of the first Clevelanders;

the ground had actually been broken

by someone using a modern shovel

and then placed on the antique

so the photo of the groundbreaking

could be taken)

                          Not much time

was allotted for the construction:

June 27th was the scheduled opening date,

and it would be met,

                               thanks due

to the more than three thousand workers

representing many skilled trades

as well as unskilled laborers

                                           (in addition

to an exhibit at the Exposition

the United States paid many of those workers

through the WPA)

                             "Incredible,

to pass a dump one day and

the next to find it a garden,

                                        complete

with rolling lawns and flowering shrubs"

At noon on the aforementioned 27th

President Roosevelt pushed a button

in the nation's capital,

                                and

the gates to the Exposition opened

The Secretary of Commerce, Daniel C. Roper

(why do politicians use middle initials?

was there another Daniel Roper

he desperately wanted to be distinct from?),

represented the administration at the opening,

                                                                   and said,

"I compliment the people of the Great Lakes region

on this striking significant exposition

symbolizing the material and cultural progress

of this beautiful and productive section

of America"

                    Later

                              on that first day

came the lighting that would try

to live up to the flacks' hype

("the best lighted exposition

the world has ever seen"),

                                       and

the method of that initial illumination

was impressive:

                         a telescope

at the observatory in East Cleveland

was trained on the moon,

                                      and

at exactly 8:22 PM received

the satellite's reflected light,

stored it in a cell at the base,

                                           then

sent it off to the exposition grounds,

                                                     where

it exploded a ceremonial bomb

that started the generators running

and ignited the rest of the lights in sequence:
"a broad demi-lune of multi-colored phosphorescence"

"an exciting and glamorous setting from overhead,

                                                                         and

at closer approach its multiple details

of design and execution are no less imaginative"

(the second year's gate-opening,

and its first-night lighting,

would be much less eventful)

There would be official participation

from three other states,

                                   and,

after much dithering by downstate politicians,

official participation by the home state as well

(foreshadowing future demographic trends,

                                                              and

possibly helping to bring them about also,

the state of Florida had the biggest state exhibit)

There would be rides and a midway

with all the usual attractions

There would be art exhibits showcased off-site

at the Cleveland Museum of Art

There would be theater in all forms,

from Shakespeare to strippers

There would be a Streets of the World,

showcasing thirty-eight nationalities,

some an integral part of the city's 

everyday life,

                    some

with only a handful of residents

in the city

There would be a wide variety of live music

at bandstands and from a studio,

                                                 where

some of it would be broadcast over

the national radio networks

                                           And

there would be exhibits of technology,

                                                        some

prescient yet unremarked upon:

the phone company's offering

of free long-distance calls

from a heavy-traffic area

that offered the calls zero privacy

prefigured the mobile phone's allowing anyone

access to at least half the conversation;

                                                           others

remarked upon less than presciently:

an entertainment reporter wrote,

"A show that would appear doomed

is Television"

The second year would be slightly smaller:

the entrance gate would be moved back

and Lakeside Avenue re-opened

There would be less emphasis on education

and more on entertainment,

                                         with

several new attractions:

                                    foremost

among these Billy Rose's Aquacade,

                                                      with

its Hollywood and Olympic stars

(sometimes combined in the same person),

                                                                and

its large-scale Busby Berkeley-like water ballets

(today called synchronized swimming)

Everything closed September 26, 1937

Nothing today remains from the Exposition;

the last thing left was the Donald Gray Gardens,

                                                                       which

lasted almost to the end of the twentieth century,

when the powers-that-be decided to tear down

the existing stadium in order to

build a new one on the same spot,

and the Gardens were demolished as well

All the other buildings were razed in the space

of just a few years,

                             and

rubble piles resumed their residency on the lakefront

(the last two Torso Murder victims

were found in one of those rubble piles)

Seven-and-a-half million visitors

in the two hundred and twenty-nine days

over the Exposition's two seasons

                                                   (an estimated

sixty percent of those from out of town)

pointed the way for the future:

"Cleveland is going to have a downtown waterfront

in which the people can take permanent pride and pleasure"

"What has been a shambles will be a place of permanent beauty"

But such an outcome wouldn't be achieved

for several decades,

                               and

then realized only partially:

there would be a few attractions built

that would cater more to the tourist trade,

                                                             yet

there would be limited walkways,

no shops or restaurants,

                                     and

a large area taken up by a lakefront airport,

                                                               which

denied access to the lake to those

without corporate or personal planes