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
