Info          

Cleveland Tourism
The Higbee Building
100 Public Square
Suite 100
Cleveland, OH 44113-2290

Web:
www.positivelycleveland
.com

Phone:
800-321-1004
216-875-6600 800.321.1001

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum
1100 Rock and Roll Blvd.
Cleveland, OH 44114

Web:
www.rockhall.com

Phone:
216-781-ROCK

University Circle

Web:
www.universitycircle.org

Phone:
216-791-3900

Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum
10825 East Boulevard Cleveland, OH 44106

Web:
www.wrhs.org

Phone:
216-721-5722

Cleveland Botanical Garden

Phone:
216-721-1600

Great Lakes Science Center
601 Erieside Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44114

Web:
www.greatscience.com

Phone:
216-694-2000

Progressive Field Tours

Web:
www.clevelandindians.com

Cleveland Rocks                                

by Mitch Kaplan
photos by Mitch Kaplan

If you’re a certain age, Cleveland conjures a specific image.

The Cuyahoga River burning.

Yes, kids, it’s true. Back in the day, the river was so polluted that it actually caught fire. More than once.

And, that burnt-out image too much represented Cleveland. And, to some, it still does.

Perhaps that image was never really true. But, even if it had once been half true, it no longer holds. Cleveland today—well, Cleveland rocks, and its renaissance has been led by . . .

The Rock Hall                     

"I had this album!" the not-so-old woman shouted, laughing, her hands on the headphones as if to hold the song inside her head. "I had this on an eight track tape!"

It’s easy to be catapulted down memory lane at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. I mean, what evokes memories more strongly than old songs?

Especially songs from your youth.

Those songs—and the personalities who sang them—engulf you in this high-tech, multi-story, I.M. Pei-designed building (complete with glass pyramid à la the Louvre in Paris). Your toe starts tapping the minute you enter. The last song you hear plays on in your head long after you depart.

The Rock Hall has become Cleveland’s top tourist draw, attracting some half a million-plus visitors annually. And, you know it’s the music—like the Sirens’ song—that’s luring them in.

But, the Hall ventures far deeper than merely honoring sensational rock musicians, or just fanning fans’ flames to make them once-again young and swooning over Ricky, or Elvis or Jimi.

No, there’s a true commitment here to chronicling, documenting, exploring and explaining the roots of rock-and-roll music, which starts in two small movie theaters by the entrance hall.

The fast-paced films, entitled Mystery Train and Kick Out the Jams, last perhaps 15 minutes, but you come away knowing that rock never existed in a vacuum; it didn’t pop onto the air waves by magic. It had origins. And these films give a quick immersion into those roots.

After that the entire place becomes a musical family tree, exploring those roots, their ongoing manifestations and how genres have flowered into various branches.

The list of exhibits—set in glittering, multi-colored, multi-media displays enveloped in a cacophony of sound, light and color—is too long to itemize here. But, many are interactive, and whether you’re moved by seeing stars’ guitars and costumes, a re-creation of the original Sun Studio, vintage photos, or you just want to listen to the music, I’ll guarantee you this: you’ll leave smiling.

Acculturate                   

Cleveland has a lot more to share than the Rock Hall. The group I was with lodged at the Glidden House (yes, that Glidden, the paint people; the hotel was once a family mansion), at University Circle.

University Circle is literally that—a circular roadway. Within the circle stands one of the country’s most dense collections of cultural institutions

• the Museum of Natural History and Planetarium
• the Botanic Garden
• the Cleveland Art Institute
• the Cleveland Children’s Museum
• the African American Museum
• HealthSpace
• the Museum of Contemporary Art
• the Western Reserve Historical Society/Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum
• and the Temple Museum of Religious Art.

They all sit within spitting distance of each other, and of Case Western Reserve University. Clearly several days’ exploration can be made here, indoors and out.

Outside the Natural History Museum a passel of kids were climbing on a gigantic dinosaur. Dinosaurs are among that museum’s major attractions, including "Happy," the 70-foot-long Haplocanthosaurus delfsi, reputed to be the world’s oldest exhibited sauropod. I’m not sure I like the anthropomorphism of nick-naming extinct animals, but dinos always capture the imagination. So, too, do exhibits like the reconstructed skeleton of 3.2 million-year-old "Lucy," reported, when discovered in 1974, to be an entirely new species of human ancestor.

I headed for the Historical Society's Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum, specifically to see the car and plane collection. I’m a sucker for old cars and planes. Okay, for any kind of machinery.

Here, some pretty cool classics are displayed on two floors. Unfortunately, they’re not very well displayed—laid out in staid, relatively dimly lit, low-ceilinged rooms. But when the 20th century is spanned from 1909 Hubmobiles to DeLoreans—including some unique demo cars made from stainless steel—you can’t help but marvel. Toss in a few bi-planes and other aviation machines of local historical significance, and you’ve got yourself an hour’s fine entertainment.

Smell the Roses                  

Just across the street stands the Cleveland Botanical Garden. The Garden’s centerpiece is The Eleanor Armstrong Smith Glasshouse, a large greenhouse that houses two biospheres—the Madagascar spiny desert and the Costa Rica cloud forest. The stark contrast between the dry desert and the drippy forest lends instant insight into the huge range of environments that harbor life.

The cloud forest caught my fancy more than the desert. But, that’s no surprise. What’s not to like about a place that’s filled with colorful flowers, a waterfall and dozens of butterflies scooting through the air?

Outside, a handful of families explored the Children’s Garden. An Alice in Wonderland kind of place, here were
plants to water (with water hand pumped into colorful watering cans)

• a "planters patch" in which to dig
• a huge tree house to climb into
• and a "bird blind" in which to hide and observe.

You’ve gotta love that blind: on the wooden wall are posted photos of and explanations about birds, butterflies and animals that you just might see when looking through the slots. Then look through the slot and you actually see that animal—a full-sized, 3-D wooden figure. Very cool.

My favorite spot? A nifty, hidden display with flowers growing out of an old, brightly painted file cabinet.

Scientific Exploration                         

With the summer heat coming on strong, I retreated to the air-conditioned indoors. This time to the Great Lakes Science Center.

Science museums are all the rage these days, and most cities of any size have one. My problem with these installations is jealousy. Why the heck didn’t we have these kinds of places when I was a kid? They make science approachable and fun.

The major question about science museums is this: is the local version any good?

In Cleveland, the answer is, emphatically—yes.

Why?

• Its open floor plan design handles throngs of enthused kids.
• Huge picture windows look out onto the lake, the Rock Hall and a snug harbor where the USS COD Submarine and the steamship William G. Mather are moored and open as museums.
• The top floor's expansive balcony affords the same view, and is equipped with a sailing schooner playground where kids can climb, tunnel and otherwise command the vessel in imaginary voyage.
• The Imax theater near the main entrance is one of the few with a domed screen.              

I spent a lot of time playing on computers that helped me understand various Great Lakes phenomena, tested a huge variety of physics on the upper floor, and saw an actual tornado in action.

Play Ball                    
 
The kid stood beside the visitor’s bullpen home plate, an image emblazoned on the artificial turf's dirt-colored surface. He swung an imaginary bat and a grin emerged across his face. Sixty feet away, his brother toed a pitching rubber and mimed launching an un-hitable fastball.

Nearby, a young man stood on the right field warning track and leapt at the wall, left arm outstretched to its limit, to rob a dream-hitter of an imaginary home run.

Only a select few of us will ever be skilled and lucky enough to play on a major league baseball field. But, the behind the scenes stadium tour at Progressive Field (formerly Jacobs Field), home of the Cleveland Indians, at least puts you on the field for a few moments. It also puts you in the dugout, the bullpen and, particularly interesting to we ball fans who write for a living, into the press box.

The chance to walk along the outfield track, to sit in the dugout, to pretend warm-up in the bullpen, or to search the bat rack makes this tour worthwhile for anyone who has baseball in his heart.

There’s more to see and do in Cleveland, of course, but my brief stay was over. Yes, the city’s fame once lay in its burning river (that’s why they call the new environmental fest "Burning River").

No more.

The only thing that's burning here now is the intensity of its progression into a vibrant twenty-first century burg.