A Conversation with "Citizen" Ed Hauser

Our lakefront is one big mess. It’s horrific hodge-podge of stuff that looks and acts like it was assembled by a committee. A committee formed of enemies to themselves and the people they supposedly serve. Ten years ago, Ed Hauser, a 30-something process control engineer at LTV Steel picked up his morning Plain Dealer and made an amazing discovery. He learned that the Port Authority was planning to acquire the Whiskey Island marina and parkland properties and make them a shipping dock. That pushed him into becoming an involved citizen. Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz had the chance to speak with Hauser recently; their in-depth discussion can be found by clicking the link below. It also inspired a commentary from Ferjutz on what Cleveland's Lakefront might look like in 2020, which you'll also find in this issue. We encourage you to check them both out in advance of Earth Day.

Our lakefront is one big mess, an horrific hodge-podge of stuff that looks and acts like it was assembled by a committee. A committee formed of enemies to themselves and the people they supposedly serve. Consider these projects, for starters.

Whiskey Island Parkland – Wendy Park is a 20 acre chunk of natural, undeveloped shoreline just west of downtown.
The Coast Guard Station, an art deco style masterpiece at the very end of Whiskey Island, property of the City of Cleveland, is being allowed to disintegrate in front of our eyes.
The Hulett Ore Unloaders – born here of necessity when Cleveland was a thriving, bustling port city with bunches of steel mills in the industrialized flats. (The Huletts unloaded steel pellets from lake freighters faster and easier than any other means of doing so.)
Dike 14 – a new island (sort of) just east of E 55th at the lakeshore and a thriving nature habitat, not generally accessible to humans, although public access is proposed.
The Port Authority Relocation and Expansion. This is the 800 pound gorilla in the corner. Once upon a time, the Port Authority was a necessity. Although there is still some iron ore for the steel mills and imported steel coils for local manufacturing, there really isn’t so much shipping these days. The existing facilities could be big enough if rearranged a bit, but maybe that’s not glamorous enough to suit the suits. They want to spend billions of dollars to move to a new location and redevelop the old one. They say. Or do they really want to finagle their way back to owning Whiskey Island? There is a lot of vacant space around their existing facility. Look closely, however, and you’ll see black asphalt with white lines. This is parking space for the eight to ten football games played each fall at the Stadium. The rest of the time, it sits there, empty, doing absolutely nothing.
The Convention Center. It’s not currently at the lakefront, but if you listen closely, you’ll hear all sorts of mumblings. ‘Let’s put the Convention Center at the lakefront! Great location.’ Well, it is a great location, for the people who live here. And tourists. But conventions? How many of these do we really think we’re gonna get?
The Towpath Trail Connector – from where the present Towpath Trail ends to the lakefront. Don’t bet on a completion date. Too many personal agendas will get in the way.

Going a bit south of the lake, there was the infamous Innerbelt Bridge fiasco. Just tear down more of our downtown, why don’t we? Soon, there won’t be anything left.

But yes, there will. The Broadway Mills Building was nominated to be a designated Cleveland Landmark, and is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Demolition has been postponed by the delay in work on a new Innerbelt Bridge, which would have gone right through it. This sturdy old building would have come down in a NY minute, had it not been for one man...

Ten years ago, Ed Hauser, a 30-something process control engineer at LTV Steel picked up his morning Plain Dealer and made an amazing discovery. He learned that the Port Authority was planning to acquire the Whiskey Island marina and parkland properties and make them a shipping dock. That pushed him into becoming an involved citizen.

Shortly after that, he heard about the threat to the Huletts, and became further involved. Then there was the Coast Guard Station, then as now, falling into disrepair.

Now, however, Ed is no longer employed by LTV—he was laid off shortly after that momentous occasion mentioned above—but what he’s learned in these last ten years is the equivalent of several college degrees. He’s always been intelligent, tenacious, concerned, curious, but now he knows the system well, and after ten years of fighting city hall, county hall, port authority hall—you name it, he’s ready to find a new campaign to keep himself busy. With luck, it’ll be one that carries a paycheck with it.

Ed’s parents came here from Germany in 1952, just after the war ended. Dad was a tool and die maker and Mom was a housewife, and a mother to her brood of five kids. “One of my first memories,” Ed says, “was a Sunday in summer and Dad took the middle three of us—one sister, plus my brother and me in lederhosen—downtown to Mall C. We stood there, gazing out at the lake. It was sunny, clear blue skies, white fluffy clouds, and white sails over boats out on the deep blue water. I’ll never forget that sight. Never.” A peaceful smile crawls over his face.

“I was five years old that day. It made a lasting impression on me. Not exactly what a kid from Maple Heights could see every day.” The Hauser family was not rich, but neither were they truly poor. They were American, and they did okay. Pride in being an American citizen was a big thing to the Hauser family. His mother (a native of Yugoslavia) had been a refugee during the war and his parents decided to move to Canada and then to the USA to start a new life in the promised land.

So Ed grew up, graduated from Maple Heights High School, and matriculated at Cleveland State University. He’d discovered ice boating after high school, but didn’t do all that much with it, until he went to CSU, where, in 1988, he became a willing recruit to start a sailing club. Whoa! They sailed by Whiskey Island (what’s that?); and the Coast Guard Station (what’s that?) and the Huletts at the ore dock on Whiskey Island. “What are those things?” he remembers asking, awed by their size and grandeur. They were still working then, and he’d sit contentedly in his 14-foot sailboat watching these metal behemoths do their thing. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“I was totally blown away by these things. Right downtown in Cleveland! Green space on the lake. This really neat old building, just sort of falling into the ground, and the Huletts. They have such a strange beauty about them. I had to learn more about all of these things.” What he learned ten years ago was disheartening. There were plans afoot to convert the green space of Whiskey Island and the marina into a shipping dock, or somesuch; the Coast Guard Station was being demolished by neglect, and the Port Authority requested that the historic Hulett Ore Unloaders be demolished. No way, he thought to himself.

“I started a petition to keep Whiskey Island as an undeveloped plot of land that would create a waterfront park belonging to the citizens of Cleveland. Of course, I signed it, as did 3700 others! Then, there was a meeting about it, and I was hooked,” Ed says. Somehow, along the way, the Coast Guard Station became part of the battle, and then the Huletts fell into the fray. In spite of numerous loud and vocal protests, the Huletts were dismantled and two of the four sold for salvage. Two remain, in pieces, waiting for a new home. It should be at Whiskey Island, Dock 32 or somewhere on the Old River Channel. Or, maybe it could be part of the Towpath completion project which could also end up affiliated with Whiskey Island. Or not.

These four entities are so intertwined as to be inseparable, one from the other. They’re all a part of Cleveland’s history, and indeed, the remaining Huletts and the Coast Guard Station are on the National Register of Historic Places and are designated Cleveland Landmarks, which supposedly renders them untouchable. Well, maybe. It doesn’t specifically address the fact that natural deterioration will set in, if nothing is done to prevent it. The roof of the CGS is falling in, but the City, which owns it, is just ignoring this problem.

So, one day, Ed was looking through the daily paper. “Hey!” he thought to himself. “My name’s in the paper. I should hang on to this.” So he did. And now, there’s 111 more such clippings in his collection. Along with video tapes, an award-winning documentary on DVD and boxes upon boxes of assorted papers that occupy most of the living space in his west-side apartment. “My name being in the paper isn’t what’s important here, though,” he’s quick to note. “What is important is that the articles helped me get my message out to the masses. It’s important for the residents of Cleveland to know what’s at stake, and what could be lost if someone doesn’t protest.”

“I’m a proud American and I don’t understand how or why my elected officials can so disrespect a concerned citizen, who is constantly working, trying to better my/our community. I’m always civil, respectful and logical. And what happens? These guys say to me ‘You’re one of the most concerned citizens in Ohio...’ and then they just continue to ignore me. But there are some exceptions, “Oh, Ed,” one guy says with some hope, “I hear you, and we just signed a letter for the Metroparks and are awaiting the signatures from city hall and the port authority regarding Whiskey Island.” If you heard Ed as I did, you’d know immediately who said that. The imitation of this local big guy is absolutely dead-on—the voice, the gestures. But typically nothing happens. Well, almost nothing.

Actually, something momentous did happen! In December, 2004, the County, after years of sputtering and fidgeting over capitulating to the Port Authority that dearly wanted Whiskey Island, changed its collective mind, and decided to buy Whiskey Island and operate it as a public park, along with a marina. Of course, access was difficult down an isolated road and over a one-lane bridge, but that’s about to be changed. Big time. In fact, if the weather cooperates, today April 16, 2008, a new two lane bridge (over the railroad tracks) will be opened between Edgewater and Whiskey Island. The official ribbon-cutting and dedication ceremony will be part of the RiverDay Festivities on May 17. Come and say 'thank you' to the County Commissioners who will officiate. The Whiskey Island Marina will open for the season on May 1, however, Wendy Park is open 365 days a year from sunrise to sunset. There’ll be a big Cinco De Mayo party on May 3.

“After all the money that’s been spent on studies and plans and what-nots—way up there in the millions of dollars, wouldn’t you think they could find two million to build a pedestrian/bicycle bridge over there?” It’s not supposed to be a rhetorical question, but it’s unanswerable, anyway. “Such a bridge over the mainline railroad tracks would connect the Towpath Trail to Whiskey Island and would mean that people in Ohio City could ride there on a bike in about 8 minutes. Instead of the nearly half an hour it takes now.”

“They project One Billion Dollars to re-locate the Port to its new location at E. 55th Street, and re-developing the existing port into whatever it’s going to be, and another 65 million to turn the existing west side shoreway into a boulevard. Why can’t we have one pedestrian bridge to Whiskey Island for a couple million bucks?” Good question.

Currently, the plan is to move the Port to somewhere near E. 55th street, which will seriously discombobulate Dike 14, a nature habitat. (Not to mention Quay 55, the expensively re-habbed apartment/condo building just east of 55th along the lakeshore.)

There are just so many projects along the lakefront that need to be addressed. But it needs to be done in some comprehensive fashion, not piece-meal. Everyone talks about our lake and what a wonderful asset it could be. Wouldn’t it be really neat if the people who live here would be allowed to use it for recreation and enjoyable ventures, rather than having it all tied up in industrial uses?

So, after ten years of ‘fighting City Hall’ Citizen Ed Hauser reminisces. “Ten years ago on April 5, 1998, I read an article that prompted me to get involved in my community and things that I care about. After ten years of effort what are the outcomes? Well, let’s see:

Whiskey Island is still under threat by the Port’s proposed expansion to the marina;
Coast Guard Station is still neglected and ready to cave in any time now;
The Huletts remain neglected and may end up in the scrap yard;
Dike 14 nature preserve will be severely impacted by the Port’s proposed relocation, and the City of Cleveland and the Port Authority continue to proceed with dysfunctional waterfront planning processes without justifying any of its plans. I don’t know how much longer I have to continue with this.”

Citizen Hauser shakes his head and looks out over the water and the natural rugged beauty of Whiskey Island at the skyline of Cleveland. It’s so close you can almost reach out and touch it. “I don’t have to do this, but few people, if any, know all of the players involved and what their intentions are. With that knowledge along with a comprehensive understanding of our waterfront, I have had some success. I have educated interested citizens, stakeholders and public servants about what I know for ten years. Hopefully, we can honestly educate one another and strive for a sustainable waterfront that is functional and one we can all be proud of.”

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATroadrunner.com
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