A Cleveland 20/20 in 2020... and a Lakefront Commissioner

You wake up on Saturday, July 11, 2020, to find brilliant and sunny blue skies with no rain in the forecast, and you think – this is a day to go sailing! Your boat isn’t all that big, just enough room for two people—if they’re friendly—so you call your best girl and say, “I’ll meet you at Edgewater in half an hour.” Fortunately, she agrees, so you get yourself up and moving. Being so small, the boat doesn’t need to be in the water all the time, so you hook the trailer to the car and head off to the public launching ramp at Edgewater Park, the public park just off the West Shoreway at Lake Erie. Since you live at Battery Park, it takes all of five minutes to get there.

Another five minutes and the boat’s in the water, and you look up in time to see your friend on her bike. She fastens it to your car, and climbs in the boat to wait for you to park. Finally, you’re both ready for a fabulous day on Cleveland’s fabulous lake. You’ve heard tales of what the lakefront here used to be like, and you shake your head in wonder. Thank goodness for the Lakefront Commissioner who sorted it all out and made the necessary changes before the whole thing was lost.

From Edgewater, you silently head east toward the old Coast Guard Station at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. The art deco building has been wonderfully renovated and is now a Maritime Museum, detailing the city’s history along with that of the river and the lake. How it all got to be what it is now. Fascinating stuff.

The huge gravel piles of the Cleveland Bulk Terminal are still there, but now the two Hulett’s are there, too. They don’t work anymore, but they probably could, if anyone cared to make that happen. You’ll not complain about that, though, considering the other major changes to this close area.

The Cleveland Metroparks system took over (or was given) management of Whiskey Island—the Marina, Wendy Park and the Coast Guard Station—and everything was upgraded to their high standards. Now, all of Cleveland has easy access to this formerly isolated area. It’s so beautiful, and the city skyline is so close, sometimes it feels like you could reach right out and touch it. Since the pedestrian/bicycle bridge was built across the Norfolk and Southern Mainline Railroad tracks from close by the old Willow Street Bridge, it’s five minutes from downtown. Time was you had to go to West 65th street for access to all this open space.

Even though the Ohio and Erie Canal didn’t exactly follow the river’s path, the new Towpath Trail ends up here, too, which seems strangely fitting. All these watery things really belong together. And now, if you could run, or walk, or cycle that far, you could follow the Ohio & Erie National Heritage Canalway and go all the way from the lakefront to Cincinnati!

You glide by the opening to the river, admiring the open spaces on the westside and the condos and boatdocks on the eastside. It was so neat that all the commercial/industrial stuff that used to clog up the water’s edge were moved down-river all those years ago. That’s really where it all should have been, not along the lakefront. So now, on the east side of the river, what was once Docks 20 and 22, have been re-developed into a new bustling village type place, with apartments and condos and shops of all kinds. It’s almost hard to tell where the old Wolstein development stops and this new one begins. (Old as in 12 or so years ago, now.)

All the international shipping was consolidated into Docks 24 to 28, and is kept pretty busy these days, but is still not close to being overloaded. These new high-speed trains really carry most of the goods these days. Docks 30 and 32 were vacated back then, too, and now, if you want a neat overnight hop, you can catch a ferry over to Canada from there. There’s some trucks there, but not so many. Actually, lots of folks from Canada come over here during the summer and fall to see the Indians or the Browns play. There’s a loop bus to go to Gateway or downtown, while the football stadium is just across the roadway from the dock.

Next in sight is the Mather and the Cod, moored just outside the Science Center. Across the plaza is the Rock Hall, and the park/pier at the end of 9th street. Now, that’s really neat. The Goodtime docks there, and these days, now that all the construction is done, the cruise on the river is really interesting. You get a really neat slice of life in an older industrial city mixed in with a modern, forward-thinking one.

And then, too, here’s the so-called transient marina – The Hawser – where anyone can tie up for a few hours, or an overnight. Still, it’s nice to have a place to pull in and find a quick bite or a brew. For a while there, when they moved the Mather from here, no one quite knew what would happen to this space. Finally, the Cleveland Aquarium found its new home, thanks to the Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers having moved across the water over closer to the airport. So now there’s plenty of things to do on E. 9th street now, with all the little food shops that blossom in the summertime. It’s fun just to walk around and see what’s what. When the tall ships come in, people have easy access to them. You look at this area today in July, and you wonder at it. It’s not quite so attractive in December or January, but it still has a beauty to it, just not the same kind. The ice-skating rink helps a lot, though, and it’s fun to come down sometimes to watch the pick-up hockey games.

Part of what the Army Corp and the FAA-(Federal Aviation Administration) did in 2011 (I think it was then, anyway) was to move the runways of Burke a bit closer to the lake. They still have the auto races there (two of them now, instead of just one) and there’s still aircraft in and out, but now there’s more room for the Shoreway and some other development. The Forest City and Lakeside Marinas are still right around the E. 40th Street area, in what’s now called the Waterfront District. It’s expanded east to include the park area on the other side of E. 55th. It’s so neat to have a picnic right there on the water’s edge!

Dike 14 was a real masterstroke, as now the wildlife habitat is really home to all kinds of creatures one doesn’t usually see so close to a city. It’s only fair we give back something, instead of always taking. Everyone laughed in early 2008 when the beavers came back to Whiskey Island, and its true, they were sort of destructive, but at least everyone knew the place was alive and vibrant!

And it’s still all here, thanks to our Lakefront Commissioner. For a few years there, it seemed like the lakefront was put together by a committee. And you know what they used to say about committees! Our city has finally come back—pulled itself out of the doldrums, thanks to our lake, and ‘Citizen’ Ed Hauser, who agitated for ten long years, and finally woke up enough people to come together and make positive changes.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATroadrunner.com
Comments? LettersATCoolCleveland.com

(:divend:)