Cool Cleveland this week ran a piece by Chris Whipple [1] about re-naming Cleveland’s Terminal Tower. Mr. Whipple suggests that “terminal” (as in "terminally ill", dead, or dead end) is too much a downer name and that instead the building should be called VanView after the Van Sweringen brothers who built the tower and Shaker Heights, etc.
But here is another idea about Terminal Tower: Since (as you can see from the Coors ad pictured above) terminal tower is no longer Cleveland’s centerfold – why don’t we just remove it visually and politically as a Cleveland icon!
The terminal has been a divisive building from the time it was built – because it should not have been built where it is. Our downtown railroad terminal should have been fit into the Burnham Plan. [2]
Today, under the ownership of Forest City, the terminal continues to be a divisive factor in NEO. The Ratners and the Millers have split the NEO community with the un-voted sales tax hike which the Forest City lobbyists have convinced Hagan and Dimora to put on the public’s back. Forest City wants to see that their terminal property is the location of any concenter and kennedy mart. Our quarter cent tax money invested in their property. I call it “trickle up economics”
Mr. Whipple is on to something when he notes that “terminal tower” is a downer. Certainly the Coors Brewing Company [3] agrees that the terminal has bad Karma.
Why else would Coors have ignored the terminal and instead chose the Marcel Breuer Tower as the New Visual Center of Cleveland in their billboard (photo above at Woodland and about E78th St and elsewhere) ads?
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Coors chooses.jpg [4] | 277.7 KB |
Coors Breuer and red line bldg.jpg [5] | 278.12 KB |
justice center.jpg [6] | 32.13 KB |
Links:
[1] http://coolcleveland.com/index.php?n=Main.CityScapeVanview
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Burnham
[3] http://www.coors.com/indexx.asp
[4] http://li326-157.members.linode.com/system/files/Coors+chooses.jpg
[5] http://li326-157.members.linode.com/system/files/Coors+Breuer+and+red+line+bldg.jpg
[6] http://li326-157.members.linode.com/system/files/justice+center.jpg