THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 1998 5-D OUR CENTURY 1927

AT A GLANCE ‘Flying Fool’ Lindbergh makes aviation histor y Reaching It was the wildest celebration since the Ar- mistice. “All the Kentucky derbies, all the World Se- ries games, all the world champion- new heights ship prize fights and all the big college football games rolled into one could scarcely fire the imagination of two continents the way this lanky American youth has,” The Plain Dealer reported May 22, 1927. The youth was Charles Lindbergh, some- where over the Atlantic in a tiny plane whose motor included 18 valves made by Thompson Products Co. of . When confirmation of his landing in Paris reached Cleveland at 4:21 p.m. on the 21st, the paper related that “factory whistles shrieked the glad news all over town.” “Hundreds gathered about the windows of a downtown department store where there was a large picture of the ‘Flying Fool.’ Every- where downtown, flying flags helped prove that the day was being celebrated as a national event.” Lindbergh came to Cleveland on Aug. 1 for a banquet in his honor, part of a national tour, which clearly discomfited him. He predicted that planes would provide regular trans- PLAIN DEALER FILE Atlantic service in no more than three or four years, creating faster communications. M.J., left, and O.P. Van Sweringen, the shy bachelor brothers and · development millionaires who brought Terminal Tower to Cleveland. Ernest R. Ball, a former Joy of thriving P ublic Square, Union student at the Cleveland Conserva- Terminal cut shor t by Depression tory, wrote Broadway By Fred McGunagle musicals and If the high point in Cleveland’s his- some of tory were to be dated, it would have America’s to be Aug. 18, 1927. And the height most beloved was 708 feet. songs, includ- That was the date the Terminal ing “When Tower was “topped off.” From much Irish Eyes of the city and from higher-elevation Are Smiling” suburbs, Clevelanders could gaze up and “Let the at an American flag, the symbol of a Rest of the booming country floating above the World Go symbol of the city that led the boom. PLAIN DEALER FILE By.” When he In an era when the president said, The last structural steel work is done on the Terminal Tower — Aug. 17, Ball died of heart “The business of America is busi- 1927, the day before the tower was topped with the American flag. disease at the ness,” the Terminal Tower was called age of 48, vio- “a cathedral of business.” The same lins played his songs at his funeral in St. year Charles Lindbergh flew the At- building. The tower contained The Metropolitan Opera came to Alban’s-on-the-Heights Church, and a sextet lantic, hit 60 home runs, 661,000 square feet and each of the Public Hall. So did conventions like sang one of the most famous, “Mother Mach- movies talked and the Dow-Jones In- three joined office buildings on Pros- the National Machine Tool Associa- ree.” dustrial Average passed 200, the pect Ave. — the Midland Bank Build- tion and the North American Saeng- The Plain Dealer reported: “Everyone wept, tower was a visible sign of America’s ing, the Medical Arts (later Republic) erbund, bringing visitors from around the nation to marvel at Cleve- most of all his 71-year-old mother.” and Cleveland’s direction: Onward Building and the Builders Exchange and upward. (later Guildhall) Building contained land’s development. The latter’s · A Page One editorial cartoon in the 900,000 square feet. (Today, the three Saengerfest (songfest) included a massed chorus of 4,000 trained voices and Ty Cobb had been cleared Plain Dealer showed the tower break- collectively are known as the Land- ing through the clouds, bedecked mark Office Towers.) as well as Metropolitan Opera star of charges that they fixed a Cleveland-Detroit Lawrence Tibbett and Bruno Walter game in 1919, but the effects lingered. Speaker with banners marked “Happiness,” The project required demolishing “Wealth,” “Growth” and “1,000,000 more than 1,000 buildings between directing a 100-piece orchestra. reconsidered his retirement, which he had an- The Chamber of Commerce nounced after the 1926 season, but signed with Population.” The caption was, “When Public Square and the Cuyahoga dreams come true!” River, plus the construction of rail- proudly counted 2,250 industrial the Washington Senators for 1927. plants in the city. The Cleveland Pub- Coach Jack McCallister replaced Speaker as The tower, second-tallest building road bridges and bridges to carry W. in the nation after New York’s Wool- Prospect Ave. and W. Huron Rd. and lic Library circulated 7.7 million vol- of the Indians, but the team missed umes — or 7.2 per citizen, the highest worth Building, was but a small part PD FILE W. 2nd, 3rd and 6th streets. Design Speaker’s on-the-field leadership. The team per capita rate in the country. Cleve- never was in contention, finishing sixth with a of a mammoth office-hotel- started in 1922 and demolition in land’s death rate dropped to 9.65 per department store project. It stood A close-up of the tower, the day it 1924. Foundation work, which re- record of 66-87. That was 43 games behind the was topped with a flag. 1,000, lowest among the nation’s large Yankees, whose 110 victories set a record that above its reason for being — a rail- quired drilling 250 feet to bedrock — cities. stood until the Indians won 111 in 1954. This road station and “city within a city” the deepest foundations in the world Beneath the surface, though, there was the year that Babe Ruth, playing in Yan- taking shape underground. Terminal Group accounted for only — began in 1926. The last building, were problems. Professor Ronald kee Stadium — “the house that Ruth built” — The whole project cost $179 mil- $31 million of the $179 million total the post office (now the M-K Fergu- Weiner of Cuyahoga Community Col- hit 60 home runs and the Yanks’ “Murderers’ lion, the equivalent of at least $1.5 project cost; the rest was for the sta- son Building), did not open until 1934. lege, whose history of urban develop- Row” went on to sweep the billion today. Its only rival was tion, bridges and new railroad lines. Three other buildings would be ment from 1825 to 1929 soon will be in the . Rockefeller Center in New York, But even 70 years later, the scope of erected later on the terminal’s air published by Ohio State University Ban Johnson, the sportswriter who had which began as the Terminal project the seven buildings is mind-boggling. rights: the Frank J. Lausche State Of- Press, says stagnation had been set- founded the in 1901 and was being completed. And it was all In a city, which only had a half-dozen fice Building in 1979 and the 12-story ting in since the end of World War II. been its president since, was in failing health. the creation of Cleveland’s new buildings of 18 stories or more, the Skylight Tower and Ritz-Carlton Ho- Population grew by 100,000 during To replace him, the owners chose E. S. heroes, O.P. and M.J. Van Sweringen, Vans added the tower, three other 18- tel in 1991. the decade, but it was mainly due to “Barney” Barnard, who had succeeded Jim the bashful bachelor brothers who story office buildings, a 758-room ho- In 1927, Cleveland had more to births. Congress had restricted immi- Dunn as president of the Indians when Dunn had become railroad tycoons. tel and department store of 14 stories brag about than the Vans’ project. gration, and movement from other parts of the country had halted ex- died in 1922. After the season, Dunn’s widow No official ceremony marked the each, plus a six-level, 494,000- The 22-story Ohio Bell Telephone tower’s topping off; that would come square-foot Main Post Office. The Building opened, as did Halle’s $5 cept for the blacks coming to the Cen- sold the Indians to a group of Clevelanders tral area. headed by real estate executive . with the opening of the terminal Hotel Cleveland (now the Renais- million, six-floor Prospect-Huron An- bringing the Vans’ railroads and sance Cleveland) actually had opened nex. Both had required the razing of When the Depression hit, the entire Bradley named , a former um- nation, shuddered. But Clevelanders pire and sportswriter, as his general manager, Shaker rapid transit into the heart of in 1918; the Vans bought it and made stately old homes on Huron Rd. The downtown. By the time it did open, it part of their development. $1.5 million, 300-room Auditorium felt an even greater psychological and Roger Peckinpaugh, who once played blow because their hopes had been so for the Tribe, as field manager. nearly three years later, the Depres- The office space was projected to Hotel was added to the city’s conven- sion had devastated the country and take care of the city’s office needs for tion facilities. New on the cultural high — as high as the flag fluttering · the city, and the Vans were on their the next 10 years. As it turned out, it front were the Drury and Brooks the- 708 feet above Public Square. way to financial ruin. would be a quarter-century before aters of the Play House and the Fine McGunagle is a Cleveland free- Since 1911, two Chinese secret societies, the The seven buildings known as the downtown saw another major new Arts Garden at the Art Museum. lance writer. On Leong Tong and the Hip Sing Tong, had en- gaged in periodic “tong wars,” climaxing in the 1925 arrest of three Hip Sing members for the brutal murder of an On Leong member. LOOKING AT A YEAR Safety Director Edwin Barry used the Termi- nal Tower construction as an excuse to have the Ontario St. Chinese settlement condemned and razed. March 21: Chiang Kai-shek’s na- Aug. 2: President Calvin Coolidge talking film that starred Al Jolson, ing in Canton. That, plus mass arrests of Cleveland Chi- tionalist troops march through Can- announces he will not seek another opens in New York. Born: Althea Gibson, Cesar Chavez, nese, brought protests from the Chinese gov- ton, China as Chiang tries to unify the term in 1928. Dec. 4: The music world’s hottest Roy Cohn, Ramsey Clark, Neil Simon, ernment, and forced the city to issue an apol- divided nation. sensation, Edward “Duke” Ellington, George C. Scott, Coretta Scott King, Aug. 23: Italian-born anarchists ogy. But the tong wars ended. The two tongs May 21: About 100,000 Parisians opens a long and successful run at the Robert Bork. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Van- cooperated in establishing a new Chinese set- greet Charles Lindbergh when he Cotton Club theater in New York. Died: Girl Scout founder Juliette zetti are executed in Massachusetts. tlement around E. 21st St. and Rockwell Ave., lands in Paris after his solo flight Dec. 19: Troops loyal to Chiang Low, accused murderer Lizzie Bor- and the Chinese became one of Cleveland’s from New York. Oct. 6: “The Jazz Singer,” the first Kai-shek crush a Communist upris- den, most law-abiding ethnic groups.