Cleveland's favorite dormant industrial relics ,the Hulett ore loaders (picutred here) are going to be drawn, quartered, and spread around Cleveland. Read the PD article here.This may be a crazy idea, but why don't we plop one, or at least parts of the rustbelt behemoths down on Public Square? Public Square needs to be re-constituted, as has been discussed in the PD, Blog on the City, and Improvised Schema. Yet the character of this re-constitution is by no means resolved.
A possible solution for Public Square would involve transforming the square into a monumental dumping ground, creating a indexical menagerie of regional history. Imagine Public Square, which already hosts the Soldiers' + Sailors' monument (which thoroughly documents Cuyahoga County's participation in the Civil War), also hosting an immense Hulett, a machine that fueled Cleveland's industrial economy for a healthy part of the 20th century, allowing for cross-era narrative. But also imagine in the future decades other remnants of important artifacts filling the space: pieces of NASA space vehicles that are currently being developed at Glenn Research, a toothbrush light tower from Jacobs Field, prototype wind-turbine technology developed in Cleveland, etc.
Many possibilities exist out there. We just have to be willing to explore them. Creativity can solve several problems with one answer.
3 comments:
Interesting idea.... maybe instead of the idea of a dumping ground, its more of a monument park of moments in history - to memorialize the Civil War... a commissioned Soldiers and Sailors - for a monument to memorialize the industry that built the city (and the people who contributed to that), a Hulett would be incredibly appropriate - the next monument?? time will tell, but it wouldn't be limited to being a remnant or being a commissioned work, it would be as appropriate as the sculpted S&S was to the Victorian era and a recovered Hulett is to the Industrial Revolution...
whatever that thing is in the picture, it is fantastic!
a hulett is what - 11 stories high?
keep the height and halve the width and think you've got something workable to counterbalance the height of the S&S monument. the full width would be nice to plop down on that empty (parking) lot that was to house the ameritrust tower. alas, that is wishful thinking.
i think a half (width) hulett wouldn't overwhelm public square and would provide incredible pride in cleveland by recognizing and memorializing our important heritage. i imagine stairs to the second/third level where perhaps a public grafitti park could be placed. could our symphony play from elevated hulett perch? xmas lights would be cool....
possibilities are endless and inspiring.
great idea! i actually thought of the same while listening to the wcpn interview of hauser and councilman zone
http://www.wcpn.org/podcast/audio/2006/06/0622nine.mp3
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