Panoramic view of the Cleveland Skyline from Voinovich Bicentennial Park in the North Coast Harbor.
All photos are copyright of Brent Durken – www.brentdurken.com
To purchase a digital download of this photo for your website or blog please visit: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-zRG6xB/
Purchase a print of this photo: Brent Durken Print Sales
Info on the Cuyahoga River from Wikipedia: “The Cuyahoga River is famous for being “the river that caught fire,” helping to spur the environmental movement in the late 1960s. The name “Cuyahoga” is believed to mean “crooked river” from the Mohawk Indian name “Cayagaga,” although the Senecas called it “Cuyohaga,” or “place of the jawbone.” At least 13 fires have been reported on the Cuyahoga River, the first occurring in 1868. The largest river fire in 1952 caused over $1 million in damage to boats, a bridge, and a riverfront office building. On June 22, 1969, a river fire captured the attention of Time magazine, which described the Cuyahoga as the river that “oozes rather than flows”.
The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire helped spur an avalanche of water pollution control activities, resulting in the Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA). As a result, large point sources of pollution on the Cuyahoga have received significant attention from the OEPA in recent decades. These events are referred to in Randy Newman’s 1972 song “Burn On,” R.E.M.’s 1986 song “Cuyahoga,” and Adam Again’s 1992 song “River on Fire.” Great Lakes Brewing Company of Cleveland named its Burning River Pale Ale after the event. Water quality has greatly improved and, partially in recognition of this improvement, the Cuyahoga was designated one of 14 American Heritage Rivers in 1998″.
More info:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River
All photos are copyright of Brent Durken – www.brentdurken.com
To purchase a digital download of this photo for your website or blog please visit: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-zRG6xB/
Purchase a print of this photo: Brent Durken Print Sales
http://brent-durken.pixels.com/
In today’s photo blog I wanted to share some photos from the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. If there is one place you should visit with your children over winter break this is it! I was fortunate enough to visit and photograph the aquarium last week and I was very impressed with it. Not only is it much larger than I expected but there are tons of things to see and do! You can pet rays or maybe even scuba dive with sharks! The aquarium itself is housed in the old powerhouse near the Nautica Entertainment Complex which includes the Windows on the River, Trolley Tours, the Sugar Warehouse with Shooters on the Water, the IMPROV Comedy Club and Restaurant, and Jacobs Pavilion.
Here is a little about the Aquarium from their website:
“Consider the Greater Cleveland Aquarium a portal; a portal that will take you all over the world without ever leaving Cleveland. Visit Australia, South America, Africa and the Indo-Pacific; discover aquatic life native to the lakes and rivers of Ohio, and exotic aquatic life native to the Red Sea, Eastern Asia, Indonesia, Fiji and Hawaii. Learn about our animals, how we care for them, when they eat, what they eat and the personalities each one has developed during their time spent here with us. Located in The FirstEnergy Powerhouse, which is considered an historical building, the Greater Cleveland Aquarium spices up the old brick building with fresh colors and playful aquatic creatures with a fun and educational setting”.
For more information on how you can visit the Greater Cleveland Aquarium please follow this link: http://greaterclevelandaquarium.com/
Today’s Photo is of the Pride of Baltimore II as it takes part in the Battle of Lake Erie bicentennial celebration. From the bicentennial website: “In September of 1813, during the War of 1812, Oliver Hazard Perry of the U.S. Navy and his crew of 557 brave patriots prevailed over the British fleet in the Battle of Lake Erie near Put-in-Bay, Ohio. Two hundred years later, we will come together to celebrate Perry’s victory, our nation’s sovereignty and the enduring peace between nations”.
More info: http://battleoflakeerie-bicentennial.com/
Today’s Quote: “We have met the enemy and they are ours…” – Oliver Hazard Perry
“The Cuyahoga River was a retreat from the last glaciers ever seen in the United States. It is called an “infant glacial river”, because it is young compared to all of the other rivers formed by glaciers. The river was formed about 13,000 years ago, but the Cuyahoga Valley has been there even longer. The Cuyahoga River also had a great influence on the Native Americans. The Native Americans named it “Cuyahoga” meaning “crooked river”. The Cuyahoga River also had a great influence on the Native Americans. They came as early as 200 B.C. to the Northeastern part of what is now the Ohio Valley. The Indians used the river mainly for food and transportation. They built canoes and fished along the river. The river had an abundant supply of fish as well as plants. Also, large game settled near the river. These resources made it very easy for the Native Americans to live. As the War of 1812 ended, Western settlers displaced the Indians off the Cuyahoga Valley. The Cuyahoga River was becoming a place which was rich and plentiful. Moses Cleveland founded the township of Euclid at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in 1796. Benjamin Franklin and George Washington thought that the Northern part of what is now the Ohio would be of great importance. They knew that the Cuyahoga was the prime spot for the continental divide passing directly through and for the mouth coming out at the Lake Erie”.
For more info:
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/fenlewis/History.html
Today’s Quote: Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration. – Andrew Carnegie
Today’s photo of the Cleveland Skyline! Did you know that there are a whole bunch of famous Clevelanders? Here is a list of some of them from the Positively Cleveland Website:
Halle Berry – Actress/producer – the first African American actress to win the Oscar for Best Actress
Drew Carey – Creator/producer and star of ABC-TV’s “The Drew Carey Show” and host of “The Price is Right”
Traci Chapman – Singer/songwriter
Tim Conway – Comedian/actor
Ben Curtis – Graduate of Kent State University and the 2003 PGA British Open Champion
Dorothy Dandridge – Actress – First African American woman to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress
Phil Donahue – Talk show host and winner of 19 Daytime Emmys
Alan Freed – D.J. who coined the phrase “Rock n’ Roll”
James A Garfield – 20th US President
Arsenio Hall – Comedian/Actor – The first African American host of a nationally televised late night talk show
Patricia Heaton – Actress
Anne Heche – Actress
Langston Hughes – Poet
Bob Hope – Actor/Comedian – Winner of 5 Special and Honorary Oscars
Sammy Kaye – Band leader – Kaye had more than 100 hit records from 1937-1953
Don King – Boxing promoter
Henry Mancini – Composer of “Moon River,” “The Pink Panther” and many more memorable melodies. Winner of 20 Grammys and four Oscars
Toni Morrison – Winner of 1993 Nobel Prize for literature
Paul Newman – Actor, director, race car driver and Oscar Winner for Best Actor
The O’Jays (Eddie Levert & Walter Williams) – Popular R&B group
Jesse Owens – Olympic track star
John D. Rockefeller – Standard Oil founder
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – Creators of Superman
Molly Shannon – Actress and cast alumni of Saturday Night Live
Henry Sherwin – Founder, Sherwin Williams
Don Shula – Football coach
Tris Speaker – Baseball player
George Steinbrenner III – Former owner, NY Yankees
Vernon Stouffer – Founder, Stouffer Foods
Joe Walsh – Singer, songwriter, guitarist and member of the “James Gang” and the “Eagles”
Archibald Willard – Artist, painted “Spirit of ’76”
Tom Wilson – Cartoonist, Ziggy
Debra Winger – Actress
Cy Young – Baseball player
For more info on visiting Cleveland:
http://www.positivelycleveland.com/
Blue Angels doing a low level pass at the Cleveland Air Show. For more info on the Air Show or the Blue Angles:
From The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History:
“ERIE ST. CEMETERY, preserving E. 9th St.’s original name, has been a municipal cemetery of controversy since 1826. Cleveland village trustees, desperate to replace the informal community burial ground south of Public Square with a permanent site, purchased the location for $1 from Leonard Case. So remote and spacious was the land that the council permitted a gunpowder magazine (1836) and a poorhouse-hospital on the unused portion. Disgruntled heirs of the original lot owners, claiming infringement of a covenant restricting use to burials, fruitlessly sued Cleveland in federal court (1836-42).For Progressives, beginning with Mayor Tom Johnson the cemetery mocked an efficient city. His administration, which developed Highland Park Cemetery (1904), reinterred bodies there, not without opposition, and reclaimed land from Erie St. for city streets. The struggle resulted in the Pioneers’ Memorial Assn. (1915), which was influential in the decision of City Manager William Hopkins in 1925 to build the proposed Lorain-Carnegie Ave. Bridge around rather than through Erie St. Cemetery. Following this, serious attempts to remove the cemetery ended. Complaints of neglect inspired WPA action, including erecting a fence fashioned from the demolished Superior Ave. viaduct’s sandstone. In 1940 the refurbished cemetery of historic graves, including that of Sauk Chief , was rededicated.”
For more info: http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=ESC
“On the recollection of so many and great favours and blessings, I now, with a high sense of gratitude, presume to offer up my sincere thanks to the Almighty, the Creator and Preserver. “- William Bartram
From Wikipedia: “The lower Cuyahoga River has been subjected to numerous changes. Originally, the Cuyahoga River met Lake Erie approximately 4,000 feet (1.2 km) west of its current mouth, forming a shallow marsh. The current mouth is man-made, and it lies just west of present-day downtown Cleveland, which allows shipping traffic to flow freely between the river and the lake. Additionally, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers periodically dredges the navigation channel of the otherwise shallow river to a depth of 27 feet (8.2 m), along the river’s lower 5 miles (8.0 km), from its mouth up to the Mittal Steel Cleveland Works steel mills, to accommodate Great Lakes freighter traffic which serves the bulk (asphalt, gravel, petroleum, salt, steel, and other) industries located along the lower Cuyahoga River banks in Cleveland’s Flats district. The Corps of Engineers has also straightened river banksand widened turning basins in the Federal Navigation Channel on the lower Cuyahoga River to facilitate maritime operations”.
The Henn Mansion is one of those treasures that more Clevelanders need to know about. It is vaguely Tudor Revival in style with Bungalow/Craftsman overtones. It is a beautiful home and thanks to some wonderful volunteers it is still around to be enjoyed today. You can even rent it out for special occasions.
From the Henn Mansion Website:
Albert W. Henn was born at New Britain, Connecticut, January 26, 1865. His parents were Francis A. and Barbara Wilhelmy Henn. His father was born at Baden, Baden, Germany, April 1, 1825, came to America a political refugee in 1859. He was a gunsmith by trade and after coming to New Britain found employment in some of the big
hardware manufacturing houses, notably the firm of Russell & Erwin and Landers, Frary & Clark.
Albert W. Henn went to school until he was thirteen years of age completing the eighth grade. The boy went into the factory of Landers, Frary & Clark, covering a period of four years. At the age of nineteen he came to Cleveland and here secured a position as entry clerk with the wholesale dry goods house of Root & McBride, where he remained for thirteen years. During this period he had, apparently, little use for the mechanical knowledge he had secured in his boyhood, but when the opportunity came he found himself thoroughly interested and quite able to apply it.
Mr. Henn was married in Cleveland, April 17, 1889, to Miss Gertrude Jeannette Bruce, and they had six children, their first two sons, Jesse and William died in infancy
leaving three sons and one daughter surviving. Edwin C., a graduate of Cornell University; Howard R. a graduate of Yale University, Jeannette, a graduate of Vassar College; and Robert B a graduate of Cornell University.
Mr. Henn and his brother E. C. Henn patented the Multiple Spindle Lathe, (EC’s invention) which revolutionized the machine tool industry. Then they organized the Acme Machine Screw Company, with E. C. Henn as president and Albert W. Henn as secretary and treasurer. In 1902 they merged their enterprise with the National Manufacturing Company of Cleveland and changed their caption to the National-Acme Manufacturing Company.
Mr. Henn became Secretary of the concern at that time (1908), became treasurer, and was elected president in 1918. He was also treasurer and a director of the Maynard H. Murch Company, investments; president of the Goodhold Farm Company, vice president of the Ohio Muck Farm Company, and a director in the Lincoln Electric Company and the Winton Hotel Company.
For more photos inside the Henn Mansion:
Today’s Quote: “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy”. – Norman Vincent Peale