Robert L. Smith, The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio — In 1929, America’s fifth largest city stirred with nearly 1 million people. A soaring new skyscraper commanded their attention.
The public was invited to ascend to the near-top of the Terminal Tower and look out over Cleveland from one of the tallest buildings in the world.
Eighty-one years later, that opportunity is again causing a sensation. On Saturday, more than 600 people paid $5 to visit the tower’s 42nd floor and to step into an observation room restored to its 1929 art deco splendor.
They oohed and aahed as they walked across black-and-white checked tiles, toward crystal-clear windows that offer the loftiest view of Northeast Ohio open to the public.
Some drank in the view of lifetime.
“It’s wonderful,” said LaVerne Popa, a lifelong Clevelander making her first visit to the tower’s pinnacle perch at age 90. “Thank God I have eyes to see this.”
Popa, her daughter and her granddaughter were among the lucky. Hundreds were turned away Saturday and hundreds more waited hours in a rock-concert like line that began to form nearly four hours before the noon showtime.
The view from Cleveland’s legendary lookout has proven more popular than anyone anticipated. Since it opened for limited weekend viewing July 10, the observation floor has hosted more than 4,000 people, or about all it could squeeze into its circular confines during the allotted time. The experiment will end today, after a final viewing from noon to 4 p.m.
“This tower is our signature building and people are jumping at the chance to see it,” said Greg Deegan, who was selling copies of a book he co-published, “Cleveland’s Towering Treasure” from a table on a busy observation floor Saturday. “The typical question is, “Why don’t they do this all the time?”
The tower may be entering another era of public viewing, but that could take some doing.
For much of its eight decades, the Terminal Tower welcomed tourists. Some old timers Saturday recalled a souvenir stand on the observation deck.
Regular viewing ceased in 1976 after a hostage-taking incident in the 36th floor offices of Chessie System, said James Toman, Deegan’s co-publisher. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, viewing ceased completely.
In recent years, building-owner Forest City Enterprises embarked upon a massive restoration. The outside of the 52-story skyscraper was cleaned up and much of the inside was restored, including the observation floor, which Toman said mirrors opening day 1929 “almost exactly.”
He pointed out restored radiators that no longer give heat but that were put back in place.
Forest City officials approached the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, seeking a partner in an effort to reopen the observation floor to the public.
Story Compliments Of the Plain Dealer
