I learned a lot at yesterday’s protest of the Cuyahoga County Commissioners’ 2-1 vote to tear down the Marcel Breuer-designed AmeriTrust tower. First, I learned that, in this day and age, protest can be congenial, even family friendly (see pictures). At the same time, it was a serious public airing of the question posed by organizer Daryl Davis: “Why would the county flush $32 million down the toilet”—the cost to purchase and demolish the modernist skyscraper?

I learned from Doug Hoffman, principal at Davis Brody Bond—the architects who wanted to keep the tower and wrap it in a glass wall—that commissioners Dimora and Hagan rejected their proposal even though they provided a study conducted by Orfield Lab in Minnesota, that showed how reusing the building would save the county $20 million.

What about the small floor plates in the tower that the county couldn’t live with?

“Most of the large floor plates that the county needed could have been on the first four floors where we proposed a new four-story building that wraps around the tower,” Hoffman said. “It even had natural plantings in a winter garden.”

I learned the sad truth that Cleveland has a long history of tearing down stunning and ‘important’ buildings from architect David Ellison who explained a few of the more prominent examples illustrated by Darren Hamm that were mounted on placard boards. A stone’s throw from the Breuer, was the Charles Schweinfurth-designed YMCA at E. 9th and Prospect. The very cool, modern, Bond Clothing building came down in 1978 to make way for the National City Bank office tower. The Hippodrome was an office building but also housed the largest theater outside of New York—it even had a swimming pool (today, it’s the surface parking lot just west of the City Club Building). The Historical Society, in an ironic twist, had its building at E. 107th and Euclid torn down. The list goes on and on.

“We need a book like Lost New York for all of the buildings lost in Cleveland.”

Davis provides a nice summary of her initial research into the amount of embodied energy in the Breuer Tower here.

I read this in Cleveland Restoration Society's latest enews and thought of the Breuer building as a good candidate:

Is there an architecturally distinctive building or historic site in your community that just sits boarded up, abandoned, or in disrepair? Complete a short nomination form about the building and submit it to Heritage Ohio for consideration in a state "Top Preservation Opportunities in Ohio" list. The list is designed to be an ongoing resource to raise awareness of significant historic investment opportunities for interested investors, developers, and funders. The list of properties will be publicly released during the Heritage Ohio Statewide Preservation and Revitalization Conference, to be held in Cincinnati May 16-17. Nominations are due by May 6.