Cleveland Centre Mural Project
Cleveland Centre Mural Project presents three landmark features on Columbus Peninsula that combine art and history into the urban geography of the Cleveland Centre.
Did you know that “Cleveland Centre” was Dedicated in 1833 by a consortium of prominent civic entrepreneurs including Cleveland’s first mayor John W. Willey and City Council president, Richard Hilliard.
The strategic infrastructure improvement centered the city of Cleveland on the Cuyahoga River. This location (now known as Columbus Peninsula) was developed to unify the Cleveland and Ohio City settlements to the terminus of the Ohio Erie Canal. Cleveland Centre established a navigational feature based upon the compass alignment to the rotation of the earth, providing a center of stability for public affairs and economic development.
The unique underlying dimensions of the urban plan attracted human resources to the Cuyahoga Valley placing Cleveland in the center of America’s post-revolutionary epic expansion.
I’ve been in and around the Cleveland Flats my entire life –
It wasn’t until one day I was at an archival map presentation at Cleveland State University when I saw the survey map of 1833 depicting a road radius convergence on Columbus Peninsula. On this map it was obvious, there had to be a city centre somewhere on the river. How is it that I had never seen this before?
I became intrigued –
So I went to investigate and to see for myself if the road convergence was still visible. Low and behold – the streets were mostly still there, but there was a lot of road disruption and dead-ends.
As I was standing taking notes – (moment of truth)
– observing what I was seeing – logically I envisioned extending the missing [Fall Street] connection to Columbus Road restoring the street radius circulation. Suddenly I felt my wandering mind stilled, feeling a vibrant current of energy flowing through my body! I looked up and saw the sun was directly overhead and understood that the radial road network of ‘Cleveland Centre’ was a solar observatory aligning me to the seasons and tracking the movement of time.
This Is Significant!
I felt called to investigate granted by this discovery of telescopic perspective being oriented to the cosmos in the Cleveland Centre plan. Framed by the cardinal points in the celestial view liberated my understanding beyond anything recorded by historians before me.
The Stillness at Center Resonates…
My first step was to create these Landmark Murals as a way to focus public attention on how profound this was and what it means moving forward and why it is relevant to do something now to preserve this legacy for our future.
Now you can learn more about the murals in this project Click here
“Cleveland Centre,
centering life to the world within
opening our eyes to the genius of history.” ~Dan Rothenfeld
Project Detail Pages: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.