Code,951001
Subject,Nina Gibans
Date,6/21/2006
Interviewer,Greg James
Abstract,"In this 2006 interview, Nina Gibans, a poet, author, and active leader in Cleveland's art community discusses her early life and the work of her husband, architect Jim Gibans.  Growing up in Cleveland and Shaker Heights, Ohio in the 1930s and 40s, Gibans was the only Jewish girl in Laurel School. Her father was the head of surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Later on, as editor of the Sara Laurence College newspaper, Gibans had to deal with the censorship of the McCarthy era.  Gibans met her husband on a trip to Cuba and followed him to San Francisco where he studied architecture. Returning to Cleveland in 1960, Jim Gibans eventually became a part of Herman Gibans Foder, an architectural firm responsible for building much of Cleveland's public housing.  Towards the end of the interview, Gibans gives her opinion on Cleveland's lakefront development, critiques the attitudes of past city leaders towards development, and lists some of her favorite buildings."
Special Notes,"cleveland heights/shaker heights, architecture, art criticism, mccarthyism, laurel school, beat poetry"
minutes:,
0,soundcheck/chitchat
1,introduction and background
2,childhood residences in cleveland heights/shaker heights
3,"cedar road: candystore, local murder case"
4,fairmount boulevard/woodmere drive
5,anti-semitism at roxboro elementary school
6,"fairmount blvd.: streetcars, block parties, local historic houses"
7,van aken/warrensville apartment buildings
8,[7:50] cerebral palsy: family attitude towards ms. Gibbons' cerebral palsy
9,"Laurel School: ""…[previously] had no jews and no democrats"""
10,move to Shaker Square
11,Mount Sinai Hospital: location
12,"[11:50] family background: parents meeting, relationship and backgrounds"
13,_____family background: cousins
14,"father's ancestry and family legacy in wooster, oh"
15,family socioeconomic status
16,cleveland medical career opportunities
17,attitudes toward marriage
18,"Cain Park: ""we pulled taffy and met all the actors""; Laurel School"
19,"[18:30] Laurel School: alumni events, attitudes toward outsiders (jews, disabled persons)"
20,"desire to attend Welsley, discouragement from teachers at Laurel, family attitudes"
21,college: transferred to Sara Laurence School of Music Criticism
22,"""new york city was our educational ground"""
23,[23:50] all-girls school opened attendance to returning male soldiers
24,"school newspaper, issues: censorship, McCarthyism"
25,"""I grew up overnight [due to the controversy surrounding the newspaper editorial]"""
26,"Arthur Miller's commencement speech, new approach to school journalism"
27,school assets at Sara Laurence
28,formative college years
29,"ms. Gibbons' husband, background"
30,academic achievements
31,"first meeting, long-distance relationship"
32,architectural tour of western europe
33,drafted to fight in korean war
34,living in kansas
35,cleveland architectural scene
36,beat poetry in san francisco: reading with alan ginsberg
37,"architecture: san francisco residential architecture, influence"
38,
39,architecture: california school versus east coast/yale u. style
40,return to cleveland
41,involvement in cleveland arts and architecture: architect don hisaka
42,herman-gibbons-foder (architectural firm)
43,local projects
44,favorite buildings: Frank Gehry Bldg in Bilboa and Severance Hall in Cleveland
45,Severance Hall
46,"Cleveland Lake Front: need for development, previous plans"
47,industrial magnates had big plans for the city but few came to fruition
48,"lost corporate leadership, impatient attitude toward large scale development"
49,
50,
51,"gateway complex, cleveland stadium"
52,end