Abstract
Lifelong Clevelander Chuck E. Hoven recollects his early life growing up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and attending St. Ignatius High School. Hoven attended John Carroll University as an undergraduate and later attended Cleveland State University for graduate school. Hoven shares his involvement as managing editor for Cleveland's Plain Press, which is a vehicle for many people to raise awareness on community issues like affordable housing. Hoven highlights the imbalances of community development corporations in areas like the Near West Side and Tremont.
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Interviewee
Hoven, Chuck (interviewee)
Interviewer
White, Bali (interviewer)
Project
Near West Side Housing Activism
Date
12-12-2024
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
134 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Chuck Hoven interview, 12 July 2024" (2024). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 544011.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1340
Transcript
Bali White [00:00:00] All right, so we are live. Hi, everyone. I am Bali White here with Chuck Hoven for the Cleveland Regional History Project at Carnegie West Library. It is July 19, 2024. How are you doing?
Chuck Hoven [00:00:16] Very, very well.
Bali White [00:00:18] Good. I’m glad you’re here. So I guess we’re gonna get right into it. Could you introduce yourself when and where you were born?
Chuck Hoven [00:00:25] Okay. My name is Chuck Hoven. I was born in Cleveland at St. John’s Hospital, which is now St. Augustine nursing home, I guess, on Detroit at about 78th Detroit Avenue. And I was born in 1956. And I’m 67 years old. I’m a widower. My wife died about six years ago. And I’m pretty much a lifelong Clevelander.
Bali White [00:01:00] So can you kind of touch base on your family’s ethnic background?
Chuck Hoven [00:01:05] Okay. Well, my mother’s family is Lebanese, and my father’s German, Dutch, French. Her family is Lebanese Maronite. There’s the St. Marin’s church downtown. But they usually just went there for funerals and weddings and things of that nature. But she was a part of when they were growing up. They went to St. Patrick’s here on the Near West Side and moved further west and went to St. Ignatius, where she met my father when she was in the 7th grade. She started at Ignatius.
Bali White [00:01:48] So what brought your family to Cleveland?
Chuck Hoven [00:01:52] On my mother’s side, I think they came maybe the year she was born in Pennsylvania, in the area around Du Bois and Clarion. And they came to Cleveland a couple years after she was born in 1925, I think because, probably because there were more Lebanese moving to Cleveland or it might have been steel mill job. I don’t know what the exact reason, but I think there was a migration of people moving further west from-
Bali White [00:02:27] And for your father’s side?
Chuck Hoven [00:02:28] My father’s side, I’m not sure what year, but my grandfather was born in Cleveland in 1882. So his father, probably in the 1860s or seventies, was here in Cleveland. And I think his father went briefly to Arizona Territory to try to start a hardware store with a partner. And that went south, and he came back to Cleveland. So I’m not sure when all those things happened, but they were in Cleveland for a long time. On his mother’s side, she came to Cleveland. She sold hats along the Great Lakes. And so she came to Cleveland probably in the, you know, sometime in the early 1910s to 1920 somewhere. And they- I’m not sure what year they married, but my dad’s, like, the third child. He was born in 23, so. But somehow, yeah, they— My grandfather and my father’s side, was a postal worker most of his life, and I think he had a route in this neighborhood. And on my mother’s side, her father had a grocery store in Pennsylvania, and then they made candy there and chocolate. Well, chocolate and ice cream. I think they had a shop there, and he lugged these big marble stones around for years afterwards that he used for the candy making. But they had- They lived, I think, on 38th near Lorain. And then there was a fire in the front furniture store. They moved to Bailey, which is a little south of Lorain. And they were- The kids were all going to St. Pat’s, and then they moved further west, and most of them went to West Tech, except some of the older ones went right to work. And I think my grandfather owned a grocery store on 87th, near West Tech over there. And they- So they moved from the Near West Side, I think from Bailey. They moved over to- I’m trying to think of the name of the street. I think they were the first place they moved, was Tompkins, which is off of 85th, and then they moved from there. They actually bought a house on 85th. I think they were renting on Tompkins, but their store was on 87th and Tompkins, so it was- And then my father’s family, I think they had owned some properties before the Depression, but then lost them because nobody could pay rent. And then they were renters until, I think, in ’40, right when he was going to World War Two. So it was ’41. He was the first group drafted. So I think they bought a new house right as he was leaving. But that’s the house I grew up in on 84th, near Clark. I still own it, but I’m living over on Hessler now because - which is in University Circle - my wife was part of the housing co-op there, so I joined that one. But I still use the West Side house as the Plain Press office right now because we can’t afford to rent anywhere. [laughs]
Bali White [00:06:31] So I guess, do you have any, like, siblings?
Chuck Hoven [00:06:35] Yeah. Well, I have two siblings that are still alive. My younger brother Tom passed away about five years ago, and my older brother, Fran, he lives. He has a house on 93rd, and he’s also living at his wife’s house, which is off of 117th and Brighton. And my sister, she’s been in town for a month helping me out. I had some surgery early, like, late last month. So she lives in New Mexico, so she’s retired now, so she can travel around.
Bali White [00:07:22] Would you say your family was pretty close-knit growing up?
Chuck Hoven [00:07:26] Yeah, we had a lot of cousins in the neighborhood, and my, actually, one cousin still lives a block from where I grew up. He lives on 86th with his wife, and my cousins on my mom’s side lived on 93rd, and then they moved to Lake Avenue. And my dad’s brother, they had seven kids, and they were over on 95th between Madison and Lorain over there. So there were a lot of family. And then my aunts and uncles, who started out on 85th, they moved to Lakewood probably in ’59 or ’60 they moved, but they were three of my aunts and one of my uncles never married. I think that was kind of the World War Two generation. A lot of people died, but they actually, two of my mom’s brothers died in World War Two, too, so they were killed in the South Pacific. But they kind of spoiled us because we had aunts and uncles that were. We went over there every Sunday for dinner and watched tv. We took apart our TV when we were kids, and it never got put back together again. [laughs] So we could go over there and watch TV on Sundays and have dinner with them.
Bali White [00:09:10] So when you were living in this area, would you kind of consider it, like, ethnically or racially diverse at the time? Like growing up?
Chuck Hoven [00:09:20] Pretty ethnically diverse. I think the Near West Side was probably more0 I was in the Mid West Side, and actually, I think mostly Appalachian, White, and ethnic. A lot of ethnic, of different ethnic groups probably, in the area where I grew up. I would say, let me see, Greek and German. And I think we probably had the darkest skin because we were part Lebanese. So we were always playing the Indians when they played Cowboys and Indians. [laughs] But we had the advantage that we made our own bows from lilac. But we- I think probably by the time I was teens, there were more Puerto Rican families in the neighborhood. And then, probably later, there’s a few Black families now, but probably during that time period, it was mostly White ethnics and especially a lot people from Appalachia.
Bali White [00:10:51] So can you touch base on your religious background?
Chuck Hoven [00:10:57] Roman Catholic. I went to St. Ignatius of Antioch, which is on West Boulevard, and Lorain for elementary school, and then I went to St. Ignatius High School for high school. And then during that time period, as the seventies, this neighborhood was probably mostly Appalachian and Puerto Rican and Blacks from- Well, just from covering it, I know that, like, there is McGuffey School, which is now the Catholic social service agency now on 29th near Franklin. And then there was Kentucky School. And I think the Black and Puerto Rican kids went to McGuffey, and the White kids went to, this was before desegregation. They went to Kentucky. But when they were in middle school, they were all at William Dean Howells, which was right next to Kentucky. So that was the first, really the highly, most highly integrated school in the city at that time because you had, you know, Lakeview and Riverview, which were a lot of Blacks and Puerto Ricans and there were Puerto Ricans and the Near West Side and Appalachian, mostly Appalachian Whites. And you can see most of those residents have been displaced. I don’t know how much you talked in interview, but a lot of the change in the housing, we could probably talk about that later. [laughs] But I went to a reunion recently with William Dean Howells and 50-year reunion and very integrated school. And part of the history of The Plain Press was one of the teachers there worked with Plain Press staff in the seventies. This is before I was involved. But they tried to keep peace at that school and the kids were involved. They did a page in Plain Press called “Youth Speak Out.” Yeah. And so they-
Bali White [00:13:31] Yeah. Could you actually talk a little bit about “Youth Speak Out” if you have like any, anything to share about?
Chuck Hoven [00:13:38] Well, largely kids would write about what was on their mind and different issues. You could probably look at the archives and get more information than I. [crosstalk] But that was a time period- I’m trying to think of the name of the teacher, but he was at the reunion and he’s, I think he’s been involved in different, I think he probably has a doctorate now or something, but he’s involved with some research in trying to stem violence in psychology and that kind of thing. But he’s, every once in a while- I’ll try to get you his name. I can’t think of it right now. [crosstalk]
Bali White [00:14:32] So kind of back to high school. You went to Ignatius. Can you kind of like talk about your experience in high school, what it was like going there?
Chuck Hoven [00:14:41] Well, I take the 22 bus down Lorain and once in a while some kids would pick me up on the way down there. And I thought it was a very good experience. At that time there were kids from inner-city parishes that attended. There are a good amount of kids. One kid I, when I was in grade school, this guy, Mister Neisius, taught Saturday Latin at St. Vincent de Paul. So we, we all took Latin to prepare us for going to high school. And one of the kids that was in my Latin class ended up at Ignatius. He went to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, I think. And then there were a few others, I think there’s another one of the girls that was in, Mary Murray, she was from Ignatius too, from my grade school. And she ended up- Well, she went to West Tech. But then I went to John Carroll with her after. So that little Saturday class- And I heard years later that I met someone from- It was a girls’ school that Mister Neisius taught at. And I told her the story and she said, oh, now I feel so bad. We used to really cut up in his class because he was so nice. [laughs] But he just did that Saturday. So that- And then Ignatius. I did pretty well academically. But it’s a school that takes like kids that are like in the top few percent in all the different grade schools. So it’s pretty selective. So it doesn’t make sense to be really competitive there because everybody is. [laughs] But I enjoyed the time there. I got involved in a few after school things and I- During high school I had a paper route that kind of- And then I worked at Red Barn after school. So I didn’t always stick around it. But there it was a good bunch and still get together with some of the people. They have a little get together, you know, maybe every couple months. I don’t always make it, but. Yeah.
Bali White [00:17:17] You mentioned Red Barn. What was Red Barn?
Chuck Hoven [00:17:20] It was a restaurant. Mostly high school kids worked there. [laughs] But we had one old grizzly guy that worked there that he’d say flip burgers faster than a speeding bowl and flipped them through. He trained us. And then- And it was burgers and chicken and fish and so it was kind of- It was on 117th. It’s no longer there. I think they all went out of business. But it was pretty busy in those days. And Cleveland had a much bigger population and people were working. [laughs] Yeah. So it was a different. So there are a lot of- It was, you know, there was a lot of takeout or sit-down, whatever people wanted to do. And my neighbor across the street, she told me about the job. And then she later told me about another job out at the airport. I worked for Sky Chefs. That was when I was in college until last year. And then I got a job in the steel mill for a summer to pollution control after college. [crosstalk] That was my last, probably my last year of college. I still had a few classes that come in. I think I went an extra half year to finish up after that, but had to do a cost-benefit analysis on their pollution control equipment. And we worked in these- They had these big clarifiers that would take the water from the blast furnace. They’d suck the mud out and then send the water back. So that was after the Clean Water Act. They made them. They used to dump it all in the river.[laughs]
Bali White [00:19:13] A lot about that dangerous, dangerous stuff. But you had mentioned you went to John Carroll. When did you attend John Carroll, and what were you studying?
Chuck Hoven [00:19:25] I graduated from high school in ’75, so I went right after that to John Carroll, and my major was political science, but I was the first kid in this interdisciplinary concentration, which was for urban studies. So it was economics and sociology and political science, and Kathy Barber, who was the head of the department there. My last year, I was thinking, I’m not going to be able to complete this. So I just started signing up for film classes and gym classes, just going to take it easy. And she called me over to her office, and she. [laughs] She changed my schedule around. So I did finish it, but I think I took some. I took a little extra time the next year, but I did. So I was the first one through this whole program, so she wanted to make sure. And then I was. After I graduated, I was just, like, doing some roofing jobs and some painting with some friends. And again, she intervened in my life. [laughs] She called Roberta Steinbecker at Cleveland State and told her she wanted me to go to graduate school there. And so Roberta called me at home, and she said, well, come on down. We know you can write. Went to John Carroll. Just take the, what is it? Graduate submission test or something I had to take. And then she signed me up that day, and I was in graduate school. [laughs] That was in the urban studies program at Cleveland State. I went there for a couple years, and actually, that’s where I met my wife. We didn’t marry until years later, but we were part of the same social group and hung out together.
Bali White [00:21:40] So kind of back to the Near West Side. In this neighborhood as a whole, Could you describe what the housing conditions of this area kind of was like growing up?
Chuck Hoven [00:21:52] Well, my dad sold insurance throughout the neighborhood, and he used to tell me stories, like some of these storefronts above Lorain, they were families separated by sheets living above the storefront, and they’d share a bathroom and a kitchen or something, but they have- So it was just- Cleveland had 900,000 some people in the fifties and into the sixties. It wasn’t much less than that. I mean, it started to decline, but so there in, like, my street where I grew up, which I don’t know, in maybe one block, I don’t know how many houses are in a city block, you know, 30 or 40. There are probably well over 100 kids. I mean, everybody had kids, so our family was with four kids and there were, you know, families with seven kids. And I think there was one merged family that had probably 14 kids or something. I don’t know. But they were- I think they- My brother was tuning pianos at one point and the parents just couldn’t take it with all the kids pounding on the piano. So they gave them a piano. I think we moved it on Christmas Day. That was- I was older then, but the neighborhood just had kids galore, but half. Well, some kids went to public school. Most of the kids went to Ignatius, where I went, and some of the kids went to St. Colman’s because we were right on the boundary between the two parish lines. So I guess you had a choice. And so I know there are kids that in for high school. Most of the kids went to West Tech, which is now an apartment building, but that was on 93rd. And some went to trade schools. One of my cousins went to Max Hayes, which was trade school. Actually, a couple of my cousins went there, but it was a neighborhood where- And I think at the time, Cleveland was really kid-focused. Like every elementary school, I think, had a playground. And in the summer they had some college kid working there with kids. He had to sandbox and they’d have to clean out if cats got in there at night or whatever. [laughs] And there are swings and sliding boards and traveling bars and that kind of thing and all that has kind of- But. And then there were, you know, there were scouting troops and sports. Like the grade school I went to, Ignatius, they had their own league because they were in the CYO and they were winning every year. So they kicked them out. So they started their own league. So they had a league with probably a dozen football teams. And then same thing with basketball. I think they still maintain the basketball league. And it’s not just for kids that go there. It was for the whole neighborhood. So they had, you got to know kids that were from. We went to public schools and we used to play at. I think we used to practice at Thrush Field or Halloran Park. And then we play our games at Halloran Park, which is off 117th, which was real close to where I worked when I was in high school, [laughs] but this was in grade school, so I was always riding my bike up that way to either go to football practice or in high school. I would ride up there to work in the Red Barn. So that was- But Yeah, so I don’t know remember which question I’m answering here. [laughs]
Bali White [00:26:11] We were kind of on the housing conditions.
Chuck Hoven [00:26:14] Oh, housing conditions. Okay. So the- Yeah, The houses were, you know, wood frame for the most part, in the Near West Side. You know, I was- I just went to high school here, so I did- I was living maybe a couple miles west. It’s 84th, maybe two miles west, and the housing, I think it’s similar. You probably have a little better housing stock on Detroit. I mean, on Franklin, but similar to what most of the side streets are here. And I think the whole city had just lots of kids.
Bali White [00:27:01] Yeah, that’s kind of something you don’t really notice today.
Chuck Hoven [00:27:04] Oh, no. In the same street where I grew up now, maybe there’s five kids where we had well over 100 kids. And it’s mostly a couple elderly people or people with, you know, young kids may have- There might be a young couple or people with one kid. I think the girl next door to me is- I don’t know where she’s living now, but I heard she was pregnant, young woman. But there not too many people having kids. And if they do have kids, it’s one or two. It’s not, you know, like seven or eight.
Bali White [00:27:45] Right. And it seems like a lot of people are kind of moving out towards the suburbs.
Chuck Hoven [00:27:49] Especially when kids reach school age, especially if people can afford it. And it’s different in different neighborhoods and the different people who can’t afford it, which, you know, brings us again to, well, what’s the, you know. But in those days, Cleveland, the elementary schools, especially Catholic schools, were really good, and you could. And kids from the Catholic schools that went to public high schools still did well enough to go to. Like I was telling you about, the woman I went to grade school with, she went to John Carroll after going to West Tech. So the schools, you could get a good enough education to pretty much go where you wanted to after if you stuck it out. And we, you know, in the seventies, there starting to be drug problems in Cleveland with. So that was a time period when I was in high school, and I was kind of oblivious to it. I was studying so much. [laughs] But some people in the neighborhood got involved with. There was kind of a battle between, I would say it was the Irish mob and the Italian mob, like Carmen Zagaria was heavily involved in our neighborhood. There was like a fish store, which was on the way to my grade school. And I always thought it was a fish store, but I later learned it was like a drug selling place. And I guess my sister told me a story. They went in there and told the guy that one of his fish was dead. And he said half price. I mean, they were not there to sell fish, but that was- And then there is. I don’t know, there are a couple of bars along that, but that whole area really changed. And part of it, you know, the freeway came through the neighborhood when I was a little kid.
Bali White [00:30:01] Yes. Actually, that brings me to the impact that the construction of Interstate 90 had on this area.
Chuck Hoven [00:30:09] Yeah, it just wiped out everything, I remember. But as a little kid, I got my first job because of the freeway, because they knocked down the paper boy’s house. Somebody delivered the Press and my cousin delivered on our street. So he told me about the job. I was technically too young. I was ten, and my brother wasn’t anywhere around, so- And it was like an emergency. So I went and met with the paper guy, and he gave me the route right away. And so he had a route which was from Lorain, it was Grace and Lorain Avenue. Part of Grace isn’t there anymore, but it was Lorain from 73rd to 80th at the time, the first route. And then eventually my brother did get another route which went from 90th on Clark to 73rd and Clark and had Hope. Hope isn’t there anymore, which is kind of fitting for Cleveland, [laughs] but that street got wiped out. But when we were young, they actually built us a ball field on the land that was cleared for the freeway. It was right by where we picked up our newspapers at 80th and Grace. So they had a backstop there, and we played mostly softball, but we. And then they had big, you know, we would lose our customers to the freeway. And some people held out. Like, there was one house on Clark that was on my brother’s route. They had aluminum siding, and they had these nice big sidewalks and everything. And that house held out the longest. But I remember, you know, some of the memories when we tried to build a basketball court, because they were knocking down these houses. So we had this huge sandstone sidewalk that was, I don’t know, it was one that would go up to the front step up, so it was huge. And so we took some of the porch pillars. These houses, they were just going to knock them down and they’d haul away everything, so we took some porch pillars and we were rolling this thing for blocks, you know, it’s really heavy. And so a bunch of little kids probably, you know, ten to twelve years old or something, and we were going to make ourselves a basketball court. [laughs] Some cop stopped us. And we told them, you know, they’re just gonna, they’re just gonna bust us up. And he said, yeah, I know, but I gotta stop you because somebody called. So it was like, wait, so we never learned how to dribble properly. We could shoot, [laughs] but just never- We had a lot of odd-sized stones in the yard, but we had a basketball net on the back of house. But, but that-
Bali White [00:33:23] So you had mentioned, you know, the construction displaced a lot of people.
Chuck Hoven [00:33:28] Oh, yeah.
Bali White [00:33:28] Do you know what happened to any of the people that ended up being displaced by it?
Chuck Hoven [00:33:33] Oh, they’re all over the country, all over the, you know, a lot of them had to move to— The thing was that the amount of money they got for the house was probably not enough if their house was already paid for. And so they, if they moved to the suburbs, if they moved to another neighborhood in Cleveland, they’d be taking on a mortgage and that. So I’m not sure if the immediate displacement- I know, like my parish, the grade school, you know, it used to be the largest in the county and it’s not anymore. So you see, maybe, and I mean, part of it is smaller, but a lot of houses were just pushed out. And then businesses along Lorain, they suffered. So you saw a lot of, you know, right now, if you look along Lorain, in that area from maybe 80th to West Boulevard, it’s a lot of empty, empty storefronts. And it’s just we, when we were growing up, we had a grocery store, which Fisher-Fazio’s, that we could walk to, and that got taken by the freeway. And then there’s Tony’s restaurant that was on Clark and 90th that was taken. So a lot of the- And then I think there was [inaudible] shoe that was somewhere around Lorain in the nineties and that’s gone. [laughs] So you could see like the businesses that we could walk to or, you know, as a short drive. And then it affected the bigger stores too, like Sears eventually. I mean, they stayed around a while longer because their building wasn’t taken, but the population to support that, that was at 110th, you know, where Westown Plaza is today, it was huge. Sears store with, they had everything you could. And then up on Denison, where the Dave’s is, at Ridge and Denison, that was a Zayre’s, which was another big department store. So that we had. And then for years there was also a Kmart at 65th near, between Storer and Clark. That’s a Roses now, I think, but it’s still there. But a lot of the businesses that you just kind of took for granted that we could, you know, and even the pathways where you went, places like we used to go to 82nd and Clark and cross and walk. I can’t even remember it because the streets aren’t there anymore. But I know we went to the library on 83rd and Lorain. So somehow I remember as a little kids, we were crossing Clark because there was a light at 82nd and then we’d go to the library almost. I mean, a couple times a week my mom would take us down when we were little. So I’m too little to remember. A lot of those streets are just gone. And we had like a summer reading program at the library. And just the, I don’t know, just the nature of things changed. And I’m not sure, you know, how many, where people ended up, but I know that some of it was, you know, people were displaced because of jobs, too. I mean, if you had a job, you’re going to probably find, because people worked in the steel mill probably until the early eighties, so they stayed around or they worked in auto. So if you had a job, you’d find a place in the suburbs or something. But, you know, some kids from our grade school, they’re kind of scattered around the country now, so I’m not sure when, when that move occurred.
Bali White [00:38:16] Like when they, a big thing with, like the interstate is we’re not necessarily sure what happened to a lot of people, which is, you know, it’s concerning in a sense. You know, you don’t [know] what happens to the people that—
Chuck Hoven [00:38:29] Yeah.
Bali White [00:38:29] Are pushed out of their homes?
Chuck Hoven [00:38:31] Right? Yeah. When I run into, we’ve had grade school reunions, but we only get maybe a dozen people. [laughs] So there some that are up from out of state and some of them are in the suburbs, but, you know, when they had to move and, you know, I think like I had cousins that were in the neighborhood. Their house didn’t get taken, but, you know, when the, you know, one of them worked in the steel mill and when those layoffs occurred, they went down to Houston. So- And they had, I think he was building pools and then his father worked at Lamson and Sessions, which used to be on 85th in Madison. Then they moved to Lakewood. Then they laid him off. He had one year short of his and pension. They were a nut and screw place. Some of my mom’s sisters worked there, too, but that was, you know, place they lived on 95th. It was on 85th and Madison, so they, he could walk to work, but originally- And then they moved to Lakewood, but, but yeah, when those companies started laying people off, I think there was more movement out of the area because the jobs- And that was mostly in the early eighties with the steel mill. Well, I worked there and I think it was 1980 and the guys I worked with told me, yeah, don’t get stuck here. [laughs] Once you get used to the money, you want to stay, you know, because you get a mortgage, you buy a car or something and you’re stuck. And so they talked me into going back to school too. I mean, it was kind of, they said, yeah, just keep going to school. But they, they’re all characters down there. They’re real- But, you know, I think that precipitated more movement, like out of the whole county and out of state because the jobs weren’t the same as they were. Yeah.
Bali White [00:40:54] Especially in Cleveland. The loss of like just industrial jobs and urban environments really, really took a plummet at one point.
Chuck Hoven [00:41:01] Yeah, yeah. They had pretty massive layoffs and then they automated. So, you know, I think they sold their rolling mill to China. But the steel, they’re making steel with maybe a quarter of what they were. I worked for Republic Steel. I think there were 18,000 employees back in the late seventies, early eighties, and there was J and L, and those two merged. And I think the two companies now, they’re owned by Cleveland Cliffs, I think. But there are probably maybe 5,000 employees where there used to be over 30,000 between the two companies. So it’s a lot more, I mean, a lot less physical, I think, than it was. So they don’t need as many people.
Bali White [00:42:04] Yeah. Back to I-90 again. Was there a lot of resistance in the community towards that?
Chuck Hoven [00:42:12] Oh, yeah. The councilwoman, Mercedes Cotner, actually, my dad ran against her at one point, but he ran on a platform of kids stuff. But she said, the freeway will go through my ward over my dead body. She ended up as council clerk and the freeway went through the ward anyhow. [laughs] But they did stop. They were going to build from, you know, where his own wreck is at 65th and Lorain. There’s that big land there that was freeway land. That was, they’re going to build. That was a hub that was going to go and wipe out the rest of the Near West side, go from there to the Shoreway. So it would have wiped out St. Colman’s and St. Stephen’s and gone right to the Shoreway. But they stopped that. They actually did stop that and then they had that leftover land and became a rec center, which people wanted. So The Plain Press played a role in those protests in that time period. But that, that was all in the seventies when they, they opposed- It was really an extension because the original freeway, they called it the Clark Freeway, the I-90. And that I think, you know, Shaker Heights was able to stop them from going through Shaker Lakes. But they, and I don’t know what, what the reason why it stopped. But they did stop that extension on Near West Side. And I think a lot of it was protest and that, it was a crazy idea too, but they were going to take 71 and cut it across 90 and take it down to the Shoreway. And so they just, in part of it, I think it was all, you know, some of it was people removal and making, you know, trying to push people to buy homes in the suburbs so developers could get rich. I don’t know. I mean, that’s- I’m speculating there, but it seemed like it was like deliberate that they were just wiping out whole neighborhoods.
Bali White [00:44:35] And not even in just the Near West Side, but in other neighborhoods, I-90 had an effect on especially predominantly Black neighborhoods.
Chuck Hoven [00:44:43] Oh, yeah, yeah, they just went right- And, you know, before that. But, you know, growing up, my father had an insurance business and I-90 really affected that because he sold for Nationwide Insurance. And when the freeway came along, people were trying to collect twice because the government was buying their house and there wasn’t really enough money, so there’d be a
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