Abstract
This oral history interview documents the life and career of Tom Bush, a Cleveland native, whose work in radio and television provides insight into the city’s media landscape and urban development during the late twentieth century. Bush reflects on his upbringing in Cleveland, his transition from business and finance into broadcasting at WMMS, and his long association with local entertainment, including performing comedy skits with regional television personalities. He also discusses his experiences working at the Statler Office Tower in the 1980s, describing the building as a hub of radio activity when WWMS was based there. Throughout the interview, Bush offers personal observations on Cleveland’s changing downtown, the impact of suburbanization, and the importance of strong schools, civic leadership, and entrepreneurial vision in shaping the city’s future. His reflections highlight both nostalgia for Cleveland’s past vibrancy and optimism about its potential for renewal.
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Interviewee
Bush, Tom (interviewee)
Interviewer
Scullion, Brandon (interviewee)
Project
History 304
Date
2005
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
46 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Tom Bush interview, 2005" (2005). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 304039.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/826
Transcript
Brandon Scullion [00:00:03] In the beginning is just ask the person to give a little brief history of themself.
Tom Bush [00:00:08] Okay.
Brandon Scullion [00:00:08] Where you were born, grew up.
Tom Bush [00:00:11] Okay. My name is Tom Bush. B-U-S-H. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Went to St. Patrick’s Grade School. Went to St. Edwards High School, Went to Miami of Ohio to college. Started out working for Firestone. Coming out of college, I was a store manager and then I left and went into the brokerage business. I worked for Merrill Lynch, Kidder Peabody for over seven years, and then I went into the broadcast business. In the broadcast business, I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I have been the station manager of a radio station, operations manager of a television station, and I’ve also been a sales manager of a television station. And in addition to that, I have been on the air on radio, having a morning drive and afternoon drive, and I’ve been doing skits with Big Chuck and Little John for now 29 years.
Brandon Scullion [00:01:12] And what was your major in college?
Tom Bush [00:01:14] Marketing. Went in as an accounting major and then saw that I liked marketing more and switched to marketing.
Brandon Scullion [00:01:21] How did that affect your jobs subsequently after you graduated?
Tom Bush [00:01:25] Well, marketing, I saw it as a more creative way, although there are some accountants lately that have been pretty creative. But I just enjoyed the creative process more, the writing and that sort of thing and coming up with ideas for ad campaigns and stuff like that. So marketing was more of a natural fit for that.
Brandon Scullion [00:01:44] And did you stay in Cleveland as soon as you graduated?
Tom Bush [00:01:48] Yes.
Brandon Scullion [00:01:49] You never traveled further?
Tom Bush [00:01:51] Well, I went to school for Merrill Lynch for 13 weeks in New York. And of course we went for a couple weeks to Akron for Firestone, but pretty much, no, my business has always been here. Now I did for three years, I did a television show in New York. In fact, your mom and dad came up one time along with Patty, but that was just going up every couple weeks. Then on the weekends, we had a whole bunch of skits that we produced. It was a show called Damn Right. And it was then called Issues USA. It was on TCI and it was syndicated and it was on cable. And I was part of what they call the Damn Right Players. So we just did a number of skits. And then I also did field interviews where I traveled all across the country, going to diners throughout all of America, from California to Florida to Georgia, Chicago and New York, all over the place. But Cleveland’s always been the home base.
Brandon Scullion [00:02:44] And would it be safe to assume that Cleveland is, you know, your home because of-
Tom Bush [00:02:48] Family. I’ve had many opportunities to go to other cities and just turned them down. I mean, you know, I’ve always been a little wacky. I’ve done voices since I was a kid and I had an opportunity, you know, to become like a stand-up comedian and do things like that. But I never didn’t want to travel, so I’ve been able to do that. I mean, I have done stand up. I opened for Langan. We did some stand ups at one point. But primarily I was able to do the comedy on radio and on television and sometimes write comedy. So all those things. And also another thing I got to do too, which was fun, is I was the voice of Mallard Fillmore, which is a cartoon character in a lot of papers. But I’ve always sort of wanted to stay close to home, so I didn’t want to be traveling all over the place. So radio gave me that venue to do that in.
Brandon Scullion [00:03:42] Now, this is kind of more of a personal question. Having traveled to all these places, comparing Cleveland to those places, would you find that Cleveland has as much or more to offer than, say, all those other big cities?
Tom Bush [00:03:57] Well, it depends what you want. My friend Dennis Thatcher, I think, summarized New York correctly. It’s a Disneyland for adults from that standpoint. I mean, if to live in New York City, you would have to have a lot of dough and it would not be, in my opinion, a good place to raise a family. I always thought that Chicago is a big Cleveland. Very much the same kind of ethnic makeup. You got the lake, you’ve got the weather. All the things are very, very similar. It’s got a little bit more of New York than Cleveland. There’s a better shopping area with Michigan Avenue and things like that, but very similar. No, I like Cleveland. I mean, it saddens me that we are now the poorest city in America, but it’s always been a good place to raise a family and it’s a very easy city to get around.
Brandon Scullion [00:04:41] Okay, moving forward, a little. Experience in Cleveland, when you grew up as a kid, through your adolescence, into your adult years
Tom Bush [00:04:53] Until now?
Brandon Scullion [00:04:54] Yeah.
Tom Bush [00:04:55] You’re never afraid to do anything. We used to walk to theaters. Never thought twice about going downtown. We used to go every year to what they call the Charity Football Game when a team from the West Senate played the team from the East Senate. Those two conferences are gone. A lot of times it was Ignatius who would be playing on the West Senate side, and you might be playing Latin or it might be playing Benedictine or somebody like that. And sometimes you’d go down to the stadium and there were 60,000 people down there. You just didn’t have any kind of fear. Of course, you had all the great- At Christmastime, it was like magic to go downtown. You had the big department stores. You had- They were all decorated for Christmas. You had Sterling Lindner Davis, had this enormous tree that went stories high. We always went there. Remember, there’s always a fireman posted next to the tree. There were places to eat downtown. You went down for parades, the St. Patrick’s Day parade. That’s all changed. It’s all- In fact, first-run movies were always done downtown. They were always downtown before they came to the suburbs. If they were out here on the west side or the east side, then you knew they’d been already downtown. All that’s changed with malls and urban- With the spread, I should say with the suburbs, it just changed the whole complexion. And I’m a little sad for it because now downtown, it struggles for an identity. They try to do the Flats, but ignoring the main heart of downtown, Euclid Avenue. And so it’s still in flux and hopefully it’ll turn around. But Cleveland’s downtown has not done well. Chicago’s downtown is done very well. New York obviously has got a great downtown and a lot of big cities do. But Cleveland is struggling. It has, but the main thing is you weren’t afraid. I never even thought twice about as a kid jumping on a bus or the rapid and going downtown. It wasn’t even a concern. Go to a ball game, football game, I used to go to the Browns games all by myself. Sitting in the bleachers now the Dawg Pound. These type of things you just did, you know, you never worried about the crazies. Frankly, I think the media, my business, is as much a part of that as anything. Because if one person, one crazy in Talmadge, Ohio, puts a razor blade in an apple, you’ve got families all across northern Ohio and probably the state of Ohio all checking apples. And what happens is it magnifies and it gives the crazies ideas. There’s a lot of copycats, and from that standpoint I think it’s made us a little- We’re not as trusting and I find that a little sad. But Cleveland was a very vibrant city when I was growing up and not as much today.
Brandon Scullion [00:07:29] What year were you born in?
Tom Bush [00:07:30] ’48, last time the Indians won the World Series.
Brandon Scullion [00:07:34] So did you actually go to the Stillman Theater, which I know from my research many of the first-run movies, but I’m not sure.
Tom Bush [00:07:42] I don’t remember who I went to the Stillman. I might have. The name sounds familiar. They were all kind of around Playhouse Square, many of them. And that’s where you go. And they had. I remember seeing Ben Hur down there. Village of the Damned. Yeah, we used to go out in Jailhouse Rock with Elvis Presley. I remember seeing some of those movies downtown.
Brandon Scullion [00:07:59] I was actually walking around downtown just last night taking some photographs about three in the morning, at two. And in the Mall A or whatever, there’s a plaque there that actually shows that Cleveland had the first Christmas tree in the country in 1851.
Tom Bush [00:08:18] I didn’t know that.
Brandon Scullion [00:08:19] Neither did I. And this plaque on a big stone monument is just kind of off in a corner that nobody can see, hidden behind some trees.
Tom Bush [00:08:28] There’s a lot of things that came out of Cleveland first or things that were done early on. I believe some of the first traffic lights were here and street lights and things like that were here. At one time, Cleveland was a major city, a major player. You know, right now the convention center is run down and they’re looking to replace it. But there’s been presidential conventions held there.
Brandon Scullion [00:08:53] That convention center, I can’t imagine them replacing it because of its significance, because we had the Group pPan with Daniel Burnham, who was City Beautiful Movement back in the ’20s, and that was one of the main buildings that came out of that movement. And out of all the cities in the country that actually had plans on the table drawn up by Daniel Burnham, Cleveland was the only one that almost fully completed theirs, which gave us our public library, city hall-
Tom Bush [00:09:21] They’re all beautiful buildings. They’re all beautiful buildings. The Beatles came there. That’s the first time the Beatles came to Cleveland. They came to the convention center or Music Hall, whatever you want to call it. So it’s a beautiful building. But at one time we were a big player. I mean, we were a top five city.
Brandon Scullion [00:09:39] Absolutely. I definitely- My goal is to bring back that prominence. It’s a little lofty, but-
Tom Bush [00:09:46] Well, it’s not. I don’t think gambling is going to do it. I just think that, you know, you’ve got to keep the brain trust here. That’s been going away. And frankly, I learned this a long time ago out here where I live. And in 1986, I headed up the marketing for a school levy in Olmsted Falls Schools. So my kids were in the schools, so I assume everybody’s kids were in the schools. So we had this plan, you know, we got to keep the schools top notch. Blue-ribbon kids deserve blue-ribbon schools. That was the theme. Then all of a sudden I looked into it and I found out that out in Olmsted Falls, 26% of the people lived out there had kids in the schools. That makes 74% the other way. And I said, well, we got to look at some other different. Well, the bottom line is that we did some studies and it was proven that housing values and the way a community is perceived is how good the schools are. So if you have a history of passing levies and that your schools are good and do well, then the housing values will do well. We were doing comparisons with North Olmsted, which did not have a good history of passing school levies, and Westlake, which did. And you took the same basic house with the same square foot footage, four-bedroom colonial, yaddy, yadda yadda, it was more valuable in Westlake than North Olmsted. And part of it was we came to the conclusion was schools. So to answer, going a long way around without talking about Cleveland, we got to get the schools back on track. If you do that, then the people will come. Because I lived in Cleveland for a long time. I grew up in Cleveland. When I first got married, I lived in Cleveland. There’s a lot of benefits of living in the city of Cleveland. I mean, you’re close to a lot more things. Obviously, the tax structure is better than it is out here anyway. But when that whole school thing collapsed, it was only a matter of time that- I mean, I think it’s shameful that they force the police and firemen and city workers, force them to live in the city. That’s kind of like the invisible fence. You know, you should- Because in the old days, it wasn’t that they were forced to. They wanted to because the schools were good. They didn’t care. Now they’re worried about that. So. But you’re right. If we can bring the schools back, the rest will all follow. I’m convinced of that.
Brandon Scullion [00:12:04] All right. And so we’ve talked quite a bit about this whole Cleveland thing. But your significance to my project is your experience and your tie to the Statler Building, your time at the Statler Office Tower.
Tom Bush [00:12:16] Yeah, this all started with a conversation I mentioned to you. Ty Cobb, a Hall of Famer and a very aggressive- Anybody’s ever seen the movie Cobb, he was a different kind of baseball player. He treated it almost like football. He was mean-spirited. But the story goes that when the Statler was a hotel, he got into a beef with a guy in an elevator and got into a fight and sadly killed the guy. He got out of town before he was arrested. Then the Tigers were going, I think, to play the Pirates in the Series or something like that. And the police were going to arrest him as the train came through Cleveland. So he took a train through Canada and went and played in the Series and then ultimately turned himself in. And I don’t really think any. Anything seriously happened to him. He might have paid a fine. I don’t really think he ever went to jail. That’s the famous story there. The other famous story I’ll tell you, and then I’ll get to my connection. The other famous story I’ll tell you is Channel 8 used to be on Euclid Avenue across from the Statler, okay? And there was an announcer there who went on to become Goulardi. Your father and mother will know who this fellow is, Ernie Anderson, who was quite a character, but he’s a legendary character. In fact, I had an opportunity to spend some time with him in California. I spent an evening with him and met his family and had dinner with him and we threw down a few adult beverages. And he still had framed in his basement, in his rec room, he still had framed - and very proud of this, I may add - a memo that was put out by the general manager of Channel 8 saying there would be no motorcycle riding in the hallway because he rode his motorcycle into Channel 8 through the hall. This was a real [inaudible] free spirit. And there’s many, many stories about him. But the story that always made me laugh is he was booth announcing at Channel 8. Now, as I said, the Statler was across the street. So he and someone else - I don’t know who the other fella was, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you - but they had set up this deal where they had gotten a hotel room over the Statler. Then they put a little blurb in the paper - I don’t know if it was the Press or the Plain Dealer which paper was it, but it was one of the big dailies - talking about the fact that they were holding tryouts for Playboy. So they had a whole string of women come over there and remove parts of their clothes to be photographed for possible Playmate of the Month. [laughs] And they did a scam the whole day. He would go check it out, run back, do his booth announcing, run back over. And that was at the Statler. So that was one of my favorite strikes. [laughs] Now, my connection, God rest his soul, he’s gone now. But my connection with the Statler was I was part of the WMMS Buzzard Morning Zoo Morning Show. And we did our station was located in the Statler we had at that time MMS, which was the number one station in the Cleveland, 100.7 the Buzzard, and I think Terry is discharging over here. And we also had WHK 1420 AM in the building. At that time, we had the number one AM station because we had Gary D. Gilbert, one of the real wackos in the radio world, who was over there. MMS, we had a number of, over the years, well, too famous people came in because it was an important station and people wanted to be on there. So we had an opportunity. The thing I always enjoyed about the radio, you had these people come in that were well known, you know, Wally and Beaver from sports, movies, TV, all that stuff. And you had them in a controlled environment so you could talk to them one on one. And it was really kind of nice because ultimately you judged them if they were human beings or whether they were idiots. And most of them that I found to be human beings. Some people I thought I wouldn’t like, like Alice Cooper, I thought he’d be an idiot. Turned out to be a lovely guy. I liked him a lot. He’s a golfer, lived in Arizona, talked about his kids. I thought he was wonderful. So Lou Graham from Foreigner, another great guy. I liked him. But, you know, it was a hopping place. Now, we had a- There’s never been, to my knowledge in my time, there’s never been a better marketer of a radio station than WMMS in Cleveland. I mean, their whole station was identified with a buzzard. You saw that buzzard, you knew MMS. They were so successful, they had a retail store in the lobby of the Statler that sold buzzard merchandise. Everything you could imagine - T shirts, hats, sweatshirts, keychains. I mean, you know, all kinds of stuff. And it was constantly going. Everybody wanted to buy it, everybody wanted to be a part of it. So the Stadler was a hot spot. You know, you had Swingo’s in the back, which was a good restaurant. There was some- One of the radio stations did a big band on Sundays, a brunch there. Nice people, good crowd used to come through. And then of course you had WHK and you had WMMS in the building. So it was at that time Statler was a hopping place.
Brandon Scullion [00:17:04] What years were you there?
Tom Bush [00:17:06] I was there in the late ’80s.
Brandon Scullion [00:17:10] Did it actually- Were you there until its closing?
Tom Bush [00:17:12] The Statler? No.
Brandon Scullion [00:17:13] The Office Tower?
Tom Bush [00:17:14] No, no. The actual MMS moved. MMS moved to Tower City. They rebuilt their studios in Tower City overlooking the mall.
Brandon Scullion [00:17:24] Looking through my research, I’ve seen that WGAR was there for many years.
Tom Bush [00:17:29] That was way before my time. The only time I knew WGAR, when I first met them, they were down on Broadview. And now I think they’re now somewhere down around Rockside. But that may be.
Brandon Scullion [00:17:42] I’m sure they were there quite a while ago.
Tom Bush [00:17:44] It had to be a long time ago.
Brandon Scullion [00:17:56] Working there, this is kind of an odd question. I have it written down as how did you feel about working there. But, I mean, it was great building as prominent building.
Tom Bush [00:18:06] Well, it was a good building.
Brandon Scullion [00:18:08] Was it one of the better ones in the city at the time?
Tom Bush [00:18:09] Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it. I mean, it was an older building. You know, you’re right across the street from the Union Club, which is the club in Cleveland for the high rollers. That used to have Halle’s across the street, which was a big department store, which was actually- The front of Halle’s was used on the Drew Carey Show. Yes?
Unknown Speaker [00:18:38] Can I get on your computer?
Tom Bush [00:18:40] I don’t have an Internet.
Unknown Speaker [00:18:41] Oh, you don’t?
Tom Bush [00:18:41] No.
Unknown Speake [00:18:42] Okay.
Tom Bush [00:18:49] But no, it was a nice building. You know, I like older buildings. I mean, you know, I think there’s a lot more charm to the older buildings and a lot more creativity went into building them. And, you know, when you look at the newer ones, they got to tend to be more boxes. And, you know, there’s a little- There’s a lot more thought put in the older buildings, I think.
Brandon Scullion [00:19:05] Were you aware of all the history of the building?
Tom Bush [00:19:07] Not some of the things that you mentioned. I never realized WGAR was in there.
Brandon Scullion [00:19:10] Oh, yeah. Off the record, when we- I’ll go on some of the most amazing stuff pertaining to that building and the man that built it. E. M. Statler was the founder of the Statler hotel chain. He was just the most innovative person. He actually recreated hotels to what they are today.
Tom Bush [00:19:29] Oh, is that right?
Brandon Scullion [00:19:30] He was the person that did that. And then Hilton, he came and purchased it in 1954, which became the largest real estate transaction in the world to this day, per square foot.
Tom Bush [00:19:44] By the time I was there, it was really more of an office building.
Brandon Scullion [00:19:47] Yeah. I actually have some pictures of it. And compared to what it was and what it is today, the way it was decorated, or what have you, I couldn’t tell which end was up in the picture because every wall, floor, carpet just looked the same, same color. I mean, it just- I seriously had it upside down until somebody said, no, it’s this way.
Tom Bush [00:20:10] And again, across the street from the most prominent club in the city. Union Club has been the club in Cleveland for a long, long time.
Brandon Scullion [00:20:18] And the Athletic Club across the street as well. That’s been there since the- Actually before the Statler, I believe.
Tom Bush [00:20:25] Well, and the Athletic Club’s a fine place to go. It took a long time for the Irish to get in there. But the Union Club, even that’s another level up. The Union Club had a no-woman policy. They had a separate entrance for women, and they had to break that rule about women because they had a standing rule that whoever was in charge of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland had a standing invitation to be a member of the Union Club. And when they named Karen Horne as the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, they had to let her in. That’s the first woman that came into the Union Club.
Brandon Scullion [00:21:00] What do you recall about the city and Euclid Avenue during the time that you worked there? Because the ’80s weren’t necessarily a great time for the city.
Tom Bush [00:21:07] It wasn’t a great time, but it wasn’t bad yet. I mean, there were still businesses up and down the street. It wasn’t as bad as it is now. I mean, there still were some good places to buy suits and restaurants and things like that. They’re trying, obviously, to bring it back, but, you know. Well, you know, pretty much all the department stores are gone that were there. And at one time, as I said, you had Halle’s, Higbee’s, May’s and Sterling. So you had Sterling Lindner’s. So you had four major department stores on Euclid Avenue from about 15th, East 15th to Public Square. And you had Cleveland Trust bank, which is gone, there at the corner, which is also a beautiful architectural building. You had the Huntington Bank Building, which is also a beautiful architectural building, which is at the East 9th and Euclid. So you had a lot of these things, and, you know, they’ve all just kind of gone to seed.
Brandon Scullion [00:22:00] That could be argued that the suburbs were the demise of the city.
Tom Bush [00:22:03] I mean, well, there’s no question about that.
Brandon Scullion [00:22:09] I know the department stores started to open up satellite stores out in the suburbs, but was never able to save them.
Tom Bush [00:22:17] Right. Well, you know, you have to keep people coming downtown to shop, and if you don’t do that, they’re not going to come. And, you know, if you, you know, you’re overcharging for parking or they feel threatened by crime, any of those things, they’re not going to come. You know, Manhattan is a unique animal. I mean, the whole, the whole island is basically down, at least from Midtown down, it’s all downtown, pretty much. And Chicago’s. You know, there are shopping areas that are very strong and are strong all, you know, for a long period, you know, during the week, at night, during weekends. But Cleveland, it just never was never to sustain itself. And the Flats have kind of, like, fizzled a bit now. It’s gone to the Warehouse District pretty much. That’s the hotter spot.
Brandon Scullion [00:23:02] Yeah. I always felt that Chicago was the Cleveland that never was.
Tom Bush [00:23:07] Yeah. Well, and part of the reason for that is one of the great books about Chicago is a book by Mike Royko called Boss, and it’s a story of Daley, Mayor Daley. Not the kid, the old man. And he and the party machine made that city work. And most of the- Many of the things that have occurred in Chicago occurred under Daley’s watch. He was the king, and he made it happen. In Cleveland, politics tends to get in the way of things happening. And the classic example is this Walmart that they wanted to put down in the Flats. Politicians got in with the unions and killed that deal. Well, I’m sorry, but that deal could have been a good thing for the city because it would have brought in jobs and it would brought people downtown.
Brandon Scullion [00:23:50] Taxes.
Tom Bush [00:23:50] Well, it would have brought in taxes, right, which is becoming a major problem, you know, so they have. You have to think- You have to think bigger. And, you know, and Cleveland, I don’t know Cleveland. Cleveland’s always. There’s a great book that a guy named Philip Porter wrote. He was Albert Porter’s brother. Philip Porter was a writer for the Cleveland Press, political writer, excuse me. And sadly was murdered with his wife in his 80s in his home in Shaker Heights. But he wrote this book called Cleveland: Confused City on a Seesaw, which is a great book, because what it does is he was around from all this. It was the politics of Cleveland from the early turn of the 20th century up to the late ’70s. And there’s always been all kinds of populists and crazies that have been running the city or involved in the city, and sometimes they disagree just to disagree, and it’s counterproductive. So, yes, that’s a good angle on Chicago. Chicago got their act together and made it work. Cleveland’s always fighting amongst themselves, and it’s silly, but it’s been counterproductive over the years.
Brandon Scullion [00:24:58] Yeah, I think one of the last great mayors we had was Tom Johnson.
Tom Bush [00:25:01] Tom Johnson was a great mayor. Yeah, there have been some that were, I think, considered to be as good. One of the guys- Well, you know, the thing that Voinovich did, he brought some stability and got things turned around. White actually got Gateway off the ground. But these were very decisive guys. Vojnovich did something that was almost unheard of for the big-city mayors. Most big-city mayors die because the problems with most cities are your tax base shrinks and the needs of the people increase because you have more of the poor. So it’s more of a strain on the city. And so it became like a graveyard for mayors. They just politically were dead after that. Well, Voinovich not only went on to become the governor of the state of Ohio, but he’s now a United States senator. There was a guy named Frank Lausche who was mayor of Cleveland in the late ’40s, also went on to become governor of Ohio, also became a United States senator, was also considered a good mayor. So you’ve had some good mayors. Mayor Celebrezze was a good mayor. He was the mayor of Cleveland in the late ’50s, was a mayor for quite a few years, and then he went and was in Kennedy’s cabinet and he was the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. So he was also a good man. We’ve had some good ones. It’s just that there’s just- Right now, there’s just too much- There’s just too much politics going on and not enough, Let’s just get the job done.
Brandon Scullion [00:26:24] Going back to the Statler a little bit, I came up with a couple of questions here. Do you recall some of the other businesses that were there when you were there?
Tom Bush [00:26:32] Inside the building? Well, the Swingo’s was there. They had a restaurant. There was another restaurant up near the front. I don’t remember what it was. There was a travel agency, I know, or it was one of the airlines, I think it was, was in there. What was up in the other floors? I really, honest to God, don’t remember because we really- We never really paid much attention to it. We went to our floor and we had the whole floor at the Statler.
Brandon Scullion [00:26:58] What floor was that?
Tom Bush [00:26:59] Boy, I don’t remember that. I don’t remember.
Brandon Scullion [00:27:01] I could find that out.
Tom Bush [00:27:02] We had the whole floor, though, and we used to have these digital entries things, so we could go into the places where- Because normally if you came off the elevators, you’d have to go through the receptionist. But we were able to go through the back doors because of codes. We changed the codes, I think was almost every month. But honest to God, I don’t remember what floor it was. Maybe Rocco would remember. I could talk to Rocco and he can ask him. I don’t remember. All I knew is we went there and that was our floor.
Brandon Scullion [00:27:29] The layout of the lobby, I was curious if you happen to have any, remember what that might have been like of what was front corner.
Tom Bush [00:27:37] Well, if you walked in the front doors, you had little businesses on each side. It was pretty much a straight shot as you kept going towards into the building, there was a little restaurant to the left, kind of like a job where they could get a little lunch or more of a breakfast place. Then on the right hand side, near the side doors, was the MMS retail store. And also there was a store that sold newspapers and candies and things like that.
Brandon Scullion [00:28:03] Just up the stairs from the side entrance?
Tom Bush [00:28:05] [sound of construction equipment outside] It was just up the stairs from the side entrance. Exactly. As you came up the side entrance, you make a left and would be right there. Then you keep going straight ahead. Swingo’s restaurant and the Communicator Club, which was part of Swingo’s that you- If you- Which I was a member of because it was basically for radio and television people. And then you had to your left were the elevators to take you up to the floors. You got steps. And you could also go to a garage which was attached.
Brandon Scullion [00:28:29] So there was the garage at that time.
Tom Bush [00:28:31] There was a garage.
Brandon Scullion [00:28:36] If you walk straight through the doors all the way to the end-
Tom Bush [00:28:39] We were in a restaurant. Right.
Brandon Scullion [00:28:40] Is that Swingo’s?
Tom Bush [00:28:41] Right.
Brandon Scullion [00:28:42] Okay.
Tom Bush [00:28:42] And beyond Swingoes, the room, it was part. I mean, the Swingo’s in, you go to the very back was the Communicators Club.
Brandon Scullion [00:28:53] The trolleys weren’t running when you were a kid, were they?
Tom Bush [00:28:55] Yes, they were. And the trolleys used to go underneath the High Level Bridge. I remembered that. And then they would come up and they would surface at 25th and Detroit. And they would surface right on approximately West 9th Street, they’d come up. Yeah, I rode the trolleys. They were all over the place. And then they went to trackless trolleys. In other words, they were buses that were connected to electric wires. So they were run by electricity. But they didn’t have tracks, so they’re called trackless trolleys.
Brandon Scullion [00:29:27] Have you been downtown much lately?
Tom Bush [00:29:29] Every day. I work downtown.
Brandon Scullion [00:29:31] Okay. I should’ve asked you that.
Brandon Scullion [00:29:35] So you’ve been downtown Euclid to see all the improvements?
Tom Bush [00:29:39] Well, I don’t know what you mean by improvements.
Brandon Scullion [00:29:41] Well, we have, down toward Public Square there’s all the work being done on the parking garage, Pickwick & Frolic.
Tom Bush [00:29:49] Pickwick & Frolic. Right. Yeah.
Brandon Scullion [00:29:50] House of Blues.
Tom Bush [00:29:51] House of Blues is now in there. Yeah. It’s getting there.
Brandon Scullion [00:29:54] And then there’s also the-
Tom Bush [00:29:56] They’re going to do the boulevard. Yeah.
Brandon Scullion [00:29:57] The Euclid Corridor project, which is actually where this research is going.
Tom Bush [00:30:01] Right.
Brandon Scullion [00:30:02] I wasn’t sure if you’re aware of that.
Tom Bush [00:30:03] No, but that’s- Yeah, I know they’re going to do that. Wouldn’t you be nice?
Brandon Scullion [00:30:07] Yeah.
Tom Bush [00:30:08] Kind of like making a Park Avenue, in a way. Although they’re going to run the trail that buses up the middle, I think.
Brandon Scullion [00:30:15] Right. It’s going to be almost exactly the way it was with the actual rail trolleys. Stations are going to be in the center of the road.
Tom Bush [00:30:23] Yeah.
Brandon Scullion [00:30:24] It’s going to be real-time information. So it’s going to be wireless Internet. The entire strip from Public Square down to University Circle. And so not only could you actually connect with your laptop, but the buses are going to be feeding information to the stations as to when they’re going to arrive. Similar to the way that they have it in England where it’s, you know, three minutes to your next train.
Tom Bush [00:30:45] Oh, that’s good. I mean, I know they put in a whole new dispatch system, RTA did. When I was an elected official, I got involved because there’s three communities out here, North Olmsted, Olmsted Falls, Olmsted Township. We run vans and small buses for seniors to take them to doctors and things like that. Well, the county now has a plan that they want to interlock all this stuff up. And so I was at a meeting where I was with County Planning with Paul Senese, and I was with the RTA people. And the thing was that they wanted to have this big umbrella, but we wanted to make sure if we were going to be dropping seniors up to have them pick them up to say take them to the Cleveland Clinic because these guys only go to 117th, that there’s communication so that these people aren’t standing outside in the rain for half an hour waiting for a bus. And that’s what they were talking about, this kind of communication thing they’re going to have. So I thought that would be great and we would be tied into it as well so that we would know what the status is of when this thing is going to be there and are people going to drop off.
Brandon Scullion [00:31:45] When did you work for- You said you worked for the RTA?
Tom Bush [00:31:47] No, I don’t work for the RTA. I had meetings with the RTA because we have, we control. We control a number of buses and vans to take care of seniors. North Olmsted Olmsted Falls - excuse me, Olmsted Township. And we were going to tie in with the county and RTA because RTA is doing these community transit vehicles, too. These would take seniors, like, directly to a hospital or directly to a doctor’s appointment or directly to a mall to shop, as opposed to- I mean, in a sense, they pick them up at their homes. So it’s a different concept. It’s just to take care of the elderly and get them around.
Brandon Scullion [00:32:24] And so what you’ve seen of the improvements downtown, do you feel that those are, you know, positive steps?
Tom Bush [00:32:33] Well, everything’s positive. Again, I go back to, you got to you got to get us- If you want to- You’ve got to make people want to live downtown. You got to. And they’re trying to do that. Take better advantage of the lake, which they don’t do very well. Get strong leadership in the government side. But you’ve got to be able to not create a lot of roadblocks for somebody who wants to go and do something. Now, just, you know, the great renaissance of Cleveland occurred in the ’20s. It was done with the Van Sweringen brothers, Okay? They built the Terminal Tower, they built Shaker Heights, they built the Shaker Rapid, this thing- They got things hopping and going. The Depression hit, boom, all washed out. Then very quietly, we had a lot of these, what I call nickel dime millionaires. And I don’t mean that to be derogatory, but you had guys like Larry Robinson, and you had guys like Virgil [?], and you had guys like- Who else was in that bunch? Nick Mileti. You had guys that were- They wanted to do something to try and create and stimulate the city. And they’d have news conferences, and they’d do this and do this that, and nothing ever happened. And all these grandiose plans, airport and the lake. And they’re going to do this and do that. Then very quietly, two guys I’d never heard of before, suddenly there is the Galleria. Not a lot of fanfare, just boom, there it is. Suddenly, boom, this guy buys the Indians and starts pouring money into the team. And then the next thing you know, there’s Jacobs Field and there’s the Key Bank building. The Jacobs brothers, two brothers, which I think is ironic that you had two brothers lead the renaissance in the ’20s, and then two brothers lead the renaissance in the ’70s. And the downslide of Cleveland- Now, they may have known that, but the rise of Cleveland, because it was a hot place for a while. The Flats, everything was kind of moving. And the Jacobs were involved in the Flats, too, was the Jacobs boys and, you know, the Indians selling out. I mean, this was unheard of in baseball. Still is. And the things with the restaurants around, they were all jumping. Everybody was going, that’s when the Jacobs boys were here. And then one died, and then the other one cashed out. And if you notice, since he cashed out, it’s been a steady slide right since then. And I really believe, and I’ve told this to my friend Tim Hagan, that these are the kind of guys, the entrepreneurs are the ones that have got to lead, and you got to let them do it, and you got to stay the heck out of the way. I’m not going to cheat anybody, but make sure that they have a vision. And the thing is that I noticed when I was going to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh was a thriving city. That was a hellhole, too. Trust me, it was, right? Because I went in there in the ’70s a lot. Dirty. But suddenly, boom, it changed in the triangle in downtown Pittsburgh, the PPG building and all this stuff going on. It was really nice. Well, what you had was a Mellon family. Kids, the descendants of the Mellons. They’re Mellons. They’re still involved in the city. The bank is the premier bank in Pittsburgh. They’re still involved in the city. They’re the ones that are making it happen. They lived there. They were part of it and had a vision. You want to change the tape? Cleveland- Because I was a broker kid at Peabody, so I dealt with these people. You know, a friend of mine many years ago, his name was Tucker Marston. His father was the mayor of Gates Mills. I asked him once, I said, who’s the richest family in Cleveland? Would you guess? He said, without any hesitation, he goes, the Ingalls family. Have you ever heard of the Ingalls? No. Nobody ever heard of them. But if you look at a map of Cleveland and you look at Hunting Valley, the wealthiest per capita home sale price - the value of homes per capita - is the highest. You know, I don’t know, it’s $500,000, whatever it is, in the entire state of Ohio. As I just saw, that was in the Columbus Dispatch. Number one city in terms of value of houses is Hunting Valley. Number two is Indian Hill in Cincinnati. Number three was Bentleyville in Cleveland. Number four was New Albany, where Timmy teaches. There’s an airport, Ingalls Airport. They’re TAF. If you pick up a TAF annual report, they’re on the board. Okay? The Ingalls. Never heard of them. But anyway, most of these folks, the ones that started Diamond Shamrock, the ones that started Hanna Mining. All these people, they’re pretty much coupon clippers now. They’re not being derogatory. They just don’t- They’re not involved in the daily business. They’re either in Palm Beach or they’re up here, or they’re going somewhere. What you need is someone with a lot of money. The Jacobses, I mean billionaires, who have a vision, who live in the Cleveland and the [inaudible] city, but in Cleveland and want - or around Cleveland - and want to make something happen. That’s what Jacobs did. We owe a great deal of gratitude. He did more to turn Cleveland around in his watch than anybody. That picture up there, first day of Jacobs Field, Mr. Jacobs is on that field, as is Voinovich and Tim Hagan and Mayor White. Those guys, Petro, who could be the next governor of Ohio, those guys are all there. They made that happen. And they did Cleveland a great service to get that done. Now they could complain about taxpayer money and this and that and this and that. It brought people downtown. It made it happen. And you need someone with a vision to do that. So that’s all well and good. Again, it’s the schools. It requires the schools to get better. It also requires, hopefully, someone with some vision. I mean, we drove out John D. Rockefeller. We drove him out of Cleveland. He left Cleveland. He was born and raised in Cleveland. [phone rings; recording pauses and resumes] Yeah, John D. Rockefeller loved Cleveland. He left to go to New York for business, but he came back every summer to Cleveland. He gave a fortune to Cleveland. He kept a beautiful estate in Cleveland. He came every year. He loved Cleveland. He was very generous to people around Cleveland. Anyway, he came back. He loved Cleveland. Had a mansion on Millionaires Row on Euclid Avenue.
Brandon Scullion [00:38:30] He also donated the Rockefeller Park down in University Heights.
Tom Bush [00:38:33] He donated Rockefeller Park. And Lake View Cemetery was all his property at one time. Well anyway, what happened was he’d come back every summer to Cleveland and loved it. Then his mother and his wife took sick and he had to stay with them longer because they weren’t ready for travel. Obviously, travel wasn’t that easy in those days. So they normally would leave around the 1st of February. Well, they had to stay like the 22nd of February. Well, the county commissioners, or the taxing commissioners, as they were referred to back then, said, oh, boy, we can nail this guy for being a resident of Cleveland. And they leaned on him for a couple million dollars in taxes. So he bolts as soon as they were healthy to travel. He never returned to Cleveland again while he was alive. He waited to bury his mother in Cleveland until the case, which went to the Supreme Court, was overturned. And they said, no, you don’t owe this $2 million to Cleveland. Then he brought his mother there. He is buried in Cleveland, Lake View Cemetery. John D. Rockefeller, his whole family. So he drove out this guy. Now what would he have done? I don’t know. There’s Rockefeller Center in New York. He did a lot. He loved Cleveland. He grew up here. And that sort of, I don’t know, pennywise pound foolish mentality has dogged Cleveland for a long time. Jus has. And so I hope that it will work out and I’m optimistic that it will. But I believe it’s going to be someone stepping to the plate with a lot of money and a vision and people kind of staying out of their way and letting them go and doing what they got to do. You know, it wasn’t like when the Jacobs built a Key Bank building, they built the biggest bank, they built the biggest building in Cleveland they don’t worry about. And it’s fitting that it was the Jacobs brothers’ building that went past the Van Sweringen brothers’ building, in my opinion. And you know the story. I mean your dad’s friend used to work for BP, you know, and they used to say one of the things that drove the BP people crazy is you couldn’t get international flights to England. You had to take planes someplace else. You couldn’t get direct flights. And when they bought Amoco, they moved to Chicago. Well, they were the buyer. They should have stayed here. They were the buyer. But it drove them crazy that they couldn’t get direct flights. It just drove them crazy. So there’s things that we do that just don’t make any sense. You know, some of the stuff was settled. But yeah, I’m optimistic because it’s always been a great place. I mean there’s so many good famous people or great, you know, people have been who have made a real impact in the world in various professions have come from Cleveland, Ohio. You know, it’s amazing. Lew Wasserman, MCA, one of the top movie tycoons of all time. He’s a Cleveland [inaudible] kid. Paul Newman. I mean there’s a long, long list of people.
Brandon Scullion [00:41:26] The final question would be do you happen to have anything suggestion wise? I mean if you could actually say this would solve the problem, which obviously there’s no one thing that’s going to fix Cleveland. But I mean, do you have any ideas?
Tom Bush [00:41:41] Build on your strengths, so you build on Your strengths. Now if you look at the population of Cleveland, the top employers in the state of Ohio 10 years ago, there was in the Plain Dealer about a month or so ago, Ford was the number one employer in the city- in the state of Ohio. They are no longer. Walmart is. Not a good sign. They are the number one employer in the state of Ohio. However, the good side of that is two of them moved up into the top five, the state of Ohio employment, two of them that moved up in the state of Ohio. The top five, one is the Cleveland Clinic, the other one is University Hospitals. Now that’s our strength. Medically, the best heart facility in the entire world. I mean if you’re the Sheikh of Dubai or the Prince of Saudi Arabia, you come here to get your heart taken care of. I think you’ve got to build on your strengths. You got to improve the schools. You’ve got to get those straightened around. If you can do those things, this will all follow because, you know, you’ve got to keep- There’s such a good group of people here, you just got to keep them here and make them want to stay here. And the politicians, hopefully there will be people that they’ll be around that again that I said, who’ve got vision, who have an idea and they clear the decks and let them go and let them do what they want to do. If you do that, the city can turn around. I don’t have any question about that. Look what happened with Microsoft in the Northwest, you know. It transformed the entire Northwest. Who knows what it will be? NASA is a great place, but we’ve got to try and protect those jobs. NASA was very involved in alternative sources of energy in the late ’70s. I had a brother in law who was there looking at other things because oil prices were so high and they were working with windmills and different kinds of agricultural products that you could distill and make gasoline out of. They were doing all kinds of things. There’s great brainpower here. That’s the type of stuff you got to take advantage of. You got to build on your strengths.
Brandon Scullion [00:43:47] And hopefully this [Euclid] Corridor project’s going to really, you know, anchor some of those things in.
Tom Bush [00:43:51] Oh, I think so. I mean, you know, I think, you know, as much as I hate to say the word, you’re going to probably have to offer some tax abatements to get these people to move downtown, give them incentives to make them want to come there and then, you know, don’t, you know, this is absolutely driving me crazy. They’re trying to put up 30 cameras to catch people speeding. I mean, if this is your best idea to raise revenue in the city, I really feel sorry for you. That’s not going to- All you have to do is get nailed once with this downtown, going shopping with a camera. Are you ever coming back? You can say, well, it was yellow. There’s no one there to talk to. You’re just getting a ticket. I think it’s a bad idea. It’s shortsighted. You need things that are positive reinforcements, not just find these silly things to try and raise money. I just think it’s asinine. But anyway, those are things. The Corridor I think will help. Yes. Because if you’ve got a nice-looking downtown and make it inviting, people want to come down and shop if they think it’s safe, if it’s clean, if you get good stores, good prices, that you can walk around, maybe get some to eat and maybe take a play or something like that. Another positive thing is what Playhouse Square has done over these years. Those were theaters. They were run down. They were going to tear them down and now they came back and there was a lot of volunteer work. They little by little fixed them up and brought them back to some of the splendor they once were. And now it’s a good place for plays and performances, you know, and concerts and things like that.
Brandon Scullion [00:45:20] I hear some of a lot to do with their revitalization was their business improvement district. And I just went to a town hall meeting, which they’re trying to do that for the entire city. Not sure if it’s going to pass and it’s going to be probably on the ballot beginning of next year sometime, but from what I heard, it’s exciting.
Tom Bush [00:45:42] Well, I think, you know, Cleveland’s got great potential. I mean, you know.
Brandon Scullion [00:45:45] Absolutely.
Tom Bush [00:45:46] It’s great potential. Okay?
Brandon Scullion [00:45:49] Yeah, absolutely.
Tom Bush [00:45:50] Okay.
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