100 Years in Pictures

Progressive Field at GatewayThe foundation’s vision of creating a wind farm in Lake Erie is moving closer to reality.A new company that makes and installs solar-panel arrays has been created with foundation support.The issues facing 21st-century Clevelanders—educational and economic opportunity, neighborhood and cultural vitality, and strong health and human services—are much the same as those with which earlier generations wrestled.Addressing the changing socioeconomic needs of the African-American community: 20th anniversary convening of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, hosted by Cleveland in 1929Ralph J. Perk lends a hand to the theater restoration project, which began during his tenure as Cleveland mayor. Stokes with his brother Louis (left)2006: Cleveland Clinic Foundation1959: Cleveland Institute of Music1968: Karamu House1961: Benjamin Rose InstituteFrances Southworth GoffGreen City Growers Cooperative’s 3.25-acre hydroponic greenhouse in the Central neighborhood opened in 2013. Hunter MorrisonAn owner-employee of the Evergreen LaundryLinking city kids to life-enriching programs: Duffy Liturgical Dance teaches children to perform and thus preserve songs and dances created by African slaves in America.Stanley C. PaceRock and Roll Hall of Fame and MuseumHomer C. WadsworthThe Cleveland Foodbank’s LEED-certified distribution centerUpper Chester, which abuts the Cleveland Clinic, is the next Circle neighborhood slated for redevelopment.Sophisticated life support equipment in an air ambulance made by Nextant Aerospace, Ohio’s only aircraft manufacturer and a MAGNET clientKenneth W. Clement M.D.2013: Friends of the Cleveland School of the ArtsLakeview TerraceGeorge and Janet VoinovichGraduation day at Cleveland Early College High School, 2012J. Kimball JohnsonOhio CityThe Cleveland Housing Network assisted the Mt. Pleasant Now nonprofit development corporation with the construction of the Union Court senior apartments.Church Square Commons, offering affordable apartments for adults 55 and older, is one of the Famicos Foundation’s most recent projects in Hough.2010: Case Western Reserve UniversityTreu-Mart FundMAGNET consultants helped Nextant Aerospace of Richmond Heights, Ohio, apply lean principles to its specialty business of remanufacturing corporate jets for an under-$5 million market. Charles A. RatnerUnder the leadership of former CEO Baiju Shah, BioEnterprise created, recruited or helped to grow more than 170 local biotechnology companies.Frances Southworth, Goff’s bride and intellectual partnerThe March on Washington, August 28, 1963, at which Martin Luther King Jr. called upon the nation to make good on democracy’s promise of social and economic freedom for all citizens Dancing WheelsTom L. Johnson, a reformer who served as Cleveland’s mayor from 1901 to 1909, helped to shape the city’s progressive climate. Dr. King speaking in Rockefeller Park on a visit to Cleveland in 1967. The previous year he had dramatized the issue of housing discrimination by moving his family into a grimy apartment on the segregated west side of Chicago and joining in protest marches into that city’s all-white neighborhoods.Although the foundation’s trailblazing was a faded tradition by 1955, when this picture of the trustee bank presidents holding a replica of the foundation’s logo was snapped, its stature as the world’s first community trust remained a source of pride.2010: Hawken School2002: Cleveland Institute of MusicMembers of the African-American Philanthropy Committee: Reverend Elmo A. Bean, Doris A. Evans, M.D., David G. Hill, Lillian W. BurkePlanning model of Cleveland, c. 1960Circle institutions have invested or are planning to invest billions in capital improvements, such as University Hospitals of Cleveland’s new Seidman Cancer Center.Raymond C. MoleyDancer/choreographer Kapila Palihawadana of Sri Lanka, 2012 artist in residence with the Inlet Dance Theatre, conducts a master dance class at the Beck Center for the Performing Arts.Fostering economic opportunity via college scholarships: Garment workers at Joseph & Feiss Company, makers of the $15 blue serge suitGlobal Cleveland’s welcome centerBarack Obama campaigns at Tri-C, 2007FairfaxThe foundation’s 1915 public education survey resulted in sweeping reform. For decades thereafter, Cleveland’s school system was regarded as a model of excellence.John Sherwin Jr.1976: Cleveland Play HouseThe Cleveland Foundation emerged from the crucible of the 1960s a stronger leader and more strategic grantmaker.The Great Lakes Science Center’s wind turbineJacqueline F. WoodsPresbyterian minister Bruce W. Klunder died while protesting the construction of three public elementary schools that Cleveland’s civil rights community believed would perpetuate a system of segregated and inferior education for African-American students.2007: Great Lakes Theater Festival1984: Cleveland Department of Parks, Recreation and PropertiesRobert E. Eckardt, Ph.D.Goff in a rare moment of leisureGroundWorks Dance TheaterCleveland Institute of ArtMAGNET’s Prism program helped Cleveland-based Vitamix keep up with demand for its high-end blenders.SPACESBusiness growth: The Greater Cleveland Partnership’s business development teamGreat Lakes Science CenterAn assembly line at the Ford Motor Company plant in Brook Park, 1973: manufacturing jobs on the declineStokes and his wife, Shirley, on election day, 1968 Lexington Village2009: Cleveland Institute of Art2001: Cleveland Botanical GardenWelcome committees were organized to greet bused students on their first day at their new crosstown schools. 1986: Cain ParkJohn SherwinR. M. Fischer’s Sports StacksThe grand opening of The Avenue at Tower City, 1990Nancy Dwyer’s Who’s on First? benchIn 1967, this Cleveland Heights home, owned by an African American, was bombed in a senseless and vain attempt to halt the suburb’s integration.Commencement at Tri-C, 1975The Frederick C. Crawford Auto Aviation Collection at the Western Reserve Historical SocietyInauguration ceremony of the 1975 World Conference of the International Women’s Year, Mexico City1981: Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater ClevelandParticipants in Parade the Circle, an annual celebration of creativity Master planner I. M. Pei (right), Cleveland’s urban renewal director James Lister (center) and chief architect Jack Hayes at the Erieview Tower construction site, 1954 MAGNET incubator tenant Tom Lix, the founder and CEO of Cleveland Whiskey, which has developed a proprietary process for accelerating the aging of distilled liquorsHarold T. ClarkCleveland’s busy riverfront, south of the Superior ViaductSt. Joseph's Orphanage for Girls on Woodland Avenue2000: Cleveland Zoological SocietyJames D. WilliamsonMalcolm L. McBrideKaramu HouseSold out! Heritage Lane townhomes, built within walking distance of the CircleBusiness attraction: The Global Center for Health Innovation1986: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum1985: Cleveland State UniversityKent H. SmithMichael D. White won voter support for “mayoral control” of the Cleveland public schools.Ronald B. RichardThe Cleveland Trust Company’s neoclassical banking hall, which opened in 1908, was topped by an immense stained-glass dome.Frederick Harris Goff, humanitarian, 1858‒1923Institute of Pathology at Western Reserve University, as it appeared at its opening in 1929The NAACP-Cleveland’s fight for desegregation ultimately leads in 1973 to a federal lawsuit against the Cleveland public schools: the likelihood of court-ordering busing Dispersed by police, the protesters did not succeed in halting construction, but Klunder’s martyrdom inspired the civil rights community to continue what was ultimately a victorious fight against segregation of the Cleveland public schools.On his way to building Cleveland Trust into America’s sixth largest bank, Goff occasionally took time out to indulge his passion for fishing.The cast of Nicholas NicklebyHolsey Gates Handyside2004: Cleveland Museum of Art2003: Hanna Perkins Center for Child DevelopmentFrank H. and Nancy L. Porter FundTo date, 100 percent of the student body at the School of Science and Medicine goes on to college.University Circle’s cultural institutions have long been renowned for their enriching educational activities.1968: Holden ArboretumBarbara Haas RawsonAlfred M. Rankin Jr.Apollo’s FireFirst grants to advance serious medical research in an era still plagued with quackery: The Cunningham Sanitarium, located at East 185th Street and Lake Shore Boulevard, c. 1928. The sanitarium offered patients access to the world’s largest hyperbaric chamber, but its claims for the benefits of oxygen therapy proved specious.Halprin worksheetPrivately developed Beacon Place Townhomes on East 82nd Street—evidence of the return of middle-class Clevelanders to the central cityCleveland voters expressed their hopes for the success of the reform plan by approving the Issue 107 operating levy.L. Dale Dorney FundAn examination room at the Glenville Health ClinicThe passenger terminal at Cleveland-Hopkins Airport, c. 1956After their father's untimely death, future political icons Carl (left) and Louis Stokes lived with their mother at Outhwaite Homes.2006: MOCA ClevelandInnovation: CleveMed’s wireless sleep monitorRaymond Q. ArmingtonCleveland Film Society1998: Cuyahoga Valley Scenic RailroadCleveland Housing Network financing programs have helped low- to moderate-income families become homeowners.Mayor Dennis Kucinich’s ceremonial presentation of a post-default debt paymentSustaining the excellence of the region’s cultural assets: a summer solstice party at the Cleveland Museum of ArtKatharine Holden Thayer by Cindy Naegele1991: Hathaway Brown SchoolCatharine Monroe LewisMalvin E. BankCaptain Frank’s seafood restaurant at the end of the Ninth Street Pier once commanded downtown’s best view of Lake Erie.Fred S. McConnellDavid Goldberg1976: Sokol HallAdam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, Oberlin CollegePlayhouse Square, c. 19692000: Therapeutic Riding CenterCleveland mayor Ralph S. Locher1956: Cleveland Institute of ArtThe Ohio Department of Natural Resources invested more than $40 million in capital improvements to the band of green spaces renamed the Cleveland Lakefront State Park. Cleveland Ballet co-founder Dennis Nahat as the tsar and Nanette Glushak as the tsarina in the company’s signature holiday performance of The Nutcracker1973: Severance Hall1999: Western Reserve Historical SocietyLAND Studio’s proposed redesign of Public SquareOhio governor John Kasich at the signing of House Bill 525, legislation enabling education reform, in June 20121972: Huron Road MallSupport for humanitarian aid to the unemployed: Stone carvers responsible for the iconic pylons of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, a rare Depression-era construction project completed in 1932 with bond funds approved before the stock market crashSlavic Village1957: Cleveland Museum of Natural HistoryThe restored Hungarian Cultural GardenNew Gallery co-founders Marjorie Talalay (left) and Nina Castelli SundellNewBridge prepares adults for careers as health care technicians.The RetreatProjects receiving recent Neighborhood Connection grants have ranged from hands-on crafts classes to the reintroduction of beekeeping. Detroit ShorewayThe Dolan Center for Science and Technology at John Carroll University incorporated green building materials and smart energy and water systems.Ivan Lecaros (right), a master printmaker from Chile, puts the final touches on a drawing for a silkscreen print during his 2012 residency at Zygote Press.The Palace, the flagship of the Keith chain of vaudeville theaters, reinvented itself as a wide-screen movie house in the 1950s.Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey showed his support for Stokes’s Cleveland: NOW! initiative on a visit to the city in 1968.Hough’s frustrations with its seemingly intractable problems erupted into violence during the summer of 1966.Halprin’s impressionist sketch of Cleveland’s “Flats,” which he praised as a “tremendous resource.” Andrew Carnegie, the “king of steel,” created a private foundation to carry out his philanthropic activities. Goff invented a simpler, more affordable mechanism to serve the charitable impulses of caring individuals of all means.Tri-C’s early use of computers as a teaching aid, c. 1980An east-side Cleveland elementary school, 1963: growing frustration with what appears to be systematic segregationSinging AngelsCleveland schools CEO Eric Gordon and Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson stumping in 2012 for the passage of the first operating levy to be placed on the ballet in 16 yearsRichard W. PogueA burning desire to be an attorney animated Goff as a young man. Donald and Ruth GoodmanThe State TheatreA satellite photograph of Lake Erie, downtown Cleveland and the Cuyahoga River valley: The foundation has learned to take the long view in helping the community craft fresh responses to persistent urban problems.Steven A. MinterTri-C JazzFest, 1993Artist’s conception of the new Regional Transit Authority station planned for Mayfield Road in Little ItalyCleveland Public ArtGlenville High School students, 1914MAGNET incubator graduate, DXY Solutions, makes components and software for mobile devices.1996: Old Stone Church1975: Kenneth C. Beck Center for the Cultural ArtsThe East Central Townhomes, after a $1.2 million renovation by Burten, Bell and Carr Development CorporationCarl B. Stokes at a town hall meeting, 1969: an historic but troubled mayoral administration Albert Sabin (left) developed the oral vaccine given to Cleveland children.Cleveland Housing Network was the lead developer of Greenbridge Commons, permanent housing for chronically homeless individuals, in the Fairfax neighborhood.The original Free Clinic, a drug treatment center on Cornell RoadWade Lagoon, the tranquil heart of Cleveland’s cultural hub Uptown, the Circle’s exciting, new high-density neighborhood, has all the amenities associated with urban living.A new generation of Circle fans2002: Shaker Lakes Regional Nature CenterGordon Park in its heydayNeighbors who have come together to work on improvement of their neighborhoodGoff did not believe that philanthropy should be the exclusive province of wealthy individuals such as Standard Oil Company founder John D. Rockefeller, a client of Goff’s former law firm.Cleveland Museum of ArtBarbecue restaurant owner Al (Bubba) Baker received a microloan that enabled the former Browns football player to begin local distribution of his proprietary de-boned baby-back ribs.Vietnamese lutist Pham Thi Hue was Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio’s artist in residence in 2013.F. James and Rita Rechin FundCleveland OrchestraFamed urban planner Lawrence Halprin (right) presented his ideas for downtown Cleveland’s redevelopment at a public forum in 1975 attended by Cleveland mayor Ralph J. Perk (center) and May Company department store president Francis Coy (left).Chester Avenue demarks the northern border of the MidTown Corridor.Advocating greater reliance on clean energy: a wind farm in northwestern OhioThe gallery's second home on Bellflower Road in University CircleJames A. NortonCleveland BalletCool Cleveland editor and publisher Tom MulreadyThe West 25th Street retail district in Ohio City exemplifies the objective recently adopted by Neighborhood Progress, Inc. of restoring market forces in target neighborhoods.Foundation leaders confer about how to distribute 1947 income of $614,479 to a standing list of charitable institutions and agencies. Foundation director Leyton E. Carter (third from right) is seated next to the board’s sole female member, Constance Mather Bishop. Goff wisely decided that an independent citizen’s committee should determine how a community foundation’s income should be distributed, rather than the directors of the foundation’s trustee bank. Mort Epstein’s Pop Art-inspired electrical outlet, a CAAC-commissioned mural, graced the Union building on Euclid Avenue.TremontCarl W. Brand27 Coltman, a luxury townhome development on the eastern boundary of University CircleA greasy-spoon diner and flophouse at Payne and Walnut Avenues downtown, c. 1968—emblems of the City of Cleveland’s intensifying financial distress Sherwick FundFirst Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (third from left) at the 1937 dedication of Lakeview Terrace, the nation’s first public housingThe foundation helped to draft and win passage of a clean energy law for Ohio.Title VIII (the “Federal Fair Housing Act”) of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, signed by President Johnson a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., advanced the struggle for integration taking place in Cleveland’s eastern suburbs and elsewhere across the nation.Contaminants flowing into Lake Erie, 1965Carlton K. MatsonPalace Theatre lobbyCleveland City Hospital’s “iron lung” respirator, used for treating polio patients whose paralyzed muscles cause breathing difficulties, 1933MOCA Cleveland’s faceted, mirrored, four-story art gallery anchors the Uptown development.John J. DwyerH. Stuart HarrisonThe bulldozer operator accidentally backed over Rev. Klunder in order to avoid hurting the protestors lying in front of him.Leadership of a 1933 initiative to replace squalid tenements with subsidized garden apartmentsKucinich proclaiming victory on the eve of his election as mayor in 1977Harry Goldblatt, M.D.The formal entrance to the Judson Park retirement community, an independent living facility erected in 1974 next to the traditional nursing home established by the Baptist Home of Ohio in the former Bicknell mansion on Cleveland’s east sideEvergreen Energy Solution’s photovoltaic panelsAnisfield-Wolf Book AwardsTri-C groundbreaking, 1966John L. McChordThe Board of Education building in downtown Cleveland, longtime headquarters of the system’s central administrationManchester Bidwell, the Pittsburgh model on which NewBridge is based, has instilled a love of learning in teens who previously did not fare well in school.James R. GarfieldJames A. RatnerA “City Canvases” mural by graphic designer John Morell1982: Cleveland Institute of ArtProposed townhomes for East 118th StreetEdgewater Park under state stewardshipAretha Franklin at the Tri-C JazzFestThe 2011 renovation of the Allen Theatre's main auditoriumA. E. Convers FundEuclid Avenue, looking east, c. 1910Entrepreneurship: Wood Trac, an affordable, drop-ceiling system developed and marketed by Sauder Woodworking, a family-owned business in Ashland, OhioLeyton E. CarterHarry Coulby FundsGrand opening of the Outhwaite Homes, 19372005: ideastreamCleveland, Ohio, the birthplace of an entirely new concept of philanthropyThe Peter B. Lewis Building, designed by Frank Gehry, is the home of Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management.Wade Oval Wednesdays, summertime’s popular outdoor music series1982: The TempleBelle SherwinCleveland’s well-financed and -run network of community development organizations targeted this crumbling but historic eight-unit rowhouse in the Central neighborhood for rehabilitation.Great Lakes Theater FestivalA landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision righted the injustice experienced by Clarence Earl Gideon, a drifter who was convicted of felony theft because he could not afford an attorney and had defended himself at trial.Cleveland OrchestraOn December 15, 1978, Cleveland City Council considered and rejected Mayor Kucinich’s 11th-hour plan to avoid default.The multitude of organizational nameplates on the door to the Cleveland Foundation’s offices in the 1970s testified to its rebirth as a nexus of progressive philanthropy and an incubator of social-action programs. 1964: Garden Center of Greater ClevelandBy 1929, when Cleveland laid claim to having the tallest skyscraper in the country—the Terminal Tower, evocatively captured here by famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White—the community foundation movement had spread across America.The Goff home on Lake Shore Boulevard in BratenahlReinhold W. Erickson, D.D.S.The reversal of downtown Cleveland’s stagnation, symbolized by the redevelopment of the Terminal Tower, is a 60-year-old work in progress in which the foundation has been steadily engaged.Charles P. BoltonLake-Geauga FundMOCA ClevelandCleveland Institute of MusicClean water advocates, 1968CommunityFoundationAtlas.org website1967: Blossom Music Center1994: Great Lakes Science Museum1997: Cleveland Clinic FoundationCleveland Play House2004: The Gathering PlaceCommunityFoundationAtlas.org websiteEllwood H. FisherGreen City Growers supplies Bibb lettuce, green leaf lettuce, gourmet lettuces and basil to institutional and commercial customers.1996: Dunham Tavern MuseumProtest demonstration at Cleveland State University, 1969: poverty rates in the central city on the riseArchitectural drawing of the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority's Lakeview Tower, a senior high-rise proposed for the near west side in 1971Flotsam despoiling the beach at Gordon ParkThe Allen Theatre, originally an opulent silent movie house, c. 1938