heads up on Breuer/Bauhaus eruptions

I'm hoping everybody is following the fantastic dialoghue about Marcel Breuer erupting over at RealNEO as a result of Susan Miller's organizational and educational efforts for explicating and enriching our local artistic, design, and architectural legacies. Go there. Poke around. There's a ton of Breuer content extant this past 7 or 8 months, and Susan seems to be the nexus. Make sure you catch the links, too, to Marc Lefkowitz at Green City Blue Lake.

All in all, I'm very proud of our arts and professional communities for the effort they are putting behind appreciation of our intrinsic wealth, our legacy in architecture, at this point focusing on Breuer and sustainability. Waste not, want not.

Here's a small sample of the massive synergy Susan is bringing together.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 6:00pm -- Green building and modernism; are they antithetical?

· Guest lecturer, Carl Stein, FAIA, Principal of elemental architecture, llc, of New York City and his late father, Richard Stein, FAIA, have completed numerous historic rehabilitation projects based on their innovative and pioneering research in the analysis of energy use and conservation in buildings and design. He served his architectural internship with Marcel Breuer from 1968-1971.

At Judson at University Circle (free parking available)

Brought to you by Doty & Miller Architects, D.H. Ellison Co., Peter Lawson Jones, Recent Past Preservation Network, Richard Fleischman Architects, Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, Robert Maschke Architects, Inc., Process Creative Studios Inc., Jim Rokakis, Schmidt Copeland Parker Stevens with assistance from Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland Institute of Art, Judson Manor, The Sculpture Center, Intermuseum Conservation Association, AIA Cleveland, Kent State University Art History, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, Cleveland Artists Foundation, GreenCityBlueLake, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Studio Techne Architects

a fungible feast

fungible - Definitions from Dictionary.com -- In my email this morning, I got notice that the word for the day is "fungible," which word I heard bandied about by the upper-echelon staff of Cuyahoga County and the county commissioners with regard to the Breuer Tower demolition financing, the MedicalMartConventionCenter, and the 1/4% tax increase for what merely goes without restriction or earmarking to the general fund. Here's the whole entry so you, too, can begin to speak in the hip financial parlance of the people you elected or hired to know what's best for you.

Word of the Day for Saturday, September 8, 2007

fungible \FUHN-juh-buhl\, adjective:

1. (Law) Freely exchangeable
for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation.

2. Interchangeable.

3. Something that is exchangeable or substitutable. Usually used in the plural.

People think this tax is for Social Security. But tax monies are really fungible. They get raided all the time.-- Eugene Ludwig, "Motivated to Work," interview by Kerry A. Dolan", Forbes, March 20, 2000

The setting is Ireland in the 1950's, but, a cynical reader might reflect, this sort of fiction is so common that the characters will be completely fungible.-- Susan Isaacs, "Three Little Girls From School", New York Times, December 30, 1990

Genuine eros makes us desire a particular person; crude desire is satisfiable by fungible bodies.-- Edward Craig (general editor), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Fungible comes from Medieval Latin fungibilis, from Latin fungi (vice),
"to perform (in place of)."

Dictionary.com Entry and
Pronunciation for fungible

Yesterday's Word - Previous Words - Help

Cuyahoga County reckoning day: what color ink to use?

Cuyahoga lowers home valuations - cleveland.com -- Here's a PD piece by Mike O'Malley from last Saturday, talking about $1 billion in reassessments dropping off the books. I wish I knew from the article how much that was, roughly, in dollars. Perhaps we can back into it.

Another thing happening is that now, as of July 2nd, all people over 65 are eligible for the Homestead Tax Exemption in Ohio. That includes Cuyahoga County. For each person now qualifying, each person who didn't qualify for the exemption before because of having a higher income, this means roughly $400 in savings, which is the amount of the tax on the first $25,000 of valuation. Somebody must have an estimate of what this will cost the county, but I haven't seen it anywhere yet. From these figures, though, we know that 1.6% of $25,000 gives us the $400 savings. Therefore, the $1,000,000,000 in O'Malley's article will cost the county $16 million in revenue they had been anticipating.

Yet another thing happening, pointed out to us by our friend Jill Miller Zimon, is that the county, for the period ending in April, has experienced 25 consecutive months of declining sales-tax revenues. I wish this were quantified in dollars, too.

In these three instances, then, there is compelling evidence that Cuyahoga County doesn't have the money to do what it set out to do, like tear down the Breuer Tower and build something new in its place. Perhaps it's time to come clean with the public; perhaps it's time for transparency; failing that, perhaps it's time for an audit.

Here's the front end of O'Malley's article:

Cuyahoga County has wiped nearly $1 billion in estimated property values off the books after thousands of homeowners complained about a 2006 reassessment that raised combined residential values by 16 percent.

More than 29,000 homeowners successfully argued that the collapse of the housing market meant that values assigned to their properties were too high. Another 6,000 complaints have yet to be resolved.

tying the Breuer demolition to the sales tax deception

CLEVELAND'S BREUER DESIGNED TOWER’S PENDING DEMO FEATURED IN GERMAN ARCHITECTURAL MAGAZINE REALNEO for all -- Susan Miller ties the planned demolition of the Breuer Tower to the deception of the bait-and-switch sales-tax increase. If what we hear about the county's being flat broke is true, then we need to stop all spending and stop giving them more money until we have a thorough audit. It seems that things at the county have gotten too fungible, too fungible for words. Perhaps we should put it to music. Here's Susan's wrap-up. The entire post is very enlightening and gives good background and perspective.

There are only a few days remaining for the opponents of the demolition to gather 46,000 signatures necessary to retain the Breuer Tower which exemplarily represents a blind spot in the preservation movement. It is neither new enough to be loved nor old enough to be protected. Each generation resents the young/more recent inheritances of their parent’s generation the most.Note -- The idea that we must have 46,000 signatures to retain the tower relates to the fact that despite suggestions that the tax increase is being implemented to build a convention center to leverage a medical mart, the approximately $880 million that would be raised is not slated for building a $350 million or even $500 million convention center -- but goes to the general fund which would allow the county the money it would need ASAP to begin demolition of the tower and building of the KPF/Madison county govermnent mall in the financial district. The question has been raised repeatedly, but not answered by the BOCC -- where would you get the cash to vacate all the offices you currently occupy, raze the tower and other buildings and build a new office building. I guess we know -- from the tax hike. (www.putitontheballot.com)

Another note: Some have suggested that when federal money was made available for the RTA's Euclid Corridor project, a certain number of jobs coming to the avenue was tied to that money. We have wondered aloud repeatedly what is the economic development in moving existing jobs from one block of the city to another. If the county moves their jobs to the corner of 9th and Euclid, this may be the easy (though expensive) way for them to achieve this caveat of the funding promise. Since the construction of the Euclid Corridor has not been a streamlined effort with crews working round the clock or even in many locations simultaneously, the avenue is bleeding businesses and jobs. Moving county government to the corner of 9th and Euclid (BOCC choosing this site despite many more reasonable options such as the already buildingless corner of Public Square) is a quick finger in the dike of losing that funding.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to decieve! [sic]

innumeracy running rampant in PD editorial

Push ahead on county building - cleveland.com -- Once again, the PLAIN DEALER, from its bully pulpit as the self-appointed arbiter of community values around here, comes down square on the side of innumeracy, spending sprees, bond issues, and cultural vacuity.

The cultural part is that they don't appreciate what tearing down a Breuer will do to our regional reputation across the country and internationally, especially if they're intending to replace it with "a Madison." Is that better or worse than "a Dicky" or "a Fleischman"? I guess the jury's going to be out on that one for a while. However, I don't think that demolishing a Breuer will enhance our collective reputations. But, the mark of a strong, self-sufficient, healthy mentality is that it doesn't take what others think overly much into account when formulating plans and actions. Let's assume the regional mentality is healthy, and let's move on to the numbers.

Numbers are bandied about freely in this dialogue, and they're broad-stroke numbers that are seldom correlated to anything else, or each other. Everyone here has been remiss in doing the due diligence required when it comes to net cost to the public--back then, now, and later. Restoration and rehabilitation will make for more jobs, but you don't hear that from our unions--there are way more man-hours in the re-do. Where is the comparison? Why don't they talk about the benefit for local labor?

Where is the side-by-side for acquisition cost, tax credits, demolition costs, abatement costs, and so forth? I've been to the hearings. It's not there. It's all just speculation. There is still no concrete plan for the new building. This whole thing reeks.

If you buy a building for $22M and then demolish it, what is left? The value of the land? The value of the other building? What is the difference between wasting an asset through demolition (let's face it, you just don't "deconstruct" anything from the raw-concrete "brutalist" school) and giving it away to another entity, an entity that could use the tax credits in a mixed-use-development (MUD) format? When you add up the cost of acquiring the asset, abating the asbestos, tearing it down, and building new at a time when construction costs are escalating and all that's available is non-Cleveland steel, doesn't it make more economic sense to give it away for nothing or sell it for a nominal sum to a developer experienced with MUDs who can use or sell the tax credits to lower the net cost, give the county an economic benefit in lease abatement equal to or greater than what their original cost of the acquisition was, and manage the property properly when we finally get around to reducing the size of county government, or when we go regional and all the smart management decides they want to be in Akron? (am I just kidding?)

Anyway, there's been no creative work done with the numbers, because the current two go-go boys on the county commission, Jimmy and Timmy, have no concern for what this will cost us, our kids, or our grandkids. (Heck, our kids, half our immediate family, have already left for Tennessee and Georgia, with our encouragement.) The go-go boys have no trouble with the concept of enslavement of the population to bond payments. They have no trouble with the concept of subsidizing the Kennedy family on our backs. They have no idea of the magnitude of the debt they create. All they do is talk about "too big" and "ugly" and "unadaptable" and "obsolete."

My mom used to say something about those who live in glass houses.

James O. unloads antiques 'n things

Our friend, photographer Jamie Janos, is having a sale tomorrow and Saturday at his studio, and it looks to be stupendous. We may very well drop by after going to the City Planning Commission session about the Breuer Tower.

Denise delivers a wake-up call--another strong voice emerging

Save Our Land: Losing Our History: You need to read the whole thing, about the emerging pattern of fraud and abuse. Denise nails it. About the only thing we don't have here is a recounting of how Allega, under contract, ripped the bridge's cantilevered sidewalk and gutter system off the bridge and accelerated it's surface decay, hastening they day when they thought they would get to pour more concrete. It's a hurt-and-rescue story that needs telling, in detail, even though they're now supposedly barred from doing work in the city (another "joke," perhaps?). We need to start talking about restitution. We need to start taking our money back. There's a pattern here, and Denise is onto it.

"The Fulton Road Bridge has been destroyed. Breuer Tower is on the destruction list. Other significant buildings downtown are endangered, if ODOT pursues its current plan for the Innerbelt.

WAKE UP, CLEVELAND!!

We who have been labeled the poorest city in America are losing our hard-earned dollars hand-over-fist to bogus projects our government and agencies have cooked up. Not only that, but we are becoming ever poorer in terms of our historic infrastructure and heritage"