Some residents say it's not much safer now than it was then. But the whole population temporarily buried its troubles and joined in the effort to make people reconsider and respect what some have called "the mistake on the lake."
"The entire project," as Bill Miller, a 19-year veteran reporter for the Plain Dealer, explained, "is to try to change the city's poor image, fanned by jokes on TV shows, defaults, and the infamous burning of the Cuyohaga River."
The debate, Voinovich contended, "does as much for us as a national convention--and it's a hell of a lot cheaper."
The estimated $200,000 bill for preparing and staging the 90-minute show will be picked up from donations from companies and citizens, some of whom have already launched a $3-million advertising blitzkreig, known as The New Cleveland Campaign.
But most of the press saw little of either new or old Cleveland, confining itself to the four-block area bounded by the public square, the Bond Court Hotel--where Carter is staying--and the Public Hall itself.
That's Incomprehensible
A great deal of attention naturally centered on the Public Music Hall, where about 700 hand-picked or very rich (tickets were going for $500) people saw the debate live and in color.
Most of the journalists, meanwhile, huddled at tables and TV monitors in the adjoining public hall, where batteries of typewriters, phones, computer banks and even a travel agent greeted them.
Just hours before Howard K. Smith welcomed the crowd of 100 million watching on television to the debate, workmen were still installing phones and checking the electrical connections in the halls. Since the city found out five days ago it would host the debate, civic leaders have been praying that Cleveland--where Charles Brush in 1879 invented the first street light--would live up to its reputation as the electricity capital of North America.
Welcome To...
Debate planners have been having nightmares about Sept. 23, 1976. It was that day in Philadelphia, at exactly 10:51.05p.m., that a 25-cent foil-wrapped electrical capacitor gave way during a debate between Carter and former president Gerald R. Ford. The world, and the stony-faced candidates, waited in silence for 28 minutes.
Clevelanders were out to prove last night that their city can handle the pressure of the big time. And so they asked the Cleveland chapter of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Clubs--which had originally reserved the Public Hall or tonight--to move its annual Ebony fashion fair down the street to the Palace Theater.
And they cleared out the floor of the Public Hall--witness to flower shows, circuses, and an out-of-control Beatles concert in 1964--and brought in the press.
"A year ago somebody would have said, 'You're crazy to bring a debate to Cleveland,' "Voinovich said. "That's all changed today."
No More Goats
A long time observer of the city agreed, saying. "The greatest critics of Cleveland five years ago were Clevelanders. We're tired of being goats."
Outside, some Clevelanders yanked their collars up against the wind and chose to ignore the goings-on. "What's the big deal about a debate?" one woman asked as she caught the bus home to the nearby suburb of Lakewood. "After all, it's still Reagan and Carter who were talking."