Why rock's hall of fame ended up beside Lake Erie in Cleveland
When the rock hall went looking for a home, Memphis, Detroit and Philadelphia all had strong claims. Cleveland won by offering $65 million in public money and a history lesson: a local disc jockey, Alan Freed, had coined the phrase rock and roll and staged what is often called the first big rock concert.
Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun set up the foundation on April 20, 1983, recruiting Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner and record executive Seymour Stein among others. Inductions started in 1986 while the hall was still homeless. New York City and Cincinnati, home of King Records, were also on the shortlist. Freed's Moondog Coronation Ball had taken place in Cleveland, and the city's radio station WMMS had helped break acts like David Bowie, who opened his first American tour there. Freed himself was in the first class of inductees, and Cleveland was picked in 1986.
Planners weighed a riverside plot and, during a funding shortfall, an empty department store before settling on a lakefront site on East Ninth Street and hiring I. M. Pei. His design pairs a tower with a jutting glass pyramid. He wanted the tower 200 feet high but had to trim it to 162 because of the nearby Burke Lakefront Airport. Pete Townshend, Chuck Berry and Billy Joel attended the groundbreaking on June 7, 1993.
Yoko Ono and Little Richard helped cut the ribbon on September 1, 1995, in front of more than 10,000 people, and the next night Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Bruce Springsteen were among the stars at a concert in Cleveland Stadium. Inside, seven levels trace the roots of rock through gospel, blues, folk and bluegrass, with galleries on cities from Liverpool to Seattle and even on the protests rock provoked. Inductees get their own wing cantilevered over the lake.
Most induction ceremonies have taken place in New York, but Cleveland has hosted seven. The 2009 week there generated over $13 million in economic impact plus another $20 million in media exposure. In 2020 the museum announced it would grow its footprint by a third, with the firm PAU leading the design.
Source: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
