Other things only a Clevelander would know/appreciate (Columbus, Akron: best neighborhood, agriculture)

[nixie]

The St. Joseph vs Euclid High School football rivalry.

[nixie]

The Cleveland Singing Angels (although they've made trips outside of the Cleveland area).

[Minervah]

We all know all about the chandelier over Playhouse Square but I just read that GE that lights it also makes the lights for the "Tower Bridge" in London and "The Statue of Liberty." I guess I thought that was cool because now I can say I have been to all three.

Tonight Show: Cleveland Turned on World

I just sort of glanced through this thread and noticed someone mentioned Newberry's and asked if it was in other states. They were in Portland, OR a couple of decades ago. And Zayre's was in Chicago when I left there in the '70's but I don't know if they still are.

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by Minervah

We all know all about the chandelier over Playhouse Square but I just read that GE that lights it also makes the lights for the "Tower Bridge" in London and "The Statue of Liberty." I guess I thought that was cool because now I can say I have been to all three.

Tonight Show: Cleveland Turned on World

I just sort of glanced through this thread and noticed someone mentioned Newberry's and asked if it was in other states. They were in Portland, OR a couple of decades ago. And Zayre's was in Chicago when I left there in the '70's but I don't know if they still are.

Minervah, that article probably is inaccurate regarding Thomas Edison's involvement at Nela Park.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...82001339,d.eXY

History of NELA | GE Lighting North America

Nela Park | Cleveland Historical

GE's Nela Park also is significantly involved in lighting Cleveland landmarks.

GE gift of LED lighting for Public Square|LEDlight|LEDFloodlight|LEDTubelight|LEDdown light|LEDpower|LEDdriver|LEDblubslight-GLee Power

I wonder if any lighting display is as much fun as that of the Terminal Tower:

Ypay videos

See the last paragraph here, if you would like to tweet a request for a particular lighting scheme of the Terminal Tower, apart from the formal request form for organizations.

About Town: How did the Terminal Tower change Cleveland? | Article Archives | Arts & Entertainemnt | Cleveland Magazine - Your guide to the best of Cleveland

Several decades ago, it seems to me that the Nela Park Christmas lighting display was much larger as it included areas inside Nela Park, and it certainly created much more massive traffic jams as there was nothing else like it in the region. I believe it took over an hour to get through it during our annual visits.

One purpose of Nela Park's Christmas lighting display was to popularize outdoor holiday lighting of homes. Holiday lighting may be one of Cleveland's great inventions.

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/...nt?oid=1473229

A Holiday Tradition: Driving the Neighborhood to See Decorations - America Comes Alive

Of course, Nela Park is its people.

Maryrose Sylvester of GE Lighting glows about our city: My Cleveland | cleveland.com

[Minervah]

Thanks for the update on Nela Park. Just goes to show you can't believe everything you read on the Internet. We still enjoyed what we saw. It was the best light show I had ever seen including Disney IMHO. I'm going to keep this info about the rest for next year's visit.

One thing I would miss about a display in Portland if they still had it but they don't thanks to Macy's, is Meier and Frank's the store Macy's steamrolled, er I mean took over. They used to have wonderful animatronic very old figures depicting the twelve days of Christmas but with a sense of humor. As an example, the "two turtle doves" were electronic flying turtles with wings.

All the windows had similar characters for each verse of the song but when Macy's took over they just replaced the great exhibits with boring old clothes and a few snowflakes.

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by Minervah

One thing I would miss about a display in Portland if they still had it but they don't thanks to Macy's, is Meier and Frank's the store Macy's steamrolled, er I mean took over. They used to have wonderful animatronic very old figures depicting the twelve days of Christmas but with a sense of humor. As an example, the "two turtle doves" were electronic flying turtles with wings.

All the windows had similar characters for each verse of the song but when Macy's took over they just replaced the great exhibits with boring old clothes and a few snowflakes.

Cleveland and even Akron used to have superb downtown Christmas window displays. Of course, there were no suburban malls and department stores until perhaps the 1960s.

Even more spectacular, was the Sterling Lindner Christmas tree, a four-story giant decorated with exquisite, giant ornaments. I remember going to upper levels of the Sterling Lindner atrium just to view the tree.

Downtown Department Stores | Cleveland Historical

The Sterling Lindner Davis Christmas Trees

Half Pudding Half Sauce: World's Largest Indoor Christmas Tree - Sterling & Welch Company Building - Cleveland, Ohio

https://www.pinterest.com/lauramayj/...-at-christmas/

If you think Nela Park is special, check with local senior centers about a bus trip to see the Oglebay Winter Festival of Lights. It would be a good road trip with your family from Toronto.

Winter Festival of Lights

Nela Park is superb, but it's just much smaller than the Oglebay festival.

[Minervah]

Those are great. I tried to find pictures of the old M&F window displays but couldn't. All I found were a lot of complaints about Macy's removing them and the wonderful 10th floor displays they had with a train that ran around the ceiling kids could ride.

There was a neighborhood near mine called Peacock Lane where all the homeowners displayed beautiful decorations mostly hand made from Europe. People would walk or drive through and be met with free hot chocolate, cookies and caroling. At one time they even had horse carriage rides. As the population of the city grew and word of mouth spread, it got very crowded and I stopped going. It's still goes on though although I don't know about the hot chocolate and cookies. You have to wait a long time to go the few blocks to see the houses if you drive.

It was written up this year in the Huffington Post as one of the best neighborhoods in which to see old fashioned Christmas displays.

Another neighborhood had "NoPo Christmas House" in North Portland. This one was on TV on Grimm as a background. It's someone's house that year after year they add decorations until you can see it from space. None of the decorations are tacky plastic but really beautiful. Another is the Victorian House which is a beautiful old Victorian home that is lit up all in white you can see from the highway and walk around the inside to look at real Victorian furniture and Christmas ornaments.

Does Cleveland have and specific neighborhoods other than The Christmas House where "A Christmas Story" was shot where people decorate for a few blocks? Since I live right near Fairmount Ave we drove around there at night hoping to see some light displays from the mansions but hardly any were decorated.

I will check out the Oglebay Festival for next year. My sister in Los Angeles always comes to Chicago to visit her son and his family in early December. I am trying to persuade her and other BIL to wait a couple of weeks and take a side trip to Cleveland so we can all be together. The Torontonians weren't interested in seeing where "A Christmas Story" was filmed but the Los Anglicans are. They love that movie and watch it over and over again at Christmas. So I am using that as bait.

[Minervah]

Yanno, I was just reading about some of the things Cleveland had in the past in the way of department store decorations and I know Chicago and Portland in the olden and not so olden days are the same. It's such a shame these things no longer exist but I am glad I am old enough to have lived in two of those places to have been able to enjoy them.

[shagster]

A regular section of cleveland.com about notable events from the past.

Cleveland Remembers - cleveland.com

.

[ladycascadia]

Originally Posted by sara jane Coffman

Does anyone have any memories of Higbee's Charm school?

I remember it alright. My mom signed up me and my sister, back in 1973. I was age 12 and my sister was 11 ....and I remember first hating it! It was a charm school in the quaintest sense of the world. Books on head and everything. Mom would schlepp us downtown each Saturday morning and we grumped and grumped about it! My sister and I didn't agree on much, but we both thought going to charm school would be so uncool...that is until we found out there was going to be a fashion show at the graduation! Then we were totally into it, which of course made my mom happy she didn't waste her hard earned money lol. I forget my teacher's name but I remember she was very sophisticated! She had one of those classic blonde chignons, had been a model in NYC (and was probably a bored Lakewood or Parma housewife earning mad money) and she chain smoked while talking about her NYC "glory days"! lol. I remember Higbees also had what they called a "teen council" or was it a teen board? At any rate, it was to try to market 'tween" and teen tastes so we'd spend more $ in the stores. I signed up for it, but Higbees never did get ahold of me. Oh well. If you ask me they need to bring charm schools back. Girls today act so trashing. I blame the 'reality' shows and the Kardashians.