The sculpture is very disturbing and the building belongs in Independence - right on. The harm to NEO is even greater than blocking the lakefront as this complex and the Galleria diverted economic development from the Master Plan for Cleveland and so took core value from core downtown to the freeway. Such candid and insightful observation is exactly what we need to protect NEO from further such bad design and planning decisions being made today by bad developers and their champion, the Port Authority.

I was downtown today so I went back to the plaza where this ugly sculpture is placed to see if there is any signage saying the plaza is private, or that photography is illegal, and if there is any indication who the artist is, if he/she may be called an artist. There is no indication the plaza is private, except that you can't park in the driveway and you can't smoke around the sculpture. And, there is no indication it is a sculpture at all, like a plaque with the name, artist, title and date. I also looked more closely at the sculpture, installation and setting, and perhaps have a reason why they don't want any photography... it's all low class garbage. The sculpture was clearly very expensive to create - lots of cast bronze and patina and polish and pomp - but it is very poorly constructed and falling apart... not in the inspiring deconstructionist way of the Anselm Kiefer at the Cleveland Museum but in the shoddy American garbage in garbage out kinda way that plagues our entire society. The design of the plaza and multi-hundred-million dollar complex is low grade and all the tiles are cracking, the grout coming loose, the windows streaked with run-off from cheap construction materials and pollution, all built by careless workers rather than craftspeople. Because construction with low quality is impossible to maintain much less upgrade, this modern plaza is already obsolete and Class B at best, despite lots of spit polish to make the rotten apple shine. When you stand back and look from this cheap complex to the cheap complexes around there - the Galleria, etc. - versus City Hall, and the Free Stamp, you realize what harm the planners and developers of our lifetime have caused our coming generations - all this recent development will need to be demolished in the coming decades, along with all of Independence and Beechwood and the other mindless new suburbs built so poorly. The really sad observation is the law firm at the core of all this used to be in the beautiful Huntington Building on Euclid Avenue, in an historic and eternal building worth always preserving, surrounded by other quality buildings worth preserving, even as we must tear down the crap build since good development ended in NEO around the time of the depression. So, when you hear about Wolstein and Stark coming into Cleveland and tearing down some of our few remaining historic buildings to build crap like they build in the suburbs, remember they are bad developers who do bad work - visit Rennaissance Plaza in Playhouse Square (Wolstein), or any WalMart of KMart plaza around town (probably Wolstein or Stark) to reinforce your understanding how crappy they are, and then write to Steven Litt at slitt [at] plaind [dot] com to support his campaign for good planning and architecture in NEO (it is your fault we have bad design, because you don't speak out and show you care), and post your perspectives on REALNEO to show the world you care. Start speaking out for good planning and design, and against the suburban developers further destroying our core valuable historic urban fabric.

Under current situations I would never attempt to photograph any sort of government worker or facilities - not because that makes sense but because America has been drive by extremist rhetoric into such a state of neurotic paranoia I do not expect rational behavior from any Americans, especially those in authority and/or with guns. We thus need to make arrangements for photo credentials for anyone who wants to shoot pictures for REALNEO - we will file whatever paperwork we need to establish official press and photographer credentials from every possible authority for every possible use, and we will issue press passes and when needed request specific media access to events. Charles, who photographs for REALNEO and is the leader of the NEO Digital Photo SIG, and Phillip, who can get to the bottom of anything, will be in charge of making this work right. Please post here or contact me at realneo [at] inbox [dot] com if you want REALNEO media credentials and we will help you with this.