BUILDING BLOCKS

PART ONE

“Sometimes I wonder what even is the point,” Winston Stokes said to nobody in particular as he strolled up the main staircase of the Cleveland Public Library.

“You give and they take. You invest and they cash out. What even is the point?”

He continued this line of reflection as he neared the legal section of the library, tucked to the south side of the large windows that overlooked the bustling road below. He opened the little black notebook that rode with him everywhere and analyzed his scribbles before finding the literature he was looking for.

Winston was in remarkably good physical shape for a man in his mid-sixties, although his gray beard made him appear every bit of his age. A Clevelander for his whole life, the former public-school teacher had spent the first few years of retirement in pure bliss, traveling with Anita, his bride of 39 years, and living at a slower pace than ever before. Now, two years after her passing, he hadn’t found a compelling reason to do much of anything aside from exercise and asking himself what else he could have done to save her.

At the present moment, he was looking for something, anything, to help with a different cause. His nephew, Cliff, had approached him for advice, hoping to avoid the forced sale of his home in the city’s up-and-coming Midtown neighborhood.

Since the 1960s, Midtown had served as little more than a spotty connection in the four miles between downtown Cleveland and its Hospital District. Centered about thirty blocks east of downtown proper, this neighborhood represented a handful of fearless businesses, concert venues and watering holes that put their stake in the ground and refused to budge, even amidst a sustained crime rate and failed political attempts for revitalization.

“Connect Cleveland!” Politicians would shout as they pumped their fists and cut the ribbons for some co-working office space that would be here today and gone tomorrow, so to speak.

In fact, it was that collective enthusiasm that inspired Cliff, an entrepreneurial and ambitious young professional, to buy and refurbish a beautiful Victorian home smack dab in the middle. Following an 18-month renovation, completed by mainly by Cliff himself, the home was an oasis in the Midtown desert. This wasn’t the picturesque neighborhood-on-the-lake that his friends from Euclid enjoyed, but Cliff spent enough time in the city to know how to handle himself and keep his property safe.

However, his biggest problem had nothing to do with the area or its inhabitants. His street was a tight-knit community of people who looked out for one another. When questionable characters strode down the block, residents sat on their porches and exchanged nods to each other while keeping one eye on their visitors. Nobody was more than a text away from help, and Cliff felt safer here than anywhere he had ever lived.

No, his crisis was with the City itself.

Cleveland had just pushed through a ballot initiative that approved the re-zoning and construction of a mixed-use commercial and residential megaplex that would span four city blocks. High end shops, microbreweries, and upscale townhomes starting at $1,899 a month were envisioned to create an “urban utopia.”

Due to the massive scale of the project, and the nearly one thousand parking spaces proposed, the residents of Cliff’s neighborhood were being asked not-so-nicely to sell their homes and relocate. The offers from LifeCycle Development Partners were 10% above the current appraised rates–an olive branch according to them–and this left a fiercely loyal community in a major bind.

So here stood Winston Brown at the library, clutching an Ohio Zoning Code book, hoping for a miracle.

Having attended three semesters of law school nearly forty years ago, the retired English teacher leafed through the pages and tried to remember anything he had once learned.

The book looked like it hadn’t been touched since JFK was President. Winston opened it, and nearly sneezed from its dust. He began to scroll through, and when his hand reached page one hundred, something stopped his thumbs from moving on. It was a razor thin envelope with the words “Give Em Hell” inscribed on the front.

Confused and amused all at once, Winston opened it and pulled out a clipping from a 1947 newspaper article with the headline, “Man Wins Fight To Build Home In Public Square.” He read further and saw the story of Roy Sweet, a World War Two Veteran and law school student who returned to Cleveland after the war and petitioned to build himself a house with a driveway, two-car garage, and modest front yard smack dab in the middle of the city’s downtown skyscrapers!

He flipped the clipping over and saw an address written on the back, along with a small silver key.

50 Public Square

P1, Box #100

Cleveland, OH 44113

Stunned in silence, Winston looked around to make sure he wasn’t being watched. He then jotted down the address in his little black notebook.

His wide eyes shifted to the open page in the book. A single sentence was circled that read, “Whereas A; Property is foreclosed or late 90 days on payment AND B; Property stands less than five stories with no greater than two active tenants, purchaser may heretofore have authority to build to preference on such property.”

The date in parenthesis read 1909 – Cleveland, Ohio.

PART 2

A quick Google search revealed the address to be a Post Office location in the lower level of the famous Terminal Tower, not five blocks from the library. His next instinct was to slam the book shut and sprint directly there. However, two things slowed his enthusiasm: As he power-walked out the front door, the alarm rang out! He had forgotten to check out the book. Sheepishly shuffling back inside, he looked at his watch and an even more disappointing fact came to mind.

The watch read 5:53pm, and the Post Office was closed for the day.

His next decision was his best. Shrug off the disappointment and formulate a plan before it reopened the next morning.

Twenty-four hours later, a skeptical Cliff walked through the front door of Winston’s 1945 colonial home, which stood two blocks from the banks of Lake Erie. He had received a frantic phone call from Winston just before lunch, practically begging him to hurry over to his house immediately after work.

Frantic or excited, he couldn’t really tell.

“Uncle Winst’, it’s me,” Cliff announced as he bounced through the front door. A former football player, he always seemed to be walking with a pep in his step, as if ready to cut on a dime or make a tackle at any moment.

He followed up the greeting with an even louder, “If this is another scheme, you might as well tell me now and get it out of the way!”

“I’m always scheming, son, but this ain’t a scheme” was the response from the family room just to the left of the foyer. “No, this is a plan. Not for revenge, just for equity and the American Dream.”

An understandably skeptical Cliff sat down across from his uncle in a maroon faux leather accent chair, and for the next hour, Winston told his nephew of his research into the neighborhood housing situation, the discovery at the library, and the contents of the Post Office Box. He explained that, while saving the neighborhood homes might no longer be possible, they could be thinking bigger. “Swinging for the fences,” is how he put it.

He pulled out the envelope and article from the old Zoning book.

“This right here, this is our launch-pad. We’re going to take the fight to their turf. It’s time for the little guy to play offense.”

“Whoa Uncle Winst’, I’m not sure about this,” Cliff responded. “We don’t know if this is legal. We don’t know if it will hold up in court. We have a starting point, but I’ve got no idea how we finish this! The only thing we really know is that we’re going to get ourselves in a whole heap of hot water. The mayor will make an example of us. And that’s before the businesses and banks come after us. Not to mention the hotels, the sports teams, the casino and even the utilities. How could we possibly win?”

“You know, I’ve been a little short on purpose since your Aunt passed. Retirement was fun when it was the two of us. We traveled the country together and got to see our own kids make us prouder than heck. But it’s already been two years without Anita. A man can only play so much golf.”

“I’m ready to jump out of bed in the morning again,” continued Winston. “This city needs some shaking up, and I’m ready to mix that drink. We might lose, but then we’ll be in the same spot we were in before…and it’ll be hell of a fun ride either way.”

“I have a strange feeling that sweet Anita is watching us, too, and she won’t let that happen.”

Cliff paused to reflect on these words. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but against everything logical bone in his body, he began to fixate on that one word: Purpose. Winston had it now for the first time in a long time, and Cliff had never seen such fire in his eyes.

They cleared off the coffee table and got to work, eventually moving to the kitchen table to accommodate their growing arsenal of books, documents and blueprints.

When Winston finally handed his nephew a blanket to catch some sleep on his couch, a golden sun was beginning its rise through the Eastward window.

PART 3

Only hours later, Cliff’s neighborhood committee meeting began before it really began. A line out the door assembled as the committee members and volunteers scrambled inside to set up enough chairs and test sound equipment.

As the meeting was called to order, the president of the neighborhood committee made small talk with the crowd about a few housekeeping items. But nobody was listening. Every attendee was there for updates on the “Midtown Mess.”

Finally, a guest speaker was announced, and Winston walked to the front of the room carrying a dusty brown box that looked like it could have held bootleg cigars during Prohibition.

He stepped up to the microphone and took a few seconds to scan the restless crowd. He wanted to savor the unease and anxiousness of the neighborhood folks before he delivered his message of hope. An unmistakable smirk even worked its way across his face right before he opened his mouth.

“Good evening everyone, my name is Winston Stokes, and I have an idea.”

The eyes of the crowd quickly shifted from confused to skeptical, and then to captivated as Winston opened his little black notebook and read directly from it. About thirty seconds into the speech, he reached into the dusty brown box, pulled out $20,000 in cash and waved it for all to see.

The view of the crowd was even more revealing on a television monitor wired into to a closed-circuit camera being watched in another part of town. This was a private community session, so the uninvited observer had gone to great lengths to be able to watch and listen to the speech.

“By God, he’s onto something,” said the voice in front of the monitor. The figure smiled and shared a cheers with the unaware audience.

As the glass of single malt Scotch clinked against the TV screen, the voice continued, “The only thing more fun than a worthy opponent is one who has no idea what he’s in for.”

The standing ovation from the neighborhood crowd was the last image seen on the screen before it was abruptly switched off.

THE END, THIS IS NOT