31. Public Square

I made a quick -- and cold -- trip to Public Square on Tuesday afternoon after work.







I had never noticed this statute before.  It’s in the northwest quadrant of the square and depicts Tom L. Johnson, who (Wikipedia tells me) was one of Cleveland’s more notable mayors.  On the back of the platform, the inscription reads:  “Erected by popular subscription in memory of the man who gave his fortune and his life to make Cleveland, as he often expressed it, ‘a happier place to live in, a better place to die in’ and located on the spot he dedicated to the freedom of speech.”




I don’t know why we want to make Cleveland a better place to die in.  And although the text on the side column is pretty melodramatic, I like it better:  “He found us striving each his selfish part / he left a city with a civic heart / and ever with his eye set on the goal / the vision of a city with a soul.”




Old Stone Church, the old Society Bank building, and Key Tower, and rare January blue sky as seen from the northwest quadrant of the square.




The BP building, and more sunshine.




I love, love, love Terminal Tower.  It has its own entry on the list (#15), and I can hardly wait.




Here's a statue of Moses Cleaveland.  He's the guy who invented Cleveland, yeah!




Soldiers and Sailors Monument on the southeast quadrant.  There's an inside, too, which is pretty awesome, but it wasn't open when I was there.  Fun fact about the monument:  the designer, Levi Scofield, also designed the now-closed Ohio Penitentiary at Mansfield (which played Shawshank Prison in "The Shawshank Redemption" and is totally worth the drive to visit).




One day I will post pictures that aren't taken shooting up the sides of buildings.  Today is not that day.




Two of the seven Lucky Charms marshmallows are represented on the northeast side of the monument.  Also, peace.




Soldiers.  (...no sailors to be found.)




I hadn't realized the statue on top of the monument was quite this awesome.  (Let's go with "this picture is arty on purpose" rather than the more mundane "this is what happens when you use a point-and-shoot camera to take pictures of things that are far, far away.")