Author Jim Sweeney takes on ‘Really Good Questions About Cleveland’

Born in Cleveland, Jim Sweeney spent years covering Northeast Ohio — first as a reporter with The News-Herald in Lake County in the 1980s and then for nearly two decades with The Plain Dealer.

He knows the place.

Its quirks. Its contours. Its (sometimes flammable) history.

However, probably like many who call this little part of the world home, he didn’t necessarily know all the WHY behind the weird.

“You sort of take for granted that, like, ‘It’s always been this way, and it is because it’s the way it is,’” says Sweeney, author of “What’s the Dead With Dead Man’s Curve? And Other Really Good Questions About Cleveland,” during a recent phone interview.

Sweeney, who lives in Fairview Park, has spent the last several years at various gigs — he currently works remotely for Scottsdale, Arizona-based Amendola Communications — and says writing a book had been on his to-do list.

He had help generating the myriad topics covered briefly in the breezy book from David Gray of the Gray & Company, its Cleveland-based publisher, and a family member he calls “a big Cleveland history buff.” He wanted to cover areas with which so many folks would have some familiarity but, perhaps, not know all the history and little tidbits.

“Dead Man’s Curve, I thought, was a good example of that, because we’re all familiar with it,” he says of the pesky little stretch of Interstate 90 just east of downtown Cleveland with those rumble strips that warn you to slow waaaaay down. “Everyone knows how bad it is, but why? Why was it built so poorly?”

In the book’s fourth chapter, he digs into Dead Man’s Curve, opened in 1959, covering that it isn’t quite as deadly as its name suggests — oh, sure, it sees its share of accidents — and that it didn’t have to be the way it is.

“It originally was intended to (be) a more conventional interchange with (a cloverleaf design) and ramps north of the Shoreway,” Sweeney says. “The city wouldn’t give (the Ohio Department of Transportation) the land they needed, so they had to build that super-sharp curve rather than the more gradual ramps.

“It wasn’t just like ODOT had a brain fart,” he continues. “Maybe they should have secured land beforehand, but they had a conventional interchange planned and then had to adjust when the city wouldn’t give up the land. And that’s how we got that horrible curve.”

Since the book’s release a few weeks ago, Sweeney says, he’s heard from folks who say they won’t drive through Dead Man’s Curve even on a dry, sunny day. He also writes about the years-long plan to “fix” it, leaving us with a hard-to-imagine reality where the curve can be taken at 60 mph.

While Dead Man’s Curve contributes to the book’s title, the infamous burning of the Cuyahoga River in June 1969 is the subject of its first chapter.

Sweeney says that the event wasn’t so unusual, as other polluted rivers, in Detroit and Buffalo, also had caught fire.

“But for some reason,” he says, “the Cuyahoga fire became the famous one. That’s the one that, you know, helped turn Cleveland into a laughing stock.”

Sweeney points out that the event helped lead to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, in 1970, and the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972.

“I won’t say the fire was a good thing,” he says, “but there were definitely some good things that came out of it.”

A chapter that has piqued a lot of interest, he says, is “Where Do Those ‘CHOC’ Stickers Come From and What Do They Mean?” However, it’s not the origins story of the stickers that spread love for Northeast Ohio-based Malley’s Chocolates but instead the tale of Malley’s tall pink silos — visible from Interstate 480 and bearing the words “Milk,” “Cocoa” and “Sugar” — that has been the chapter’s sweet spot. (We’ll leave those tasty details to be devoured by book readers.)

Here are just a few of the book’s many other chapter titles:

— “Why Didn’t Moses Cleaveland live in Cleveland?”

— “Why Do So Many Suburbs Have ‘Heights’ in Their Name?”

— How Did the Polish Boy Become Cleveland’s Unofficial Official Sandwich?

— Why Does Cleveland Party So Hard on St. Patrick’s Day?”

— “Why is Burke Lakefront Airport Still There, Taking Up All That Prime Lakefront Property?”

— “Why is Blossom Music Center Traffic So Awful?”

— “Tremont Has All Those Academic Street Names … But Where’s the College?”

— “Why Is the Coventry Neighborhood the Hippie Heart of Cleveland?”

— East Side or West Side? (And Does It Still Matter?)”

He covers the “FREE” stamp, Millionaires’ Row, the lack of an NHL team, Cleveland Metroparks. It goes on and on.

Sweeney says he spent about two years on the book, relying on resources including the Western Reserve Historical Society and the Department of History at Case Western Reserve University’s Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.

Sweeney isn’t here to tell you Cleveland is perfect. In the book, he also looks into why the area is still so segregated and why Cleveland is among the nation’s poorest cities.

And while he’s spent almost his whole life here, that wasn’t his plan after graduating from Miami University in Oxford.

“I was sort of looking to go anywhere but Cleveland, but the only job offer I got was (from) The News-Herald, so I came back,” he says.

In the book’s introduction, he argues that newer cities of similar size can’t possibly have anything close to Cleveland’s rich and colorful history if only because, as he put it, “age and decline bring character.”

“I think I came away with a new appreciation for the character of the city — and not in, like, a chamber-of-commerce, kind of rah-rah, ‘We’re the best’ sort of thing because we’re not,” Sweeney says. “Cleveland, for all its flaws, has a really rich history, and a lot of it is so very apparent and visible. And you can poke around in it, and I think there’s a lot to be said for that.”

“What’s the Deal With Dead Man’s Curve? And Other Really Good Questions About Cleveland,” Gray & Company, 182 pages, $16.95/softcover, $9.99 ebook.

Appearances

Jim Sweeney will sign copies of “What’s the Dead With Dead Man’s Curve? And Other Really Good Questions About Cleveland” from 1 to 2 p.m. Dec. 16 at Barnes & Noble, 7900 Mentor Ave., Mentor. Reach the store at 440-266-0212.

The Music Box Supper Club, 1148 Main Ave., Cleveland, will host Jim Sweeney during an installment of its ongoing “Cleveland Stories Dinner Parties” series: “Quiz Night! What’s the Deal With (Blank) in Cleveland” at 7 p.m. Jan. 11. Learn more at musicboxcle.com.