Reinventing the 'Mistake on the Lake'.

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2019

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Philip Dodd hosts a special programme recorded in Cleveland, Ohio. Once a booming manufacturing metropolis located on the southern shore of Lake Erie, this 'rust belt' city has for many years been synonymous with industrial decay and high unemployment. For many the city's fortunes changed in 1969 when industrial pollution on the Cuyahoga river caught fire causing an environmental catastrophe, earning the city the moniker 'the mistake on the lake', a pejorative term it still struggles to shake off today.

To find out how Cleveland is reinventing itself in the 21st century, Philip is joined by banker and civic leader Justin Bibb, historian David Stradling, and Colette Jones, one of a team running Destination Cleveland, which attracts visitors to the city.

Plus, Philip meets Cai Guo-Qiang, to hear how the artist has used gunpowder and water to mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga river fires.

David Stradling is the author of Where the River Burned

Chinese-raised New York artist Cai Guo-Qiang has been commissioned as part of Cuyahoga50.

You can find a Free Thinking discussion with writer Adam Gopnik and others about gentrification here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09gyg4q

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:33.2	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:37.2	Hello, I'm Philip Dodd, and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast from BBC Radio 3.
0:43.1	The kind of guests we have on writers, artists, philosophers, historians and filmmakers,
0:49.2	and we challenge and cajole them, we even laugh with them,
0:52.6	and we talk about contemporary life, promiscuously,
0:55.8	how we got here and where we're going. In a moment or two, we'll be meeting some of them.
1:00.7	But before we do, please take a moment to listen to this.
1:05.7	Hi, I'm Tom Service from BBC Radio 3. Now, if you love music, all kinds of music, then you want to know a bit
1:12.7	more about how it all works, about why it is. It has this magical power over each and every one of us.
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1:25.5	straight to the beating heart of the music that we all love,
1:29.5	whatever it is. So come with me and take a closer look. It's not the slightest bit gory,
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1:53.0	Last week, I was taken downtown by a boat on a river that 50 years ago burned, actually burned,
1:56.4	due to the weight of industrial effluent and filth.
2:01.6	The burning river became world news, a sign of an ecological crisis. The BBC picked up the story at the time and said that the city on the river was the epicentre of global industrial pollution.
2:10.6	75 minutes by plane from both New York and Chicago, Cleveland, Ohio was once nicknamed the mistake on the lake.
2:19.5	Now it's trying to renew itself and to mark the anniversary of the Burning River
	...

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