Nice Story on Toledo
The Following is a nice article about Toledo that was posted on the Chicago Triibune's website.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-0608130027aug13,1,1106888.story?coll=chi-travel-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
The following is the above mention story in the Chicago Tribune. The site has been asking for a username and passoword login for some people asking to view the site.
Thanks..:)
Framing Toledo
Can a museum built on glass help lead a revival?
By Robert Cross
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 13, 2006
TOLEDO, Ohio -- We came for the art and stayed for the . . . art.
Wife Juju asked at our downtown hotel--the Radisson on Summit Street--if she could find anywhere to shop nearby. It was late. A desk clerk, a porter and a security guard happened to be standing around and they snorted in unison.
"Not around here," said the security guard with a what-a-stupid-question smirk. "There's a big mall, but you'd have to drive, too far to walk."
I'm a central-city fan. I reflexively book downtown hotels with the idea I'd walk around, take things in, schmooze, hang and, yes, shop.
Downtown Toledo, hard by the banks of the Maumee River and close to Lake Erie, isn't quite there yet, but the ambitions show.
Clearly, a widespread city effort has led to the cleanup and restoration of several old buildings. We could see a whole string of them from the hotel lobby--quaint and old-fashioned, brick, vaguely Victorian, multi-colored trim. Almost every one had a "For Lease" sign where the boutiques and eateries should be.
We knew Toledo had a highly publicized Warehouse District close at hand, as well as the Toledo Mud Hens' spiffy minor league AAA ballpark.
Those called for a little exploration the next day, a Saturday. Toledo's downtown Farmers Market filled a little square next to Erie Street Market (non-essential merchandise), not far from the hotel. Farmers, gardeners and purveyors of honey, vinegar and knit goods seemed to be doing well, as dozens of customers filed past their long tables.
Massive old commercial buildings all but surround the square. Some appeared clean and ready to go--as soon as some enterprising soul signs that darn lease. Others proffered "For Sale" signs, and a few haggard structures stared out from shattered windows.
But a newly refurbished Antiques Mall would be reopening soon at the Erie Street Market, the sign said.
And next door to that, the Libbey Glass Factory Outlet filled a vast floor with a stunning assortment of plates, bowls, tumblers, vases, trays, novelties and too many household items for most non-cooks to comprehend.
Juju, as usual, spent too much time in there, but the Libbey Glass Factory Outlet did jar me into a forehead-slapping realization.
This is a city that--in modern times, at least--was built by glass. We had seen the curvilinear headquarters of Owens Corning (the glass fiber folks) from our hotel room window, a graceful part of the riverfront. And Libbey has its world headquarters here, as well, along with the bottling giant O-I, formerly Owens-Illinois.
The nearby Jeep factory shouldn't have to go too far for windshields.
So, naturally, Toledo calls itself the Glass City. Why Toledo came to be called Toledo, however, is anyone's guess. Some historians believe that early settlers looked to Toledo, Spain, for inspiration.
The expression Holy Toledo? Well, both Spanish and U.S. Toledos have a lot of churches; that's one theory. The Toledos in Oregon, Illinois and Washington will have to answer for themselves.
In 1888, Edward Drummond Libbey moved his glass manufacturing business from the Boston area into Toledo, where natural gas, sand and other raw materials were plentiful and competition scarce.
By 1901, Libbey was a leading force in the establishment of the Toledo Museum of Art, which began without a building or any art but a lot of civic spirit. Eventually the collections grew and filled a beautiful Classical Revival structure.
Part of the museum we see today opened in 1912 on land donated by Libbey's wife, Florence, further enhancing Toledo's Old West End, where the gentry built fancy Victorian houses.
Juju and I arrived about a month too early for the opening of a low-slung, glass-walled adjunct across Monroe Street from the main building.
The Glass Pavilion will house works from the museum's own extensive glass collection, including the Libbey Punch Bowl, said to be the largest piece of cut glass in the world and a highlight of Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition and World's Fair.
During our visit, we found the pavilion in the last stages of construction and most glass collections under wraps for shipping to the new home.
Still we had plenty to see. The museum owns exquisite pieces of African, Greek, Roman and Chinese art, plus an extensive Egyptian section and space for special exhibitions. One gallery displayed Ansel Adams photographs and will do so through Sept. 24. Another was festooned with Pop Art, a show that continues through Oct. 8.
We spent hours moving from examples of medieval religious art to jewelry collections to a full-size cloister assembled from abandoned or demolished monasteries and convents in southern France, dating from 1150 to 1400. We lingered in galleries containing works by most of the big names in art: Gauguin, Renoir, van Gogh, Vuillard, Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Rodin . . .
In one gallery, three girls who looked to be around 8 scurried from one painting to another, busily writing on clipboards. "I found it! I found it!" one of them said in an excited whisper. "See, there's the fountain!"
She pointed at the elaborate "Architectural Fantasy With a Concert Party" painted by Giovanni Paolo Pannini in 1716-17, complete with, yes, a fountain.
"Are you taking some kind of art class?" Juju asked one girl.
"No, we're doing a birthday party scavenger hunt," she explained. "We get these clues, and we have to find the art."
Anyone looking for clues as to how the paintings, sculpture and other works found their way into these galleries need only read the descriptive cards beside each one. Almost everything came as a gift from, or through, foundations set up by Edward and Florence Libbey before their deaths in 1925 and 1938, respectively.
Juju and I moved on. Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Delacroix, Turner, Courbet, Manet, Cezanne. . . . Well, suffice it to say most of the world-class talents are represented, including such American icons as Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper and Andy Warhol.
Elegant furniture and elaborate gold, silver and ceramic antiquities serve as brilliant accessories throughout the building. Modern art is well represented, and abstract sculpture enhances the manicured grounds.
Juju and I spent two pleasant afternoons there and could have explored the museum much further, but this would be a short visit and we wanted to see a little more of the town.
Most cities have a zoo, but the Toledo version is a whopper, considering the city's population is just a bit over 300,000. The rest of Lucas County takes up the slack, so the area has about 500,000 residents--most of them children, if the zoo visitors we saw are any indication.
Besides exhibiting creatures big and small, the zoo serves as an entertainment complex with theaters, a choo-choo train, theme areas and concession stands all demanding attention.
We found somewhat quieter commercial activity at The Docks, a string of restaurants in International Park. They face the businesslike Toledo skyline across the Maumee River. We sat under umbrellas for drinks one late afternoon at Cousino's Navy Bistro and went there again for brunch on our second morning in town.
The restaurants offered some nice choices: Cousino's for American, Gumbo's for Cajun and Creole, Real Seafood Co. for fish and jazz vocal stylings, Zia's for Italian, and Tango's Mexican Cantina for tortillas and dancing.
Water taxis shuttle diners from downtown, where one of the main attractions is the COSI hands-on science and industry museum. One of the others, of course, is Fifth Third Field, where the Mud Hens play ball.
After the art museum closed one afternoon, Juju and I parked a little south of The Docks restaurant row and walked to the permanently anchored S.S. Willis B. Boyer, maybe the largest decommissioned ship in the Midwest that hasn't been turned into a casino.
The lake freighter S.S. Willis B. Boyer lets visitors see just what it's like aboard a Great Lakes working ship. This one hit the water in 1911 and remained in service for 69 years. In its heyday it hauled grain and iron ore. All of the pipes, pulleys, gears, engines and wires necessary for that endeavor remain intact.
We toured the ship's innards and eventually emerged in the surprisingly posh officers' quarters, near the stainless-steel kitchen and the captain's bridge. The S.S. Boyer might be thought of as representing another sort of art--the kind required to steer tons of cargo through sometimes-tempestuous bodies of water.
In Toledo, the art of gracious downtown living has yet to take a firm hold. Downtown does have its attractions but seems to lack the thread that would pull them all together into a pedestrian-friendly whole.