Cleveland, Ohio is slowly starting to honor its most important son. No, not Drew Carey (although BB loves him too). In 1933, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two boys from Jewish immigrant families who lived in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland, created Superman. This month, Smithsonian magazine tells the story behind the superhero, and what some citizens are doing to show their pride. The image above, from Jim Bowers/CapedWonder.com, is a fence at the address of Joe Shuster’s old house. From Smithsonian:
Shortly after Siegel and Shuster died in the 1990s, a… struggle for recognition of Superman’s creators took place in Cleveland. Michael Sangiacomo, a comic books critic and a reporter for Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer, called on the city to honor Siegel and Shuster. Nothing came of it. Every few years he would trot the idea out again, writing an article calling on Cleveland to honor the pair. “I pointed out that the Siegel house was here [the home of Joe Shuster had been torn down], and that is the home of Superman, and the city should do something.”
In his will, Siegel asked that half of his ashes be donated to the city of Cleveland; his widow also wanted to donate some of his belongings to the city, such as his typewriter. She visited Cleveland to find a home for them, and Sangiacomo escorted her around town. “Nobody wanted them,” he remembers. “It was a low point. I felt horrible for her and mad at the city…”
Sangiacomo and (comic writer Brad) Meltzer decided to raise money to restore the house. Melzer uploaded a video of himself at the house that went viral. He followed by sponsoring an auction of comics-related art, raising over $100,000 in the process. Sangiacomo and Meltzer formed the nonprofit Siegel and Shuster Society, and asked the Glenville Community Development Corporation to take charge of restoring the house, in partnership with the Grays.
Cleveland, the True Birthplace of Superman