In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it caught fire 13 times. The river last burned on 22 June 1969. The spectacle of the burning river spurred federal lawmakers to establish water quality standards for US cities. In the 50 years since the last fire, the Cuyahoga River has experienced a remarkable regeneration and is now a major scenic and recreational asset in the city.

June 22, 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the last time the river burned. The CUDC will join the City of Cleveland’s Office of Sustainability and many local organizations in Cuyahoga50, a celebration of the river’s recovery. We will work with Squidsoup, an arts collaborative based in the UK, to create a large-scale installation on the streetcar level of the Detroit-Superior Bridge.

Squidsoup uses light, sound, computers, digital and physical artifacts to create dynamic immersive experiences. Their work is elemental by nature. Squidsoup has worked on water, in the air and on solid ground – in tunnels, unoccupied shopping malls, forests, parks and botanical gardens, lochs, public squares and art galleries. Their works respond to the wind, to the flow of people, data and water, with digital overlays conceived as liminal materials that inhabit the same spaces as we do, yet as boundary objects and elements, straddling the real and the imaginary.

As part of this project, the CUDC is also updating a 2012 Transportation for Livable Communities Initiative (TLCI) plan aimed at making the lower level of the bridge a year-round public space and bike/pedestrian connection.