You can hear the strains of the song in the background:

"The party's over...."

But the words aren't totally clear yet.

Cleveland's bicentennial celebration came to an "official close" the last weekend in November with the big holiday, homecoming parade. But not all the party-goers have left. There still are some slices to be cut from the 200th birthday cake.

At Bicentennial Commission headquarters, the staffers are downloading computer files and getting "thank you" notes ready to send out to the thousands of volunteers who helped with the birthday bash during the year.

The commission also is getting together bicentennial items to be put in a time capsule to be opened by Clevelanders in 2096.

Among them will be a piece of the wreckage from the demolition of the old Cleveland Stadium (perhaps a brick), 75th anniversary CD sets from the Cleveland Orchestra, a copy of the July 22 Plain Dealer (the official Cleveland birthday date), Mayor Michael R. White's "State of the City" address, brochures from the Cleveland Convention and Visitors Bureau, and even menus from restaurants voted "Cleveland's best."

All of that and much more will go into a specially prepared steamer-trunk-size time capsule to be sealed at a later date (perhaps not until January).

It was a pretty heady year. Earlier stories on this official Cleveland Page documented all of it.

The kick-off "Fanfare for Cleveland" (the New Year's Eve celebration on Public Square last year), "Celebration 200!" (the July 19-22 blowout in the Flats and other places), and the "Homecoming Parade" were the "gee-whiz" events of the bicentennial year.

There is little left from those affairs now except the memories (and that's not bad).

But there are some permanent and solid remainder reminders from the year, what they called the "Legacy Projects."

The Great Lakes Science Center is one of those projects. Another is RTA's Waterfront Line. The bridges in the Flats were permanently and colorfully lighted. The city got thousands of new trees in the "Trees for Tomorrow" program though Clean-Land, Ohio, and three new parks (on the lakefront, at Settlers Landing and on Playhouse Square).

And there's the important Bicentennial Village project, the concentratd new and rehabilitated housing effort in the Fairfax Neighborhood. Some realtors already are calling Fairfax "...the area within the next five to six years." The 1.4 square miles three miles from downtown Cleveland is the neighborhood for Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Play House, Karamu House, and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art.

Looking back on all that remains after the candles on the cake are blown out, one can boast a bit: "That ain't bad for the old town."

Not bad at all.

And, wow! Remember the parties?!

OTHER BICENTENNIAL STORIES by John Herrington

RETURN TO Cleveland, The New American City

CLEVELAND BICENTENNIAL home page

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