Thankful Thursdays: Brad Meltzer and the Superman House

Superman was "born" in Cleveland.

Most people think he was a native of Krypton, but they're wrong.

Superman was born in a modest house in the Glenville neighborhood of the eastside of Cleveland, on a summer night in 1932. He wasn't born to bold Kryptonian Jor-El and Lara-El, nor even rural WASPish Jonathan and Martha Kent. He was born to a shy, inner-city Jewish kid named Jerry Siegel, on the night his father was either gunned down (according to one side of the family) or died of a heart attack as a result of being robbed at gunpoint (according to the other side).

I love my city. But this guy Brad Meltzer, an author of novels and comic books (which makes him cool "squared" mathematically, in my estimation), has made me feel very queasy-embarrassed about one way Cleveland has tragically fallen short.

Superman, the comic book, in its early form as produced by Action Comics, was written and drawn by Jerry Siegel and his neighborhood pal Joe Schuster. And Superman, the icon, has stayed relatively true to its original form. He's died a few times, but if you're going to be a legitimate comic book character, you'll do that more than once. In fact, you're going to die, be resurrected, have your history ret-conned, have your side-kick turn on you, meet yourself in a parallel universe, be drawn for several issues as a zombie or as a very small child with very small children superhero friends, have ridiculous animals assigned as your pets (or worse, peers), I mean the list is longer than Superman ought to have lived, and he's (given the number of lives he's lived) probably older than the United States by now. Just because that's mathematically impossible doesn't make it a feasible plot for a comic book...

What is sad, though, what has me so queasy and the issue which Meltzer has been shining the light on, is that the Siegel house is still there.

No one has built a Rite Aid on the site. Yet.

In fact, there's a family that lives there. By all accounts, they are remarkably friendly!! They know the history of the house. They've taken great pains to paint the house Superman red and blue. You can't miss the house on the street, it's said.

People visit them all the time, in fact, and they throw open their door, glad to invite them in to take a look at the house where Superman was born, to see the very room in which Jerry Siegel first conceived of the idea of The Man of Steel. They do this with a smile. Always with a smile.

The exterior may exhibit Superman, but the interior exhibits downtrodden, foreclosed Cleveland. I'll let this video speak for it.



Want to help??? Please do. You see the need. Click HERE.

I was first made aware of this "Save the Superman House" movement by Rick, and lately other people are taking up the cry. I'm glad to hear that. It would be a shame to let this landmark simply crumble into dust.

Here in Cleveland people come to visit the placque in front of the Heisman house (in Ohio City) and the Christmas Story house (in Tremont) and President Garfield's tomb (Lakeview Cemetery), and dozens of other important landmarks. Our friend Mike leads bike tours to show at least half a dozen interesting former auto manufacturing sites of long-past models (White, Studebaker, Peerless, others) that still exist, though in different capacities from their original uses. It's fascinating! It's all part of history. It's all part of what makes this city remarkable, and part of why I really love it.

People clearly want to see the place where Superman was born. It'd be a shame to deny them. It would certainly be sad to lose a cultural icon simply because of apathy.

The source of my queasy embarrasment is that the City of Cleveland is doing nothing to help save this landmark. They have been given opportunities. So it's falling to ordinary people. That's sad, really, because Cleveland does a good job of responding to needs of urgent natures; it's clear Superman's Birthplace isn't as urgent to the City of Cleveland as it is to potential visitors. Hence, it was the brainchild of an outsider, a non-Clevelander, Brad Meltzer, that sparked this movement.

I am deeply thankful on this Thankful Thursday that Brad Meltzer has taken up this great quest to save The Superman House.

It's Comic Book History. It's Jews-In-America History. It's Cultural History. It's Pop-Culture History. It's Movie History. It's Cleveland History.

It's OUR History.