I have a confession that may shock some readers like it’s “220, 221, whatever it takes!”
Having filled my monthly “Mr. Mom” quote quota, I can now admit: I do not like deadlines.
True, the news business is almost entirely run on deadlines, but that doesn’t mean we reporters like them.
Aside from the obvious reasons, I dislike deadlines because invariably I am contacted by a great source — after a piece has run — with information that would have enhanced the story.
The first time I wrote “The Cut,” in July, I described our research on Sidaway Bridge.
It's Cleveland’s only suspension bridge, built nearly a century ago for pedestrians walking between the Kinsman and Slavic Village neighborhoods. During the Hough Riots in 1966, residents vandalized the bridge and it was closed. The move essentially prevented Kinsman’s schoolchildren — most of them Black — from attending schools in Slavic Village. Last year, the bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places, followed by Cleveland Landmark status in February.
Producer extraordinaire Jean-Marie Papoi and I spent much of this past summer creating pieces about Sidaway for WVIZ’s “Applause” and WKSU’s “Today From the Ohio Newsroom.” Then we received two phone calls and an email that arrived too late for inclusion.
As the stories were “going to press,” I was able to speak with Dorothy Szczepinski (pronounced like it’s said). Her husband, Richard, is vice president of the Polish Genealogical Society of Greater Cleveland. We had reached out to them for clarification on a few points, such as the pronunciation and spelling of the Polish name of Slavic Village (“Jackowa”). It turns out that Mrs. Szczepinski lived in Slavic Village until 1960. Her mother worked at the nearby Dan Dee potato chip factory, as did many other family members.
“The ladies would come out on their break and bring us a snack,” she said. “We’d have fresh chips right off the fryer, in a paper bag.”
Szczepinski went to private school and didn’t attend the neighborhood public school, so she doesn’t recall much interaction with kids walking over from Kinsman. Yet she does recall a childish prank on the bridge.
“If you could stand on one side, you could get it rocking so you could actually see the movement,” she said. “I know the adults who were walking in the middle didn’t like it when we got it swinging.”
That’s why several Slavic Village residents recall using the nickname “swinging bridge,” even if they rarely had a reason to visit the other side.
“We never went all the way across,” she said. “The parents would tell us, ‘We don’t want you to get too far out of the neighborhood.’ And they didn’t like us to walk behind some of the factories to get there.”
Next, I spoke with Andrew Sargent of Cleveland Neighborhood Progress. He’s in the process of fundraising and coordinating an engineering study of Sidaway Bridge. Specifically, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanning of the structure to create a 3D model. A Detroit firm will then determine the bridge’s condition after 57 winters of disrespect, and whether it can be salvaged or ever reopened.
One person who is excited about that prospect is Bruce Sidaway. He wrote to us in late September, after our deadline, to say that his great-grandfather, Benjamin, owned a saloon on Kinsman Road near Sidaway Avenue around the turn of the 20th century.
“The street and the bridge are named for my great-grandfather,” he said in an email. “One point, ‘Sidaway’ is English and pronounced ‘cyd-away.’ Having been mispronounced (like side-away) for decades, I accept it will never be spoken correctly!”
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