My husband is crazy.
He recently got a wild hair and went
on a research junkie's dream of a search for the various homes of
Langston Hughes here in Cleveland. He found them, actual addresses,
something the local preservation society has apparently been unable to
do on their own. Most of them are long gone, a days work for the
wrecking ball. Two houses remain. So he grabbed his camera and set off
to see these homes, located on either side of an empty lot in a humble neighborhood. One has been
foreclosed on, the other is now a rental property between tenants.
"It
has good bones," he said upon arriving home the day he saw these
houses. He was talking about the house Hughes wrote his first works in. He was amped, he'd
found his treasure and the preservationist in him had already started
working out how to rip off the vinyl and display the original woodwork
beneath. He talked about it for days. Worried about the loss of these homes should it
be determined that the lots had a higher value than the homes sitting
on them. At a party we recently had he shared his find with everyone,
showed them pictures. Our like-minded friends were equally amazed,
interested and concerned about preservation. "If enough of us got
together we could buy it," one told me. His eyes were lit with
excitement at owning a piece of Langston Hughes' history.
Chris
contacted the bank that owned the house, the local preservation society
and a reporter he knew from high school in the attempt to bring
attention to these homes.
The
story appeared in the local paper today and I have never been
more proud to be this man's wife.
My husband is a crusader.