Conrad Hilton wanted to build a 1,000-room Hilton "Hotel on the Mall"—on the Mall itself. He demanded $6 million of locally raised funding in order the carry out his plan. The Celebrezze administration worked hard alongside the hastily formed Committee for Civic Progress, an organization created expressly to "educate" voters on the need for the hotel to jumpstart Cleveland's sagging convention trade. The referendum on the hotel in November 1959 met defeat. For many voters, the combination of concerns about taxation, overemphasis on downtown at the expense of neighborhoods, and loss of public space was too much to accept. Weeks later, Hilton opened a similar hotel in downtown Pittsburgh's shiny new Gateway Center. More than 50 years later, Cleveland would get a Hilton on the Mall. This one would overlook rather than literally be on the Mall, but like the earlier planned hotel, it would happen only with taxpayers' money. | Creator: Committee for Civic Progress | Date: 1959 | Source: Mall original material subject file, Cleveland Public LibraryDownload Original File
