Making history work

ASSOCIATED PRESS
YOU COULD GET LOST amid the chirping birds and croaking frogs, except for the clanking freight trains overhead and skyline in the distance.
Deep in the Cuyahoga River valley where Cleveland became an industrial powerhouse, the herons and painted turtles have made a comeback, ignoring the intruding power transmission lines and faint whiz of highway traffic.
Like many locations in this Rust Belt city, the park along the 19th century Ohio & amp; Erie Canal is using a piece of Cleveland's history to hook tourists.
Have dinner in a renovated warehouse overlooking the river, which caught fire in 1969 and made Cleveland a laughingstock for a generation and a symbol of urban decline. Or visit a restored marketplace with sights and smells from every continent.
Cleveland can still give off a gritty look and an occasional smell of heavy industry. But it can easily fill a long weekend for visitors hoping for an eclectic mix of old and new, dinner and culture or just an urban stroll to a microbrewery.
The canal towpath is among the city's newest attractions, tucked into the industrial valley between steel and chemical plants. After a morning rain the smell of honeysuckle and the light twitter of song birds somehow overcome the urban hum nearby. Under foot, a three-plank boardwalk gently sinks a bit into the pond muck and frogs dive for cover.
Nature and history
A handsome visitor's center makes no apologies for the sooty past. History and nature exist side by side, with kid-friendly displays on how the canals raised and lowered boats, how the natural habitat was restored and even how power lines crank out the juice overhead.
The park themes of nature at work, industrial systems at work and people at work tell a slice of Cleveland's muscular history, which is closely tied to both Lake Erie and the canal.
Cleveland grew quickly during the Civil War and after, becoming an industrial center making steel, the original home of Standard Oil Co. and eventually a producer of electric equipment, paint, cars and airplane parts. By 1920, Cleveland was the nation's fifth-largest city and had the industrial pollution to match.
The lake has been cleaned up, and most days you can see your toes in chest-deep water. But avoid swimming after heavy rain, when storm runoff can overload sewage plants and pollute the water. Edgewater Park within sight of downtown has a free public beach popular for weekend family gatherings, and city marinas have boat and jet ski rentals and fishing charters.
Musical districts
There's plenty of evidence of the city tapping into its past to create tourist attractions. One of the earliest and most successful was the Flats, named for the land along the river at the edge of downtown. Factories gave way to brick-walled nightclubs and restaurants beginning in the late 1980s. Docking boats add an upscale touch in summer.
The Warehouse district with swanky restaurants and valet parking emerged as the classy alternative after three river drownings in 2000 gave the Flats an unruly image. The National Historic Landmark has al fresco dining, jazz clubs and the clop-clop of horse-drawn carriages. Watch for celebrities at the Cleveland Chop House -- Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees and actor Denzil Washington have stopped by -- and Blue Point Grille.
The district still has a blue-collar touch in spots. One example: sandwiches at Panini's, where they put french fries between the bread slices. You need a fork for this baby.
Baseball draw
The Gateway district, home since 1994 to baseball's Indians and basketball's Cavaliers, was an early success in a reviving downtown.
The Indians sold out Jacobs Field for much of their pennant-winning days in the 1990s, but tickets are available for most games in this rebuilding year.
Sample the hometown favorite Stadium Mustard and upper deck views of the skyline. The stadium concourses have great views of outlying neighborhoods and reinforce an axiom about Cleveland: Except for a compact downtown, the city grew outward, not upward like New York or Chicago.
Surrounding restaurants and bars cater to fans, from the trendy Alice Cooper'stown to Mr. Bill's old-fashioned bar, both within sight of center field. If the Indians sell out against the Yankees or Red Sox, watch the game on a big-screen TV and hear the crowd in stereo.
Outside, look for the trombone player performing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at his regular street corner with his instrument case open for tips. Buy game snacks around the corner at the Peterson Nut Co.
Playhouse Square, with successive theaters saved from the wrecking ball over the years, is a gem of restored Cleveland's link to its past. The theater district attracts 1 million visitors a year for concerts and traveling Broadway shows. Arrive early and sip champagne and gawk at the marble lobbies and gleaming chandeliers.
Tower City Center, which has roots as Cleveland's railroad hub, is a busy shopping and dining spot that offers tourists the pulse of the city with the amenities visitors want: restaurants, bars, shopping, nearby hotels and lots of people. There are about 120 stores and more than 30 restaurants ranging from a food court to the Ritz-Carlton's Century bar and restaurant.
Don't miss this
Free and not to be missed: the water fountain show set to classical and popular music in the grand atrium of the restored railroad station. Anyone for Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man?" If you eat at the food court, sit by the windows and watch the oversized ore carriers ply the winding Cuyahoga: It's like trying to swim in a bathtub.
Tower City retains its hub status, with neat passageways leading to the stadium, the federal courthouse and a glitzy hotel lobby, and a downstairs commuter line that will take you to the airport in 25 minutes for $1.50. Take an elevator to the 42nd-floor observation deck in the Terminal Tower, Cleveland's trademark skyscraper, and get a 32-mile vista on a clear day, with views of Cleveland's many Heights-named suburbs.
A surprise for the first-time visitor: the three-story main banking room of the Huntington Building, whose plain-wrapper fa & ccedil;ade doesn't hint at the inside shrine to commerce, built in the Beaux-Arts classical style. When built in the 1920s, it was the second largest office building in the world and largest banking room.
Even people on cell phones seem to talk in hushed tones here beneath the barrel-vaulted ceiling and four murals with themes including justice and commerce.
Two blocks away, the renovated five-story Arcade provides more eating, shopping and people-watching opportunities. The bookend restaurants may offer the best: Vivo, a trendy Italian spot overlooking once-thriving but now desolate Euclid Avenue, and 1890, with tables along the arcade balcony and bar stools looking out to the sidewalk and busy Hyatt hotel entrance.
Rock 'n' roll tribute
A big Cleveland draw, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, sits alongside Lake Erie in a modernistic glass pyramid building. Cleveland landed the rock hall with help of a ballot-stuffing radio contest and the city's role in coining the term rock 'n' roll, first used by disc jockey Alan Freed.
Rock music has become so much of the pop culture that even those who didn't grow up in the 1950s and '60s can enjoy the displays, including a special exhibit of Annie Leibovitz's photographs of rockers, through Sept. 6.
The city's other venerable music venue, Severance Hall, is vacated by the Cleveland Orchestra each summer in favor of the leafy Blossom Music Center near Akron.
The orchestra expands its reach at Blossom, with offerings ranging from Mahler's Symphony No. 7 and a night of Hollywood show tunes to a Bugs Bunny Broadway showcase. The Cincinnati Pops orchestra will visit again this summer.
A perennial Cleveland favorite, a dressed-down Blossom evening usually means orchestra fans sitting on a hillside blanket, eating wine and cheese, cheering the white-jacketed conductor Jahja Ling and awaiting the fireworks. At $18 and $19 for a lawn ticket, it's a less-expensive way to see a world-class orchestra that gets raves on its European tours.
Museums and more
Back at University Circle, the museum district that includes Severance Hall and its classic soul mate, the Cleveland Museum of Art, there are enough attractions to fit any taste.
The museum's signature armor court shouldn't be missed. It has knight's armor that will get the attention of any 10-year-old and an array of old masters, American art and Oriental treasures. And, except for special exhibits, it's free.
The museum, amid manicured grounds that are popular for bridal photographs, is surrounded by attractions including the Cleveland Botanical Garden, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History Museum, the Children's Museum of Cleveland and the Western Reserve Historical Society, which has more than 100 vintage cars and aircraft.
Two blocks away, on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, check out the Frank Gehry-designed business school, which looks like cascading silver ribbons.
Head to the West Side Market, a combination indoor-outdoor marketplace with ethnic food specialties. This is where Cleveland's citywide tastes are satisfied, with fresh shellfish, Italian pastries, collard greens, Lithuanian sausage and stuffed grape leaves. Grandmothers on a budget rub elbows with Yuppies looking for organic herbs.
Around the corner, try the Great Lakes brewery and size up the bullet holes supposedly made in the bar by G-man Eliot Ness, who ran the police department in Cleveland. The market's Ohio City area and others including Little Italy and Tremont give a good feel for residential neighborhoods, many with distinctive ethnic flavors.
You can maneuver the city by car without a problem, but a map would help, especially outside the downtown area. If you want to park the car, a $3 all-day pass will get you unlimited rides on buses and commuter trains. Trolley tours are available and taxis, especially downtown, are ample.