The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will be located in Cleveland because of the city`s key role in rock music`s early history and its ”community enthusiasm,” the sponsoring organization formally announced Monday.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation said choosing among the cities, including Chicago, that had sought the attraction was difficult.
”Rock `n` roll really belongs to all America. It really doesn`t belong to one city,” said Ahmet Ertegun, chairman of Atlantic Records and the foundation.
Reports of the selection of Cleveland leaked out last week.
Ben Needell, a member of the foundation`s board of directors, said the decision was essentially unanimous.
The Hall of Fame is to include a library, artifacts, archives and a 1,500-seat theater. The hall`s first induction earlier this year in New York included the Everly Brothers, Ray Charles, Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and James Brown.
The economic benefits to Cleveland could be enormous, according to Mike Benz, an official with the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, who was chairman of the group spearheading the city`s bid for the Hall of Fame.
Benz estimated that the attraction would bring in about $25 million a year, including ticket sales and money spent in hotels, restaurants and other commercial establishments.
He said the Growth Association projected that the hall would draw annual attendance of between 200,000 and 300,000.
Faced with competition from Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans, flashier cities whose pasts are linked to jazz, blues, pop and rock music, Cleveland based its bid on the claim that it was where rock `n` roll was born.
Many rock experts believe the first rock concert to have been the Moon Dog Coronation Ball, staged by the late disc jockey Allen Freed in Cleveland on March 21, 1952.
Thousands jammed into the oversold hall that night to also create the world`s first rock `n` roll riot.
Freed, who eventually went on to New York, is also credited with inventing the term ”rock `n` roll” while still in Cleveland.
Cleveland climaxed its months-long effort in March with a public shindig celebrating the anniversary of the Moon Dog ball that included parties, fireworks and appearances by such rock stars as Berry and Chubby Checker.
It was the last in a series of spectacular displays of public enthusiasm for the Hall of Fame that impressed the museum`s board of trustees from the beginning.
When the trustees came to Cleveland in October, the city`s rock `n` roll museum committee showed them not one, but six downtown sites suitable for the rock monument.
When the newspaper USA Today held an unofficial telephone poll on who should get the hall of fame, Clevelanders swamped the switchboard with more than 110,000 calls. Runner-up Memphis–home of Elvis Presley–got only 7,300 votes.
The exact site for the Hall of Fame has not yet been determined. Cost of the project would depend on whether an existing structure is chosen or a new one is built.
One member of the foundation`s board of directors estimated that the museum would cost about $20 million, with the money to come from federal, state and local contributions and private fund-raising.
