Day 1.3: It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a House!

Second stop in Cleveland was the Superman House. This is the house where young Jerry Siegel grew up, and where, in the early 1930s, he conceived of a hero who was more powerful than a locomotive. He and his artist friend, Joe Shuster, would later sell their comic book pages to National Comics (which would change its name to DC).

Sadly, it's not exactly in the best part of town. Many of the surrounding homes are boarded up or just falling down. It was nice to see that the streets where Jerry and Joe lived have honorary names for them.

The houses themselves are really quaint. Someone would do well to start restoring them and turn this area into a thriving neighborhood once again.

The former site of Joe Shuster's house is just a few blocks away. The fence is adorned with large comic book pages from Action Comics #1, which introduced Superman. The sad part, however, is that half of the fence is missing, along with the first several pages and the marker that explains why the pages are there.

Also not far away is an historic marker honoring Jerry and Joe as the creators of Superman.