The Rock Hall Is Better Than Its Gift Shop Suggests

The Rock Hall Is Better Than Its Gift Shop Suggests

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at 1100 Rock and Roll Boulevard is an I.M. Pei building that looks like a guitar pick arguing with a pyramid. The gift shop on the ground floor is overpriced tourist bait — walk past it.

The exhibits spiral from gospel and blues through punk and hip-hop, and the artifacts carry the weight: Hendrix's Stratocaster, Lennon's handwritten lyrics, Joey Ramone's leather jacket. Seeing a Motown dress next to a CBGB flyer next to Run-DMC's Adidas tells a story about American culture that no textbook has managed as well. The building treats rock as a living argument, not a finished one.

Top floor, small theater, induction ceremony speeches on a loop. Usually half-empty. Musicians thanking their mothers and the cities that raised them. It's the most moving thing in the building and most people never see it.

Cleveland named itself the home of rock and roll because a DJ said so, then built a glass pyramid on the lake to prove the point. You have to respect that even when the $35 admission stings.