Nina Gibans Interview, 21 June 2006

In this 2006 interview, Nina Gibans, a poet, author, and active leader in Cleveland's art community discusses her early life and the work of her husband, architect Jim Gibans. Growing up in Cleveland and Shaker Heights, Ohio in the 1930s and 40s, Gibans was the only Jewish girl in Laurel School. Her father was the head of surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Later on, as editor of the Sara Laurence College newspaper, Gibans had to deal with the censorship of the McCarthy era. Gibans met her husband on a trip to Cuba and followed him to San Francisco where he studied architecture. Returning to Cleveland in 1960, Jim Gibans eventually became a part of Herman Gibans Foder, an architectural firm responsible for building much of Cleveland's public housing. Towards the end of the interview, Gibans gives her opinion on Cleveland's lakefront development, critiques the attitudes of past city leaders towards development, and lists some of her favorite buildings.