On this episode of “Made in America,” host John Ratzenburger (yes that’s Cliff of “Cheers” fame) visits the Cleveland Arcade, America’s oldest indoor shopping mall that’s also home to a 293-room Hyatt Regency hotel. This landmark was acquired by Toronto-based Skyline International Development in December 2011.

A hub if the city since 1890, the Cleveland Arcade’s daring construction was inspired by Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and designed in the then-popular Victorian Romanesque Revival style. It encompasses a five-story, 300-foot skylit atrium connected to two 10-story towers. The original cost to construct the Arcade was financed by some of the city’s most prominent 19th-century businessmen including John D. Rockefeller, whose likeness is featured in a gold emblem on the building’s Euclid Avenue exterior.

The Arcade was the first building in Cleveland and only the ninth in the United States to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

This unique downtown destination runs between Euclid and Superior Avenues, the two main thoroughfares in the hub of downtown Cleveland, within easy access of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the 4th Street Entertainment District and various professional sports venues, including Progressive Field, home of the Cleveland Indians. It’s also home to the Downtown Farmers Market, Winterfest, a popular holiday tree lighting and other seasonal events.

You see, she’s getting tri-focals so she can use the computer, and she wanted to check her email. Only she forgot her email address. She knew what domain it was at but thought her email was taffy ‘something’ at…

So I explained what it was, and go to the part where the @ was. I thought obviously this is where she’s confused, so I tell her ‘it’s the AT symbol.’

“What’s that?”

“It’s… Okay, look at the number 2 on the keyboard. It’s the a in a circle–”

“I’m not at the computer.”

“Okay, it’s the little a in a circle.”

“Oh that! I know that. I just thought my email was my name.”

“It is. It’s Taffy.”

“… It’s not taffyippy?”

“Nope.”

“Oh hell, that’s easy. Thank you, Meex!”

I renewed my dues at the JCC. The girl asked if I wanted to pay for a year because it was cheaper. I told her, “Honey, I’m 92. Let’s stick to the monthly plan.”

Photos from Dennis.

It was pretty normal for people to get a little goofy at Taffy’s. My father and his friends would come after school and camp it up, in their best Broadway attitude. At this point in the business, Taffy’s was still at the old Arcade and they were ‘legit’ (which I gather means they weren’t selling pasties to strippers anymore, or at least not in the front room).

Taffy has a copy of this photo up in her apartment.

Taffy and Harvey, 1942

In World War II, Harvey (pictured left) was in the Air Force as a navigator. He was terrible at math, and Taffy pretty much did his homework for him. Taffy (pictured middle) worked on base as an accountant.  I have no idea who the guy on the right is.  I’m not sure if this is pre-or-post the Taffy Tucker incident. I’ve always had this idea of two different Taffy’s.  There’s Harriet, whom I don’t know at all, and then Taffy, who is this amazingly inventive, creative, passionate and driven person.  Somehow, I think that the haircut didn’t so much create Taffy as set her free.

I remember driving past a graveyard, where the park next door was being torn down.

“My father taught me to play baseball there,” she said, pointing.  ”Taught me to field a ball.”

My great-grandfather, Julius, was not a big guy, and the idea of him teaching anyone baseball was funny to me.  He was also the parent of three girls, and I suppose at that point he had to teach baseball to someone, and of his daughters, Taffy was it.

“Every time we hit a foul ball, it went into the graveyard, and my father would boost me up over the gate so I could go in and get the ball.”

I thought about that for a while and then asked the obvious.  ”How’d you get back over?  Did you … climb on a gravestone or something?”

Taffy was quiet a moment and then laughed, “You know, I probably did.”