Motorist

I would suggest a walk by the Knez homes under construction at the corner of John and West 44th in Ohio City to see an example of the quality you can expect.

I can't even make sense of what is going on in that rendering.

I don't think they got the tower quite right on the restoration. In the before photos, you can see the remnants of the posts are all the way out to the corners of the stone base. In the photos of the restoration, the posts are set in quite a bit, it looks like to the inside face of the stone veneer. Assuming that all the roof pitches are correct, that would change the height of the tower roof.

A petition has been started to try to prevent Saint Ignatius from tearing down more houses in Ohio City for surface parking. Part of the aim is to provide the Landmarks Commission with community support for denying demolition permits. http://chn.ge/1vQPLl4?recruiter=1514097

I heard a rumor in the neighborhood that one of the medical institutions in town has designs to replace either the May Dugan Center, McCafferty Health Center, or both. Has anyone else heard about this?

It looks ugly and underhanded because these things don't happen in a vacuum. How would you feel about it if you were the business owner and, while the city and CDC are busting your balls with zoning and building code violations, there are projects all around you being done without proper approvals and permits that the are turned a blind eye despite multiple complaints. And some of those complaints are even about the same issues that you are being cited for. You could see how one would be angry and tensions in the neighborhood would rise.

I think the silver bullet that the CDC is trying to use is a lack of Certificate of Occupancy. I think you have to get in compliance with zoning, building, etc. for a C of O. Interesting that OCI and Cimperman seem to be bending over backwards to facilitate this process for the art gallery on 25th but are using a a tool to shut down the car dealership. I wonder which provides more of a tax base.

My guess is that some neighbor raised the issue of the lot's non-conformance to the City. Probably the Brewery, based on the above. On the original complaint that I saw, the complaint was filed by Tom McNair of Ohio City Inc. I can't speak to whether or not he was acting on behalf of or to enrich anyone else though. And the first postponement was because they and Cimperman thought it was going to be a slam dunk and the business owner showed up with letters of support from most of the neighboring businesses. If I remember the timeline correctly, it was postponed so a community meeting could take place. A meeting was scheduled and the owner was told by Cimperman's office (again, if memory serves) that the meeting was canceled. He showed up anyway to find the meeting was taking place after all. And I think that was the meeting that he went to where the geographic area for the group meeting (a block club) did not even extend in area to his business. It goes on from there....

How did you manage to photograph most of East Main Street and not get a single hooker in the pictures? They usually hang out in many of the doorways you have photos of and they are always on the steps of that church towards the end of the photos. I've heard JPs Barbeque is good but I've never been.

I heard that the DAAP building was supposed to be covered in some stone, instead of painted all sorts of ugly pastel colors, but that UC decided to paint it because it was cheaper. Not sure if this is true, but I think it would have looked a lot better without the pastel. I think the exterior was originally supposed to be ceramic panels (like a White Castle!) but still pastel. I went to school in that dump for 6 years, I'm surprised it's still standing. Also, I think the lions are welcoming, not guarding. I once read somewhere that they are guarding when they face each other, welcoming when they face away from each other like Mick and Mack. Can't find anything online to back that up though.

I agree they look cheap, but it's HOPE VI, you can't expect too much architectural greatness out of this. I'd consider this development average. Check out Chicago's. They are rowhomes constructed of enormous bright red bricks with very utilitarian stoops. That's the Chicago adaptation, the above shows the attempt at a Springfield adaptation. I think the best I've seen is Philly's, yet it's still vinyl windows and false brick built to be faux historical. But they got the scaling, proportion, setback, and materiality correct. Damn, that's the second time I hit modify instead of quote. Sorry Motorist. Somebody can smack me upside the head. My biggest beef isn't the lack of trim or ornament, just the complete lack of good proportions and scale. Good design doesn't cost that much more. Just look at the site design - those transformer boxes on the corner of each lot. In that last picture, it looks like they are in the front left corner of every lot. Why not alternate them so that they are doubled up on every pair of lots? Then you can landscape around one eyesore per two lots instead of one eyesore per each lot. Again, wouldn't cost them a dime more, just takes two minutes of thinking about what you're doing. It's the same beef I have with Habitat for Humanity. Great program, great mission, great intentions, horrible execution. Let's assume that a lot of the new tenants of these houses are dirt poor. Can they afford to replace the vinyl siding when the first windstorm puts most of their siding in Columbus? Probably not. Can they afford (or do they have the skills) to make the inevitable repairs to a home built by the cheapest contractor (or volunteers)? Probably not. I think it's a little short sighted.

Those look awful. Someone should be fired.

This year's Christmas Ladder. I used all white lights this year to keep it from looking tacky. And I coaxed two of the cats into the picture.

That is kii-kii!!! Translation please?

My Christmas Ladder. This year will be the third year for it. Also, not a decoration, but a great Christmas card from last year.

It took me a few minutes to place this one, I grew up a few blocks away on Cypress Way. It has looked exactly like this for as long as I can remember.

It is new. He signed a lease when it was almost complete then left town for a few weeks and they were supposed to be done when he got back. They've been working on it for a few more weeks and as you can see from the pictures, they probably have a few more to go.

That's my house! This house was owned by my grandparents and my dad grew up in it. My dad bought it from my grandma after she moved out and then later sold it to my brother who eventually sold it to Xavier. I lived there for 6 years while attending UC. The even shittier part is that (according to family lore), my grandparents bought that house after selling their other house to Xavier to be torn down for Bellermine Chapel to be built. Xavier tried since my grandma lived there to buy that house, probably close to 20 years ago now.

A friend of mine in Seattle came home from work to his apartment last Friday to see that they finally got around to pouring the sidewalks around his building...

I like your Roots,Kweli, and Common posters. Pretty clean way to display all of them.

Thanks for all the great responses. My girlfriend was taking some friends through the area last weekend and talked to a neighborhood resident. He said that there was a street gang that called themselves the Lakeshore Mafia or some such shit and that they even have a myspace page to document their activities. Anyone know anything about this? I tried finding them on myspace but didn't come up with anything.

Did you eat at SASA? It's Asian restaurant. I think thats what it is called. Right next to the theater (in Luchitas old space?). I only had the pot stickers and a few beers but the friends I met there ate a few waves after they did happy hour at Sarava.

Ohio City and Shaker Square are both in the running but we're pretty familiar with both of those areas. I've spent a lot of time at the bars in Ohio City on W 25th and did the home tour this past spring. My girlfriend currently lives in Shaker and my best friend lives a few blocks from the square. We spent some time in the square last weekend seeing a movie and having drinks at the restaurant next to the theater (can't remember the name).

Thats for all the info, this has been very helpful. We're not hearing any bad things about the neighborhood. When you say "North of the Boulevard", what Boulevard are you talking about? Sorry for my ignorance, my Cleveland geography isn't very good yet.

Hi everyone, first time poster My girlfriend and I have been doing some preliminary house hunting in Cleveland and came across this neighborhood last weekend. Does anyone live there or know much about the area? We've mainly been looking in Ohio City and Tremont (the advantages of those neighborhoods being obvious) but decided on a whim to look at a house for sale in this area and really like it. It seems to be a bit far out of the city but it has great lake access and the neighbors that we met were all really friendly and loved the neighborhood. Nobody that we know in Cleveland seems to know much about the area though. Are there any restaurants or shops to walk to in the neighborhood? Are there currently any plans for redevelopment there or in nearby Euclid? Is the neighborhood on the rise, on the decline, or pretty stable? We didn't have much time to go south of Lakeshore but did make it as far east as 185th on Lakeshore, including a stop at the beach. That was a pretty depressing drive (even the Pizza Hut was boarded up) but the beach was nice.