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The tall one with a turret! Not really... most likely the cheapest one I can find downtown. I already owe a mortgage-worth of student loans so my choices are limted. Regardless of my personal situation, Clevleand needs to replace its old building stock with stuff that fits the original pattern. Too much of our redevelopment has been organized around suburban ideals with no sense of context. If we can make better development choices, everyone benefits. If bad choices are made, everyone feels that too. Each individual's stake is not measured by their bank account.

If you ask the average person in Ohio, they'll tell you how great Twinsburg or West Chester is doing. Aggressive re-urbanization locally and support of domestic industry at the national level will turn it around. For years, Columbus and Washington have been very anti-Cleveland and we're looking at the results.

Agree... some of these 90s pop bands were far better than the emo that replaced them. The lyrics of early Gin Blossoms, Counting Crows or Sprocket took a philosophical approach to sadness, instead of just rolling around in sadness and trying to look cute. In another 10 years, people will look back and say hey that 90s power pop wasn't bad, just as they are now with the 80s stuff. I always viewed grunge music as a revival of old-school country, with its themes of isolation and grit. Pearl Jam's Black, Come as You Are, everything on Jar of Flies-- shut off the distort pedal and that's country music, the type Nashville had gotten away from long ago. Old country was also evident in the folk influence on all those 90s hippie bands. And even though I hated it then, that early gansta rap is so much better than anything in hip hop now.

Not born in 80s but I was young jams: brightly colored shorts, longer than most 80s shorts heavy: serious, deep or interesting (see Back to the Future) noid: cartoon mascot for Dominos pizza, his goal is to un-freshen your pizza before it arrives. Dominos defeats him. pegged: pant legs rolled up tightly at the bottom slamdance: precursor to mosh pit that's the ticket: pre-80s expression of agreement to the max: equivalent of 90s "extreme" tubular: cool or awesome, as in totally tubular various expressions involving barf or gag: disapproval or disinterest way or mondo: very

When I was little I told the barber to give me a "MacGuyver"

The workers are not to blame for this. I think the unions are wrong about some things too, but all these ridiculous product decisions were made by the deciders. They aren't as much smarter than the rest of us as their salaries would indicate. If more people had unionized instead of less recently, there might be a lot more money flowing in the economy now, instead of tied up in disappearing investments.

Successful crack dealing enterprises get shut down every day. So do successful slaughterhouses and refineries that are located to benefit the owner while harming everyone else around. You're right that it isn't gonna happen soon, but wheels are in motion to move that direction. We might get there eventually. For instance, Cleveland's creative "nuisance" approach to suing absentee slumlords. That theory is typically reserved for industrial polluters. Still waiting to see how it plays out in court. Cleveland was also able to bulldoze the flats, including the taking of a parking lot for purposes of making another parking lot. I still don't get how that one was entirely legal. If nothing happens with the flats for a while, that could really put a chill on the blight-reduction movement.

This chair sucks. What we need is a new zoning law called ____ or get off the pot. Downtown asphalt and chronically distressed property only lasts so long. After a certain timespan with one owner doing that, it goes to auction. Systematically. The owner gets the proceeds and there's an appeal process with strict scrutiny, burden on the state, the works. I'm tired of people holding out and waiting for who knows what. It isn't that much of a leap under Ohio's eminent domain standard. In Ohio the law can't be vague and it has to have a purpose beyond economic improvement, if it isn't going to become public land. Undoing sprawl and repairing its wreckage in our state are purposes that go beyond financial gain. The public could help finance, and maintain a partial stake, in whatever goes up. Or it can keep looking like this. We're kind of already doing this, with all the tax credits and saga of the flats. It could be done more and done better.

That's really what we're doing on this website. We're playing, with and against each other, a very slow version of Simcity that's real. Several large cities at once, and we need that rail system. C'mon, income... By the way, we're in the Detroit scenario.

Did you get to meet Harvey or Toby? That's part of the 70s vibe. :mrgreen: That, and the feminine shapes.

1970 called, says that rendering is very attractive.

I can't wait till something goes up next door to it on that parking lot! Too soon?

Interesting indeed. So it's as if Maas is saying "here's the same thing, but skeletal and unadorned, with a hump."

jpop, I think I undertand your support of modern architecture. At least I hope I do. I'm admittedly on the other side of the issue. But am I crazy for thinking that Maas design looks like a parking structure built on a poorly graded lot? To me the comparison is objective and obvious, beyond questions of taste. Am I hallucinating? Modern architecture has not been kind to Cleveland. People are still talking about the Rock Hall's design, and none of that talk is good for the city. None of it-- absolute embarassing failure. And they got a name among names to do it. The most frequent comment I hear about the Case business building (Gehry?) is that it's dangerous to approach in the winter because ice falls off it so randomly. They have to put up barricades! Another outrageous failure. CSU is ashamed of its campus, all except the few pre-modern structures it has, which it has begun to lovingly renovate. I think there's something to be said for quality over novelty.

The west shoreway at rush hour? Sometimes it's all stops. Things have opened up some with additional lanes on the innerbelt, but for the past month it's been hit or miss. If you miss, you're on the shoreway for a long time.

To go from Lakewood to Olmstead via Public Square is like going from Detroit to Youngstown via Chicago (hello Amtrak!). It may be a "connection" but it goes so many miles in the opposite direction that it's pointless.

You mean me? I haven't gotten a good look at it.

How do you see that happening? People doing it, that's how it happens. I don't know. But I know that when we see photo threads of other cities on here, historic neighborhoods generally get infill that fits. They still know how to do brick and stonework and they're not ashamed of ornamentation for its own sake. We get corrugated aluminum, plastic siding, and expanses of bald surface for everyone to see. It's like we're putting up agricultural out-buildings.

I agree that Cleveland needs to up the ante architecturally, but I hope the future's not in featureless low-lying glass boxes. That Maas design looks like a parking garage! I think the best thing Cleveland can do for itself is admit that it was once a beautiful place and take design cues from its own past.

OK I don't know whether there's a glut of district administrators, maybe there is. But I know a lot of teachers and none of them come close to needing a pay cut. Few professions offer such low pay in exchange for such rigorous and unending educational requirements. Yes the benefits are good, but the total package is still so weak it shames our nation. More teachers should be hired in overcrowded districts. Class size is critical. There seems to be a consensus that one bad kid in a room of 15-18 is controllable, but the same bad kid among 30 shuts everything down for everyone. Instead there's a push to get new fancy projection equipment and new textbooks. Those are nice but nobody really needs them.

Crowding on the 55 bus into Cleveland peaked over the summer, along with the gas prices. Less people have ridden with each drop in temperature. There's still some standing toward the end of the route, but not much.

They haven't really started the Superior side of the townhouse block yet. Maybe something taller can front on Superior, because you're right about the proportions being off. Tear out all those planters and give Superior the train line it was built for. Then have that train cross Euclid and go up the hill, to hit Coventry and Cedar Lee! Awesome. Someone call Obama. Aside from Euclid Ave, which is pretty far inland, downtown ends way too abruptly heading east. It's weird to look down 17th around Moe's and wonder what it looked like before it was all paved over. CSU wants everything that's south of Payne, but that leaves a huge area along the lake. This northeastern corridor offers the best opporunity for major housing expansion and Zaremba figured it out first. Putting higher density residential here, well beyond the avenue district, may be the fastest way to draw in the population and the retail we want downtown. That in turn will draw bigger companies. But height is hugely important in developing that area. We're all upset about channel 3 and the feds building squat little forts along Lakeside. No more! I don't understand building residential less than a mile from Lake Erie that doesn't have views. I suggest that we start requiring random towers and parapets on any housing that has any shot of seeing the lake (if it isn't already tall like the AD loft bldg). Note the high incidence of these features on the buildings Cleveland used to have. The old city didn't look so blockity-blockity-block because all this stuff poked up from it.

While it isn't so much about an architect's ego, every architect should be doing their best to make their mark on the world. If not, then what's the point? Obviously, they need to pay attention to surroundings and fit it in with the neighborhood, etc, but I agree with w28th: what's wrong with wanting to leave something behind, something truly memorable? Why should anyone want to leave behind a legacy of blandness?? Why is a bit of ego such a bad thing? I don't understand this mentality. I truly don't. Who said bland was OK, and that memorable wasn't? I said that an architect's role is to design the best building for their client that they can. That should be evaluated by how it meets the client's needs. Not by how it allows the architect to make a statement. I don't care about the architect's statement, or the mark they leave on the world. The problem with a "little ego" is amply demonstrated here, where the architect's insistence on a design gimmick, and not a particularly good one, has jeopardized the viability of the project. I hope CIA gets their money back. You sound like an Ayn Rand villain. I think you're right though.

I think about that sometimes too. It is kind of a concern. One large block of townhomes doesn't hurt anything-- they're better than what was there before, and they're selling well. Still, someone way upthread mentioned how odd it is to go from skyscrapers to 3 stories so abruptly. I'd like to see those townhomes duplicated throughout the residential areas of the city... the closer it is to downtown, the less detached and vinyl-riffic the new housing should be. Put townhomes and smaller parks instead. But along Superior and St. Clair I'd like to see more 10-story lofts go up, and I don't know that we want a lot more new 3-story stuff there.

Regionalism would help this. It should be everyone or no one. Speed cameras aren't popular anywhere and nobody buys the safety argument. Equal enforcement and cost savings are two good reasons in favor, but to me targeting low income areas with surveillance robots weighs too heavily against it. That isn't the future I'm looking for. I don't think cameras would ever survive a referendum in Cleveland. But if I were on council, it would be tough for me to try repealing them. Bye bye balanced budget. Suburbs don't want them either, but they don't need the revenue enough for anyone to put their name on it. The cameras are a symptom and a sign of the city's financial situation. Putting so many on commuter routes was the nicest thing Cleveland could do for its residents. Massive boulevards like Clifton and Chester would be 50 mph in Toledo. It's not anarchy. The streets don't flow with blood. The propriety of some of Cleveland's speed limits is questionable. Little things can add up when people make up their minds about a place. Cleveland could be more welcoming. Let's not have people answering to robots.