Jeffery

I walked through the Erie Cemetary(?) at dawn, after bkfst at Erie Island Coffee.

This is why I feel I just scratched the surface. The reason I crossed the valley at Fleet is that I was going to drive out into the west side and down into the famous Parma. But it was getting late and I didn’t want to hit rush hour traffic, and wanted to walk downtown at bit before the sun set (see above post). The idea behind this trip was to either walk places or take the Rapid to places where I could walk. I should also say my SF impression from Little Italy was sort of a fleeting thing, yet suprising. I can see the PA mountain town comparison, too (see Rob Pence’s Johnstown pix). Walking the Flats and the three (unexpected) bars I walked the Flats three times. Both sides of the river. East bank was those late afternoon walks that ended up at night. West bank was a morning walk, which gets a separate post. The old nightclub district is forlorn. The lonesome wind was whistling and tumbleweeds blowing (if they had tumbleweeds in Cleveland). I don’t think anything is open there anymore. A weedy lot, a derelict “water taxi” sign and a tumbledown wood dock are images that stick with me of this sad spot, and that the façade of one old building looks like its sagging somehow. I noted that the Flats isn’t half as big as the action now uphill in the Warehouse District, but for its time it could have been intense (before my time). I did notice that there is still a big industrial supply place in business on the east side of the street (probably was there before the place turned into an entertainment zone) and at the lake end there is this big empty space with a lone concrete silo and some big piles of dirt. Maybe this would be a good location for a Portland-style infill project, to build a new neighborhood extending the Flats north to the lake? And it has the light rail waterfront line….which seems a train to nowhere . I guess the idea of a Flats station was to serve nightclub patrons and tourists? I did notice some new apartments and townhouses on a hill down from the Veterans Bridge approach, so maybe there is a residential redevelopment effort going on? The more interesting part of the Flats is deeper in, south of that defunct nightclub district. I guess this is the “Oxbow” area, beyond that little park with the log cabin. Old buildings lining the streets, mixed in with vacant lots and parking, under the Veterans Bridge. This area is quite picturesque, what with all that high iron (the bridges of various types) , gritty industrial, and old 19th century relict building streetscapes. Patina of Place. And the Rapid rumbling overhead every so often and the skyline and bluffs as a backdrop. And a river runs through it. One of those old buildings was The Flatiron (“bar # 1”), which was this rather fun Irish bar. They had live music, this guy playing guitar and bodrahn and singing those old Irish tunes, taking requests and bantering with the audience, getting wilder as the night wore on (and as he had another pint…). I noticed that these industrial places in the Flats are still operating, some of them. I heard machinery humming in a factory near some big concrete silos. Also noted there is an old-style pre-concrete elevator still on the river. Think I saw that from one of those high-level bridges. Back down in the Flats, wandering along the river, wandering along the river, it was getting difficult to tell what side was “east bank” and what was “west”. Some streets were blocked by bridges being closed (or “open”), in other cases the street started on the east bank than ran across the river on drawbridges to the west or south. Not to mention all the railroad bridges (the “Flats Industrial Railroad” I guess…I saw one of their locomotives parked). It seems quite a few of the railroad bridges are left open, in some cases because the railroad itself is gone. I got as far as that fire station on the river. I was trying to find a scene that I remember from my ’96 trip, being down in the Flats and the Terminal Tower complex looming high overhead on its bluff, lit up at night. I wonder if I just imagined it, or my mind edited a memory to make the scene more vivid than it was in real life, taking what was already a dramatic vignette and enhancing it. I think I might have found the location where I made the glance out (at that time) the car window and caught the image. Maybe the parking lot of that marine service company across from the fire station. Seems like it would have been the spot. That was far as I penetrated along the Cuyahoga. On the way back, just across another drawbridge, on a corner and hill, was another bar with a gallows humor sign “Collision Bend Tavern”, showing two ore boats running into each other. Got to see what this place is about. There’s the door. “The lady or the tiger?” This was “bar #2”. Turns out it wasn’t quite the rough dive bar it seemed as it had a mix of characters. Hipsters, regular Joes, business types. One guy I sat next to was a business type, impeccable in his blue blazer and tie, but for all the work looking and talking like an older version of Dennis Leary. He told me the story: The place is run by an old guy and his wife (guy was bartending). Every drink is $2. Beer, shots, whatever. $2. And it’s open until the bartender gets tired and wants to go home. And its only open on Friday evenings, apparently just to keep the license active. And they had a hot dogs and stuff buffet spread. It was busier today because the place apparently just got a write-up in the paper. I ordered a beer and shot of schnapps. Bartender said he hadn’t opened the bottle in five years so tell him if it’s still good. It was. Other (younger) guy sitting next to me told me to check out this place called Hooples, or Major Hoople or Mott the Hoople. Hoople something. That it was up the street and across a bridge. I guess up toward Tremont. And they had live music sometimes. Walked up to Hoople. Bar # 3. Also a busy place. No band but still a lively partyesque scen with the same open, outgoing conviviality I found in those other two bars. Some regular had his birthday, but he was already cut off (said the bartender when I offered to buy him a drink). The crowd here was older, my age and older, I think, and the place had this big picture window overlooking the skyline, where you can drink and look out over the city. In the back patio they apparently project movies or TV on a bridge pillar (don’t recall what bridge). So hung out there a bit, and they called me a cab to take me back to the hotel. Enough for that night. So, a walk into the Flats. An abandoned entertainment district that had three bars that probably pre-dated the entertainment district era. I don’t really know what’s planned for this area. On one of my other walks, back from Tremont across that “Hope Bridge” (the one with the art deco figures holding vehicles), I noticed, below, there was a lot of vacant space in the flats, the areas I was walking or nearby. Maybe these are all brownfields. But it seems like something could or should be done with that old entertainment district closer to downtown. It seems like such a good location. A final note. In my hotel room at night ..i am a light sleeper, and I heard late at night a ships horn, or so I imagined, signaling to those Flats bridges to open, so a laker can make its way upriver. You realize you are really in a port city hearing that sound, very poignant and romantic. More on that later.

...maybe. They are doing this in Louisville in a big way, basically following Allens lead.

55th Street to Slavic Village. I came in on 55th, thinking about going to that Slovenian Country House, but it was too late, and I decided to skip that place and drive down to Slavic Village. 55th is sort of inner city snaggletooth. Seems a lot of institutional and low density stuff on this street. But I wanted to take a spin through this area that was around the old St Alphonsus parish, since I recall it showed up as a vacancy hot spot. Well, that neighborhood is gone. Very pockmarked with vacant lots. Later in the week Kucnich, in his remarks, mentioned how the foreclosure crisis destroyed Slavic Village, which was probably this area. They have a pretty cool city councilman, though, Tony Brancatelli, who was on one of the panel discussion I attended, discussion how they used various data sources to go after speculators preying on the neighborhood. Still, this area is a mess. In fact I recall Broadway was pretty shabby even from my earlier visits. I think I worked my way further south, on 65th and then maybe Broadway, to get to Fleet Avenue and the St Stans area, which seems to be called “Warzawa”, not “Slavic Village”. This area was not quite as pockmarked, mostly intact, it seems. I did stop in at one of the restaurants on Fleet, which had this buffet set up, but had second thoughts, and instead walked up to St Stans. I noticed there was a coffee shop on this street! Had my self a cup, and saw they had Krispee Kreme donuts as the pastry (vs the usual vegan oatmeal bar or something like that). You have to love that. Nice to see someone trying. We don't even have neighborhood coffee shops in Dayton... Anyway, this area seemed still pretty viable even though I could see some vacancies. Heading west on Fleet one can see a lot of active heavy industry (steel and aluminum), so the place still has that happening. Then I found my way to 25th to head downtown. Health Line to Little Italy Walking around downtown for lunch and breakfast I kept hearing the “ding-ding” of those gray Healthline hinged buses. Seemed like a pretty frequent service. So I skipped out early on the last day to take the Health Line to Little Italy. Easy to use. They have ticket kiosks, and the loading is like a train vs a bus, off a platform. On the bus, automated stop announcements, and you can see where you are via the graphics at the stations, or stops. The bus was pretty crowded, too, so this service is being used. Got to see more of Euclid. I can see a few old mansions survive, and the incongruous Dunham Tavern. Yet the street is a blah, gray wasteland of commercial uses and parking, with some bulking-up at the Cleveland Clinic. Beyond the park and Severance Hall things get maybe busier, but still could be better. I got off on one of the stops near Mayfield. Walked Mayfield, and had dinner at one of those Italian restaurants, Guarino (?) with the lace tablecloths. So old school! Actually pretty good food, too..Ravioli and Carpese (tomato) salad. Also noticed a very busy bakery. I made a point of walking the side streets north of Mayfield. Maybe it was the white frame houses, maybe it was that this area is built on a hill, maybe it’s the density, with the rear units, and the houses coming right to the street, or maybe it was the fresh changeable weather coming in off the lake, but I was really getting flashes of San Francisco here, unexpected memories of North Beach and the Castro and Mission in this area. The place is really special. I walked back on Murray Hill, which has its own picturesque thing going on as it has the accent of that church tower up in the cemetery has visual accent, though the build-out became more conventional (ie not as dense) the further you got from Mayfield. Murray Hill has retail every so often, and I stopped in one of these, a coffee shop that was really a tea house, very funky inside. Aglebra Tea, was it? Run by arabs, I think. Got an iced tea, and walked to the rapid station down where that highway drops down from the hill to MLK Blvd. Took the Rapid back to Tower City. I wonder if the Rapid is more….rapid? Seems Health Line has a lot of stops...both people getting on and off and the stoplight kind. But I guess what sells this is that it’s so frequent. I think 10 minute headway or less during some times of day. Return to Little Italy & Comment on the Mayfield/Euclid area I couldn’t get enough of Little Itally so returned on my last day. I wanted to get some Italian cookies at that bakery. So I parked down on Murray Hill and walked to Mayfield. The church bells were ringing and people walking to church. This was so cool. Yeah, this could be the Mission or parts of Columbus Avenue in North Beach, near that Italian church near Telegraph Hill. Celevland as the San Francisco of the Great Lakes. Who knew? But maybe I’m just too enamoured of this neighborhood, as a model of what the Urban Great Lakes could be, the activity and street life here. Walked back along another side street, south of Mayfield, parallel to Murray Hill, I think. Not quite as dense, it seemed, as the side streets north of Mayfield. What a disappointment Mayfield is west of the railroad viaduct, to where it meets Euclid! Seems like there is a big opportunity to re-develop this area more on new-urbanist lines, extending the type of streetscape one finds in Little Italy down Mayfield and along Euclid, putting in mixed use of retail and housing, and maybe even classroom space for CWR. Seems like this is a big urban infill opportunity, since there is such a successful model right under the viaduct in Little Italy.

A few quick notes on my visit to Cleveland. This was my fourth trip to the city. The previous three were with my late partner, the last two, in 1996 and 2004 being the most memorable. So returning was bittersweet as certain locations had memories, since these visits were more of a “we” thing than a “me” thing. Also, its been about a year since he passed, so that was in my mind, too. Ironically I was at the same hotel that we stayed at before, the Renaissance at Tower City (where that Reclaiming Vacant Properties conference was held). So some places were richer in memory than others, thus perhaps more melancholy for me. The Rock Hall and Voinovich Park was one. I walked the park as the sun was getting low, but didn’t visit the Rock Hall. The Erieview Galleria was another (where he bought a leather coat at a now-closed Eddie Bauer). Erieview now has that Hungarian museum, which would have been interesting, but I didn’t have time for it this go-round. The other location was the old Euclid Arcade, where we had dinner at a long-forgotten restaurant called John the Waiter. There still is a restaurant in the Arcade, but it’s quite deluxe (associated with that hotel, I think). Their cocktail lounge has an excellent interior, sort of a sophisticated, abstracted allusion to rust-belt urbanity. A jazz combo was playing when I stopped in. Yet, this trip was about creating new memories. Henry Miller once said ”Our destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things”. So it was with this trip to the Great Lakes cities…to see things, feel things, anew. So less about me and more about Cleveland. A Random Golden Hour Walk Downtown The golden hours are those late afternoon hours before twilight, when things are just aglow in the lowering sun. This was my first walk in Cleveland after checking in (got off to a later start in Buffalo). A random walk east and toward the lake. I used to be negative about downtown Cleveland (and still am about parts, mainly that Group Plan area), but have pretty much changed my mind about the place. Walking down Prospect I noticed how Prospect and Huron, I think, develop angled intersections that sort of define and extend downtown, with the AT&T tower as an accent. So downtown sort of has this eastward linear reach, with fairly substantial high rises, and a lot of residential conversion. That’s one thing that struck me about Cleveland, the aggressive residential conversions in the center city..a trend that has seriously caught on here. Euclid is, of course, the main street, but Prospect and Huron are pretty neat downtown spaces in their own rights (not to mention the connecting arcades). 9th, I think, is remarkable. It is like a Chicago Loop or Near North Side busy street, all banks and a mix of older and newer modernist high rises. It has a certain energy to it. So I continue walking, past the theatre district and working my way north and east, north of CSU campus along the diagonals of St Clair and Superior and their parallel streets, working north via the numbered side streets. I think I encountered some of those “first/last houses” I posted about last year (using Louisville), the first houses one encounters out of a downtown. On 25th or 26th Street I think. Walking this area one sees a few of these older survivors, either converted into commercial use, or older commercial buildings when this area might have been more mixed or residential. I was paying a lot of attention to vernacular architecture on this visit, so more on that later. As it is the area reminded me a bit of that part of Chicago south of the Loop to about, say, McCormick Place, the way that part of Chicago used to be, which is old loft factories (like the old Cuneo Press along the lake. Cleveland has these loft industrial buildings close to the lake too), and lower commercial/industrial things, and that steam/power plant, with a mix of of surface parking. Looked like a mix of light industrial and business-to-business business as well as CSU and government things. Also notice some Asian things (like a Chinese business association). I guess if I had kept on walking I would have crossed that freeway cutting and been in in Asiatown. Not today, though. Noticeable here is that the streets sort of end in the downtown skyline..the taller buildings along Euclid and in Erieview blocking the vistas, making the downtown loom more. Impressive. I should also note that I recall Clevelanders posting here take issue with comparisons with Chicago. Coming from a native Chicagoan such as myself these are a compliment. But Cleveland is a place unto itself, where comparisons operate in only a very general way given how this city has developed such a distinctive quality all its own, such a powerful genus loci. A certain metropolitanist je ne sais quoi Maybe places are more “like Cleveland” than vice versa? Anyway…. I finally made it to Lakeview Avenue, and a big parking lot overlooking the lake. Brick or cobblestone streets here, I think. One should note that Lake Erie is always a presence in the city, in the streets closer to the lake, since the city is on that elevated bench or bluff. It’s this way here, it’s this way downtown, it’s this way in Ohio City. One can always look down a street out into the blue vastness of Lake Erie to the sharp horizon line. Sort of poetic and evocative the way the lake is such a presence. And when on the lake the scalloped shore out to the west helps to define the water space a bit, too, actually accentuates the vastness. So…. I followed Lakeview into the Erieview area and down to the lake at Voinovich Park, then returned, as noted above. The room was bathed in light reflecting off the yellow brick of the Terminal Tower (not much of a view but the room was postivley glowing in that reflected golden late sunlight. A Brief Note on Tower City But, before I close, a note on Tower City. This was impressive when I visited in 1996, again in 2004, and remains impressive. Unlike a few other downtown shopping venues we all know this one has remained a viable retail destination, mostly leased it seems (and with recognizable stores, too, like Brooks Brothers and Jones New York and Victoria’s Secret), and with a lot of foot traffic. Perhaps having the Rapid station on-site helps? And such an impressive sequence, to arrive via the Rapid; exit the train, ascend into the shopping concourse, pass past the elevators into the grand lobby of the Terminal Tower, then pop out into the premier public space of downtown, Public Square. Excellent. Coming in the next few posts: drives, more walks, and a couple of transit rides (two Rapid rides and the Healthline), coffeshops, bookstores, and restaurants, plus three unexpected bars.

I took a tour of four of these while in Cleveland. Chateaux Hough was the most entertaining...that this guy is seriously trying to grow grapes for wine there. The one that was the reality check was the one where they were doing repeated soil testing and it was coming up "hot" for lead (and I think some other things), but there was no real standard on safe levels of contamination. So there was that risk factor. This makes me realize that urban gardening/farming might be oversold as a solution. One of the things I noticed in some locations (the vicinity of Chateaux Hough and near the last garden we saw, with the hoop houses), was some brand new infill housing. Similar to what I saw in Buffalo and what is happening here in Dayton. I'm thinking this might be the real solution to vacant land, and that urban farming is a pretty specialized solution, operating at a smaller scale. I think it can be profitable and self-sustaining, as shown by Will Allen in Milwaulkee, but not at the large scale that I once thought. Allen uses raised beds and compost-based soil, not planting direct in the ground, so avoids the lead issue. But this requires a lot of compost-based soil.

The latest Quinnipac Poll shows Kasich out ahead. Looks pretty good for him this close to the election. I guess we'll soon see if he is serious about deep-sixing 3C.

Well, it wasn't a full week,and once again I feel I just scratched the surface of this complex city/metro area. I'll post a stand-alone thread with some notes/observations soon.

And thank you for that recommendation. I certainly want to explore this area a bit more. I've heard Syracuse is similar to the Dayton area in population. Ill be there next month. @@@@ More Buffalo notes: Vernacular Architecture There is a noticeable Buffalo housing style...somewhat wide front, tripartite facade division, door on the side on the first floor. There are two-story and cottage versions of this style. In older examples the windows are arched, sometimes with elaborate trim around the windows (Italianate style). I suspect that this is an urban variation on those upstate NY farmhouses, which you also see in the Western Reserve. In the "newer" older areas you see sort of a "Hamtramck" style, with narrow front porches. Houses into Downtown What's notable is how close the housing areas get into downtown. Even Chippewa Street, which is pretty much a downtown street at Main and at Delaware, turns into a residential area just two blocks west (west of Elmwood, closer to the lake). A mix of apartment houses and single family, but also a park dot this area (Johnson Park?), similar to those "parks" they have in Lexington (there are a few of these Lex-style parks in Buffalo). In fact this set-up reminds me a lot of Lexington (with Gratz Park and Western Suburb) or Sacramento (with Alkali Flat),the way the residential area comes right up against downtown. I think Delaware Street might have been akin to Woodward Avenue or Euclid before those streets were wiped out..the street of grand mansions and large churches, but closer in you even see fancy DC-style rowhouses (one block of them) and more commercial things mixing in with and replacing the mansions, more south of Allen Street. Yet it's still very walkable right in to downtown. Yt oddly Deleware becomes sort of blah in the heart of downtown, south of Chippewa, since the action is more on Main Street. Vice versa Main Street north of the theatre area becomes more of an edge condition (between the residential areas along Deleware and parallel streets and a medical center) vs a central busy street. North of, say, Deleware Park and Cansius College, Main street becomes more of an outer neighborhood busy street.

The guy is a sports writers. They usually adopt the jerky-boy style. Yawn.

Blitz Tour of Downtown Rochester Coldayman suggested I visit, that I'd like it. I did and did. This was just a brief visit, though, for a quick walk through downtown Rochester. First off, NY State countryside is different. On the way to R only around Batavia did you start to see more "Ohio" scale wide fields and woodlots. Otherwise there was farmland and woodland more mixed, with more fallow land, it seemed. Didn't seem to be as intensively farmed. But maybe an "old road" road trip betwen the two cities would be more revealing. Coming into Rochester, noticed right away more new subdivisions off the freeway than I saw coming into Buffalo. Also, when the skyline hove into view I thought..."uh-oh, another Dayton"...black glass box the tallest skyscraper. Second tallest had vertical windows.... Turns out this was quite different. On the map they had what looked like this deadly freeway maze encircling downtown. The "Inner Loop". Turns out this was easier to navigate than I thought due to excellent signage. The highway actually is at grade in parts before either dropping or elevating. It does form somewhat a barrier for the rest of the city, maybe...but I didnt really sense that in the part of town I was in. Signage led me off the freeway to the "High Falls District" I sort of knew this but didn't really realize the scale. The downtown as a rapids running through it, nearly whitewater, and this big tall waterfall! where the Genessee River drops into a gorge on the way to Lake Ontario. Wow...seriously this was jaw dropping. And these old factory buildings growing out of cliffs surrounding the gorge an falls. This area was an excellent mix of adaptive re-use, new construction, and industrial archeology (using factory ruins) interpreting their waterpower district. Stuff like this usually just stays on paper, in never-executed plans and drawings. In this case they actually built it!, Including a converted bridge as walkway over the deep gorge. Genesee Brewrey off on the far side cliffs. This waterfront use continues through downtown, which is actually on both sides of the river. There is some bizzarre modern architecture here, including a building with a flying saucer on the roof. The downtown riverfront has walkways and seating and modernist Y-bridge. Pretty sucessfull except for one hotel that has a loading area along the river (yet you can still walk along it). Bridges are impressive. Stone, including a double stone one. Along the river north and south there are older loft-style buidlings which are being re-used (and along the approach streets). Downtown seems pretty lively, considering I was there on Columbus Day. Seems better than expected. Interesting thing, too, are the streets, which come in on angles in some cases, giving the place a more defined feel (a bit like Charleston, WV). One of the streets leading from the heart of downtown to the High Falls area has a row of older storefront/commercial buildings that are being fixed up. The rest of the city? Dont know, On the way back I drove north, past the Kodak complex, reach the Bausch (or was in Lomb) bridge across the gorge. As I was making the right turn I looked left and saw "the Flatiron Grille" or 'Flatiron Tavern", where the street splits, inviting one to explore the city. Maybe next time. Buffalo Planning Disasters & Reconstruction Probably the big planning disaster was the ramming of a limited access highway through the parks and destroying Humboldt Boulevard in the processs. Buffalo has wide Chicacago-style boulevards, with parkways seperating local acess from the main boulevard roads (also a bit like Southern Parkway in Louisville). This inner city expressway destroyed one of these, tearing up all the trees and parkways and leaving the two local access streets as frontage roads. Wow. The freeway here is like a baby Dan Ryan, running in a cutting on its way to downtown, where it debouches into two wide one way streets, cutting downtown off from the rest of the East Site (sort of). Planning Disaster #2 was maybe not really a disaster, but it detracts from the city. This is the lakefront. I did manage to find my way to the lakefront, which is hard to get to by car, too. Turns out the area between the lakefront expressway and the lake itself is developed into suburban apt/condo developments. Serioulsy, this looks like a high-end, more "designed" version of a suburban planned unit development. Nice landscaping, very pleasant, utterly unwalkable even though they have sidewalks. On the way to this is a collection of cruicform public housing towers,liked you see in NYC, except these apparently have been converted into market-rate housing? , Other than that, a maze of highway ramps and parking seperates this lakefront suburbia from downtown proper. Urban design fail. (I am beginning to think the only city that really did it right with a lakefront is Chicago....maybe Milwaukee). Urban Planning Disaster # 3 (which is being corrected): The Elicott About half of the near east side of the city was removed for a bit public housing project. This was an old mixed Italian/black area. This project is being replaced with nice suburban-style single famliy homes (and the high rises have been redone, too). This turned out to be a good save. I should note that I explored a lot of the older parts of the east side, up to Jefferson Street (and beyond, too, the old Polonia). It seems the Fruit Belt area has the mostly older things left, and the areas between Genessee and William is being mostly reconstructed as new suburban-style single family homes (with a few older houses mixed in). So the Buffalo response to urban vacancy is appearst to be to reconstruct the city at a lower density, not turn it into open space or urban ag (more on urban ag later). Michigan Street This was interesting. The area between downtown Buffalo and the East Side is sort of this wierd transitional zone, that actually has a scattering of older buildings of various types still standing. Probably the most interesting was a small group on Michigan Street. The oldest black church in the city (from before the Civil War) and the nearby ministers house have been preserved and turned into an open-air musuem (I think the church still operates as a church), and around the corner there is the Colored Muscians Club, which offers classes and music things, including a jazz jam session. One can see a few other things being saved here, too, along Michigan and points east and west. Michigan and Broadway was the historic core of the Buffalo black community (but also an eastern European Jewish "urban" shtetl" had developed here, too, east of Michigan), Interesting to see them doing some urban history interpretation around black history and community formation, which is usually negelected in other places. The wide streets here, shooting out of downtown (Genesee and Broadway) bring to mind Detroit, streets like Gratiot. Especially the big church buildings that sometimes front the streets, visible in the distance. Closer into downtown the streets resemble the diagonals of Indianapolis, as there are still sets of older 19th century commrecial buildings on them (this is the Chippewa Market area off Broadway...said market is now a parking lot), More notes on Buffalo (and a seperate thread on Cleveland) later...

On paper they might seem similar, but they are quite different.

Their "cups" of soup are bowls. Largish ones. I think I gained 5 lbs my first day here. Polish Villa in suburban Cheektowaga: Czarina "cup" of soup, kapusta, goblaki, and two sauerkraut pieorgi, + mashed potatos and gravy and a blueberry crepe for desert. The pierogi where the normal "adult" sized ones I recall from Chicago, not the small ones you get in Dayton. Then, same day for dinner, Beef on Weck with sides and the local "Flying Buffalo" beer (pretty good microbrew) on tap, at Ulriches, which is a neat old place. There are other options...had brunch at Bettys' and a pretty good vegitarian thing at Amys Place up by the university. Today, maybe, lunch at the Slovenian Country House before checking into the hotel in Cleveland. But I am going to make a return trip to the Broadway Market before leaving town to try to find some kolcachkis. Broadway Market is at one end of a public market continuum. 2nd Street Market or North Market are at another.

The guys I talked to at the gay bars told me Rochester is only about 1.5 hours from Buffalo. It's tempting to do a quick road trip tomorrow, but maybe not. One guy said Rochester is more "white collar" vis "blue collar" Buffalo. Hmm....

I don't know enough about Cleveland to make a comparison. I can say Niagara Square is not like Public Square in Cleveland as its a bit on the "edge' of downtown, and there is another square that is more in heart of downtown. Downtown Buffalo is hard to read. Main Street is pretty much the main part of downtown, but the city seems to fuzz out pretty fast on either side. Sort of spread out. ALso, the downtown is actually on a bench or shelf and the land drops away towards the east and south and towards the lake as well. Gentle slopes but it is noticeable. Lake Erie is pretty much unwalkable from downtown. I tried to walk there this evening to watch the sun set over the lake and encountered a zone of parking lots, freeway ramps, and modernist office developments. Yet, further out in the neighborhoods, you can actually look down a street at see the lake horizon, see water, since the land rises to the north, and drops away towards the lake. Further east, as you drive south on the north-south streets, like Jefferson, this rise means you can see the "Edge of Applachia" off in the distance as a blue ridge. I guess it never dawned on me how close Buffalo was to Appalachia (this was really noticeable, though, on the drive up, very scenic drive as you got long vistas over Lake Erie on one side and the Appalachian escarpment on the other). There is a lot of empty storefronts on Main Street (which has a streetcar running down it, light rail, which becomes the subway), but they did, apparently, save their downtown arcade. Seems like the northern part of this Main Street is their theatre district, which has a gay dance bar called Marcella, which is actually pretty weak compared to Masque in Dayton! (or maybe they are "over" dance bars). There is this street on the northern edge of downtown called Chippewa Street which was very busy and loud on Saturday...they call this the "Chip Strip". Reminded me of a slightly more intense version of that Fountain Square/Walnut Street thing in Cincy, in terms of crowded bars with younger (than me) people. Coffee houses are not big here. There is only one around here (here being Allen Street area), the Spot, on that Chip Strip. THis is a big change from, say, Cincinnati and Louisville, both of which seem to have more developed coffee cultures. This seems to be more a drinking town. Also, seems to be a lot more "ethnic" than Cincy/Dayton...Italians are big here, and Irish. Poles (actually "new" Poles..heard people speaking Polish and some other languages I dont recognize). Puerto Ricans...the West Side, along the lake, is Puerto Rican. People talk "northern", too. I heard a lot of this talk at the Anchor, birthplace of the "wings" (which is also an Italian restaurant). I don't know. Not used to this type of make-up after all my years in Dayton (or I realize how 'southern' Dayton really is). I discovered their "Little Italy" today, on the northermost part of town. A long busy street (Hertel?) that reminded me of the NW SIde of Chicago a bit. Decked out for some Columbus Day thing, I think... The place is just....different.....

I'm thinking Buffalo is severly underrated. Yet, I am suprised at the seeming weakness of the live music scene here (from my superficial visit so far).

Toledo has a brace of big reinforced concrete grain elevators on the Maumee River. Buffalo has a bunch of reinforced concrete grain elevators on the Buffalo River. There the similarity ends. @@@ Yeah, I can see what you are saying, but I see this on either side of Allen Street. I saw a house on Tupper, I think, with a little plaque saying it was built in 1830 (this was a few blocks south of Allen)...which puts this area in the Oregon District time range, but still fairly far out from Downtown. Which is whats' cool about Buffalo..that so much survives from the 19th century. I'm also picking up on a "Chicago" vibe with these close-in neighborhoods. Sort of like, say, "Old Town Triangle" north of North Avenue and along Lincoln, or Wicker Park. Maybe Pilsen. Maybe not the extensive/continous "busy street" build out like you see in Chicago, but the tree-lined side streets, yeah sure. A neat thing is that grid shift between "Allentown" and the "West Side", making for interesting streetscapes (combined with the narrow streets). Cherokee Park area meets Grafton Hill. Or the "Fortys"/McKinley Park area in Sacramento. Or a touch of Ainsley Park/Piedmont Park in Atlanta. At first I thought this was ColDayMan puffing up the place. But Noooo!!!...this is pretty amazing and unexpected given the bad press Buffalo gets. A Bardstown Road /Frankfort Avenue -scale strip of development...extensive.....interesting how this works as it has these intervals of residential stuff between the commercial districts. And every commercial district is pretty much happening on Elmwood.

Agreed. When I look at employment numbers I look at the private sector numbers to see how the economy is doing. This public sector stuff is "superstructure". What we are seeing is the effect, in part, of reduced revenue due to the recession. Seems to be a lag between public sector layoffs vs a vis private sector, probably due to fiscal year lags in revenue shorfalls translating to layoffs. And there is that census stuff, too. But more the effect of revenue shortfalls, methinks.

The experience of the 1930s was one of the reasons thay tried to do economic coordination via the Bretton Woods agreements after WWII. But that was a different world. This is in relative terms. What we are seeing is the benefits of growth (in the US) getting concentrated into the professional/managerial/owning classess...actually to people most likely to post on this very message board (so perhaps a skewed POV at UO). In the 1950s and 1960s into the 1970s a bit the benefits of growth where distributed more generally in society, in part due to the sucess of the union movement (but I don't think that's the entire story). After 1970 one saw the erosion of purchasing power due to inflation (during the 1970s) and the drop in wages due to the disappearance of manufacturing work and higher levels of joblessness depressing wages in general. There was also an ongoing uptick in poverty (which has reached postwar highs during this recession). This was concentrated in some places more than others, and with some groups more than others. Blacks, for example, were hit hard by this economic shift (a good discussion is in the first chaper of "The Making of the Urban Crisis", but see also the work or Willaim Julius Wilson). We are converging more to the Latin American model. In Latin America, in some cases, they are seeing the benefits of their growth becoming more widely distributed. I think this is what's happening in places like Brazil. But this isn't a big deal if you are a "winner" in the winner-take-all society. From the winners' POV, sure the future's so bright you've got to wear shades.

Thanks! Seems like this ag economy is under-appreciated. Mercer and Darke Counties seem to be big farm economy powerehouses.

Nate Silvers 538 Blog is hosted by the New York Times now, complete with some nifty graphics 538 He has a post on the recent Ohio polls, and is still favoring a Kasich win. "We now show Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, with a 13 percent chance to save his seat, up from 8 percent last week." "I’m sure some people will ask why Mr. Strickland is still at 13 percent and not higher, when the two polls released Tuesday show him only 1 point behind Mr. Kasich among likely voters. There are several reasons. First, while the polls show Mr. Kasich’s lead narrowing, they still show him with the lead, and even a small lead can be surprisingly meaningful with barely more than a month left in the campaign. Second, the model is not in a rush to discard some slightly older polls, like those from SurveyUSA and Quinnipiac University, which had given Mr. Kasich a double-digit advantage" 538's Ohio Page

Damn! I was planning on having dinner at Crop during my visit to Cleveland in two weeks ("next month"). Where are they relocating to?

Some gee-whiz numbers from the 2007 Census of Agriculture, which is chock-full of interesting stats on agriculture in Ohio. The Dayton Region apparently is a major ag center for the state, something that is perhaps overlooked. So lets put some numbers on those "blank spaces" between the citys and towns. Defining the Dayton Region For the purpose of this post set, the Dayton region is: The Dayton & Springfield MSA counties: Montgomery Preble Miami Green Clark ...and the counties north towards Lima and Indian & Grand Lakes: Darke Shelby Champagne Logan Auglaize Mercer (since they seem to have traditionally had social and economic and media connections to Dayton) Cash Value The big number. Two types of cash value of farm products (for 2007): Crops: $869.4 Million: 21.15% of the state total Livestock & Poultry: $1.2 billion(!), 39.7% of the state total Together these account for 28.6% of the cash value of Ohio ag production. A whopping $2 billion (rounded). The top counties for cash value: Darke: $479.8M Mercer: $535.2M Miami: $175.4M Auglaize: $138.6M Clark: $137M (which is a suprise since this is "Sprinfield & Vicinity", an urbanized county) Production Expenses Cash Value is nice big number, but there are production expenses: feed, fertilizer, operating costs, etc. This comes up to $1.5 Billion for the Dayton region. This presumably represents quite a market for ag suppliers of various sorts. The top production expense counties are, not suprisingly, the top ones for cash value: Mercer: $409.8 M Darke: $343.2 M Clark: $145.3 M Auglaize: $104.5 M Preble: $95.1 M (unexpected since the cash value of production is not in the top five counties). Offsetting this are Federal Government transfer payments of various sorts: crop subsidies and crop insurance payments. This accounts for $40.3 M for the region for 2007. Net Farm Income After expenses of various sorts there is the net farm income. This amounts to $561.3 M for the region. The top net income counties are: Darke: $149.9 M Mercer: $136.9 M Shelby: $44.4M Auglaize: $42.9M Clark: $36.3M Next, a quick look at farm operators and employment.

The canal is a cool feature...that it survived the demise of the canal system. I can see maybe more development happening along it similar to what Indianapolis did with their canal (though Indys canal doesnt go through the heart of the downtown the way Akrons did). I also like that there was some historic interpretation of this feature (those displays or signs).

From what I recall the Canadian Sault Ste Marie is larger and more active than this sleepy-looking place (albeit with a suprising number of older tallish buildings).