hubz1124

And there in lies the problem. Rarely in Cleveland will you ever be surrounded by thousands of other people. The aggressive panhandlers can seem a lot more daunting to families or women who are on a sparsely populated street.

^ I believe there is a thread dedicated to the homeless, this conversation may be better served there. With that being said, I know the homeless man you speak of on E. 6th and Euclid, he is there almost everyday at lunch at he can be extremely rude and aggressive. I assume the City of Cleveland has some type of laws/mandates that prohibit loitering, I can't figure out why they aren't enforced.

Well as much fun as we are having with the Onion article, I would like to discuss my recent experience taking RTA to the airport. And I want to preface this by telling you that this is not a rant, I am just sharing my experience and I take the rapid and the Healthline often, so I am very familiar with RTA... Taking the red-line from Tower-City to the airport went as well as can be expected. Train arrived on time and dropped me off right at the airport. Returning home from the airport was a little different story. First, all of the signage (as far as I can tell) in the concourse(s) refers only to where passengers can find 'Ground Transportation' (even has an image of an automobile). Signage for the rapid doesn't appear until you are down in baggage claim. I would not be surprised if many passengers come and go without knowing the rapid option exists. Second, the user-interface on the RTA ticket machines are awful. I know this issue isn't specific to the Hopkins station, but for the first time since moving to the city, the ticket machine managed to stump me. I navigated through the prompts for a single-ride ticket and chose to pay with a debit card. After swiping my card, the screen instructed me to enter my pin, followed by the '#' sign. I, for the life of me, could not find the '#' sign anywhere on the keypad. I am fully ready to admit that this was probably operator error (I was tired and jet lagged), but either way, I did have to start the entire process over. If I wasn't well versed in the user-interface of RTA's ticketing machines, having to start over would have been very frustrating... BTW, I have ridden on rapid transit systems in Chicago, Charlotte and London... I wouldn't say that any of the aforementioned systems have intuitive user-interfaces on their ticketing machines, but I will say that Cleveland's is the worst. Third and final, It appeared as though the interior waiting room was in the process of being refurbished and I am excited to see the end result. I hope they are going to do the same to the outside waiting room as the oil stained rocks littered with cigarette butts and the dingy walls with broken modeled airplanes probably do not give off the kind of vibe that we want visitors to our great city to have. Thanks for listening and take everything I said here with a grain of salt, everyone's experiences are different!

I admittedly wasn't thrilled to hear about this conversion myself, but after reading the tumblr article on the precious page I am more open to the idea. If you haven't read it yet you should

You definitely should look up the Cleveland 2030 Master Plan, I would do it but alas I'm on my iphone

From what I understand its going to enveloped in glass, not concrete and according to a PD article a few months back, its going to save the building 500,000.00 a year in heating/cooling costs

I spent last summer with a group called 'Friends of Edgewater' who cleans the beach/park on the first Saturday of every month. If you care about the park, I suggest you look into joining. With that being said, at the beginning of every season there's inevitably a large swath of tree limbs and other crap that ends up on the beach front. Last year, instead of doing the right thing, which would have consisted of bringing in a team and picking up the larger items by hand and 'combing' the rest, they chose to bulldoze the entire beach. This tactic left the beach quite clean undoubtedly, but it also left it hard as a rock for the remainder of the season as the bulldozer removed the soft top layer of sand. I would also ask why the park does not yet have a proper beach comber. What I referred to earlier as a comber is a jerry-ridged rake on a piece of farm equipment.

-2 point for spelling assault wrong, 'councilor' ;) If I can smell your nasty breathe than your too close lol Close to my chest would have been accurate... It was hardly a stiff arm Thanks

To be more clear, my arm wasn't even extended, my elbow was bent back and my hand was against my chest which should give you an idea of just how close he was to me. It was a natural reaction, but I still should have refrained from touching the man....Once he went ballistic, it took everything in my power to keep walking and not turn around and sock him in the face

^ I agree X, I should not have touched the man. With that being said, I think a roaming security guard outside in front of TowerCity would go a long way curtailing the aggressive pan-handling.

So my girlfriend works at TowerCity and today I decided to be a good boyfriend and walk with her to work. When we crossed S. Roadway (Euclid) and Ontario, and got in front of Higbees, a homeless man jumped out in front of me, literally cutting off my walking path and started asking for money. I gently put my hand on the mans chest and told him to get out of my way. The homeless man proceeded to go into a fit of rage screaming at me for touching him, cursing me up and down and demanding to fight me. This all happened in front of quite a large group of people, both getting off of the buses and coming into TowerCity. Nowhere in sight, at any point in time, was there a security guard to help me or calm down the homeless man.

I agree with him. I'm not sure why people in this city love Z. We gave him chance after chance even though he repeatedly proved he was a very mediocre player and injury prone, and then he bolted to follow his buddy Lebron to Miami. Because he played on absolute crap teams for years and never asked to be traded or bad- mouthed the city. He Just went about his job, even if it was at mediocre level. He even came back with a good attitude after being traded and coming back mid-season.

^^^ Woah, where are these going to be located?

Good news: Crains has an article up this morning entitled, "Surprises ahead in downtown apartment push" Bad news: I think they're on to the google search bypass

In a Failure of Municipal Ambition, Plans for Detroit Light Rail Shut Down as Focus Shifts to BRT In early 2010, the U.S. DOT announced that it would award a $25 million TIGER grant to Detroit to begin construction on a new light rail line along that city’s central spine. For two years, hope spread through America’s most notorious shrinking city: This project, perhaps, would provide the boost to resurrect the Motor City. Last week, just as the latest TIGER grants were being unveiled for other cities, local leaders announced they would reneg on that promise due to a fear that operations costs would be impossible to cover. A less aesthetically pleasing — but far more extensive and regionally funded — BRT program would be inserted in its place... Meanwhile, Mayor Bing, unfortunately, continues to use fantastical rhetoric when it comes to promoting the BRT system: “With Detroit’s rich history of innovation,” he wrote in the Free Press, “There is no doubt we can build a system that competes with other successful BRT lines in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.” Yet the development of the BRT plan should have little to do with competition; its primarily purpose must be to serve the transit-dependent population of the city. Will it get the chance to do so, or relegated to the dustbin like most other transit plans for Detroit? http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2011/12/18/in-a-failure-of-municipal-ambition-plans-for-detroit-light-rail-shut-down-as-focus-shifts-to-brt/

"Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald wants to sell the County Administration Building, moving those and other offices into a consolidated complex, all within two years... If FitzGerald wants consolidation within 2 years, how is a new-build even a possibility?

Why not some more.... Man robs Key Bank on West 25th Street CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A man claiming to be armed robbed the Key Bank on West 25th Street around 9 this morning. Police said the man approached the teller in the Key Bank at 2047 W. 25th St. and demanded cash. He claimed he had a gun, though no weapon was seen. He escaped with about $2,200. http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/12/man_robs_key_bank_on_west_25th.html

The Cleve.bomb version of the article E Rocc posted... This is infuriating... Is the City paying attention? What happened to the Crime Task Force that the City brought in? Are they stuck on the East Side? Man killed, another wounded on Cleveland's West Side CLEVELAND, Ohio -- One man died and a second man was wounded Thursday night after being attacked on West 73rd Street. Police said the men were injured around 8:30 p.m. in the 3200 block of West 73rd Street. When police arrived at the scene, they found two men wounded. A 26-year-old man died enroute to MetroHealth Medical Center and was pronounced dead on arrival. Police believe he was shot in the side. http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/12/man_killed_on_clevelands_west.html

60 Minutes is doing a foreclosure special on Cleveland right now

Well I hate to break up this speculation party, but my girlfriend happens to work at the highest end retailer left at Tower City, I will let you guys figure out which one that is, and I can tell you that Gap/Banana Republic and J. Crew have both submitted requests to Tower City to for the malls financial statistics. I do not know much about retail, maybe MTS can jump on and help, but from what I understand this is standard operating procedure before a retailer commits to a lease. On top of that, there is also a 'mystery' tenant, who's name has not been released by the top brass at Tower City, who is interested in 7000/8000 sq ft, which would be one of the largest retail spaces in the mall.

I have been fairly impressed with the progress made by Fitzgerald thus far, but he's got me scratching my head on this one. He says that the current lakefront is, "horrible, egregious example of urban planning in the world", which I would probably agree with, and then goes on to blast the Mayor's plan to revitalize it?

And they're all funded by my individual gas tax

What the hell is going on in the west side recently? This has got to stop Robbers break into West Side home, assault couple CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Four men forced their way into a West Side home Thursday night where they beat and threatened a young couple before stealing $250. Police responded to the home invasion in the 3300 block of West 61st Street around 7 p.m. Edwin Reyes Jr., 28, told police his girlfriend, Christina Mechling, 24, answered a knock at the front door and four men ran inside, knocking her to the floor. One of the intruders knocked Reyes down and began punching, then strangling him. http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/11/robbers_break_into_west_side_h.html

That

Just walked by and saw the wood behind the scaffolding opened up and hard-hats walking in and out of the first floor