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And will this be any better than Aramark? I still haven't forgiven CSU for forcing Panini's out and bringing in that lousy taco place. Actually, in my years at CSU, I never once had a decent meal at any of the spots run by Aramark. I'd like to say they were one step up from high school cafeteria food.

^ I second that! Has anyone noticed that lately on the Shoreway there's been some heavy rush hour traffic? It's getting backed up quite a bit. Unless the new boulevard is similar to Chester Avenue with 3 lanes in each direction, this is going to be a very difficult drive during rush hour.

Detroit Avenue in Lakewood is still being repaved. As with all repavements, there are several layers of coating or asphalt or tar or whatever poured out. The grates sticking out will be level with the final layer. You need only be concerned for a few more days, as it should be done by tomorrow!! :D

I think this is a problem only on I-77. Honestly, the first thing I said when I read this thread was, "I-77!!!" There is just some mentality for the people from the southern suburbs and the format of I-77 that causes slow drivers to take over the left lane. As Zaceman said above, I-77 was built very poorly and nothing is being done to correct the problem some 40 years later. The problem is this: From Fairlawn (Route 18) to Pleasant Valley Road, I-77 is only 2 lanes. And from Rockside Road to Route 21 (the bridge over I-480) it goes back down to 2 lanes again. The bridge is being re-built and instead of widening it to 3 lanes, ODOT is replacing the bridge deck and keeping it 2 lanes. There is never more than 3 lanes, so all on ramps are yields. Then, from I-490's EXIT ONLY lane until half way over the I-490 overpass bridge, I-77 again goes back down to 2 lanes. It soon terminates and most drivers who want to continue, choose the I-90 exit ON THE LEFT. All of this causes drivers to keep as far left as possible, PLUS, there's only two lanes and that's not much to choose from compared to the likes of I-71 which is 4 lanes through or I-90 which has parts which are 5 lanes. The fewer lanes, the more likely to experience slow drivers in the left lane. This is not a Cleveland problem either. It's a problem wherever an interstate is 2 lanes or full of poor design elements. A typical drive from Akron to Cleveland on a 2 lane freeway involves merges with Route 8, I-76, I-277, I-80, I-271, I-480, and I-490. With 2 lanes (for the most part), who wants to drive in the right lane and deal with it? So intead, slow drivers take to the left lane. This was in the PD a few years ago. It's not only the reason for slow drivers in the left lane but it's also the reason for the bad traffic backups during rush hour that causes much of the stop and go traffic. And to think, it used to be so much worse before the Jennings freeway debuted in 1999!

Wow, Toledo will probably pass Cleveland by the next census report. And then maybe Mansfield could be bigger than Cleveland. Actually, before we know it, Cleveland is going to be the smallest city in the country. Better scrap all the projects in Cleveland, there won't be anybody left to "live, work, and play" at them! *SARCASM TO THE MAX*

^ and ^^, the only time we've seen the taggers being from the suburbs was when the 2 guys from Seven Hills and Valley View area got caught in Ohio City. I have some peachy news to update my situation in Chinatown since my last post regarding the grafitti on my street. Let's just say E Rocc is right. Within 48 hours of the grafitti being removed from the side of a building, there is already new grafitti. It says one word: CUNT. It's obviously retaliation for removing somebody's coveted grafitti. They obviously live nearby because it was a fast response and the grafitti is on the same exact building, same exact spot.

I liked the idea on the PD's front page. Along the lines of, "If Cuyahoga County merged with Cleveland, we'd be #7 in population." Because numbers are everything!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is so much going on or about to happen in Cleveland that I am 100% confident that this is going to be our city's renaissance. Let's begin with the downtown vicinity: Not only do we have 3 gigantic projects that are really entire districts in their own (The Avenue District, Stark, and Flats East Bank), but we also have a slew of other gigantic projects that are also going to completely change our downtown: Stonebridge, the Euclid Corridor project, College Town (The New Barnes & Noble competing with Nebraska Books will surely bring fire to the neighborhood), CSU's masterplan, Tyler Village, E. 4th St., and the convention center/medical mart. Add to that all of the smaller scaled projects that are occurring all over downtown. The ones that have me most excited are: The Rock Hall Of Fame library planned for Tri-C Metro, the apartment building rehab taking place next to Tower Press, Asia Plaza's expansion, and the proposed rehab of the building on Euclid near E. 30th St. into apartments/condo's. University Circle and The Cleveland Clinic: This entire area of Cleveland is changing so rapidly that it's becoming hard to keep up with every single development. Countless new projects are occurring, with the most important being: The Triangle, Cleveland Clinic's Heart Center, The VA expansion, Chester 82, UH expansion, Museum of Art expansion, and of course, the one I look forward to most: Cleveland Clinic spin-off developments: All of these new apartments, medical research facilities and retail that are either planned or already underway. I think it's safe to say that Chester 82, Parklane Villa, and the new rehab proposed at Stokes/Carnegie are all influenced by proximity to the Cleveland Clinic. The new medical research facility being constructed on Cedar near the Clinic will surely be the first of many. Has anyone noticed in the 7100 block of Euclid, that the historic showroom building is almost completely rehabbed and already has tenants!? Tremont: I've turned out to be a fan of Steelyard Commons. I won't lie, I shop at places like Home Depot, Target, and Staples on the sporadic occasion that I need items for my home. Finally, my tax dollars are going to Cleveland and not the suburbs! The biggest benefit of Steelyard is that it will bring more people into Tremont. I hope we can see the southern side of Tremont improve to similar standards of the Tremont we all know and love. But let's put Steelyard aside and look at how much stuff is going on in Tremont: Actually, I'm not able to list every single project because it's quite overwhelming to keep up with all the names of the different housing projects going on. I was in Tremont a few weeks ago for the neighborhood yard sale. There were a number of new infill projects on the eastern edge of Tremont that just appeared out of nowhere. They are in addition to all of the other different development projects already taking place. I won't name any, but we can assume 5-10 developers are currently building out the eastern side of Tremont into an entirely new neighborhood. Also noteworthy: Gospel Press! Ohio City: Jay Lofts, the entire stretch of Detroit from W. 25th to W. 35th, the proposed conversion of the building on Bridge near Fulton (from whatever it was into condo's), the entire stretch of Clinton including the desirable Townhomes Of Ohio City Phase II, Clinton Court, The Franklin Lofts, and on and on. Detroit Shoreway: This neighborhood went from a tough place to live to one of the most trendy in all of Ohio! The leading project is of course: BATTERY PARK. The large warehouse on the west edge of BP is supposed to be converted into lofts/condo's in the next phases. King's Terrace, and the countless projects on Tillman and Father Caruso that are either recently completed or underway. The most important redeeming factor for the DS is that W. 65th and Detroit is becoming a retail heaven: Gypsy Coffee, Cleveland Public Theatre, and all sorts of little taverns and eateries are popping up. One thing the DS has (similar to Ohio City) over Tremont is a retail center, which should prove to be worthy in the long run. This neighborhood is also subject to upgrades with the new Shoreway that will include access to Edgewater Park and Lake Erie. It will spur countless projects if and when this project takes place. The key factor is that all of this stuff is happening at once. 2007 is just the beginning of a surge in development for our city. Once all these big projects kick in, imagine what else might come out of all of this!!! And as for the list of projects above: I'm only mentioning the bigger projects in the trendier parts of Cleveland. Imagine if we compiled a list of every single project in every neighborhood. I didn't even mention projects like The Chicle Townhomes or St. Luke's Point which will add 100's of and 100's of new homes to the city! In my life and through research into Cleveland's past, I simply can't name the last time Cleveland experienced such tremendous growth. Maybe the 1920's? And this all comes in a time of a horrible housing market, a bad local economy in general, and it is definately a slap in the face to those who say Cleveland is the poorest city in the country. While we do have poor neighborhoods and a large povery problem, we also have wealthy neighborhoods and wealthy people moving into the city who are going to add millions and millions of dollars in spending, increasing the overall GDP. And when tax abatements expire, even more tax dollars will be brought in. Again, what an exciting time to live in Cleveland!

Lakewood does not have a bookstore. The closest is the one in Rocky River at Beachcliff Square and it's not a Border's.

Cleveland.com's main page says "Mega Bookstore Coming To Downtown". That'd be dissapointing if it's only going to be a college bookseller's store. Ugh! I was jumping up and down five minutes ago and now it's been reduced to that? Please tell me what the difference between a big full service B&N and a bookseller's version is? To B&N: I want it all or nothing!

^^^ That cloud of smoke from the fire was visible for me as I was driving north on E. 105th from University Circle all the way past I-90 in Bratenahl. What a large cloud it was!

UPDATE! Less than 24 hours later, the grafitti HAS BEEN REMOVED by the city of Cleveland's grafitti removal department! I want to thank the councilman and the grafitti removal guys for hearing my concerns out. And thanks Mayday for passing on the correct phone #'s. While feeling dissapointed and let down that the grafitti would never be cleaned up in my neighborhood, I am now proud of the way the city handled this. Now if only someone can clean up that recent mess that is all over the future Detroit-Superior Lofts. Someone wrote all over the old building - not sure if it is to be tore down or not, but somebody wrote an insanely large amount of writing/grafitti on the north and east sides of the building, completely visible from the Shoreway. It's not typical grafitti either - it's a long sentence in sloppy writing, something along the lines of "Please come back to me baby, I need you!" While it's somewhat silly, it's very distracting since that is supposed to be one of the most exciting new areas in the city for people to move to.

^ Thanks, I was looking for that but couldn't find it online!

I just left a voicemail for Councilman Cimperman explaining everything. Got my fingers crossed!

^ I plan on it. I will call my councilman but do you suggest any other departments or people to voice my complaint out to? Don't ya just love live events as they unfold here on Urbanohio?

OK, I have a big sense of humor and an open mind, so I am trying not to laugh too hard but I am writing this while waiting on hold with "Mr. Warren or Mr. Powers for processing at the facility located at 49th and Harvard. The direct number to that location is (216) 432-6000." A man answers and I tell him the situation. My street has a lot of grafitti that needs cleaned up. He puts me on hold for 5 minutes. Comes back and says, "you called the right department, but I got no pen on me". He adds, "Normally, you call the councilman and he calls us here!" He keeps saying, "Nobody in here got a pen". I am assuming he is not in his office and he then says, "You called the right department, don't get me wrong, but I don't got a pen to write your complaint down." So he says he is going to put me on hold for 15 minutes and he is not trying to get rid of me. I then say that I will make a big issue out of this because a larger group of people are counting on you to help me. He places me on hold. About 10 minutes later (I am so happy I didn't have to wait the full 15 for him to grab a pen), he comes back and says "I FOUND A PEN!" So again, I have an open mind and a sense of humor so I laughed this off. I told him the situation and he said, "ALL I CAN DO is tell my foreman". I asked who the foreman is and he said, "They out on the street cleaning up everyday." Then he said, "We'll tell the councilman and he address the problem." Mind you, in the beginning of the call, he said that the councilman refers the problem to him, now he is saying he refers the problem to the councilman. Endless loop? Ha! So anyways, he didn't promise me anything. And he took my name down. I told him "JOHN, J-O-H-N" and he said, "Jeff how do you spell that." I sort of laughed, realizing that this is a joke. I got his name, which is Ricky, and I said, "Thanks Ricky! Take care!" I challenge anyone who thinks I am making this up to call the department and see for themselves what it's like to call a grafitti complaint center and get put on hold while they look for a pen. One thing I want to comment on is that I had lunch with Mr. Cimperman and addressed the grafitti problem to his face back in February.

I initially contacted MidTown Cleveland regarding new grafitti that I had found late last year. I spoke to a minimum of 2 people in their organization. I said I was willing to do whatever it took to clean up the area. As a business owner in the neighborhood, I told their main guy (David Maske) that I'd clean it up myself if tools and equipment were provided. I was told to contact the city of Cleveland's special grafitti department. The woman I spoke to in that department (name not remembered) said to call back in 2 weeks if the grafitti hadn't been cleaned up. I told her that grafitti in MidTown hasn't been cleaned up in years, including the "FUCK YOU" on the EB Optical building on E. 30th St. (which as of 6-25-07) still hasn't been cleaned up. It's been there for well over a year now. It was one of those dead end complaints where I called back and got a voice mail and left a message and never had my call returned. Why bother calling back? I am sick of leaving voice messages and nobody returning my calls or people telling me to call so-and-so. I've spent a lot of money on grafitti remover, brushes, and cover-up paint - just ask Sutton Hardware how much money I have spent there. I've inhaled a lot of chemicals doing this work, and I've stained some of my clothes in the process. I don't like removing grafitti from other businesses property, especially since they have the ability to remove it but just seem to not care, but I still do it anyways because I care about my neighborhood and I hate to see nice buildings destroyed. I suppose before complaining any further, I will call the departments listed above by Mayday and address the problem to them and allow them a chance to rectify some of the big grafitti problems in my neighborhood. We'll see if anything happens. Complaining isn't the solution, but ignoring it isn't either.

The thread is specifically addressing Cleveland's grafitti problem. I don't think I need to mention that every big city has similar problems, isn't that a common understanding here on Urbanohio?

There are many forms of grafitti. From the wide array of gang language to the marking of territories to just plain up trying to destroy private property, it's a topic that needs to be addressed! In recent years, I've seen grafitti really take its toll on the city of Cleveland. Some of the most un-talented grafitti I've ever seen has been popping up on all sorts of objects. From historic buildings to highway signs and bridges up above - it's getting on my nerves and it seems like there is no end to this madness. I have noticed this grafitti issue mostly on the near west side between Tremont and Ohio City, particularly the Duck Island area, near the I-490/I-90/I-71/176 junction, all over Chinatown, and throughout the east side. I am so sick of seeing "HEK", "MEK", "Miho", "Droids", and the countless others all over beautiful buildings, brand new street signs, and in places that are very difficult to remove it from. The Cadillac building on the corner of E. 30th St. and Chester got hit all over by "Miho" recently. Little does "Miho" know that the building is on the historic registrar's list. "Miho" went on to hit up just about every street sign on Chester and Perkins between E. 30th and E. 40th St. one day last week. "Miho" also hit many bus stops and signs along Clifton Boulevard in Cleveland recently. "Miho" likes to usee quotation marks as if he is famous, which is an ultimate piss-off in my mind. "HEK" and "MEK" can be found on 1000's of signs, buildings, and objects throughout the area. Many of which are otherwise clean areas. Regards to the condition of a building or sign are disregarded as these people go out and spray up what they want when they want. The freeway is decorated real nice over by the I-90/I-490 junction. The "Droids" somehow climbed up on the wall of the freeway overpass and signed their names along with a nice RIP message to one of their most likely dead affiliates. It seems like some of the grafitti is being removed and cleaned up, but it also appears that most of it goes nowhere. A big "FUCK YOU" graces a small building on E. 30th St. that is for sale (and has been for sale for a long time) near the I-90/Superior exit. I've complained to MidTown and Cleveland but nobody seems to care. The only grafitti that has been removed from my neighborhood is by people like myself who are being good samaritans. Many businesses don't seem to care either. I have seen several buildings covered with grafitti that is such an eyesore go completely unnoticed by the business owner. Much of this work is the work of gangs and experienced grafitti artists. But most of the pro's keep to dark shadowy areas (e.g. underneath bridges, train cars, and secluded spots). On the other hand, there are some people who seem to think that having a can of spraypaint is legal permission to destroy the city. What's being done to curb this problem? It's still so damn easy to buy spraypaint and marker pens at any hardware store. There seems to be no desire by the city, the police, or organizations to even stop this problem or clean it up. My mind thinks that cleaning it up as fast as it appears is one solution. That proved very effective in reducing the grafitti that tanked NYC in the 70's and 80's. There should also be harsh laws for those who break the law and destroy property. No more of this "probation" bullshit. It should be a major crime to deface property, especially historic buildings, bridges, and official highway/government street signage. Speed limit signs and highway exit signs should not be obstructed by grafitti. Not only do many remain uncleaned for months or years, but it seems like ODOT, the city, and whoever else just doesn't give a shit. I can only do so much for my neighborhood. It's obvious that the perpetrator's are local and living nearby in most of these instances. Besides "HEK" and "MEK" which is probably the same person, most grafitti is isolated to specific blocks and neighborhoods. Why don't we capture one of the bad boys and make it clear to the rest that our city's beauty doesn't need to be destroyed by pathetic high school dropouts with nothing better to do.

^ It opened in the end of 2004.

Well it's either: a bookstore of some sorts, a 24 hour eatery, or a national food chain (e.g. Chipotle). However, Euclid Avenue already has a Subway that recently opened on Euclid in front of the Comfort Inn and another in MidTown near E. 40th St., so this wouldn't be the "first" national chain to move back to Euclid Ave.

This will be an awesome project! This is a very cool part of Euclid that needs to be re-tapped. I wouldn't be surprised if a residential boom happens along the low 30's of Euclid and Prospect. Some very nice buildings just waiting for rehab.

That's interesting! I wouldn't have ever guessed that a clothing store would occupy this corner. I figured another gas station. I'm guessing the site needs cleaned up (gas tanks removed). All for a clothing store????? Regardless, I find this exciting as that corner has been quite depressing to look at lately.

OK, so what is the announcement then Musky? And what is the specific location? Above, you said 202 Euclid. And before that everyone is guessing the Marous Brothers location. My guess is that the CSU bookstore will become a combined college book store run by Barnes & Noble, opening this Fall semester.

Velocity is on Clifton near W. 104th. The area I am referring to would be something like the W. 91st block.