blinker12

Glad to hear they've stabilized it.

I think what the poster meant by "nothing going on" was the apparent lack of street life, not a lack of development plans. It's true UC needs signficant improvement in this respect. However, I think we'll start to see it happening in the next few years, as the above-mentioned projects are completed. I have to say, however, that the onus for improving the area's vitality has been entirely on the universities and museums. The Cleveland Clinic, through its relentlessly suburban architecture, continues to turn its back on the neighborhood.

KJP, your post gave me chills. What a beautiful tribute to Cleveland.

I believe you're talking about the Citirama developments. The recent ones at least attempt to reflect the surrounding vernacular architecture. Last year's Citirama in Glenville, for example, featured woodframe houses on original city lots, all with front porches and many with hidden garages and small front yards. The Hough monstrosities, on the other hand, have nothing to do with the existing city whatsoever. Granted, most of Hough had been leveled by the time they were built, but they still look way out of place. Even (especially?) an outsider like Kuntsler can see this.

Yes, the Cleveland arts community and the Cleveland gays (whether you call them a "community" or not) totally feed off each other. As I said earlier, I think the great cultural options are a big reason there are a lot of gay people in Cleveland. I may be reinforcing a stereotype there, but it happens to be a positive (and I think true) stereotype. BTW, I too wouldn't mind seeing the title of this thread changed from "homosexuality" to "gay life" or some such. I think we're talking about something bigger than sexual behavior here. Any takers, moderators?

Wow, I didn't realize Edgewater had gotten so expensive. Just as a little anecdote, I think there are still cheap finds... I have a friend who just bought a double on West Boulevard and Baltic for $116K. It was in the same family since it was built in the 20s, so the interior's in tact, but it needs a lot of sprucing (hence the cheap price). Back to the topic at hand, I hope it didn't appear that I was subtly bashing Columbus when I said it had a positive self-image. I don't think Columbus has an inflated self-opinion; it seems about right! Positivity is essential for any city, and it's an area where we in Cleveland need a lot of work.

Let me pose this question: Does anyone here actually like the McMansions?

I didn't know metrosexuals had to be single... I love the term "technosexual"! What exactly does that mean?

Yay! :clap: Well, let us know when/if you're looking to move back. People will have plenty of advice for you. This board was extremely helpful to me when I was neighborhood-hunting.

:cry: Where was Alsenas? Not invited? Also, KJP, what was discussed regarding the trench? Was there any talk of the takings/demolitions?

One bad thing you would likely notice in Cleveland, in contrast with Columbus, is our generally poor self-image. Of course, if you surround yourself with positive Clevelanders, as it's quite possible to do in reviving neighborhoods like Ohio City et al., that doesn't have to be such a big problem.

Thanks Woolly! Also, this from the 1/21 PD: Flats proposal moving ahead Plans to convert the east bank of the Flats into a new neighborhood moved forward Friday with the approval of two contracts. The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority's board authorized up to $51,000 for the Mannik & Smith Group to review a relocation consultant's work. Federal law requires the review. The board also approved up to $32,200 for URS Corp. to survey the property's location and environmental condition. The developer, the Wolstein Group, will pay for the contracts. The company owns about 70 percent of the proposed 20-acre site, with seven to eight others owning the rest. The port authority, which will finance the majority of the public investment in the project, plans to make purchase offers to the other owners and pursue eminent domain if negotiations fail.

I agree with you 100 percent, and have expressed these same views myself. I went away for 12 years, then came back... and I believe experiencing other places made me appreciate Cleveland much more than I ever did as a kid. Now I'm really glad to be back. The people who are most down on Cleveland are, almost without exception, the ones who never left.

Anyone ever read 'Home from Nowhere'? I'm reading it right now. James Kuntsler really trashes the McMansions in Hough -- and I agree with every word he says. Fortunately, it seems these things aren't being built anymore. And while Beacon Place and Woodhaven may not be perfect, they do show a learning curve from the days when urban revitalization meant urban suburbanization. Here's an excerpt from Kuntsler's book: "What remains of Cleveland today east of the Cuyahoga River and the ballpark strikes the casual observer as the proverbial hole in the donut. The old inner residential neighborhoods are so wiped out that it seems as if a major war had been fought for the Great Lakes around the time of my college career -- and perhaps I was too stoned to hear about it. Rubble fields punctuated by rows of slums occupy block after block of the old grid. Here and there a once-grand Victorian house totters darkly like the ghost of something from an Edward Hopper painting. You round a corner in your rent-a-car and there, suddenly, is the most incongruous sight, a brand-new suburban 'colonial' on a quarter-acre lot with its complete kit-of-parts: the lawn, the driveway, the garage door, the juniper shurbs along the foundation, the scraggly saplings -- right in downtown Cleveland, surrounded by hectares of desolation. The only nod to urban reality is the iron grillwork over the 'picture' window to keep burglars out. I realized, naturally, that this was nothing more than the 'little cabin in the woods,' inserted into a new kind of wildnerness. I saw dozens of these on my tour of the city in the summer of 1994. It alarmed me to think that this was the city's idea of residential redevelopment -- as though the city itself had forgotten what being urban meant, what being Cleveland meant, and had capitulated completely to some numbskull Leave-It-to-Beaver fantasy imposed on it by the vengeful Rotarians of suburban Chagrin Falls -- for clearly the city must have given its permission for these things to be built." He then goes on to trash the Church Square strip mall on Chester Avenue in equally colorful language. I hope Kuntsler comes back soon; this book was published in 1996 and his tour of Cleveland was in '94. I think he'd see much more cause for optimism now, and the beginnings of a return to true urban design.

I returned from New York about 6 months ago, and I have been amazed by how many gay people there are (visibly) living in Cleveland. It has been one of the most pleasant surprises of my returning. I had a gay friend up from Louisville this weekend, and he said to me at one point, "There are so many gays here!" Sure, that's a lot smaller city -- but I'd wager we do pretty well proportionally too. MayDay has posted before that Cleveland is not as good for the 25- crowd as it is for the 25+ crowd. I think that's true. But for the latter demographic, I would say the "pickings" are excellent. Combine that with the generally liberal politics of NEO, the fantastic arts and cultural offerings that "our people" tend to love, and you've got a very gay-friendly place indeed. (Incidentally, Columbus seems the Ohio city of choice for the 25- crowd. I admit I know nothing about Cincy's gay scene.)

^Well, at least UC is still getting a trickle of cash. What I want to know is when he's going to get over his old grudge against the rest of the city. So the downtown headquarters thing didn't work out a decade or so ago. Time to move on, realize times have changed and work with the present city leadership. (To be fair, I think he gave a small amount to the Ingenuity Festival last year -- but that's not enough.)

Just a single leftover I stumbled across here... A photo of the Ohio City skyline viewed from Fairfield Road at the border of Tremont and the Flats.

Love it, KJP! Ship that off to the powers that be!

Lucky, you mention entertainment. I have never lived in any other Ohio city, but I think Cleveland's arts and culture would be hard to beat. There are few U.S. cities of any size that have the cultural riches we do -- not just the museums, but the galleries, the film (Cinematheque, Cedar-Lee, film festival), the music (the orchestra, chamber ensembles and tons of popular venues), the theater (Playhouse Square, Cleveland Playhouse, Cleveland Public Theatre) and some innovative dance companies. It's amazing.

Cool... Looks incredibly neat and tidy, to judge from the photos!

^Agreed, agreed. I think the first step in all this, though, is to better educate the people who already live in "Greater Cleveland" (i.e. the burbs) about what's here. They are often as clueless about the city as out-of-towners.

Great photos MGD! Thanks for posting. What I heard is that the developer wants to find an institutional tenant to occupy some of the old hospital, because of the sheer amount of space. They're worried apartments alone wouldn't carry the project. (However, at least one wing would be redeveloped into apartments.)

True KJP -- but I believe the Avenue will go on line before Flats East Bank. That's why I said it will be the first.

KJP, thank you, thank you, thank you for your positivity. And keep churning out the exciting news! :type:

Yeah, there's definitely room for another game in this town, especially given the amount of development going on right now. Thanks for the find, MGD!