TPH2

I've always heard it was more Indians fans, but only anecdotally from former Clevelanders that live there. Plus, I think that was part of the Indians' goal with signing the minor league agreement with the Clippers a few years back.

That Swisher presser really pumped me up for this season. Nice to see a guy so excited to be in Cleveland

You have to overpay in Cleveland In any sport that's just how the sports world works I don't think that would necessarily be true if any of the franchises were able to establish a winning culture/tradition. Although at this point, you're probably right. Though my concern lies with the fact that when this tightwad ownership overpays for a player it really handcuffs the organization, particularly when there may have been other, cheaper ways of getting a similar level of production from RF. I see what your saying and they probably could of found a cheaper yet just as good alternative, I'm just glad that they are finally spending money. For some reason I feel as though some of this extra money came from the sale of STO but that's my opinion and assumption. My fear is that Nick Swisher will be one of those guys that is productive in previous years but now that he has been paid nicely will be a lot less productive or won't live up to the contract. I have similar concerns about Swisher. I think we'll get a couple solid years out of him, but I worry about those 3rd and 4th years on the contract, which is why the Indians really had preferred only a 3 year contract. Antonetti knows that, which makes it imperative that this team is competitive both this year and next.

Good news to hear. I was just wondering if this was in the works last week when I was riding the rapid over the holidays. The interiors of the Red Line cars looked so bad. Granted I've become accustomed to the DC Metro, but nonetheless. Are there any renderings of the rehab plans online anywhere? Also, didn't see this posted yet. PD editorial about the fare machine debacle: http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/01/rta_stuck_with_bad_ticket_mach.html

So I realized I've never posted a pic in this thread, so here is the most recent one I have of me. Enjoy.

We try not to rub it in. Come visit and take pics! :D (And post them!) I have already actually. See: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,28029.msg648784.html#msg648784 Can't wait to make another trip back.

Haha, very true. Nothing beats a New Haven style white clam. And it's a great city for burgers as well.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of Cincinnati's architecture.

I'm going to exclude Cleveland (my hometown) and Washington (my current residence) from this list as they would obviously be #1 and #2: 1) San Francisco 2) Boston 3) Baltimore 4) Philadelphia 5) New Haven

Was just looking up the date that I joined the forum... I was only 16. Now 24, starting to feel old.

Great pictures. I have have a friend who is from Scranton and a friend who currently lives in Harrisburg, so I have been to both cities quite a bit. I much prefer going to Scranton as I think it is a much nicer city overall. Outside of the downtown area, Harrisburg is pretty rough. Scranton also has some great food for a city of its size, especially pizza and hot dogs. I must say though, the PA State Capitol is a beautiful building.

I really have to get to Madison one of these days. Looks like an awesome town.

I don't understand why this is really necessary at a sporting event that you paid a ton of money and took up valuable weekend time to attend. Internet should be for when you are bored. I disagree. The large usage of mobile devices at sporting events often makes using 3G service impossible, and many fans (myself included) enjoy using social media during games (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc.) I always complained about this at Progressive Field in particular, especially considering the Indians have been making such a social media push over the last few years. I was at the Browns game this past Sunday and could barely get a text message out, let alone a Tweet.

I thought the Browns only received Ticket sales from Browns games along with a portion of concessions. Everything else goes to Cleveland. Someone point me to the terms. Can't find the exact lease terms at the moment, but the Browns pay the city about $250,000 per year in rent, and then have control of all revenue for 357 days of the year (the City of Cleveland gets to use the stadium for only 8 days of the year).

I've never crunched numbers on the subject, but you would have to think that putting a dome on the stadium would be a good return on investment for Haslam. He gets virtually all the revenue created at the stadium (minus a very very small portion that goes to the City of Cleveland), so one would think that putting a dome would increase the amount of events that could happen at the stadium. Plus, it could be used in conjunction with the Med Mart and conv center. Am I off base here?

In addition to Ohio's three C's (see Work Trip to the Queen City album), my job also took me through Kingston, Albany, Cooperstown, Schenectady, Niagara Falls, and Buffalo. Enjoy. Kingston, NY (New York's first capital) Albany, NY I really like Albany. Not sure how I feel about Empire State Plaza, but it definitely gives Albany one of the most unique skylines in America. This is a beautiful building, but I hadn't yet mastered the panoramic NY State Capitol Building Empire State Plaza. Awful, but also cool at the same time. I can only imagine how many historic buildings were torn down to build this. Lots of vacant storefronts on State Street Schenectady, NY Niagara Falls I'm sure everyone has seen more than enough pics of Niagara Falls. So I'll only post a couple Buffalo, NY This was my first time actually visiting Buffalo. Previously I had only driven through it on my way to Niagara Falls from Cleveland. As an urban enthusiast, I really enjoyed Buffalo. I walked mainly down Main St, which reminded me of Howard St in downtown Baltimore. It has a light rail line down the middle of it, yet seems to be one of the most vacant and depressed streets downtown (although Main St does get better down towards the theater). And gotta love Buffalo's City Hall.

I assumed this was probably the case. My job takes me to a lot of other cities, particularly in the Northeast, and it's sad to see how many cities have been devastated by similar 'renewal' projects. I feel that Cincinnati has been able to preserve more of its historical buildings than other comparable cities though (at least based upon my personal observations.)

This is very true. My comment came off as making a judgment, but was meant as just an observation. Cleveland's Civic Center has been plagued by that very thing. Hopefully the new Convention Center and other development can help rectify that.

I recently took over Ohio as part of my territory for the admissions office at Catholic University in DC. The best part of this, of course, is being able to travel all over our great state. It had been many years since I had been to Cincinnati, and then it was only briefly for an Indians-Reds game. I enjoyed my two trips here and realized what a great city it is. I was staying in Bellvue, so decided to cross the river to downtown and walk around a bit. Of course was drawn to Great American Ballpark. The next day decided to check out Hyde Park. Was looking to get dinner here, but couldn't find anything that interested me. Decided to leave Hyde Park and head to OTR. I have read much about the neighborhood on the forum, so was very eager to check it out. I ended up going to Senate, which was a solid place. (More OTR to come later) Some basic downtown shots Cleveland has guitars, and Cincy has pigs... (yes, I know the historical background to this) I really liked Fountain Square. I think Public Square could follow Cincy's lead here a bit. Of course had to get a shot of Cuyahoga County's favorite son Nice Wouldn't be a proper visit to a city without going to a baseball game Had a visit at Newport Central Catholic High School. Awesome view Made the obligatory visit to the Cathedral As a native Clevelander and current Washingtonian, one thing that really jumped out at me about Cincinnati was their lack of a "Group Plan" for their civic buildings. City Hall just sits on the edge of downtown Heard there was an observation deck at the Carew Tower. I of course had to check it out. This was probably my favorite observation deck I've been to as it is wide open with no windows or bars. Beautiful views of Cincitucky. Unfortunately the new iPhone update wasn't out yet, so no panoramics :( Love this building Was a bit obsessed with taking pictures of OTR The next place on my list was Mt. Adams. I constantly saw the neighborhood from across the river and had to check it out. It was tied with OTR as my favorite place in the city. The views from here are incredible. When I came back for my second trip, I walked from Covington to Mt. Adams, which means I climbed the Mt. Adams stairs...I didn't realize how out of shape I was Had the pleasure of making a second trip to Cincy in mid-October for a weekend. This time, however, I flew in and did not have a car. It was interesting navigating the city completely by foot/public transit. View from my hotel I walked across this bridge no less than 10 times that weekend I didn't get to spend a lot of time in OTR last time, so made an effort to explore it a bit more. What fascinated me was how the southern blocks of Vine St were filled with hip bars and restaurants, but you could literally walk a block either direction and see such poverty and blight. Same goes for parts of Main St. I stopped by Urban Eden (I think that was the name) on Main and had a great conversation with the owner about OTR's revitalization efforts. The neighborhood has some awesome and beautiful architecture, and it's a shame it ever got to such a bad state. It's good to see that new life is being breathed into it, and I can only hope the streetcar line furthers that along. I can imagine how white suburbanites would probably be scared to venture there, but I never felt unsafe walking around the neighborhood (perhaps naively, but nonetheless). All in all, it's a great treasure that Cincinnati has, and definitely the envy of this Clevelander. Really liked the design of this park. The crowd was very diverse, there was music playing over speakers, a wedding party taking pictures, kids playing on the playground. Just an awesome public space. I think Jane Jacobs would approve There's still a lot of work to do, obviously Was told to check out the Iris Book Cafe. Loved the courtyard Of course have to get a picture of the local Catholic Church I like how Cincinnati followed Cleveland's lead by putting their casino downtown (unlike two other cities which shall not be named) A couple shots from across the river: I never knew about Covington's Cathedral Basilica. Absolutely beautiful And finally, got to watch the Browns get their first victory from Fountain Square! It's embarrassing how excited I got over a win from a 1-5 team. I had a great time in the Queen City. My dream would be to one day do a subway tour, although that's evidently tough to do. I can't wait to make another trip there!

Nice pictures of the Insurance Capital of the World. I travel there often for work, and agree with the previous comments in that I was pretty disappointed with the city. I usually stay downtown and it just does not seem very vibrant at all. As much as I hate suburbia, I am a big fan of West Hartford. They have a great, and vibrant, downtown area.

Great pics! What a beautiful building. It's a shame that such a structure could fall into such a state of disrepair, but at least it wasn't demolished like so many others. Any particular reason that the walkway to the train concourse was demolished? Perhaps to give clearance for freight trains?

Regarding the Chipotle on Euclid, I just Tweeted at them asking about any plans to put a location in downtown Cleveland and their response was "I don't see any plans in the near future, but things can change!" Take that as what you will

Best set of pictures I've ever seen from the top of the Terminal Tower! Very nice.

Made the trek up from DC to "The Greatest City in America" (lol) to watch the Tribe take on the O's. Except for the heat (around 100 degrees everyday) and the derecho Friday night, it was a great weekend. Tribe played well, got three wins and I met a lot of great Clevelanders at the ballpark. Also did some more exploring of Baltimore in between the games. It's a city that's definitely worth visiting for all of you interested in truly urban places. Lots of gems hidden in a sometimes very rough city. There are a lot of things about BMore that remind me of Cleveland, mostly the spirit of the people. It seems much more 'real' than my current home, DC. My third favorite ballpark in the country (after the Jake, of course, and Fenway Park). Camden is celebrating it's 20th anniversary this year, so there were lots of new improvements for this season. View from the top of the Baltimore World Trade Center at the Inner Harbor. Even though it's full of chains and very touristy, the Inner Harbor is one of the greatest urban revitalization projects I have seen. View of Federal Hill The National Aquarium (a real aquarium, not like Cleveland's poor excuse for one.) View of Harbor East, similar to what I imagine Flast East Bank will be like, except on steroids. Johns Hopkins Hospital in the distance BMore's Powerplant. Quite a bit more vibrant than ours. America's first Cathedral. Designed by Benjamin Latrobe (worked on the design for the US Capitol) with some minor input from Thomas Jefferson. Interior has many similarities to the Capitol. Although not as beautiful or grand as the Basilica of the National Shrine in DC, it's a still a beautiful and unique church and a must visit for any Catholic. Tomb of America's first bishop, John Carroll. The founder of my alma mater, The Catholic University of America. Cardinal Gibbons. Baltimore is VERY proud that their Washington Monument is older than DC's. Took a walk down Howard St. It's very interesting because this was one of the most depressed streets I saw in downtown Baltimore. Yet it has MTA's light rail line running down it. Typically you think transit/light rail=more economic development. Unfortunately Howard St. hasn't benefited from that. Walked over a few blocks from Howard St to check out the Lexington Market. I had been to Baltimore many times but never made it here. Was a cool place and would definitely recommend visiting it. Overall though, as a Clevelander and frequenter of the West Side Market, I was not too impressed. Took a ride on the Metro Subway. The subway was built in the 80's, but like many American transit systems, it never lived up to initial plans. My main problem with Baltimore's rail system is that there is no easy transfer from the light rail to the subway. The subway was also pretty dirty, but then again, I'm used to DC's Metro which despite it's many problems is the cleanest system I've ever been on. I did like how they now accept WMATA's smartrip card though. Main building of Johns Hopkins Hospital Sure, I guess it's a "better" hospital, but the campus is much less impressive than the Clinic's or even UH's. My favorite area of Baltimore, Fells Point. Back to Oriole Park Josh Tomlin warming up before the game Vinny P Waiting for the light rail. Unlike Cleveland and even DC, MTA didn't find it necessary to have extra trains waiting for the huge crowd from the game. After nearly 25 mins, a train finally came! One last game. Jim Thome's first game with the O's! Seeing him in orange and white doesn't look right. The newly unveiled Earl Weaver statue. City Hall Baltimore's red light district. Walking down this street was quite an experience. The USS Constellation at the Inner Harbor Inner Harbor and downtown from Federal Hill park. Charles Street in the Federal Hill neighborhood. Yet again waiting for the light rail on my journey back home to Washington. (Getting from DC to Bmore on the weekend is a bitch, unless you want to take Amtrak)

Great pictures, as always. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they used to launch the fireworks from the Terminal Tower? It's been a number of years since I've been to the concert, but I don't remember them being launched from the BP Building (sorry, 200 Public Square). Why the change I wonder?