One_Such

These proposed buildings are so ugly and absolutely don't fit with the surrounding homes on the street. There's nothing wrong with the existing homes so what gives? I know I'm in the minority here but all these enormous and ugly apartment buildings / condos / monstrosities have ruined Tremont. I don't even recognize my neighborhood anymore.

I'm a Tremont resident and have been for 63 years. When I was a kid, there was quite a lot of retail here. If you added in the department stores on 25th around Lorain and the rest of the retail on 25th from Detroit to Clark, my family rarely ever had to leave the neighborhood to buy anything--everything we needed was within a 20 minute walk. I remember regularly walking with my grandma to the west side market down 14th and across that rickety bridge over the train tracks. It used to scare me to death to look down the huge holes in the sidewalk to see all the tracks below me as a four-year old. Some of those holes were almost big enough for me to fall right through. But here in Tremont proper, I remember there being a hardware store, a bookstore, a Catholic religious goods store, 2 drugstores (one of 14th and one on Literary), two flower shops, a grocery store on 14th, three auto repair shops, a donut shop on 14th where Terrapins is now that only sold glazed donuts (13 for $1.00), a bakery by Pilgrim church and a Lawsons over there, too; a ladies dress shop on Professor, several candy/comic book/pop stores that catered to kids only...and either a bar or a family-run convenience store on practically every neighborhood block. I'm probably forgetting a few things, but you get the idea. All the small stores began going out of business when the Kmarts and Gold Circles and other big box stores moved into town. Who can compete with those guys? But I do miss my old Tremont very much. This neighborhood is nothing like it once was, and never will be that again. Everything back then revolved around family, tons of kids, church, and immigrant culture. Every kid I knew had parents from "somewhere else" (either Eastern Europe, Puerto Rico, or West Virginia) who spoke another language, spoke English with an accent, and cooked incredible food.

I've lived on Clark near W. 11th for 62 years, right up the hill from the old asphalt plant that used to be where the parking lot for Clark field is now. You have no idea of the stench an asphalt plant can give off. The only thing that partially saved us was the fact that the wind generally blew from west to east, blowing the stink over the valley towards the east side. For the life of me, I still can't fathom why anyone with hundreds of thousands of dollars to drop on a property would choose to live right next to the industrial valley. I've been trying my whole life to get out of here to some place green and healthy. I guess it takes all kinds.

Does anyone know of planned development in the Clark Ave. / W. 11th area, near the Clark Field trailhead? The zoning was changed a few years back to multi-story apartments and retail.