8ShadesofGray

Oprah Praises Cleveland In Magazine NewsChannel 5 POSTED: 11:25 am EDT September 20, 2007 UPDATED: 11:33 am EDT September 20, 2007 CLEVELAND -- Most residents know northeast Ohio is a great place to live. Now the queen of talk knows it, too. According to NewsChannel5, there's a full-page write-up on Cleveland in the October edition of "O" magazine ... ... More at http://www.newsnet5.com/news/14158137/detail.html?subid=10101081#

I haven't heard the specifics about the proposal, but my intuition is that they are looking at it as more of a community arts space, potentially with live performances. It's an amenity that's loosely tied in to their plans to construct some really nice townhouses in the lower E. 120s (with ground-level flex space that could serve as a live-work storefront). I stopped in while on the Red Ribbon Ride. It was still pretty rough, as you would imagine, but it's in much better condition than the Variety, from what I could tell. Both spaces have a great deal of potential. I haven't been in the Moreland, but it's in a pretty visible location, and its successful restoration would definitely be a great asset for the neighborhood.

Could it be that these are projects that Cleveland Development Advisors have played some role in directly? It didn't strike me as a video highlighting the full range of construction projects going on in Cleveland, and many neighborhoods were outright overlooked (any number of projects could have highlighted the renaissance occurring in Tremont, for instance, and many of these are well underway).

FYI, Saturday, October 20th, Arts Collinwood and Northeast Shores Development Corporation will be holding a forum on live/work ownership opportunities for artists interested in living in close proximity to the Waterloo strip. It's taking place from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Arts Collinwood (15605 Waterloo Road), followed by an opening of work by Jacob Wesley Lang and Jeffrey Chiplis, followed by an after-party at the Beachland Ballroom. As an added bonus, I'll be one of the speakers at the forum :-D

Does anyone have information on that Baltimore homestead program that provided people access to free houses or any other programs that give land and houses away for free in exchange for rehab? I'm involved in a big educational project for people interested in obtaining space and details about models like that would be SUPER helpful for me. Thanks!

^^^ That is from yesterday's meeting, but that's only the pending action and a note that the committee it came out of recommend that the full council support it. I would imagine it did pass, but you never know when one of the councilpeople might deviate from the committee's opinion. Interestingly, also on the agenda was funding for restoration of the Moreland Theatre (Buckeye neighborhood) and the Variety Theatre (Westown neighborhood).

Does anyone know if the funding was approved?

Congratulations, Jerry, and congratulations to the entire staff and ridership of GCRTA! As a note, GCRTA also received this award in 1990.

Can Waterloo Road be Cleveland's next Tremont? The arts drive a long-awaited revival of North Collinwood Sunday, September 30, 2007 Karen Sandstrom Plain Dealer Reporter Melanie Hershberger and Kevin Newdecker used to scout Cleveland's Waterloo Road with an eye toward opening a record shop. Among the qualities they noticed: Waterloo was quiet. Hershberger was a graduate student in Syracuse, N.Y., at the time. She had lived in Mentor during high school and he was from North Olmsted, so Cleveland was one of several cities they liked for planting roots. They'd visit the Beachland Ballroom to hear the indie-rock bands they liked and wondered about North Collinwood as a location for a store ... ... More at http://blog.cleveland.com/top_entertainment/2007/09/can_waterloo_road_be_cleveland.html

Also, how does this wider vision of College Town (south side of Euclid from E. 18th to the Innerbelt) gel with the Cleveland District of Design, which was proposing showrooms in roughly the same footprint? Are they engaged in the planning process around ground-level retail? Anyone hear anything about the District recently? They've been quiet for quite a while now (last I had heard, they were on an 11-day trip to I believe Sweden to seek out design-associated businesses, but that was in August).

I'm a pre-sell, guys.

Does that mean the giant red X is new cross-streets?

^ ... The inefficient government that has successfully leveraged taxes to ensure retirement money for 72 years? The same inefficient government that set this system up after the private market failed dramatically, saw the vast majority of Americans cashing in their investments for pennies on the dollar and people living on roadsides? I'm all for increased efficiency, effectiveness and equity in government programs but to automatically assume that the private market will do a better job than the government in ensuring that we don't have senior citizens eating cat food, well, in the absence of substantive data, I think that argument's a little simplistic.

Bump.

The clothing section was amazing. For me, even greater than the Madonna wear, was Jim Morrison's cub scout uniform. That's classic.

^ ... accepts hand-me-downs. I would say you look a little more like someone who randomly exposes himself to school buses full of children ... regardless, yeah, you're kind of a scary Simpson.

My photos were rejected ... someone will have to take a Simpson-worthy photo of me on the booze cruise.

Yeah, the nerve ... incorporating small amounts of greenspace into one of the most pedestrian-heavy neighborhoods in Cleveland. Particularly in a city that was built to scale for twice as many people as it currently supports, is scarred with vacant lots and surface parking lots that don't have enough market demand to develop buildings on and is nationally ranked as one of the large U.S. municipalities with the least amount of greenspace within its boundaries. I don't know that we really know whether pocket parks will be underutilized in the Warehouse District or not, as the other examples are not really in areas that have both substantial daytime populations and residents. But frankly I'd prefer underutilized greenspace to overutilized surface parking lots any day.

Is the Art Walk still on for this Thursday?

It's on the main page just slightly down from the top of the page under "News Releases". A scrolling bar say "What's new?" followed by four bulleted items. And then "No news is good news." That's pretty embarrassing for them. Someone should call before Channel 19 launches an investigation into the staff person responsible.

Thanks for the info, Vulpster. I definitely am all about short, fast trips as well ... my main limitation is spacing the train ride from wherever my northernmost locale is and Istanbul so that I'm not stuck on a train for 18 hours. If I do Vienna, Prague and Budapest, then I either have a super long train ride from Budapest to Istanbul, or I have to fly round-trip, which ups the price a little for me. If I wasn't worried about timing the travel appropriately, I think my preferred itinerary would be Prague, Ljubljana, Budapest and Brasov. If anyone has any recommendations on how that trip would be feasible in 8 days, factoring in a flight to Prague and some way to get from Brasov to Istanbul, I'd greatly appreciate any advice. :-)

Don't forget ... booze cruise this Friday!!!

Thanks everyone for the advice. Really appreciate your thoughts on this matter ... I'll keep everyone posted and may be asking some more detailed questions as this comes closer to reality!

Not nice! :x But now that you have me worried, it's in my Netflix cue. Haha.

There's a very cool stained glass restoration company in the Artcraft Building (http://www.cityartistsatwork.org/artists/whitney_glass.htm) ... very cool space, very knowledgeable people. They would probably be willing to give you more info about local Tiffany glass.