i met a guy named KJP once, it was most displeasing.

 

The pleasure was all yours.

on another note, the new owners of the Statler apper to be doing some work.  i heard that the leasing office is moving to a first floor space (fronting e12) and that the storefronts on euclid are getting prepared to be re-let.  it just shows what different perspectives outsiders have on the viability of properties.  this NYC group seems to have made a lot of good changes. 

 

At the risk of getting berated by KJP again for not being negative enough on this thread  :-D --

 

Yes, they're doing a lot of work. I just saw some workers today clearing out the vast, tremendously dirty space connected to the building on the west side. At first I was sad the flower shop went out of business on the first floor (although the few times I checked him out it wasn't exactly the best selection). But I think that'll be a great move if Rosie and Daryl move down to 1 (the Statler's stellar management team -- seriously no sarcasm). Also, Juji's restaurant in the lobby is actually staying open for dinner on Mondays and Wednesdays now. Now if only I could get a decent hair cut at Selah's.

 

Wasn't 1010 Euclid bought a few months ago with the prospect of introducing more retail / living space? I have to say, there seems to be a considerable momentum building..

 

Oh, and I noticed today they've apparently scraped off the graffiti from the windows of the Loretta's Restaurant building. Small step, but nice nonetheless.

However, when you're trying to start a small business venture on a limited budget, a full-blown properly done sign starts at a minimum of several thousand dollars. God knows you'd love to have enough revenue to put up some high-end backlit signage, but you either do that or you eat. Some might have the option of applying for storefront renovation funds (a fantastic program) but not every small business (or their specific location)  is eligible.

 

As a small business owner myself (and I mean REALLY small -- just me at the moment) I think I can say with some authority you've hit the nail on the head here. These guys are probably scared out of their minds opening up a new retail space in what some perceive as a shriveling area in its final death throes. I'd venture to guess they are only able to open here because of that perception (I assume rent is dirt cheap). You spend as little as possible until absolutely necessary so that if things go south quick, you cut your losses.

 

Now if it's still there after 6 months I'll be singing another tune.

 

 

 

 

^If you need any kind of design work, shoot me a PM :)

first I was sad the flower shop went out of business on the first floor

There's a great florist just around the corner on E. 12th anyway.  That's the one I always go to...

Remember this thread?

 

I've got a rant. I was watching Channel 3 this morning and they had a roundtable with the guy from the Port Authority talking (rather,, they were telling him why it wouldn't work) the port's plan to create jobs and wealth over the long-term. There was no real reason this plan wouldn't work... just, it's in Cleveland, so it won't work.

 

My biggest bitch beyond that is the way one woman (I didn't get her name) phrased it. "I've lived her 18 years, and this project and that project have been announced....blah blah blah blah."

 

This is my biggest pet peeve: Anytime someone starts a sentence with "I've lived here XX years...." I get ready to pull my hair out. Listen you whiners, I've lived in metro Cleveland a little more than a year, and the only thing I keep hearing about isn't new projects, it's people grasping at projects as far back as the 1950s that they say didn't work. Our industrial base may be way down, but we're leading the nation in peanut galleries.

"My biggest bitch beyond that is the way one woman (I didn't get her name) phrased it. "I've lived her 18 years, and this project and that project have been announced....blah blah blah blah."

 

Reason #8,621 that I'm glad I'm not a native.

I'm glad I missed the show. I would have been pissed. Can you recall the names of the people (or at least who they represented) who were naysaying?

 

Just once, I would love to hear someone visionary being "naysay'ed" to respond with:

 

"It's because of can't-do attitudes like yours that projects like this don't get built, programs don't implemented, bright young people move away and the metro area continues to fall short in innovation. You either lead, follow or get out of the way."

Well, I'm not sure where the woman was from because they didn't flash her name or organization up. She was the most negative of the bunch. The other panelist was that Dennis Eckhart guy. Maybe I was not hearing him correctly, but his line of questioning was that people in Northeast Ohio don't trust Cleveland, so how was the Cuyahoga Port Authority supposed to succeed in creating jobs regionally, I guess with competition from places like Lake and Lorain counties and distrust from people elsewhere. I'm not an economist, but I thought rising tides lifted all boats. Are people so concerned about motives around here they'll cut off their nose to spite their face?

 

The guy from the port was also on Feagler and Friends, I saw (minus Feagler). It was a better discussion.

I was particularly upset with the Plain Dealer this weekend.  Here it is Labour Day weekend.  A time for outdoor picnics with the family.  The last weekend of summer.  A fun time.

 

What are the major stories in the PD?  On Saturday they lead with a headline of "Researchers study why water at Lake Erie beaches is so dirty".  Boy that makes me want to enjoy out greatest natural asset Lake Erie.  The article at first implies that all beaches on Lake Erie are unsafe.  After a while it turns out that only two beaches are under concern and the reason is that the findings are unclear.  That same article could have been written about how clean the Lake Erie beaches have become.  Beaches like Mentor Headlands and Geneva State Park went the entire season without a single advisory.  According to USAToday, the Great Lakes are in the middle when ranking the nations beaches.  The dirtiest beaches are along the Gulf Coast, but none of this is mentioned in the PD.  Instead, the casual reader is instilled with the sense that swimming in Lake Erie is dangerous to your health, when in reality it is cleaner than most public pools and certainly most hotel pools.

 

On Sunday, the PD starts a series "A daily struggle with crime, fear.  Worn down by violence, determined residents fight to save city."  Boy, this definitely gets me into the holiday spirit.  The article quickly states that "Against a backdrop of violence, drug dealers, prostitutes and gangs, residents from east to west are united in desperation."  This is news?  This had to be printed now?  And believe it or not, this is only the first in a series of articles to be printed in the PD.

 

On Labour Day weekend other big city newspapers are printing stories about their version of the Cleveland Airshow, Taste of Cleveland, Baseball, beautiful weather, and the time to enjoy the last days of summer.  The PD is scaring the local residents into believing all the negative propaganda about their home town Cleveland.

 

I am not paranoid, but at times I wonder what their agenda is?

TMH, I agree.  I've been in Greater Cleveland for less than a month and only currently receive the Sunday PD; however, it seems like every week some bleak story about Cleveland is the lead story.  No wonder people around here have such a negative perception of the city; it's constantly drilled into their heads by the local media (print, TV, and radio) that their city is the most dangerous, poorest, decaying and dying, and rapidly shrinking into oblivion.

The PD has definitely been shoving this negative news bullsh!t down the region's throat recently, seemingly for no reason at all.  Once again, Plain Dealer reporters, YOU are part of the problem.  YOU are driving our young to other cities with your negativity.  YOU are perpetuating the negative, can't-do attitude of the region. 

 

^ Our local paper has really painted our city in a bad light!  It's so counterproductive.  As one of my good friends always says, you know that it's trash when you see that there's more in the sports section than in the local one.

 

Oldmanladyluck, I'm not sure the reporters are to blame.  I could be wrong, but I would think they're just doing what has been assigned to them.  Change has to start at the top first.

Remember this thread?

 

I've got a rant. I was watching Channel 3 this morning and they had a roundtable with the guy from the Port Authority talking (rather,, they were telling him why it wouldn't work) the port's plan to create jobs and wealth over the long-term. There was no real reason this plan wouldn't work... just, it's in Cleveland, so it won't work.

 

My biggest bitch beyond that is the way one woman (I didn't get her name) phrased it. "I've lived her 18 years, and this project and that project have been announced....blah blah blah blah."

 

This is my biggest pet peeve: Anytime someone starts a sentence with "I've lived here XX years...." I get ready to pull my hair out. Listen you whiners, I've lived in metro Cleveland a little more than a year, and the only thing I keep hearing about isn't new projects, it's people grasping at projects as far back as the 1950s that they say didn't work. Our industrial base may be way down, but we're leading the nation in peanut galleries.

 

That would be Mary Anne Sharkey - "political consultant" and former Taft spokeswoman.

 

http://www.wkyc.com/video/player.aspx?aid=42422&bw= 

What a peach!

That's not the word I'd use to describe Sharkey. She also was the PD's editorial page editor and Mayor Frank Jackson's PR person during his campaign. Glad to see a "believer in Cleveland" was his mouthpiece. How do these people stay employed?? Must have Polaroid pictures.... A new category for people like her: "The Polaroid Employed."

The PD has definitely been shoving this negative news bullsh!t down the region's throat recently, seemingly for no reason at all.  Once again, Plain Dealer reporters, YOU are part of the problem.  YOU are driving our young to other cities with your negativity.  YOU are perpetuating the negative, can't-do attitude of the region. 

 

 

It's not recent.  The PD's been doing this for decades.

The Browns suck.

^They sure do. On so many levels.

 

Speaking of random vents, what's up with the random sidewalk vent on Euclid just west of Jimmy John's. It's a freaking wind tunnel, and now you can't even avoid it since they narrowed the walkway even further. Granted it's upskirt heaven if you're in that sort of thing (kidding!), but it really bugs me.

My upper-back hurts

^They sure do. On so many levels.

 

Speaking of random vents, what's up with the random sidewalk vent on Euclid just west of Jimmy John's. It's a freaking wind tunnel, and now you can't even avoid it since they narrowed the walkway even further. Granted it's upskirt heaven if you're in that sort of thing (kidding!), but it really bugs me.

 

my window overlooks JJ's, I'll snap some pics. (okay, not really)

You'd be at the wrong angle, anyway.

You'd be at the wrong angle, anyway.

 

that's why you sneak down there with a giant inauspicious looking mirror.

I was particularly upset with the Plain Dealer this weekend.  Here it is Labor Day weekend.  A time for outdoor picnics with the family.  The last weekend of summer.  A fun time.

 

What are the major stories in the PD?  On Saturday they lead with a headline of "Researchers study why water at Lake Erie beaches is so dirty".  Boy that makes me want to enjoy out greatest natural asset Lake Erie.  The article at first implies that all beaches on Lake Erie are unsafe....

And what does the Plain Dealer do at election time?  They endorse the politicians who only give lip service to water quality!  We need $billions in infrastructure improvements to make our water truly "great" as in "Great Lakes".   Would be better spent than our military budget or rebuilding millionaires' vacation homes every time a gulf hurricane roars over one of the offshore islands that are also known by the oceanographic term of "sand bar" !!!

Today's rant has nothing to do with "the man." At work, I asked no less than 8 people to go out to Tremont. All said no - bunch of jerks - and one person said to me "I like to stay on the west side..."

 

 

Some people consider Tremont the "south side." In my book, there is no south side of Cleveland unless you're in Akron. You're either west side or east side. Given 200 years of rivalry, they're can be no meeting in the middle with a "south side."

"You're either west side or east side."

 

I live in Cleveland. Period. :-)

"You're either west side or east side."

 

I live in Cleveland. Period. :-)

 

westsider!

Detroiter! Ferndaler!!!

[glow=red,2,300]CHILDREN![/glow]

Suburbanite*!

 

*A wonderful suburb, mind you ;-)

Some people consider Tremont the "south side." In my book, there is no south side of Cleveland unless you're in Akron. You're either west side or east side. Given 200 years of rivalry, they're can be no meeting in the middle with a "south side."

 

I'm curious. Since people are partial to their east and west side, are there certain stereotypes associated with the sides? In Cincinnati the West side is notoriously LAME, nothing to do and everyone just drinks beer in their back yard as they're playing cornhole. The east side is more affluent and the people get out more. Also, no one on the West Side goes to the East side, and verse vica.

since you ask,

 

eastside > westside

Seems to be the case in most major Ohio cities.

Trade cornhole in the backyard for beer and bowling at the local alley, and you've just described the Cleveland stereotype.

I dunno, cornhole (I hate that name!!) is pretty popular in Greater Cleveland (especially the way west side -- like Lorain County where corn is the official county "flower").

 

David, the stereotype in Cleveland is that blacks are on the city's east side and whites are on the west side. That's no longer as true, though. Today, you've got some Asians but still mostly blacks (of all kinds, including Jamaican) on the east side. But there is a Vietnamese neighborhood on the near-west side. Arabs and Latinos concentrated on the west side of Cleveland. The suburbs are more Jewish (including many new Russians and Ukranians) and Italians on the east side. But it's hard to say that one ethnic group is here and not there because each group is pretty much all over the place.

 

Culturally, the east side has been more stereotypically artsy, despite the large gay population in Lakewood and Cleveland's Edgewater neighborhood. The art film theaters have usually done pretty well in the eastern suburbs, but not so well on the west side. The west is stereotypically a shot-and-beer area, where bowling, pierogis, kielbasa, etc. are the standard fare and none moreso than in Parma, Brooklyn or Old Brooklyn. But that's been true of Collinwood and Euclid on the northeast side, too.

 

Then, of course, you get out to Hunting Valley and Gates Mills, and the favorite pasttimes appears to be polo, cycling, polishing the Jaguar and getting snacks at the Popcorn Shop in Chagrin Falls. In the outer areas of the west side (Westlake, Avon, Avon Lake), I'm not exactly sure what those people do for fun!!

Tremont was considered the South Side years ago.  It is nothing new.  As I've posted before, my grandfather couldn't live in the Little Italy or West Side Italian neighborhoods because he was a foreman for the B&O and had to be close to the train yards.  They called it the South Side 100 years ago.

In the outer areas of the west side (Westlake, Avon, Avon Lake), I'm not exactly sure what those people do for fun!!

 

Um.. They go to Croker Park of course!  :-)

Tremont was considered the South Side years ago.  It is nothing new.  As I've posted before, my grandfather couldn't live in the Little Italy or West Side Italian neighborhoods because he was a foreman for the B&O and had to be close to the train yards.  They called it the South Side 100 years ago.

 

I'm surprised he didn't live in the Italian neighborhood in/near Fulton and Clark. There was a streetcar line on Clark he could've taken to work. But maybe he was trying to save money by walking to the B&O yards.

In the 20's, they had the only phone in the neighborhood, so that B&O could call him when they had issues!  He would walk around the neighborhood and gather up his crew to go to work!

Ok, moved it...

 

Feel free to delate this post mods...

Please post that to the Cleveland media thread here in the City Discussion List. It will be good to keep all of these complaints together in one place so that if/when we want to do something about it, we won't have to look far for examples of why we're upset.

As for this whole eastside v. westside thing, to me anything south of 480 is neither east nor west. I don't think of Indy, Parma, Maple Hts as east or west. They're just south of 480.

Tremont was considered the South Side years ago.  It is nothing new.  As I've posted before, my grandfather couldn't live in the Little Italy or West Side Italian neighborhoods because he was a foreman for the B&O and had to be close to the train yards.  They called it the South Side 100 years ago.

 

 

I'm surprised he didn't live in the Italian neighborhood in/near Fulton and Clark. There was a streetcar line on Clark he could've taken to work. But maybe he was trying to save money by walking to the B&O yards.

 

^My fiance's grandparents (very much Italian, yes) still live in this neighborhood. They're a block from St. Rocco's; though they don't belong to that parish, which I've always found odd. The name of the parish they belong to in that hood escapes me.

Maybe they belong to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on 67th and Detroit.

Maybe they belong to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on 67th and Detroit.

 

No, the church they go to is either on W. 44th or W.41. St. Procop ring a bell?

 

*I went to MC on Detroit for Mass one sunday and lo, it was the monthly Italian mass. I could only smile to myself as I sat there not understanding a word.

St Pat's?

*I went to MC on Detroit for Mass one sunday and lo, it was the monthly Italian mass. I could only smile to myself as I sat there not understanding a word.

 

That's cool. I'd like to do that sometime.

^What? Not understand a word? 8-)

As for this whole eastside v. westside thing, to me anything south of 480 is neither east nor west. I don't think of Indy, Parma, Maple Hts as east or west. They're just south of 480.

[

 

I agree.  As a kid, I thought "I'm an eastsider".  As I got older and started expanding more outside of my home town and realized what people associated with "eastsider" and "westsider" I realized I am not really either.

 

East Side essentially amounts to the "Heights" - Cleveland,  University, Shaker, Richmond,  Garfield and I guess Warrensville plus Euclid, Lyndhurst, and maybe Beachwood.

 

West Side - Lakewood, Rocky River, Westlake, Bay Village, Fairview, Avon and Avon Lake.

 

Anyone else just lives in a suburb of Cleveland (or Cleveland itself).

I dunno, cornhole (I hate that name!!) is pretty popular in Greater Cleveland (especially the way west side -- like Lorain County where corn is the official county "flower").

 

OK, WTF is "cornhole"?  Pretty sure this game is NOT pretty popular in the eastern 'burbs (at least within Cuy County).

 

David, the stereotype in Cleveland is that blacks are on the city's east side and whites are on the west side. That's no longer as true, though. Today, you've got some Asians but still mostly blacks (of all kinds, including Jamaican) on the east side. But there is a Vietnamese neighborhood on the near-west side. Arabs and Latinos concentrated on the west side of Cleveland. The suburbs are more Jewish (including many new Russians and Ukranians) and Italians on the east side. But it's hard to say that one ethnic group is here and not there because each group is pretty much all over the place.

 

There's definitely been some dispersion, especially in city limits, but there are still some significant East Side/West Side demographic differences which you allude to: the West Side burbs are overwhelmingly white and Christian, which is conspicuously not the case in several East Side suburbs.  Not a knock on the west side, but definitely a difference.