It's only "Tower Complex" without residents

What makes a city a city? If you think about it or even if you have to look it up, you think roads, buildings, and parks and that's all true. What else? Utilities like water and sewer. Transportation like cabs, buses, and trains. Things to do something at like restaurants, bars, other forms of entertainment. Jobs, buildings, hotels. Now take all of those things and plot them out in your mind. Think of a beautiful urban landscape engineered to your dream of what a city is supposed to be...

Back in the day the Van Sweringen brothers along with the firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White came up with the idea and concept for the Cleveland Union Terminal. They used New York City's grand central terminal as the basis for their idea of a large unified train terminal in Cleveland. Over the years different people and groups have added shops, buildings, parking, a casino, a post office, a department store, a hotel, businesses, and restaurants to the original Union Terminal. Tower City is what most people call the whole complex now a days even though it is a collection of different buildings built in the same area fitting into a uniform shape by design. They are all connected in one way or another by the former Union Terminal platform area that was converted into the mall we know today.

So Tower City has all of this stuff going for it even if the city it once knew when it was first opened has dwindled down to what it is today. I notice all of this when I walk to the Higbee building which is part of the Tower City center. I work there when I can as you may know. I gamble at the casino. I shop at the mall. I eat lunch at the food court. I've watched a movie at the theater. I've arrived and departed from the RTA station. I've been in the hotel ball room. I've eaten dinner at the restaurants. There's still a small post office by the entrance to the mall where you can mail a letter and buy stamps. I plan on one day staying at the hotel and going to the top of the Terminal Tower. It really is the center of the city and a self-contained city in itself in some ways...but it's missing something.

If I Sim City-ed a city out in the middle of the desert, what would it be missing? People! Sure there are visitors but cities need people and more specifically residents. For all of these years only 2 people have ever called any building in Tower City home. The Van Sweringen brothers. Sure there have been plans to add residential to Tower City but nothing has come of it. There was no need for it when it all was first built. Cleveland was the 5th largest city in the US. There were people coming to Tower City. As buildings were added we still had a top 15 population and there was no Brecksville's or Strongsville's yet to go to...well not like we know them today anyways. There was a need to fulfill and that wasn't with residential. Today is a different story.

I can tell you from experience that the stock of for sale houses in this city is shit. Sure there are great areas close to downtown but the further you go out, the younger the houses get until you get to this weird limbo area where all the idea of charm and wood work was replaced by rounded entryways into each room and attics that are too short to stand up in. Think a typical house in Parma. That's what they remind me of anyways. I'm all for saving historical structures but just because houses are old, it doesn't mean they need to stick around. I'm actually cool with just bulldozing large swaths of shitty houses in order to build more urban and attractive neighborhoods... but I digress. In a city where the safe neighborhoods are gentrified out of your price range, the medium neighborhoods have houses that only widows can live comfortably in, and the rest is murder central, you'd think that having a prime time address like Tower City Center would be no-brainer for unique, hip, and memorable residential, right?!?

Let's look at it from angle #2. Tower City has a mediocre mall, a movie theater that's about to get some competition from the East Bank and Playhouse Square, the train hub of a desperate for riders transit group, a soon to be new Public Square, a prime location in a city with a downtown rental occupancy rate around 99%, and old unoccupied commercial space. Nothing creates business like having a built in clientele. It's already proven that rentals are being rented as fast as they can come online. You can get to/from here from/to University Circle, Browns Stadium, the Airport, Ohio City, the Flats East Bank, Shaker, and Lakewood all by using the RTA. You can walk pretty much anywhere downtown because you're right there. You could possibly walk to work without going outside. No matter how drunk you are and where, you should always be able to find your building. You can live above a casino, a mall, and a movie theater. You can have city, lake, or river views. You can live in the most iconic building in a city where conversions of old commercial into hip residential is "the thing" since the cost of building is astronomical...well to us mid-westerners anyways. This is (again) a no-brainer. 

I truly believe that if you're going to call something "Tower City" it should have everything that a city compressed in a tower would have including residents. Take a few floors and try it out even. I just can not see this failing as long as it's done at least half right. You can't wait for the glory days to come back. You have to go out there and make things happen in this economy, if you want to survive. Don't think because you're an icon that you'll never become an old laughing stock. This needs to be done for a city that's looking for a leader, an organizer, a legitimizer (ole W would be proud of me for that word!) Show that this city is committed to outside of the box residential in it's downtown!

If the Eiffel Tower can be a huge radio antenna, urban explorers, then a building can be used for anything no matter how iconic. Just set it up to succeed!

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The Big Sell

Before I get into "the big sell" I have some fun things I did recently that are note worthy:

1. We finally went to Slyman's and split a huge a$$ corned beef sandwich! The place is great (like they need me to tell you that?!?)! Good old diner/deli feel and everything positive you've heard is true. Sandwiches the size of your head...check! Is in the world's weirdest location although I'm sure it was a great area to be in back in the day...check! Reasonable prices...check! Crowded...check!--but nothing awful. A few mins tops and that was during lunch rush. We really are hipster douche bags if only for the fact that it took us this long to go there. Sorry Slyman's and we regret making you wait.

2. My parents came up on their own... I know right?!? Let that sink in. And it wasn't to see me! Or that's what they'd lead me to believe. They actually came up to see the Columbus Day parade in Little Italy. Well when I got the call I instantly sprang into action... you know, because I had they day off because I WORK AT A BAAAAAANK!!!! (that was meant to be sung metal style)... and headed out there to witness it for myself. I don't have picture proof since I dropped my phone in a parking lot and smashed it to a million billion pieces but I have the 8 lbs I gained at Pretis to show that we saw the little old people that reminded me of my grandparents, the men dressed like Rocky Balboa (there were like 3 who did so well I'm sure were doing it as a goof), the bread truck that threw out bags of bread during the parade, and all the beauty of the parade itself and the neighborhood. "Dio benedica tutti voi!"

3. I walked around the new Flats East Bank area and ate lunch at the new Beerhead Bar & Eatery. Congratulation Cleveland, you have a truly remarkable waterfront mixed use community in the northern end of the east and west banks of the Flats.The East Bank is remarkable and the boardwalk alone is worth the price of admission. Business, residential, hotel, mass transit, dining, and entertainment all in one neighborhood. It's everything this city was desperately needing in a new development and this definitely delivered. I only wish there was more of that Flats waterfront land that we could continue to capitalize on...oh wait, there's miles of flats shoreline that looks like a tumbleweed factory or is covered in piles of rocks. The second someone doesn't have another phase of this project is the day the zombie apocalypse begins because this idea of a mixed use Flats area that runs from the lake to the steel mills is way way overdue! Put the piles of stone somewhere we can't use...like the middle of the shit hole called the lower east side of Cleveland around ooooh let's say Miles Ave. Oooo or Glenville! That place is a dump. If you live there and don't care about it, why should we?

OK, now that that is out of the way...

In my neighborhood of Tremont and around some of the touristy places in the city you always see young people walking around, pointing, and explaining things to groups of similar aged friends or a pair of cautious looking older parents. It happens a lot really. We actually have a responsibility to the city to try to sell it to outsiders so that they visit/spend more or maybe even move here...or so they don't keep giving you shit about living here like the most negative god-damned broken record ever. It's like when a young good looking couple comes to look at the for sale house across the street. You come out on your porch and pretend to sweep hoping to catch a critique of the house or the neighborhood in their conversation. You're happy that it's a nice looking couple and that no one is "scary looking" to you. You know that if they move in, they'll do some repairs and everyone's home value will go up. You may even look inviting enough for them to come have a conversation with so you can give them you pitch. We all want good neighbors and we all want great things for our communities so we take some pride in where we live and try to recruit. Hell, I'm totally guilty of this. Gina, my parents, family, friends... Ya I'm constantly trying to sell poor Cleveland to all sorts of people:

• Take for instance the "I have kids and can only get away to Outback once a month between sports, play dates, work, and whatever other responsibilities" people. They just never have the time to come to Cleveland and decided that before they had kids they would follow that time tested suburban path to safety and overwhelming responsibility. No matter how much you pump up the city the glazed-over look in their eyes just screams "stop wasting my time with words and get my adrenaline running and pour cheap booze on all of that!" Understandable and we have that here. Screw architecture and public art. They want entertainment soaked in rum and get it all done by 11:00 pm so they can get the babysitter home on time. Those are fun for me if you can string a few of them together in a month. Hit it hard and fast! Damn the consequences!

• Another one of my favorite people are the "God I wish we did this before we..." people. Kids, marriage, got too old, bought a house outside the city, whatever... they live in constant regret and now for some reason can't get themselves to make the move. They come over a lot. They drive the 35 mins into the city regularly and get dinner. They go to sporting events. They go to festivals. They'd pull the trigger and move here in a heartbeat but schools, price, age, no close family, mortgage is underwater, the weird feeling of adulthood while city living is for the young, I love it but my husband/wife blah blah. Actually it always ends up being a combination of a few of those. They tend to make their reasoning very complicated in order to add some actual weight to their argument...which still only boils down to either fear of change or the fear that the city will go to shit again and they'll be stuck in a lease or mortgage in a constantly burning gang land of rape and property damage. I actually had that fear so I'm totally in tune with this group. Hell I was in this group for a long time. They're fun because they love the city and feets on the ground means money in the pockets of the local businesses so it's all good. Anyone who's a fan of the city here is a friend of mine... and a good adventuring buddy.

• I talk to these people a lot and they are complicated even though their ideal is simple... they're the "All I do is watch the news and read the paper" people. They know where every piece of trash is laying on the side of the road and where every violent crime was committed. They were in Cleveland once because they were forced to by work or for jury duty. They have awful memories of being asked for a quarter by a bum and they're never going back! Deep down these people are "Racist white person" and "I'm too good for poor people fo-yuppie" and sometimes even "Poor Republican person". You know, scared white folks with a sense of entitlement. You feel compelled to bring these people out of the 1950's like you feel compelled to correct a person who keeps mispronouncing a word trying to seem smart. If you could only find a common bond then you could build on it and show them that there is good in Cleveland just like in all cities...nope. Just like their thoughts on interracial marriage, the Muslim religion, and vegetarianism... they're wrong and they ain't budging no matter how much you try. They believe city living is for the poor, colored, and uneducated. They need their McCastle, their white picket moat, and their chariot to get them places that give them low quality food at reasonable prices. These ideals are really openly taught here in Ohio and in other places around the country. They replace things like logic, sound reasoning, and thinking for yourself. These people will only make you feel as awful as they make me feel. Hope that their hate hasn't touched too many others.

• The next group is interesting indeed. They are the "I've lived less than a hour away from Cleveland and have never been here" people. There's no good personal reasons for it. They just enjoyed their town so much that they never really had a need to leave or they had a weird upbringing that was church centered or they had scared parents or they were 90's kids who hung out at malls and went of field trips to farms. Even though they're my age or older the walk down the street with such child-like wonder in their eye that they get easily overloaded with everything. I often here "there's just so much to take in" or "I never knew there was so much here". You know what helps? Movies and TV shows. They paint such a "calm, fun, safe place to get into so many adventures" picture of downtown's that if that's your only reference point, you forget crime stats and the news and just focus on the "Tall buildins" and "beautiful fountains" and "all these people". I love love love these people because they don't have any fear or if they do, there's not a lot of it. They look at all of this great stuff just like I do. With wonderment and awe and promise. Most of the time they're just happy to not be at a Friday's looking across a strip mall at a Dunkin' Doughnuts.

• The last group of people I'll talk about today are the most grumpy I come across. I know why but they'll never admit it. It's the "I used to live here when it all went to shit" people. These were Clevelanders from back in the day when cities were gritty and the factory jobs were still here. They wear old violent crime stats for newly gentrified places like Tremont and Ohio City as a badge of honor on their forehead for everyone to see. Before cupcake places and wine bars there were the dirt covered factory workers bar where you got a shot and a beer, listened to the Indian's game, stumbled home just wildly enough to avoid random gun fire. I picture their homes being like the kids home from the new Willy Wonka movie. 9 people sleeping in one room and the roof has a leak in it. Anyways, the reason their so grumpy is because the same streets where there dog was shot, their kid's bike was stolen, and their brother-in-law lost his leg to tetanus from a rusty fence are now safe and warm and gentrified and filled with hipster hangouts, 4-star restaurants, and art galleries. They had to work 60 hour a week swing shifts and I can take the day off and drink a chi-tea latte in the park without being attacked by wolves. They do however through all of that grit and anger have a wealth of history that most of us were either too not born yet or too scared to be a part of. They remind you not to take any of this for granted so I like talking to them as long as they don't start swinging a rust pipe wrench at me while they flash back to the Hough riots.

There are more but I won't make this longer than it already is. I do my best based on who I'm selling to but there is no book for this. Everyone's different and you just have to be as positive and realistic as you can. I take it personally a lot and I can't do that because it damages relationship...that's hard not to do though. Look urban pioneers, you can't sell you dream to everyone because you are not everyone. Just hope that your circle overlaps another's enough to be able to share in the ven diagram experience.

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House Hunting and Making the Best

Hi every...two of you. I'm back from a bit of a mental vacation. I don't have much of a focus at this point in my life and even less time to keep myself entertained so I took some time to... well...lay around and watch TV. I mean that's not all of it but it's what I spent my blogging time doing. It happens. The problem is though that this city never gives you a chance to take a vacation until the middle of a brutal late January winter grey-out. So in short, here's what I've been up to:

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We're house hunting. Unsuccessfully up to this point but it's been quite an experience to say the least. One positive that has come out of it so far is that we get to explore beautiful Cleveland. Sometimes it's the more boring safe areas of the city where there's really no reason to go to because there's nothing to do because it's a residential neighborhood. Sometimes it's a questionable section of town that's got some stuff but is on the fence when it comes to emerging or going down the tubes. Other times it's discovering a secret little neighborhood that is quietly tucked away from everything. It's been a unique exploring experiences

One of the places we looked at was over off East 185th Street up by the lake in North Collinwood. From everyone we talked to, it was better to be North of Lakeshore Blvd than south...unfortunately there's not much north of the boulevard. I have a hard time believing that all of Cleveland's lakefront doesn't look like Bratenhal. I'm not sure who designed all that but they really needed to abandon the "there needs to be a house on every square inch of open space for the boys coming home from WWII" mentality and go just a bit more suburban...or Gold Coast-ian with some high priced lakefront high rises! Unfortunately it doesn't look like anyone who can make a difference cares at all about this area. At the very least it could be the West 117th of the east side with some big box stores but I think Gina and I counted over 15 hair care product shops from 90 to the shore. It's a shame too because this house was dynamite. There's no RTA rapid line to get quickly downtown. There's that wonderful rush hour drive on 90 though which I've heard makes priests want to murder bags full of kittens with bags full of babies while listening to Black Sabbath. Unless you're a salon or barber shop, there's not much to do along that strip. We begged our Realtor to talk us into the neighborhood because we really weren't seeing it.

She recommended that we stop over at Bistro 185 for some dinner. It's a great little place right there on 185th with a smokey bar look and feel and an amazing retro blade sign out front. They are definitely one of a few hands holding up the fine dining and small business torch for the street but they do it very well. The food choices on the menu were unique and everything looked appetizing. The wait staff were very attentive and genuinely concerned with whether we were happy or not. When you are the ambassadors for the whole area and your survival depends on happy experiences, you really go out of your way to make everything as pleasant as possible. This place really understands how important they are to the neighborhood. Overall it was a great experience and the food was really really good! I'm not sure if the place needed a bit more polish or if that was part of the experience as a whole but it certainly was a welcomed 1st meal in that part of the neighborhood and we will be back.

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I went to the Ohio City Street Festival with Gina, her cousin Ryan, his wife Natalie, and their daughter Evelyn who is easily in the top 10 cutest little girls ever in the history of the world. The festival was fun and well attended. a newly paved W 25th Street was closed and lined with booths. The restaurants and the West Side Market were open. Ohio City Farm was open for tours with a kids booth outside the entrance. There was a stage in the city lot with bands playing. Every bar had the Browns game on. It was a hopping place...not as hopping as Taste of Tremont but it was a good time.

We stopped at Nano Brew for some lunchie-munchies because we saw an open seat and I personally wanted to sit on their awesome new back patio which resembles a multi-leveled metal tree house with a bar. This thing is epic and I bet was really fun to chill on this summer and watch sun sets or time pass or whatever. The food  and drinks were great but the wait was a tad longer than normal because of the festival I'm sure. I had a burger with Peanut butter and some sort of vegetable jelly on it. I now officially love PB on cooked meat with 2 examples, here and of course Happy Dog.

This is us going up to level 2

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Gina and I went to Mapleside Farms one night to enjoy fall for a bit and forget about the stresses in life. Much to our surprise 1) there was a festival going on so the place was swarming with families and kids. It gave it a nice atmosphere because frankly it wasn't really swarming. Something that open would take a lot of rug rats to be swarming. 2) There's a new barn for weddings and receptions in the back. When I say new, I mean new to us. What a great place to have a fun, non-traditional wedding and or reception. The views and the pictures are stunning I bet. 3) The restaurant that used to be there is now only for special events. How sad is that?!? The best waldorf salad, gone forever. Welp, hopefully someone is nice enough to get married and/or have their reception there and invite me and put the waldorf salad on the menu...or just do it buffet style so I can have a full plate of it and some free scotch from the bar. PS. Also have scotch at the bar.

To make up for the dinner we didn't get there, we bought apple everything from the bakery/gift shop. Their apple cider is epic so we got some of that. A Caramel Apple because Gina loves...well...dessert. Some apple strudel. A bear claw. Apple toilet paper. A hat made of apples... you get the idea. Apples!

We ended up getting dinner at the Brew Kettle on the way home. It was good. Not as good as anything in Cleveland but it was good.

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We hoped to meet Betts and Kari at St Paul and the Broken Bones at the House of Blues but he forgot so Gina went with me for a bit before she had to go to work and I stayed the whole time because I just can't get enough of this band. They're so damn entertaining! I've literally seen the same show by them 3 times now and I walk out like one of those scream Beetles women from Ed Sullivan. If you've never seen them live, please YouTube them especially if it's a late night appearance. They are super good! I also got this awesome t-shirt and a vinyl copy of their 1st album. Score! Plus Frank Turner has a new album out! Buy it buy it buy it being shipped as we speak and it's vinyl!

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I missed Hingetown Hoedown :( I just couldn't get the energy or the drive to go out in to the cold rain and face the world that day. I was not feeling my best and couldn't bare to leave the couch let alone go have what I could only assume to be a great time. Sorry Hoedown people. I wish the circumstances were different. I definitely love the idea and hope to make it to next year's.

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Well Walnut Wednesday's are over but since I blogged about it, I made it to all the rest. I even managed to drag Gina to one and another time I ate in the rain. When I'm downtown for work on days not named Wednesday, I like to explore new places like PizzaFire which is about a block away. You order a personal pizza, add the toppings Chipotle style, and then wait for it to cook... um... regular style? Anyways, if you can build your own "something" lord knows there a place for it and this one is pretty good. After I grab a bite I go wandering around looking at stuff and taking pictures and whatnot before heading back. It makes me happy and I will never get sick doing it. No matter what, this time is a pure blessing in my life for all the other $hit that goes on and I recognize it completely.

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I got 4 tickets to Indians home closer for my Dad's birthday thinking that this would be the "win and you're in game" for the Tribe to get into the playoffs... well the Tribe was eliminated about a week before and no one came up for it but my Dad. So him and I went to the casino for a few hours before the game! I'm still writing this blog and not rolling around nude in a bed full of supermodels and coke so needless to say we didn't hit the jackpot but we had fun. (Call you tell I rewatched Wolf of Wall Street last night?!?) The game was great too. The tickets were the best I had all season and the weather wasn't anything insane in either direction. Very comfortable. Oh and the Indians won! A Cleveland victory is inherently a moral victory since more than likely it doesn't mean winning a championship but will always make us feel better about next year. Happy Birthday Pop on 10/19.

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