Trubek - Cleveland neighborhood guidebook: the least practical, most literary guide to cleveland

Copyright 2016 Belt Publishing

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Edition 2016.

ISBN: 978-0-9968367-2-2

Belt Publishing

1667 E. 40th Street #1G1

Cleveland, Ohio 44120

www.beltmag.com

Book design by Meredith Pangrace

Cover illustration by David Wilson

CLEVELAND

NEIGHBORHOOD

GUIDEBOOK

EDITED BY THE STAFF OF BELT MAGAZINE

ALSO BY BELT PUBLISHING:

RUST BELT CHIC: THE CLEVELAND ANTHOLOGY

A DETROIT ANTHOLOGY

THE CINCINNATI ANTHOLOGY

CAR BOMBS TO COOKIE TABLES: THE YOUNGSTOWN ANTHOLOGY

THE PITTSBURGH ANTHOLOGY

HOW TO LIVE IN DETROIT WITHOUT BEING A JACKASS

HAPPY ANYWAY: A FLINT ANTHOLOGY

FORTHCOMING IN 2016:

THE AKRON ANTHOLOGY

THE BUFFALO ANTHOLOGY

HOW TO TALK MIDWESTERN

ILLUSTRATIONS:

INTRODUCTION

Spend enough time reading Best of Cleveland listicles on the internet or browsing tourist brochures, and an image of Cleveland will likely form: a place with music, art, beer, ballgames, and skyscrapers filled with down-to-earth folks. It is a fine image and one that is connected to reality: there are few things better than a day spent at the West Side Market and the Cleveland Museum of Art followed by drinks in Ohio City overlooking Terminal Tower, and on such a day you may well find yourself surrounded by happy, shiny Clevelanders.

But that is also only one picture of Cleveland, and as with so much else of late, Cleveland tourism has become a story of haves and have nots: some places get all the clicks. This is where this book comes in. We wanted to pan out, look to the sides, and show other Clevelands, tooto let shine the hidden gems, stop to note the cracked glass, and poke into the shadows of what has been lost.

When we thought about how best to tell the story of Cleveland neighborhoods, we decided to canvass the block. We invited stories. Send us essays about your neighborhoods, we asked. It can be a pretty story or an ugly story, a tale from the past or a glimpse of the future. We did not define neighborhood (a corner? a ward district? a conclave of a certain demographic?) but let those interested in participating do that themselves. And then we read, delighted, as people from South Euclid and New York and Larchmere and Boston submitted essays that lit up the corners, alleys and bike lanes of the city and inner-ring suburbs.

The resultthe essays in this bookis more kaleidoscopic than Photoshopped. If you want to learn more about downtown, this book is not for you. This book is for those who want to understand the streets that radiate away from Terminal Tower, and who understand that as pretty as the city often is, it can sometimes be ugly. You will read about places no longer here, such as the Little Italy Historical Museum, and League Park, as well as increasingly popular areas such as North Collinwood and Asiatown. You will learn about Cleveland Heights natural history, Mount Pleasant back in the day, and Opportunity Corridors missed. The writers will tell you stories about starting a business in Ohio City, first-time homebuying in Detroit Shoreway, the unjustified self-loathing of South Euclid, troubling developments in Tremont, closed schools in Lee-Miles, and a vineyard in Hough. Bound together, the essays portray a Cleveland as complex as its residents.

In between these essays we laced some surprises, aimed both at our increasing numbers of tourists (hi!) and residents looking for something new to do: Belt Magazine Editors Picks for the best restaurants, dive bars, housing deals, breakfasts, and more. We also feature recommendations written by local experts on their picks for the citys best nature, art, and music. We bet you will disagree with some choices, and we look forward to discussing those with you, perhaps over Chinese in St. Clair Superior or cocktails in Duck Island.

It is impossible to put together such a book and also be truly representative or comprehensive, so fair warning: there are stories of neighborhoods left untold and voices unheard within these pages. Perhaps a more accurate title would be A Partial, Good-Faith but Not Nearly Comprehensive Enough Cleveland Neighborhood Guidebook. We intend to keep filling in the gaps and add more pins to our map, at our online home, Belt Magazine (beltmag.com), where we are always eager to publish Clevelands stories.

Thanks to all the writers and sponsors for enabling the making of this bookand heres to you, dear readers, for closing the circle by hearing these stories, thus completing this new story of Cleveland. We hope to see you soon, somewhere around town.

Losing Lakewood

SALLY ERRICO

I moved to Lakewood a few weeks after breaking up with my boyfriend and, not coincidentally, a few weeks after I started sleeping with Adam. My boyfriend and I had lived together on the east sidehis native stomping groundand as soon as the first winter hit, I became desperate to leave.

You realize the snowbelt that goes all the way to Buffalo starts here, right? Like, specifically here. If we lived 20 minutes west, wed have an entirely different climate.

I like the east side. Now hand me the ice scraper.

There were other reasons for moving to Lakewood. It seemed to me a city in the best possible ways: progressive in both its politics and its society, a place where a proud Cleveland met a cultured liberalism. It was full of shops and restaurants and bars, and their interconnectednessthe sheer number of them and their proximity to one another, and to residential streets, and to Cleveland itselfwas to me a characteristic of what urban life should be.

On a more practical level, Lakewood was also where Adam lived. I met him at a party in December, and when he mentioned that he and his girlfriend would be moving in together in May, I thought, I have six months to make you fall in love with me. I had known him for an hour. The intensity of my attraction was unlike anything Id ever felt: He was tall, slim, and impeccably dressed, with curly brown hair and eyes so dark they were almost black. As we got to know each other better over the next few months, I also discovered he was sometimes vain. He could be jealous and resentful. But his flaws made him more appealing, which is why I maintain that my attraction wasnt just physical. I was in love.

The situation was complicated by 1) my boyfriend and 2) Adams girlfriend. For a while, I imagined that Adam and I could justhang out together forever, complacent in our respective relationships, no rocking of boats. We had mutual friends, so there was always an excuse to see each other; we enjoyed the same things, so if we happened to find ourselves at, say, the same concert, hey, what a coincidence! But then one night, after we attended a wine-fueled fundraiser for the Cleveland Public Theatre, he kissed me. I was living in Lakewood by the end of the month.