Cleveland, Ohio

I feel like I’m starting to repeat myself with my assessments of these midwest/rustbelt/whatever cities: Used to be great; then wasn’t; started to recover; became mostly great, but smaller, again; COVID; still mostly great, but needs more people downtown. Cleveland fits right into this, but I thought it was especially great!

Good start with a busy bus station:

In a beautiful art deco building:

But had obviously seen better days:

When I’m learning a new town there are some general guidelines I follow: 1- Walking only; 2- If there’s a view point or high spot, head for that first so I can figure out the lay of the land; 3- If there’s water, head for that next; 4- Then finish in the “tan” areas on Google Maps, ie. the commercial corridors.

I followed these rules in Cleveland and, more than any other place I’ve been to on this trip, the tan rule paid off the most. I’d target a street on the map, turn a corner and react with “holy shit, that’s beautiful”, or “wow, I had no idea”, or “they did such a nice job with that”. Truly, it was a joy to walk around Cleveland.

I liked that this old building had been refurbished, but they painted an old-looking sign on the side to advertise the website for it:

Nice library building (Never went inside):

Indoor arcades were the original shopping malls, as Cleveland has one of the oldest & most beautiful:

But, of course, note that there’s essentially nobody in it, nor were there hardly any stores.

Another beaut — this is a grocery store!

More than anything, however, I was surprised at the river in Cleveland — I’ve always thought of it as the big city on Lake Erie. Sure, it has that river that caught fire back in the day, but I never knew the river was so central to the city.

And so beautiful (now):

And because of this it has the most spectacular bridges:

It turns out, at least where I went, the lake isn’t really much part of the city. Probably why they had room for the football stadium on it:

The baseball stadium was right downtown in the thick of things, though:

Which meant there were lots of nearby bars & streets to fuel the fans:

Speaking of Cleveland’s baseball team: They recently changed their name to the “Guardians” because of these guys:

They’re called the “Guardians of Traffic:. They and the bridge they’re on have been there forever, and are right next to the stadium:

Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool source for their new name.

The bridge takes you across the Cuyahoga, and at its western terminus is the West Side Market:

The place is still working, active, and gorgeous:

The bridges are even more stunning & dominant on the western side of the river:

This one even had a tennis tournament going on beneath it:

Another lift bridge!

A bridge going under a bridge!

Walkways, restaurants, & bars galore along the river:

Speaking of bars, I found a good local one to watch the Guardian games with the locals:

Which led to a fun experience with the Camaro in this picture:

You can’t tell in the pic, but the car was totally refurbished, tricked out, and beautiful inside, and the dude driving it was clearly cruising the city to get attention. Unfortunately for him, he got mine because he was stalled in the middle of the intersection when I came out of the bar.

The t-top was wide open, so I asked down to him “need a push?” Which got me an aggressive “No!” Poor fella, he was so embarrassed, but he was also starting to cause a big traffic issue. So I said, “come on, let me just give you a little push back to the curb”. He never really said yes, but he took a visible deep breath, put the car into neutral, and I then pushed his beautiful car back in to the curb spot you see in the pic. Poor guy.

Cleveland rocks!