Community gardens play an important role in our city and its neighborhoods.  They are a source of fresh produce for those who don't have the space at their own residence.  Gardening is a great form of exercise.  Being in contact with nature and the soil relieves stress.  A strong sense on community grows quickly in a shared gardening space.  Crime levels drop around community gardens. These are just a few of the reasons to support community gardening.

These photos were shot flying above the town of Barrow Alaska by my friend Katrina as she reach the end of an extraordinary cyber-educational adventure. Over the last 11 days she literally went that extra mile to make distance learning for NEO grade school students exciting and meaningful.

    Rhythm Culture Shakes Up Fair Trade at the World Fair
    Trade Day Festival on Saturday, May 12, 11am-3pm, at
    Tri-C Metro (Campus Center).  Move to the music of

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How many times in the last 10 -15 years I have gotten off the highway at the East 72nd Street exit of the Shoreway and winced at how depressing this mostly post industrial, impoverished landscape looks.

This symposium is part of the Shrinking Cities exhibition tour, Cleveland venues are Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative and Spaces Gallery.

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Toronto in spring is a romantic place. I discovered this when I spent the afternoon of Sunday April 22 on Queen Street West. I know there are many interesting districts in Toronto, for museums, dining, theater, and shopping, but I had been to Queen Street West before and I already knew that if pressed for time this street had more than enough to offer in the way of dining, arts and culture, and shopping. This was the first time I had experienced spring in Toronto. The last time I was on Queen Street it was mid November and beginning to snow. The sky was grey, it was a damp cold depressing day and outside at least, it wasn't much better than being in Cleveland. Mid-April is a totally different story though; the day was warm and sunny, almost like summer. Thousands of people were out, biking, walking, walking their dogs and children, and patios were open for dining. I started out with several objectives – get some good coffee and chocolate, find some birthday gifts for friends (children and adults), and take in some world class art and fashion.

While Cleveland's history of embracing progress and opportunity inspires visionaries of the present day, the recent establishment has stifled the advancement of independent thought that challenges the status quo.

Rockitecture. was founded by two bored early 20 something drunkards in the summer of '06 in the post-industrial dystopic landscape that is NEO (thats Northeast Ohio, son). Combining their loves of music, architecture, and uneducated criticism they have successfully added a new and unrivaled levels of pretension, alienation, and inaccessibility to blogging in an amazingly short period of time.

Friday night I attended a reception and lecture at SPACES Gallery for select Cleveland organizations with interest in urban planning and sustainability. The current exhibition at Spaces, Shrinking Cities, explores strategies for post-industrial urban areas and should be of great interest to anyone interested in urban planning and sustainability. Terry Schwarz, Senior Planner at the Urban Design Center of Northeast Ohio, was to give a tour of the exhibition. My affiliation? I am an energy ambassador at Case. I am also an art historian, and although there are some witty, beautiful and innovative works represented in the exhibition the theme and the messages of the show truly over power the aesthetics. One could easily forget they are in an art exhibition.

Wednesday night's lecture at the Cleveland Clinic with Peter B. Lewis and Frank Gehry was everything I had expected and more. I doubt an audience member left without a new appreciation for the  positive,  transformative power of architecture, friendship and collaboration. It was inspiring just to be in the same room with two people who had made such great contributions to architecture. It was also inspiring to see two people, two friends, who worked so well together as client and architect. A testament to Gehry's fame, the lecture had very few visuals – only a few slides of his most famous buildings such as the Disney Concert Hall in LA, The Experience Museum Project in Seattle, the Guggenheim Bilboa and the unbuilt Peter B. Lewis residence were shown.  Peter Lewis and Frank Gehry each spent 15 minutes discussing some of the highlights of their lives and careers and then they took questions from the audience.

 It is very nice to see my favorite real urban planner Joe Stanley featured on Lee Batdorff's very informative University Circle Blog - and thanks to Joe for mentioning us here at realneo! We set up and host his http://neomainstreet.com site, which is one of the best uses of Drupal in this region, and presents excellent work by a talented planner and designer. Joe is working on all the community development projects I'm involved with, including overall East Cleveland planning and the Star Intergenerational Neighborhood planning and The Intergenerational School, along with other work Joe does independently.

We live in "Forest City" so Arbor Day should be an important holiday in Cleveland. Here is one idea how you might celebrate ...

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What is ArtWorks?

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Asterisk Gallery

Opening Reception: Friday, May 11, 6-11 p.m.

(during Tremont Art Walk)

May 11 - June 2, 2007

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May 14th at 7:00 Mayor Frank Jackson and Cleveland City Council will honor us by holding a City Council Meeting in the neighborhood.  Josaphat Arts Hall ( 1433 E. 33rd Street ) will host the meeting.  This is our chance to see decision making in action right here in our neighborhood.  Please join this meeting. 

-Jamie Baker/Executive Director/St. Clair Superior Development

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Cleveland Clinic, Ideas for Tomorrow - a speaker series, Free event featuring: Peter B. Lewis,Chairman of Progressive Corporation & Frank Gehry, world-renowned architect

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"I think Cleveland is a good place. Inner city is rough, but the outskirts is real beautiful, and great schools there. Plus my family, my mom and my sisters, they're all in Cleveland, so it's easier for me to be there than anywhere else." This quote, from an excellent Free Times interview with Charles "Wish Bone" Scruggs, of Cleveland-roots, Grammy award winning, multi-platinum rap trailblazers Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, sings the woes of a place branded as a "Shrinking City", where even the urban hard-core Thugs chose the 'burbs over the 'hood. The result of such out-migration, and downright defection, as is the case with all the other members of Bone, is the subject of a series of art exhibitions and related events taking place over the next month, all over town... which event sponsor Kent Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) introduces by pointing out: "In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Cleveland had lost nearly 20,000 residents in just five years. The city’s population of 458,684 was the lowest in nearly one hundred years." Starting Friday, April 20, 2007, at 4:30 PM, with a lecture at CUDC, explore what it means when a city loses its Bones...

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Norm, your GIMP photos make me tune into RealNEO everyday (and, of course, the interactive flow of ideas and the heady vanity rush that comes with the self-publishing of those ideas). 

So, what makes a site a portal that draws in viewers?  SEE http://www.passportproject.org/ ">Passport Project

While I don't really care for the Cleveland Institute of Art slogan "Making Art Work" (to me, work is a 4-letter-word, and art is not), the CIA turns out some of the hardest working and most work-force attractive designers in the world, and each year showcases their talent at an annual Design Show. To get a sense of what to expect, here is my preview of the show from 2005 (missed the 2006 show - will be there this year!).

Here's more info from the official invitation...

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Few occassions in NEO or anywhere offer a more diverse and exciting perspective on life and art than the annual CIA BFA Thesis Exhibitions... from the CIA Website: See exceptional work by the next generation of artists and designers as graduating students present their Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis exhibitions. The Joseph McCullough Center will be bursting with energy and excitement as the Institute’s graduating seniors challenge the public with fresh ideas and commentaries on our world. Work will be presented in all media including performance and installation art. The senior thesis project is the culmination of a student’s career at the Institute. Please join us to celebrate their achievements!

Exhibition Hours

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Claes and I were picking up Evelyn at the University Circle Arabica Sunday around 5 and I heard one of my favorite sounds flowing over from my favorite area spot - the Barking Spider - roots jazz. I knew who I would find there... the finest roots jazz musician I know in town, George Foley... so we headed right over. George plays and sings, solo and with many area musicians, in every imaginable combo, all over town, and it is always a fun, uplifting and inspiring experience.

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The question "Am I possible?" is the beating heart of Get Rid of Yourself, and it echoes throughout Bernadette Corporation's existence on the borders of fashion and art.  The group is influenced by Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren, and Jean-Luc Godard. They are also interested in new immigrant cultures surrounding their loft "headquarters" on the Bowery in New York City. Bernadette Corporation's interventionist projects function as a critique of our global culture, which constructs identity through consumption and branding.

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