Cleveland

Art in the Village at 5700 art opening: Natalie Lanese

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Thu, 07/06/2006 - 01:35.
07/06/2006 - 17:30
07/06/2006 - 19:30
Etc/GMT-4

Art in the Village at 5700, the gallery space located at Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland (5700 Broadway Avenue) in the Slavic Village Historic District, will be hosting an art opening on Thursday, July 6th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. 

Location

Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland
5700 Broadway Avenue Slavic Village
Cleveland, OH
United States

"90.3 at 9" show to focus on urban housing issues in Cleveland

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Wed, 07/05/2006 - 22:04.
07/06/2006 - 09:00
07/06/2006 - 10:00
Etc/GMT-4

WCPN's "90.3 at 9" show tomorrow is going to focus on urban housing issues in Cleveland. They've invited several of the folks who are part of the City Club's series on Redeveloping Cleveland. (See our website, http://www.cclandtrust.org/News.html#6/20/2006 for information on the series.)

Location

WCPN's "90.3 at 9"
Public Radio

Steven Litt is slowing down ODOT's "Racing to design a new bridge for I-90". Hallelujah!

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Wed, 07/05/2006 - 05:06.

When I saw last week a preview for the Thursday, June 29, 2006, WVIZ "Ideas" program featured PD Arts and Architecture columnist Steven Litt and Cuyahoga County Planning Director Paul Alsenas discussing the state of ODOT's plans for a new bridge to replace the current I-90 span across the Cuyahoga River, I thought I was having déjà vu. Yes, this was an issue a year ago... even six months ago, but since then ODOT had so thoroughly railroaded the bridge and trench planning process through the public mind-space that it seemed all topics of discussion about this near $billion project had moved completely behind closed doors and forgotten. Well, it seems Litt and Alsenas have very different ideas about that, as they shared in an excellent "Ideas" this week, and as Litt writes at length in today's Plain Dealer. Be sure to read that article... and great work on Ideas, Steven and Paul!!! Read on...

Thanks for NEO's highest compliment: appreciation from Cool Cleveland x 2

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Wed, 07/05/2006 - 03:55.

I am really appreciative, this morning. After posting what was certainly the saddest news I can imagine, about the hardship my staff has suffered as a result of a lack of appreciation from my former business associate, Peter Holmes, I opened up this week's CoolCleveland and found that their crew had featured TWO postings from REALNEO. I am very touched and thankful to Thomas and his team for noticing REALNEO and taking an interest in the thoughts posted here - thank you. Please show appreciation back to CoolCleveland... if you are not a member, see what you've been missing... subscribe at CoolCleveland - all free - this is a real NEO must,  and send feedback to CoolCleveland letters at the links below, and supporting the upcoming CoolCleveland/Tech/Ingenuity party at Fat Fish Blue, July 13, and the Ingenuity Festival, as described below... but first, here's the nice write-up about REALNEO from CoolCleveland today, July 5, 2006:

Certainty of conflict of interest insures Nancy Lesic's clients must be excluded from future planning

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 07/02/2006 - 07:55.

In a really fascinating development, the Plain Dealer attempts today to structure a deal whereby Cleveland citizens accept the idea that the former press secretary to the very dubious former Mayor Mike White, highest-level PR-statute Nancy Lesic is now under contract with the President of the Cleveland City Council, for $48,000, while also being PR-statute  to the Port Authority, and the Clev

NEO's first real blogger - billboard logger, that is

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 07/02/2006 - 00:39.

 

Anyone who knows NEO knows the wild billboards - or billblogs - painted and posted by Russell Sysack on his property right where W.25th becomes Pearl Road - I don't know how long this inflaming sign painter has been posting these Billblogs but its been as long as I can remember. Not being from that part of town, I largely remember knowing about the billblogs because they are intentionally controversial tests of public tolerance and the right to free speech.

In the hand of genius, NEO privilege amidst Cleveland poverty comes into perspective

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 06/26/2006 - 03:50.

 

It is so appropriate that inept developers and Cleveland leaders want to turn Public Square into a private land monopoly, surrounded by other private land monopolies, funded by taxpayers, sucking funding from our weak economy and struggling public schools, as this Disneyfication and WalMarting of downtown Cleveland is the ultimate betrayal of the one progressive, visionary, socially conscious and truly ingenius leader we ever have known, former mayor Tom Johnson, who sits guard over the square and community still today, with a copy of the still unrivaled economic treatise "Progress and Poverty" cast in his hand. No doubt lesser minds and spirits despise this great man and the fair and intelligent understanding he and his policy mentor Henry George had for the human condition of the industrial ages, now spanning over seven generations of failure by those who have followed and betrayed the people of NEO since... will we let corruption win over Johnson? That is the battle of Public Square, now whimpering. Are you ready to take up the fight?

For me, it is a relief just to know there was once a visionary leader of my home town, as that gives me hope we may be progressive again, some day. And that Johnson left us a roadmap, in his autobiography "My Story", and foundations for progress, in the work of his mentor, George, allows all who care to learn from experience past, before we allow those who don't care for the masses to further destroy this place before the next seven generations.

To begin putting the future in perspective, revisit 1879, consider the great enigma of our times, progress and poverty, and consider where current NEO strategies to give land monopolies and tax exepmtion to the privileged fit in with your vision of a great city for all people. Do you want a community putting privilege before poverty. Consider, from the Chapter on modern life below, "Political Economy, as at present taught, does not explain the persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth in a manner that accords with the deep-seated perceptions of man; that the unquestionable truths that it does teach are unrelated and disjointed; that it has failed to make progress in popular thought - must be due, it seems to me, not to any inability in the science when properly pursued, but to some false step in its premises, or overlooked factor in its estimates. And as such mistakes are generally concealed by the respect paid to authority, I propose in this inquiry to take nothing for granted. I propose to beg no question, to shrink from no conclusion, but to follow truth wherever it may lead. If the conclusions that we reach run counter to our prejudices, let us not flinch; if they challenge institutions that have long been deemed wise and natural, let us not turn back."

Introduction to "My Story", by Tom L. Johnson, 1911

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 06/26/2006 - 02:35.

 

One need only read the introduction to greatest Cleveland Mayor ever Tom Johnson's autobiography to realize this was a special person. Beyond his bringing progressive thought and practice to Cleveland and America's other great cities, back when Cleveland was "great" in proportion, he knew that streetcars could become supertrains, running 100s of miles per hour on magnets, without wheels, as is the case today in more sophisticated places than here - he built a working prototype, in 1906, in his basement, and had General Electric interested to put the technology to use but they failed to make good. So, just as Charles Brush first demonstrated the wind turbine in Cleveland, Tom Johnson first demonstrated the supertrain in Cleveland, and in neither case have progress-seceding leaders succeeded to do good with such competitive advantages. We've also failed to since address the prime enigma which Johnson confronted in his political leadership, the association of progress and poverty. Read about a great leader below, and read his autobiography on-line at Cleveland Memory, and think how your leaders of today compare.

Tale of two Clevelands will determine if we see worst or best of times ahead

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 06/25/2006 - 09:08.

While at a meeting in the City Hall Red Room last year, among portraits of many past Cleveland mayors, I asked then Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell's Chief of Staff Chris Ronayne who was Cleveland's best mayor ever, and he said without hesitation Tom Loftin Johnson (b. July 18, 1854 - d. April 10, 1911), who was mayor from 1901 to 1909. I didn't know much about Johnson nor think much more about him until I grew completely disgusted with the inane puffery in the Cleveland Plain Dealer demanding we the public bend over and take ODOT's obliteration of downtown Cleveland, Wolstein's destruction of the Flats, Stark's WalMarting of the Warehouse District, Carney's corruption of the Port Authority, and now Volpe's Disneyfication of Public Square, driving me to stand up and seek reality at the roots of this one-paper-chase misplanting of bad planning seeds into our social subconsciousness, so greedy developers may destroy our civic  mind, heart, and soul. So, I ask you the public to consider, will any of these corrupt land-grab developments serve the masses. or have we strayed so far from the world Tom Johnson left us that we are again just a low-class, groping, leaderless, blind, selfish, forsaken party to few, as Tom Johnson found and fought at the beginning of the last century? For the answers, join me at Public Square below...

Mayor Jackson knows where to find the Prospect of Music in NEO... do you?

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 06/18/2006 - 00:01.

Located next to A. J. Rocco's, the coolest coffeehouse and microbar in downtown Cleveland, in the Caxton Building, at 810 Huron Road, Prospect Music is a compact explosion of instruments and good old fashion small business vibe, still attracting the big international talent when it's in town... where do you find your musical voice, superstar

For the past two years I've loved having an office in the Caxton Building, because there are a few cool local businesses there keeping Cleveland real - A. J. Roccos, Wilberts, Camera City, Gerrard Optical and of course Prospect Music. I was a Prospect Music customer 20+ years ago, searching for a musical voice - I haven't found it yet (I think my calling is drums... still need to try for real) - so I'm glad there is a music store in town that makes a beginner feel like everyone can be a star. Of course, owner Michael Rubin knows about stars, being one himself, all through life and now with top rated jazz band Blue Lunch, and Prospect Music is definitely the only place in town for local and international stars, as you will see if you visit the store and their guest book, featuring legends from John Coltrane to Joe Walsh... so many of the greatest musicians in history have signed in and said thanks...who may you join on your way to the big stage or inner peace of musical glory? Mayor Jackson knows, as he shops here for his family regularly.

 

So who are you following into Prospect Music and down the road to music stardom or karmic bliss? Escape wonkdom and visit Prospect Music... see a few of your friends who have signed in here...

REAL NEO Graffiti now May Show at Star Complex

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 06/17/2006 - 03:42.

Graffiti at the base of the Cold Storage building at the west end of the Central Viaduct, which Cleveland planners and ODOT intend to demolish

I love "aerosol art" - the PC term for graffiti. So, I've long wanted to put a sustainable model together to allow graffiti artists to create works of art for the public and make money doing it - if they still are going to tag they are going to tag, but I believe the aerosol art aspect can be turned into a competitive advantage for NEO, if we channel the creative energy of graffiti artists into strategic objectives like political change, or even just help artists get paid to paint as an artist. The annual graffiti festival shows the range of great art that comes from aerosol artists - so does a trip on any rapid... all along the rail line there are grafitti images and the artists clearly can't be stopped by enforcement. But, being able to make a living doing this type of art is not in the current equation. I'd like to help restructure this situation so we don't have any bad graffiti art in our space, and we welcome more good artists to participate as they like. Some ideas on how graffiti may become a compeitive advantage for NEO...

East Cleveland Undivided about bridging the digital divide

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Fri, 06/16/2006 - 03:38.

(This article was written as a progress report for the East Cleveland newsletter to residents of the city,
from my role as a technology advisor to the city, and includes very exciting developments for all of Northeast Ohio) 

Greg Williams, son of Hot Sauce Williams Founder Lamond Williams, helping bring surplus computers into the new digital divide bridging center they are helping create at their property in East Cleveland - the awesome, historic former Hough Bakery Complex on Lakeview - where the ongoing REALNEO team is founding an open source incubator for entrepreneurs to help truly jump start the new economy in NEO... at the Star Incubator (the complex was the Star Bakery before it was the Hough Bakery).

The City of East Cleveland is leading Northeast Ohio into the new economy by bridging the digital divide. This means the City of East Cleveland is upgrading our internal computer network and services, increasing city bandwidth to the Internet, enhancing our website services, making sure all of our residents who want and need personal computers may have them at home, providing training in some computer programs, and helping residents get access to the Internet at the lowest possible cost or for free. This all provides a "bridge" for residents to go across the "digital divide" to the "new economy". Welcome!

NEO will benefit from closing Constant Systems, if we leverage the opportunities ahead

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 06/11/2006 - 10:01.

Last week, I had a chance to catch up with Constant Systems' Aiden Audouy for a report on their progress for basing some operations of this exciting biotech company in Northeast Ohio (see scenario here). The news for Constant Systems world-wide is all great, offering incredible opportunity in the coming months and years for NEO, may we close Constant Systems. Read on...

 


 

First steel drum band

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 06/11/2006 - 01:14.

 

 

Enjoying the Parade

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 06/10/2006 - 23:53.

 

Parade the Circle - June 10, 2006

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 06/10/2006 - 23:35.

 

10,000s of NEOans turned out on a perfectly crisp, clear Saturday in University Circle for "Parade The Circle", the annual public art participation extravagansa organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art. This book contains photos and comments from a heavenly day in NEO... see the links in the navigation block on the left and below and enjoy the parade!

Where's this lead hazard? Don't ask Sherwin Williams

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Fri, 06/09/2006 - 23:23.

 

 

One of the defenses of the paint and lead industries against litigation over lead poisoning is the paint companies claim there is no way to identify which paint company made which lead paint - they claim is is all one big public nuisance and deny any responsibility.

While "all the world's a joke", the Cleveland Orchestra and Falstaff are world-class

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Thu, 06/08/2006 - 22:11.

 Always world-class, today the Cleveland Orchestra presented a unique performance of Giuseppi Verdi's comic opera Falstaff that in many ways was the finest artistic achievement I can recall ever experiencing.

Cycling Needs to Play Part In A National Energy Strategy

Submitted by Kevin Cronin on Sat, 06/03/2006 - 21:15.

 

While Congress debates energy and gas saving strategies, they should consider one to help North East Ohio residents adopt personal energy and cost saving strategies, by reducing fuel demand,  traffic congestion and promoting improved health.  Congress can help America get out of their car and onto a bike.  Cycling can be an important component in a national energy strategy.   

2006 Lead Awareness Week Rally July 19 in downtown Cleveland

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 05/29/2006 - 20:15.

 

 Wednesday, July 19, a rally will be held in downtown Cleveland to expand awareness of the critical community health, education and economic crisis of lead poisoning. The rally will begin by the Old Stone Church on Public Square, where supporters will convene for a march to Cleveland Mall C, next to Cleveland City Hall - there will be presentations on lead and other appropriate activities...

Join small group of people changing the world by eradicating lead poisoning in NEO

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 05/29/2006 - 14:45.


 

I saw this posted at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries at a meeting planning a rally for lead awareness to be staged in downtown Cleveland - meeting at Tower City around 11 AM and marching to City Hall for presentations and enlightenment at noon - July 19th at Cleveland Hall Rotunda - please let me know if you'd like to help in the planning and logistics by posting here or emailing norm [at] realinks [dot] us - more info to post to  REALNEO soon.

X and ODOT mark the spots where Wolstein invests - hence the redesign of the Trench

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Fri, 05/26/2006 - 15:24.


 

When you look at the sites of all Wolstein Developers Diversified Realty projects they are low quality big box strip centers, located at major highway interchanges. In the case of the interchange above, the highway ramp off I-271 literally feeds right into the DDR WalMart development.