Cleveland Public Library and Cuyahoga County Public Library subscribe to a database Newsbank that receives a feed from the Plain Dealer.  The Plain Dealer articles are somewhat archived and indexed, but the Sun newspapers (published by PD) are not indexed, except by their own site (ditto PD for their article archive).  The Sun newspapers are not included in this feed.  For future historians and researchers, we need to push for better indexing and archiving of our local stories.  The microfilm is kept at CCPL and CPL but how will we find stories such as this one in the Westside Sun News?  Ohio City Chief hired by Stark.

I for one am very happy to see how much TravelCleveland.com has improved.  Check it out and win some prizes!
 

Cleveland
Summer in the City Sweepstakes

Deadline to enter: July 3, 2007

When Will Global Warming Galvanize You To Action?

We all have our limits. 

Maybe you were there at Gray's Auctioneers Inaugural Auction on Sunday June 17th? Doors opened at 10:30 am for one last opportunity to preview the over 200 lots of fine art, furniture and decorative items, and by noon, auction time, the room was packed with excited bidders.  Some of the people in the audience were old pros and others were new to the auction world.  This first auction had something to suit  everyone's taste and price range. Those who attended were glad they did!

This is an interesting perspective on golf courses in todays NYTimes:

A Fairway View, but the Window Is Often Broken

I wonder if golf courses are still using gallons of herbicide, pesticide and fertilizers (the stuff that encourages the algal blooms in our Doan Brook for example). I wonder if this would be so for the proposed golf course slated for the lakefront in the City of Cleveland's Lakefront plan.

I also wonder if golf courses have become connected to the green movement as far as conservation easements. Could for example, Shaker or Canterbury Golf Clubs have conservation easements, so that we could be assured that if the owners sold the property, these greenspaces would not be developed with town houses and new urbanist developments. Here's an instructive article:

Friday, June 22, 2007, "Storage Spaces" opened at Spaces Gallery - continuing their orientation on "Shrinking Cities". It is a very cool show, with many great works in a variety of mediums. And Spaces is a cool arts anti-establishment. As I was up there on the Viaduct, shown in the header attached below, I reflected it has changed character so much, with the growth of condos contrasting with the shrinking cities theme of the moment, since I lived in one of the loft buildings a bit further down... before the viaduct went glass and chrome. I already miss the old days of industrial decay.

Vis a vis the proposed new (let’s rebuild the existing) inner belt interstate 90 ODOT bridge in Cleveland:

I was pleased to read in the Plain Dealer that Cottage Living has declared my neighborhood, Ohio City, one of their 10 best communities in America, for "charming cottages, a sense of community, and an eye on the future." No doubt they made a great choice with Ohio City, as my family well knows and celebrates each day we live here. Tonight we dined a few blocks from our house, among historic victorians and mature trees and gardens on the patio at Momocho (still as great as when I reviewed it last year)... the best NEOMEX restaurant in the world. Within a few other blocks of there are over a dozen more of the region's best restaurants and hot spots - core, local establishments - not to mention the "best in the world" West Side Market... With the W. 25th RTA and many bus lines criss crossing this area, it is a public transit dream, and is probably the most bike and walk friendly place in Ohio.

Kurt Waldheim died this past week.  Hardly worth a thought, unless you are like me, the first-generation daughter of Eastern European immigrants.  Elizabeth Sullivan noted the event in her Plain Dealer column.  She tends

Why are we so behind in Northeast Ohio when it comes to preservation?

Two articles converged onto my conciousness this week in the midst of an attempt to save the Breuer from destruction.

Brooklyn Waterfront Called Endangered Site

here's a quote: “The buildings really represent an important part of Brooklyn’s heritage, and it would be a tragedy to lose it,” Richard Moe, president of the trust, said in an interview. “We’re very concerned that there’s such a rush on to demolish everything.”

and

Great Architecture Finds a Home in Indiana

here's a quote: "Columbus (Indiana) is a small town (population 39,000) that just happens to have the most incredible collection of modern architecture in the Midwest (outside Chicago, of course). Everyone from Eliel Saarinen and his son, Eero, to Deborah Berke and Richard Meier has worked there, designing so many schools, churches and libraries that, at least in theory, you can’t walk a single block without stumbling on an elegant glass-and-concrete building or a house of worship soaring like a Euclidean fantasy.

“You actually have to see it to believe it,” wrote Christopher Porter, a reader."

Marcel Breuer
Design and Architecture
An exhibition by Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
4 May ‒ 2 September, 2007
Could it come to MOCA or CMA?

Rockefeller's Brothers Fund to steward Breuer House
would they steward our Breuer?

World Monument Fund launches Modernism at Risk

Hunter Morrison recently submitted this note at the request of the Cleveland City Planning Commission.

The City Planning Commission is empowered by the Charter and by the Codified Ordinances to grant or deny permission to demolish, alter or construct buildings in the City’s Public Land Protective District. While, in most cases, the Commission can rely on the advice of its staff and the actions of the Design Review Committee to inform its decisions, in high profile cases, the Commission itself must take the role of primary decision-maker. These cases often involve the demolition of significant buildings, such as the Cuyahoga Building, the Engineers Building, and the Allen Theater.

A very cool person, who just moved back to the Cleveland area, tuned me in to this site StitchCleveland.com.  Mary Ann your family needs a house...you have two kids (boys?) and so do Norm and Evelyn.  Talk to them.  Think of the synergy :)

Traditional farms are beautiful. They're sweeping, green, majestic even, and without them we wouldn't have the Archers. They're also a waste of space.

If Ohio can’t make the move on its own, perhaps the federal government will force the issue.  Senator Bingaman (D-NM) is trying again (after an unsuccessful attempt in Jun ’05) to require a national renewable portfolio standard. The proposed RPS would require that 15% of the country’s electricity come from wind, solar and other renewable energy sources by 2020.  Read more

There will be maintenance done to the realneo.org site between 12 and 6 AM EDT, June 14, 2007. 

The site may be unavailable during that time. 

We apologize for the inconvenience. 

For Immediate Release
June 12, 2007
Contact:  Ms. Daryl Davis,
216-310-0557 (day) or daryl [dot] davis [at] sbcglobal [dot] net

GOVERNMENT WATCHDOG GROUP GETS $1000 FROM ANONYMOUS DONOR

Suburbs Are Graying Faster Than Big Cities

By SAM ROBERTS

You can find lots of video of Kathy Rose on You Tube

Ingenuity's Premiere events bring world-class performers to the Cleveland stage
Die Audio Gruppe creates site-specific audio costumes known as "Audio Uniforms" or "Sonic Costumes" that reflect local customs, themes or traditions. These electro-acoustic clothes and dresses make sounds by interacting with their environment. Audio Ballerinas and Audio Geishas will be featured during the festival and brought to life by members of Inlet Dance Theatre.
Audio Gruppe
Baitz, Germany
In 1992, my company, The Repertory Project worked with Benoit Maubrey as part of the Cleveland Performance Art Festival. It was a blast. The dancers wore the audio tutus in CPT, at Tower City (where the dancers also dragged garden rakes equipped with pickup mics producing a loud screeching sound that echoed throughout the atrium), in the Halle Building Food Court during lunchtime and at a club in the Flats called Aquilon. There are great black and white photos of the events, but they are tucked away in the archives at the Western Reserve Historical Society (home to the history of the Repertory Project) and the CSU Library (home to the history of the Performance Art Festival). The events took place in March, so the dancers had to rely on batteries more than solar power, but inside Aquilon they stood on the bar and the frequency of the recorded tape loops was controlled by the bartender as he raised and lowered the levels of the lights that hung over the bar. Even in this hip-hop and techno blasting bar scene in 1992, attendees covered their ears and winced as the dancers played the very loud techno recording and screeched in from the freight elevator with the rakes in tow.

I encourage everyone to see the return of Maubrey's audio clothing to Cleveland. Back in the day, the Performance Art Fest and Rep Project were hot topics. Now long in the past, it is good to see Ingenuity hauling out some art and technology collaborations that are still interesting 15 years later. By the way, these were the only tutus Rep Project ever wore. The toe shoes, you might be wondering? We torched them in 1989, like so many bras burned in the 1960s, we had no use for them. The event took place on what is now a parking area just west of SPACES Gallery. Yep, we were a scrappy lot dedicated to new horizons for dance in Northeast Ohio. I still see glimpses of hope for the postmoderns here in NEO, but only glimpses. The majority of the audience seems mired in Taylorism, insipid as it is.  Ingenuity offers a chance to revisit, check out and get tuned into what has been going on in dance for the last uh... 40 years. Get with it NEO, the dance world has passed by here skipping over Cleveland like so many bits of detritus between NYC, Oberlin, Cincinnati, Columbus and Chicago.

Here's more: Sound Junctions

Also see Troika Ranch -- who despite rumor made their Northeast Ohio debut at Oberlin College (go figure) years ago. Thank you, Carter McAdams.