Sometimes it is hard for me to catch up. 40+ hours per week digging, pulling, plucking and gathering, cutting and washing vegetables on the farm leave little time for me to catch up on what's new in Cleveland. So today I went digging for the recent stuff (hoopla) about the "new" Gordon Square Arts District. I watched videos and heard the yuppie mantras repeated (like they have a script that includes name dropping - SoHo, Dupont Circle, the numbers of businesses and economic development and jobs projection numbers). I read articles from this and that news outlet, but not one video interview, nor the Gordon Square Arts District website mentioned James Levin. I had caught a story on WCPN on the drive home one day about "early adopter", Nikki Gilotta of Gypsy Beans. Early adopter? What about a pioneer? How about a story about community development leader extraordinaire, rough rider, James Levin?
(photo courtesy of IngenuityFest website)
I saw this bit of propaganda in the PD: Community, cooperation building Cleveland's Gordon Square Arts District Sunday, September 20, 2009 Lawrence N. Schultz [1] (Schultz is chairman of the Gordon Square Arts District and a partner with Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP.)
In this piece of editorial advertising, Mr. Schulz states, "Only 2 years old, the Gordon Square Arts District..." Whoa, hold on there just a minute, Mr. Schulz. James Levin launched the Gordon Square Arts District (a do-over of the Westside Arts Consortium) in 2004. That's 5 years using my arithmetic. (Note: Schulz is on the board of the GSAD [2] - maybe he thinks the world began on his birthday, too.)
Meanwhile, community development wizard and serial arts entrepreneur, James Levin got a new position while Clevelander's weren't paying attention (or maybe we were just watching for invitations to his latest fantastic Cleveland IngenuityFest event - the Bridge Project [3] - where he continues a long tradition of collaboration.)
I still find it interesting that Joy Roller (who Levin hired as an intern-way to not acknowledge your former boss), Jeff Ramsey, Matt Zone and Thomas Mulready could not find a second or even a split second to say two words - "James Levin". Raymond Bobgan is the only person who mentioned his predecessor. Go Raymond! Thank you Dee Perry for asking the question about Levin. Here's the rest of the story (or the James Levin part of it) [5]. It goes back much farther than 2007. Just ask Matt Zone, Jeff Ramsey, Joy Roller or Ray Pianka or Linda Eisenstein [6] (who collaborated with Levin on 2 notable productions - Star Wares 1989 and Discordia 2003). They were there (well maybe not Ms. Roller). Did they not regularly see Levin at CPT?
In this WCPN story [7], Roller says that a model where three arts orgs selflessly go togther in a capital campaign must have forgotten Levin's Westside Arts Consortium model wherein Levin got money for ArtHouse and SPACES in addition to money for his own CPT from the state budget.
So we don't lose James Levin to College of Wooster, but we seem to have forgotten his role here in the GSAD - he started it ferchrissakes. We'll still have (fingers crossed) Ingenuity and its offshoot collaborations. I just wish that we could better recall a big chunk of how the district became a district.
Just one more question: Can Matt Zone pronounce "ing"?