Sure, It's a Shithole - But It Was MY Shithole

Observant readers of TBC's blog and my little chucklefest may have noted that as the Rootin' Tootin' TBC Traveling Train Wreck pulled into Cleveland, I made a few suggestions as to where he may wish to stay, should he decide to stay put for more than a month or so, recommended a good restaurant that I know for a fact serves milk, and generated a knowledge of Cleveland that only a local would know.

This is because for six years, Cleveland was my home, and they were six reasonably happy years. And yes, the years I lived there, 1994-2000, coincided with a certain city renaissance, but I do not cling that tightly to the theory that its rebirth was mostly my doing.

And yes: Cleveland, as it is right now, has ebbed pretty low. And when I got there in the mid-90's it wasn't a whole lot better. But even then, as now, Cleveland had, and has, a lot to like about it.

Cleveland is:

• Inexpensive to live.  There are several suburbs of Cleveland that are inexpensive and full of housing stock in good condition in good neighborhoods. Two-family homes pepper just about every area in every suburb so there is plenty of rental stock, but a young family just starting out can have their choice of 40 different houses under $100,000 pretty much anywhere they want to.
  
  When Toots and I moved there we bought a beautiful old 1500 square foot arts-and-crafts home in a suburb called Garfield Heights, with leaded-glass built-in cabinets and windows, hardwood floors, gigantic crown molding, a butler's pantry, the whole bit.  It cost us $75,000.  Our mortgage payment was $503. My mother was more or less on the next plane when she heard the news; she could not wrap her head around the fact that in the United States there was a place that was not riddled with crime, drugs, and vermin that could be had for 75 grand.  She was surprised, if pleased, when she saw the evidence.

Our first house, Garfield Hts, OH.  That monster on the left is a Rose of Sharon bush apparently left alone for years.

They carpeted my living room, the philistines.  But check out the leaded-glass windows and the fireplace detail

Beautiful leaded-glass cabinets, and at the top of the photo you can see the fixture Toots and I bought at an antique shop

How many houses built in the '20s have a huge walk-in closet?

• A Top-Tier city when it comes to entertainment and services.  The city's largest hospital, the Cleveland Clinic, is recognized the world over for its cardiac and oncology care.  When I lived there the news would run a story about this Sheikh or that Eastern European despot dictator flying to Cleveland to be treated by the Clinic every other week, seemingly. The Cleveland Symphony, if that's your bag, also has a world-wide reputation - for years its lead conductor was Christophe von Dochnyanyi, one of the world's foremost. More to my taste, the Indians play at a beautiful, spacious ballpark with excellent sight lines and inexpensive tickets - and, by the way, $10 parking. Plus football, basketball, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - all downtown within a few blocks of each other.
• The proud owner of an extensive city park system.  Nicknamed "The Emerald Necklace," Cleveland's Metroparks system provides the city proper and almost every suburb with well-funded, well cared-for and lovingly used parks.  There was a park entrance at the very end of my street, not 200 yards away from my front door, and Tootsie and I would go there and (if you can believe it) walk a lap around its path, a measured two miles, at least three days a week.  Strolling it took 20 minutes; I could do it in 15 which would leave me dripping with sweat, which because I am who I am, smelled and tasted like tapioca pudding.
  
  I miss the parks a great deal; they really added to my stay there.

See why they call it a necklace?

• A carnivore's dream. Situated as they are at the sort of Eastern Entrance of the Mid-West, the meat to be had there is way better than anything found here in New England (although we kick their ass in fresh fish, of course). They have this place, the West Side Market, where you can buy any kind of meat in any kind of quantity you wish.  Want a whole pig?  How about two pounds of goat shoulder? No prob.  Plus a produce market 1000 feet long, several specialty kiosks selling wares like bread, teas, spices, smoked meats, just about anything you could ever want.  A Saturday morning at the Market was always a good time and I always left with my belly full.

What's not to love?

Relax - it's just spices and stuff

This is a map of about half the place, to give you an idea of scale

I could go on, I guess - C-town, as we call it, has a lot more going for it than this. But she takes a pounding in the press, does our Cleveland, and someone needed to point out that even though it's not exactly Cleveland's Golden Era, she's a good old girl - a tough old broad of a city who can take a good whupping and still be standing at the end.

 And for whatever it's worth, I loved it when I lived there, and I love it still.