Cleveland's All Right!

Yeah, Cleveland does rock!

I was born in and now live near the Rust Belt city of Rochester.   So, I get a pass when commenting on other Rust Belt cities.  I've earned the right.  After waves of lake effect snow in April and seven or eight trips to the alignment shop during any one winter of potholes, we north easterners are allowed to take pot shots at ourselves.   And no one,  that's right, noooo one can tell us any different.

I am a consultant and one of my clients asked me to spend the week in Cleveland.  Great, I thought.  Cleveland in March.  Why can't the client by headquartered in Key West?   But, sometimes we don't have choices in life.  So, off I went, pounding out the four hour drive on the I-90 headed west. 

Passing Buffalo, I thought of how often that city is maligned in the national media.  Some advice to my neighbor Buffalonians:  tell the national media to kiss your ass.  I've had some pretty darn fun times in downtown Buffalo.  Maybe a Sabres game, maybe a night out catching a bar band in one of the local honky tonks on Chippewa.  No matter, the Buffaloes are an accommodating and fun loving sort.  

I hadn't spent much time in Cleveland, up until now though.  I've been through the airport a couple of times and passed through on the interstate on the way out west but I've never spent much time downtown.  What I found was pleasant and altogether unexpected.  

It has been an uncommonly tepid winter and Lake Erie, Cleveland's front porch, is bereft of ice.  From any vantage point in the city, the lake alternates colors with the sun and the clouds.  I wish Route 2 and the train tracks standing between the city's core and the lake weren't there.  But they are.  They make a spectacular view somewhat less grand but maybe, someday, like the Big Dig in Boston, the city fathers and mothers will conspire to hide both and allow access to the water.  That would be cool.

Having grown up living at 43 degrees north latitude, I found no need to bundle up and take a cab or shuttle around town.  So I got to walk the streets.  What I immediately noticed about the place is how darn clean it is.  The streets are well lighted and swept.  The local gendarmes are out and about, making sure the crowds around the Cav's arena don't get too rowdy and the partiers on East 4th keep it civil.  Oh, yeah, I checked out a couple of eateries on East 4th and Public Square and the food was superb.  So too were the people.  They were very friendly in the real Midwest sort of way.  You get the impression that people are less friendly in a cold place.  Not in Cleveland.  No, sir.  Nobody averts their eyes when you see them.  In fact, on a wide open and empty sidewalk, AT NIGHT, most whose path's I crossed went out of their way to say HI!  

I've seen the funny Youtube joke promotional video about Cleveland.  You know, the one that sells the city by saying it's not Detroit?  Well, darn tootin' it ain't Detroit.  Sure Cleveland has seen better times.   At one point in time the Indians and the Brownies were competitive and the "Mistake on the Lake" was the apple in Drew Carey's eye.  Even farther back in time, the Cuyahoga ran clean and this once mighty place sat in the top 20 of American cities.  But, despite the migration of its lifeblood industries along with a lot of people to sunnier climes, Cleveland still ain't a bad place.  

I had a great week there.  I look forward to the next time I get invited to spend a few days.

Oh, yeah, to those that take it personally when anyone that bad mouths the place.  Pay heed to the advice I gave to my friends in Buffalo!