When the Story Tells the Numbers
Recent studies suggest that 73% of media stories are based on numerical ratings derived from third-party data sets. Indeed, 94% of Forbes.com online stories are top-10 charts ...
The Complications of Our Deteriorating Inner Ring Suburbs
When controversy erupted in August over the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, race was at the very center of it all.
“Almost There” Gets There
Documentaries about artists can go wrong in a million different ways. Take John Maloof's recent Finding Vivian Maier, which is more a film about Maloof's transformation from a ragpicker into the self-appointed keeper ...
From Carpet Cleaning To Urban Living: The Forty-O-Five Place
Don Hallum called Ohio City his home years before the breweries settled in, and decades before foodies flocked to West 25th Street for Sunday brunch. He moved to the neighborhood on Cleveland's near west side in 1978.
Why I Left Los Angeles For This
“But … why?” she asks me in equal parts disgust and curiosity. Her words linger between us, like a sour stench waiting to dissipate up into the air and away from where we stand, locked in unlikely confrontation.
Shawarma with a Side of Culture, Controversy: Pittsburgh’s Conflict Kitchen Feels the Heat
Dawn Weleski was on a flight to Houston to attend a conference when she got word that Conflict Kitchen, the critically acclaimed restaurant-qua-public art project she runs with Carnegie Mellon art professor Jon Rubin
Rust Belt, Rusted City: An Interview With Rochelle Hurt
Belt sat down with decorated poet Rochelle Hurt to talk about her recent collection of prose-poetry, The Rusted City, published by Buffalo-based White Pine Press earlier this year.
Love’s Anger: The Rust Belt Can Make Injustice Visible
Picture the toy gun, abandoned beneath a gazebo. Just some found object with no identifiable owner. Scan the sidewalk, and see if you can spot the loose cigarettes scattered in front of a Staten Island storefront.
Fritz Pollard: Football’s Unsung Trailblazer
Fritz Pollard stepped off a train in Akron, Ohio, on a Sunday morning in October 1919, and caught a taxicab downtown to the United Cigar Store.
Sports In The Land That Cleaves
When it came time for me to play football in eighth grade, I didn’t have any idea what position to play. I grew up dreaming of diamonds, not gridirons.
An Interview With Amy Jo Burns, Author of Cinderland
Amy Jo Burns is the author of Cinderland, a memoir about coming of age in a small town in Western Pennsylvania while carrying the burden of a lie.
A Belt Q&A With Noah Vaughn
I met Noah Vaughn around 1991 at Chicago’s School of the Art Institute, in figure-painting class. His artwork has always been about the urban environment — its transition, its transformation, its decay.