Sweeping the Streets: Poetry and Boxing in Pittsburgh
Jimmy Cvetic, also known as “the Dog”, is a boxing trainer, ex-police detective—and prolific poet.
An Unexpected Lesson In Boxing and Jack Johnson Through Poetry
Most boxing gyms are battleship grey in color – the painted concrete floors, the duct tape holding together the punching bags, the old sweat-stained tee-shirts of the fighters.
The Gay Games Without A Car: What I Saw When I Returned to Cleveland
I thought I knew Cleveland. Then I stayed downtown for a week. Without a car.
Industrial Strength: What Rowing On The Cuyahoga River Taught Me About Myself, and My City
The Cuyahoga River is better known for catching fire than for its natural beauty. When I stepped into the rowing shell for the first time, I thought of the rumors that circulated about the Crooked River.
Friday Link Roundup, Real Estate Edition
Places where the housing boom never arrives, what happens when white people move in, when fiber-optic cables follow Cleveland rail lines, legacy cities struggle back, and Write A House in Detroit takes shape.
Faces And Scenes of the Cuyahoga County Fair: A Slideshow
The Cuyahoga County Fair in Berea, Ohio, was billed as “It’s A Family-A-Fair!” and lived up to its name as related humans of all ages once again gathered at this summer rite of passage.
The Rust Belt Refugees II
These profiles tell the story of Rust Belt refugees who are happy with their lives but sometimes can’t help thinking they’ve lost something they’ll never get back by joining the Michigan and Ohio diasporas.
The Art of Amy Casey
Amy Casey’s paintings are unique takes on cityscapes but could as just well have been called organisms, or machines. Her exhibition features a handful of new works.
Repurposing Old Rail Stations in the Rust Belt
Marilyn Rodgers could do just about anything with her Saturday off, but instead she chooses to vacuum a train terminal. The executive director of Buffalo’s Central Terminal Restoration Corporation (CTRC), a nonprofit that’s rehabilitating the city’s vacant train station, goes up and down yards of original Terrazzo flooring, sucking up dirt with an industrial-strength cleaner. “I have to clean my house,” she jokes of the 523,000 square foot space where she frequently visits.
Friday Link Roundup, Geography Edition
The effects of migration on 1) the US patchwork of economic prospects, 2) the St. Louis black community, 3) New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina migrants, 4) LeBron James, and 5) how country music sounds.
One Day I’ll Be a Clevelander
I was born in northeast Ohio, on the awkward border between green and brown farmland and the gray highways crisscrossing Ohio’s suburbia. It wasn’t exactly Amish country, but buggies did clip-clop down the road every so often.
Intrigue of the Midwest’s Industrial Ruin
The intrigue of historical Midwest industry ... and the isolated beauty of Marktown in East Chicago, Indiana.