The Place
Cleveland is pretty nice.
It has a long lakefront along Lake Erie that the city is revitalizing
with a Science Center and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The “Flats” area along the Cuyahoga River is
being rebuilt into condos and trendy bars and restaurants. The "Ohio City" part of downtown is clean and lively
with interesting shops, and eateries. There
is a swanky casino downtown and lots of glass office towers. A short drive takes you along the lovely Culture
Gardens. Cleveland is still an urban
landscape, with its share of urban concerns, but it is a nice place to live and to visit.
The Adventures
The West Side Market is a huge indoor market located in the Ohio
City neighborhood of Cleveland. It has
permanent stalls inside where you can buy nuts, candies, meats, fresh seafood,
baked goods, prepared food, vegetables, fruit, and, well, you name it. It is a bustling place with tall cases of food
goods to choose from and thousands of people to weave through. It is a lot like Boston’s Faneuil Hall or Philly’s
Reading Terminal Market. We got the ingredients
for a family feast – swordfish, chicken, baking potatoes, corn on the cob,
eggplant and zucchini. Yum!
I am not sure what to say about the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame, other than it is a lot of fun. It
is housed in an amazing purple glass pyramid structure on the shores of Lake
Erie. Inside, exhibits trace from the
roots of rock and roll to the modern day.
There are artifacts like stage costumes, sheet music, album covers, and
photos. Inside is Janis Joplin’s
decorated Porche and outside is Johnny Cash’s tour bus.
Most impressive are the video montages of the performers and
their music. Stand here for 15 minutes
of Elvis, go over here for 30 minutes of American Bandstand clips, sit in this
nice auditorium to see Hall of Fame Inductees perform (Aretha Franklin was on
while we were there). Our favorite was
the film montage of inductees being introduced, accepting and performing. It had (oh gosh - 2 of Dana’s favorites)
Bruce Springsteen and Roy Orbison performing together.
No comments:
Post a Comment