So there are these t-shirts in Cleveland with a variety of
graphics reading “Cleveland that I love.” The t-shirts have hit the fan through
the playoffs. Because of course. I’m not throwing stones either, because I
bought two Cleveland shirts since this began (from a Cleveland based company
of course). Now, I love the Cavs and basketball, but I also love Cleveland.
However, I don’t know if the Cleveland that I love is the Cleveland everyone is
talking about.
I grew up in Slavic Village, which is now often called
South Broadway on maps. But it will always be Slavic Village to us. Old,
closed, formerly owned businesses with Slavic and Polish names and boarded up
windows. Stella Walsh rec center, where we weren’t allowed to go because of
gang violence. If you don’t know who Stella Walsh
is, Google her, she is worth knowing. So imagine my glee that Cleveland is in
the national news, sure it is for basketball, but hey people are looking our
way and while we’ll probably fuck this up, because that is the Cleveland way,
we might win.
[Image is from the Cleveland Plain Dealer] At the same time, the Cleveland
Plain Dealer is running a series on Slavic Village, “Hard time in Cleveland”
which is about a Blaine Murphy being sentenced to serve 18 months of his prison
term in Slavic Village, ground zero of the foreclosure crisis. Yeah, this guy
who screwed people out of their homes and money in Slavic Village now has to
live there. Justice, right? Wait, a minute, you mean the neighborhood I came up
in, the one my mom still lives in is the equivalent to prison. Bitch, please.
I would drive either via 77N or Jennings to the Catholic
Worker to volunteer, and during rush hour, I’d drive across the Harvard-Denison
Bridge and up Pearl. All to get to Ohio City where you can get three meals, a
shower, laundry, and somewhere to sit out of the elements till 9pm most nights. We’ve never had the homeless in Slavic Village, not the way you have them
downtown. We have squatters. We also have 1,200 vacant homes most of which are
waiting to be demolished. Boarded up doors have red and blue notices painted on
them giving warning or notice, drugs were here and no copper. Blaine Murphy and
men like him bled Slavic Village and I’m sure many neighborhoods like ours.
There are kids I grew up with who are trying to save the
neighborhood, and I don’t know how to tell them they are going to fail or ruin
it. I want to support them, but I think, guys, a median down Fleet? How are the
police (all three of them) going to chase thieves (mostly kids)? A man was shot
over copper at the head of my street across from their family business. Copper.
I think, you’re encouraging the city to fine old people who can’t paint their
houses? My dad’s house is one of those houses now, painted this ugly tan color.
We’re going to have a neighborhood of poor tan houses. Pick your battles kids.
Paint and some construction isn’t going to save you.
A championship isn’t going to save us either. Maybe nothing
can. We’re going to have to ride this one to the last stop and see what is
there. These boys I grew up with are trying to gentrify our neighborhood in the
good way. I really don’t think they have malicious intentions. They see tons of
vacants and think, let’s get people in here, let’s get businesses going again. But
it feels short sighted. It feels like privilege people coming to save us the
best way they know how, but that’s not going to work. Because what happens when
property taxes go up? What about the poor and working poor that have called
this place their home since the 70s who can’t afford higher taxes in a neighborhood
with the lowest property tax rate and the some of the worst schools? How are
you going to address the gangs? What family is going to move into a
neighborhood with three officers to patrol it? You need buy in, and from what I’ve
heard no one is buying it. Change like what we need can’t be driven by people
who drive home to the suburbs at night. You call Slavic Village home, and it is
your home, but you don’t live it. Neither do I. We can’t prescribe what they
need. You can facilitate it.
