Cleveland Metroparks (1/21-22/2017)

Saturday, January 21, 2017
Winter warm days are becoming more common; today the temperature reached 60 degrees F.  We returned to Acacia Reservation in Lyndhurst, OH to walk the dog.  This was a golf course that is being allowed to return to nature.  Apparently it needs help to do this: golf courses were designed so that rain water drained away from the course, and now there are bulldozers re-arranging the land to allow rain water to remain on the former course.

Saplings are protected from deer so that they can grow to full size,
in a program called "tree recruitment"

Overview of Acacia Reservation

The former green lies beyond a former sand trap

A former golf shelter

A lake that is stocked with largemouth bass for fishing

Signs in Acacia Reservation indicated that you should throw unused bait worms into the trash can, and not on the ground, as they are an invasive species.  North America was once earthworm free, but worms were brought by Europeans, mainly through horticulture trade (in the dirt of plants) in the 18th century.  The worms did help recently cut forests develop soil for farming, but they didn't stay on the farms.  In the forest, worms decrease the nutrients in the soil and many forest plants do not survive.

The huge new homes in Acacia Estates next to the park

Birdbath and birdhouse in
Sticks! painted furniture style

Solanum carolinense/Horsenettle fruit

The former clubhouse is now a facility owned by Dino's Catering

Sunday, January 22, 2017
Washington Reservation opened in 2003 when Cleveland Metroparks took over Washington Park in Newburgh Heights. It is the smallest Metropark at 59 acres. An existing horticulture educational center (part of the Cleveland Municipal School District) was allowed to remain and a 9-hole/par 29 golf course was built in 2006, with its own learning center.

Probably Sciurus carolinensis/Eastern Gray Squirrel (KSS)

Washington Reservation Arboretum, "newly renovated,"
serves the horticulture education center and attracts wildlife

Putting practice green at the Washington Golf Course

Washington Golf Course is designated as an Audubon International Certified Gold Signature Sanctuary.  It also has a driving range.

Greenhouses in the background

Battleship Maine Memorial (dedicated 1913,
moved here in 1948); the relics include a section
of the conning tower and a porthole cover from
the ship that suffered an explosion in 1898
in the harbor of Havana, Cuba

Washington Park Community School shared space with the Village Hall,
which has now moved into a brand new building on Harvard Avenue

The "rushing river" of Interstate-77 that we could hear below
as we walked along Washington Park Boulevard

American Legion Memorial

IceFest (1/16/2017)

Monday, January 16, 2017
I was the only one to have a holiday today on Martin Luther King, Jr Day. I took the RTA Rapid train to the waterfront, and surprise, no fare was collected!
I have been unable to photograph one of my favorite Inter|Urban murals along the train tracks, and had to grab one from the website.

Language as a Boundary (2016) by Faith XLVII

I followed the crowds towards the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Noted the Arch C Klumph Memorial (1992); he,
among many other achievements, founded the Rotary
Club of Cleveland, was president of Rotary International,
and conceived the idea of the Rotary Foundation for
"the purpose of doing good in the world"

The Long Live Rock art installation (2016)
at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1993, designed by I M Pei)

The Splice Cream Truck travels throughout the neighnorhood of
Collinwood selling ice cream and recording personal stories of the people,
a project about Collinwood History by Ben Smith

I was here for the IceFest, sponsored by the district of North Coast Harbor, located between downtown and Lake Erie.

IceFest logo with the planetarium of the
Great Lakes Science Center in the background

A (electric?) guitar

Each supporting sponsor has a custom ice sculpture,
like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

A fish representing FishCLE for Free,
which provides limited fishing gear on the
state-wide weekend of free fishing each year in May

Posing with a penguin

Posing with the Trolls

IceFest is traditionally held on Martin Luther King, Jr Day

Looking through the back of the MLK, Jr ice sculpture;
plastic inserts are used for emphasis and color

A canine

Details of the canine's head

The NFL Cleveland Browns

Sculpture representing Namasté, a summer
event where yoga classes are held Tuesday
evenings in Voinovich Bicentennial Park

The NBA Cleveland Cavaliers with an ice sculpture of
the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy

There were at least 23 ice sculptures on view.

A couple more ice sculptures being made on the premises,
this one looks like Olaf, the snowman from
the Disney movie, Frozen

Looking back at the Great Lakes Science Center

Climbing apparatus, I guess!

The Sound Bench encourages interaction

Voinovich Bicentennial Park with a memorial (1996) to the former
Cleveland mayor and Ohio Governor George V Voinovich,
who was instrumental in Cleveland's "Renaissance" in the 1980s

View from Voinovich Park to Cleveland's harbor on Lake Erie

I need to work on taking selfies!

Floor mosaic (1996, by Angelica Pozo)
of the RTA North Coast Rapid Station

The southern half of the floor mosaic

A typically gray day, but at least it was above freezing in temperature! Fine for an IceFest!

Ohio City III (1/15/2017)

Sunday, January 15, 2017 (continued)

Transformer Station (1924, was one of 16 substations
built by the Cleveland Railway Company; this one to power
the Detroit Avenue Streetcar line) which is now part of
the Cleveland Museum of Art for contemporary art projects;
at 1460 W 29th Street

Rising Star Coffee Roasters (which claims to have
the best coffee in the country) has one of the
Land Studio dogs in its shop at 1455 W 29th Street

Unique coffee service set-up and an almond cranberry clove scone (KSS)

A metal pipe has been turned into a pencil (KSS)

The area around the Transformer Station has taken the name of Hingetown, because it is the hinge between Ohio City and the Gordon Square Arts District. (Hingetown is considered a neighborhood in Ohio City.)

As you can see, Hingetown is a happenin' place! (KSS)

The former Catholic Club House (1903) at 3606 Bridge Avenue, was
 built to be a sort of YMCA for the Catholics of St Patrick's parish

St Patrick's Church (1871-1873, tower 1903,
designed by Alfred Green in Gothic Revival style)
at 3602 Bridge Avenue

There is a great story about building the church:
A friend of the parish who owned a quarry in Sandusky offered the stone to the community if they could cut it and haul it to Cleveland themselves. Parishioners were divided into teams. One group would leave after Mass on Sunday, staying overnight at an inn in Lorain. They would continue to Sandusky, quarrying stone till the weekend. Saturday morning they would return to the parish and unload the wagon. Meanwhile, another group would cut and place the stone. The trips to Sandusky were repeated weekly for a two year period.

Frank Novak Park, home to the homeless and
the Carnegie West Branch Library in a triangle
between Bridge Avenue, Fulton Road, and W 38th Street

The Carnegie West Branch Library (1910, designed by Edward Tilton in a
modified Renaissance with elements of Classical style) at 1900 Fulton Road

Cleveland Trust Bank Branch Building (1918), at 3500 Lorain Avenue,
was renovated in 2003 as the first commercial
green rehabilitation project in the State of Ohio

W J Roberts House (1870 in Italianate style) at 5005 Franklin Boulevard,
was home to Dudley Baldwin (railroads, banks, real estate) then to
William J Roberts (lead products, banks) and his wife, Theresa,
until 1919, when it became a boarding house; in 1976 it was
converted back to a single home and painstakingly restored (KSS)

Next door was another restored home (1893) at 5009 Franklin Boulevard,
which had been purchased in 1989 for $16,000
and its worth increased tenfold (KSS)

Next door is a tiny house (1900) at 5013 Franklin Boulevard,
with a garage/barn of the same size! (KSS)

The B F Tyler House (circa 1859) at 4403 Fenwick Avenue,
in green-painted brick Italianate style, is one of the oldest houses
in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood, built by Benjamin F Tyler,
one of the principles of the Buffalo Land Company and
the only one to live in Cleveland

B F Tyler House wreath

William Burton House (1839) at 2678 W 41st Street, was built
by a ship captain and is the oldest house in the Clark-Fulton
neighborhood; it has gone from being an elitist country home
to middle-class to a home in a struggling community

Greenwood Park at 2260 W 38th Street has a summer outdoor pool,
but is sorely in need of improvement; as families move to Ohio City
to live in renovated and new housing, hopefully change will come (KSS)

Willett Street Cemetery is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Cleveland,
 established 1840, after being denied a request to purchase a portion of the
Erie Street Cemetery because a cholera epidemic left little space (KSS)

Willett Street was the original name of Fulton Road.

More donations of hats, gloves, scarves at the Monroe Street Cemetery

Gothic Revival gateway (1874, designed by Joseph Ireland)
of the Monroe Street Cemetery, at 3013 Monroe Avenue,
is identical to the one at the Erie Street Cemetery

The land was purchased in 1836 for a burial gorund, but it is believed that burials began as early as 1818. When Ohio City was annexed to Cleveland in 1854, the city improved the landscape and built the fence to keep out wandering hogs.
There are more than 500 persons in the cemetery who served in the armed forces and saw duty during the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the  the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and both World Wars in addition to those who served their country during times of peace.

War Memorial and graves of Civil War soldiers

Monroe Street Cemetery

We thought we were touring a neighborhood of Cleveland, called Ohio City, but Ohio City itself is made up of neighborhoods! Lakeview Terrace, the Angle, Irishtown Bend, Hingetown, Franklin Circle, Market District, Clark-Fulton!