cultural Cleveland

walking around our neighborhood is like diving to a shipwreck. its full of hidden treasures that people pass over every day. this sunday, after stuffing ourselves at the armenian food festival, we needed to burn off some kebabs and rice. a trip to a nearby elementary school, and we tripped into a skater park! besides the winding figure eight path was an outdoor amplitheatre! okay, so it wasn't like a roman ruin, but it had a full circle of concrete for play space with concrete seats and everything! unfortunately, it was littered with glass and the surrounding streetlamps had been busted out. but a resource like this for community and youth theatre! on the other side of the slight hill there were freshly poured concrete paths and picnic tables bordering the tennis, basketball, baseball and horseshoe fields behind the community center...and even a working water fountain! (and a passing teenager told us people piss in the pipes there...in city water? then he sang a song about being a "g")

across the street, cars were parked all around the usually closed african american history museum. inside, we found some of the city's best jazz artist collected to support the place. they had exhibits on slavery, the underground railroad (and oberlin!), martin luther king, jr., african traditional art and music, african contributions to solar power (the building itself has panels on the roof), and how modern media is pouring filth into the minds of young black americans. they get pissed on, just like the water fountain. by the end, we heard that the museum may be closing. such a valuable gem in the neighborhood gone unnoticed. i hope it doesn't get lost beneath the waves.