Erie Churches

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Carolyn Ristau

Erie has a variety of attractive church buildings. As I walked around admiring them, I was surprised to see that they were all still used as churches. I did not find a single adaptively reused church building. Given Erie’s location, relatively close to Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh, I assumed it had similar significant population loss creating a need to either abandon, demolish or adapt some church buildings. It turns out, that at least on the county level, this assumption was false. Since 1900, the population of Erie County has grown every decade, except from 1980 to 1990 when there was a slight (1.5%) population loss, from 98,509 to 280,843 (2000’s population). Allegheny County (Pittsburgh’s county), on the other hand saw growth from 775,058 in 1900 to 1,628,587 in 1960 after which the population has declined steadily to 1,223,348 in 2010.

I could not find statistics for the population change of the city of Erie; it is possible that there was a different trend within the city. There were signs of abandonment and decay in other buildings and aspects of the town. Yet the churches are still intact and appear to be thriving. In fact, one of the larger churches was undergoing a major renovation while I was there.

Whatever the reason for the churches’ continued use, I enjoyed my treasure hunt chasing down as many steeples as I could in two hours:

Sandwich Shops

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Carolyn Ristau

While in London last spring, I discovered a sandwich shop chain that I fell absolutely in love with: Pret a Manger. I ended up eating lunch most days at one of their many locations around the city. The food was great. They had sandwiches on small baguettes, in wraps, and between two “normal” square slices of bread (which have been cut into triangles, as everyone knows triangle sandwiches taste better). The flavors of sandwiches included ham and cheese, egg salad, and brie, tomato and basil. The ingredients were fresh and real–meaning ham of the bone, not sliced deli ham, and arugula instead of shredded, nondescript “lettuce.” And then the sides to go with the sandwich were interesting, exciting, and tasty. The chip flavors I remember were “cheddar and red onion” and “sea salt and apple cider vinegar.” Both delicious! I was also attracted to the Pret sodas (I normally skip the soda options at restaurants). I enjoyed the Grape & Elderflower, Apple, and Ginger Beer sodas.

Pret was the first place I had lunch in London and from the first bite, I couldn’t wait to come back and try another flavor of their sandwiches, chips, and drinks. On my third day in London, I was ready for lunch, but could not find a Pret anywhere near where I was, so I went to another sandwich chain that I had been seeing around. The style of this other place, the name of which I forget, was similar to Pret, but the taste was no comparison. After trying this other place, I made sure that I was near a Pret at lunchtime for the remainder of my trip.

Besides the taste, I also enjoyed the convenience of the chain. All the sandwiches are premade, so all you have to do is grab-and-go. You don’t have a clerk staring you down while you decide what flavor you want today and you don’t have to wait for it to be made once you’ve made the decision. All of which suits my personality better.

I cannot think of a sandwich shop in the US that has premade sandwiches. It seems to me that one of the things the Subways, Quiznos, and the others are after with the don’t make it until it’s order deal is to prove that their food is fresh. Blimpie’s for example doesn’t even slice the meat and cheese until you’ve put your order in. Despite being premade, the sandwiches at Pret always tasted fresh and satisfying because they were made with solid food such as dense, but small bread, and chunks of chicken meat. The chain’s website explains the secret: “Pret opened in London in 1986. College friends, Sinclair and Julian, made proper sandwiches avoiding the obscure chemicals, additives and preservatives common to so much of the ‘prepared’ and ‘fast’ food on the market today….They created the sort of food they craved but couldn’t find anywhere else.” “Our partners drop off the very best ingredients to our shops everyday. We don’t mind that good, natural food goes off quickly. We don’t keep our sandwiches, baguettes and wraps overnight.”

One of my biggest disappointments on returning home was that I might never get another Pret sandwich (unless they’re still there the next time I’m in London) and instead the only options for buying sandwiches out would be places like Subway and Quiznos. It was quite devastating. Like the partners who started the Pret chain, I was going to be craving fresh, “proper” food, but unable to find it anywhere….

But then, I went to New York City for Christmas. Walking around the first night there, I was thrilled to spot not one, but two Prets. Needless to say, I went there every opportunity I got. The options were somewhat different, particularly the chips–there were only boring, regular American flavors and styles to choose from (though they still weren’t national brands like Lays)–but the food was still good. The egg salad wrap was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The roast beef, arugula, mustard-mayo and chicken, bacon, mayo baguettes were also yummy. They also had the Pret Ginger Beer Soda, which tasted as yummy as the Ginger Beer I had in London, both Pret and non-Pret. I’ve found Ginger Beer in Pittsburgh, but it’s just not the same.

It turns out that Pret a Manger has set up locations in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. As Chicago is one of the next US Cities I hope to visit, I know I will be getting another Pret sandwich soon. I wonder though, if the large, diverse populations of these cities are necessary for a place like Pret a Manger to be successful. Is it possible for a truly fresh sandwich shop to succeed (and set up multiple branches) in a smaller, less diverse city like Pittsburgh?

Isolated Waterfronts

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Carolyn Ristau

In October 2012, I spent a few days in Erie, PA, to attend a conference. Before arriving, I had looked at the map to figure out how to get from the bus station to my accommodations to the convention center. On the map it looked pretty straight forward and simple. All the places I had to get were within a mile of each other—piece of cake. I often walk that far just to get to a bus in Pittsburgh. Shortly after arriving in Erie, I realized that purely considering distance does not capture the true picture. The seemingly short mile-long paths that I had to take included significant geographical and man-made barriers.

The main drag ran up through the town and straight out to the waterfront ending at the convention center hotel. From the town square (6^th Street), most of the buildings are flush with the sidewalk, except for the parking-lot-centric McDonald’s in the middle of these older buildings. At 3^rd Street, this changes. The next two blocks are dominated by the campus of a UPMC hospital. Then the barriers come.

First there is a small hill down toward the waterfront, then a wide parkway, followed by a barren strip of land on one side of the road and a marina on the other. Finally, there is the convention center hotel. Of course you have to pass the long parking garage, the lobby and rooms of the hotel, go up an elevator across a pedestrian bridge over the entrance to the marina, and down another elevator before you get to the convention center.

I was staying in a Bed and Breakfast near the town square, so several times a day I walked back and forth along this route to attend the conference events. Even though the walk was only about a mile long, it seemed to take forever because of the barriers of the hill, road, vacant land, and water. After going back and forth a few times, I realized that the set up was not much different from what I had seen in Cleveland this summer. That city also has a major roadway cutting off the town from the shores of Lake Erie. This road of course was much bigger than the one in Erie as the city is correspondingly bigger.

Despite the fact that there is a major freeway dividing the waterfront from downtown Cleveland, I still felt welcome to cross this barrier to reach the waterfront park or the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. In Erie, I got a very clear impression that the downtown residents were not welcome to cross the barriers to get to the convention center/hotel or the little public jetty next to it and that the visitors at the hotel/conference center were not encouraged to explore into downtown Erie. This situation seems to defeat part of the purpose of convention centers to bring economic benefits to the surrounding area, by bringing in more people to use local services.

Cleveland Guitars

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Carolyn Ristau

As I mentioned in my Maps Are Awesome! post, I intended to walk over some of Cleveland’s bridges, but got distracted. First I got distracted with some of the artwork on the street, such as the sculpture and fire hydrant below.

Then I got distracted by the gardens and the way the vacant property was dressed up as discussed in my Oh, Cleveland! post. I also became fascinated by the map kiosk scattered throughout downtown (see Maps Are Awesome!). Finally, and probably what clinched the deal, was the Guitar Mania. Guitar Mania is one of the latest of fiberglass art fundraisers put together by a city. In these fundraisers, a figure that is iconic to the city is chosen and artists decorate each uniquely and they are displayed all over the city. After a certain time period of being on public display, these sculptures are auctioned off and the money goes to support charities and such. An article I found online about Cleveland’s Guitar Mania mentions a few of the other cities that have done this, though they left out Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has actually done this twice now. First was Penguins on Parade in 2002. This was followed by DinoMite Days in 2003. Though I haven’t seen a penguin since they were publicly on display in 2002, some of the dinosaurs can still be spotted around the city, mostly on corporate or institutional properties, but at least one is in someone’s private yard. Other cities were I have personally experienced these kinds of events are Willimatic, CT, which had frogs sitting on spools (the city symbol due to a pre-Revolutionary War legend about frogs and the city and the city’s past as the headquarters of the largest thread company in the world) and Mystic, CT, which did whales.

However, getting back to Cleveland, this was the first time I was in a city while the statues were on public display and when I had the freedom to hunt for them. I intended to still get to a bridge; however, I kept getting sidetracked as I spotted a guitar down one street or another. In the end, I found 19 of the 100 guitars and photographed 18 and I decided it was a much better use of my time as the bridges will still be there the next time I’m in Cleveland, but the guitars will not be. Later, I noticed a couple of decorated fiberglass Chinese dragon sculptures, but as I was passing in the car I was not able to take photos of them. It turns out that Cleveland is doing a separate display of the Chinese dragons (see website, with link to locations) in addition to the guitar event.

Cleveland’s Bridges

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Carolyn Ristau

I was surprised how many bridges there are in Cleveland, as I’ve always considered it a flat city. There are several bridges across the Cuyahoga River which flows through the city, but there are also many bridges elsewhere in the city. These other bridges cross over railroad tracks or the highways or are railroads and highways crossing over regular roads. This realization (that even flat cities have can have lots of bridges) is causing me to reconsider what bridges are significant. For instance in the claim that Pittsburgh has more bridges than Venice, if Pittsburgh has more bridges because highway overpass bridges are included in the count then is that kind of cheating as there was no geological reason for those bridges? In other words, when cities compete for who has the most bridges, it seems like it would only be fair to count the ones that exist because of geological formations. On the other hand, this almost sounds like I am calling some bridges more natural than others, but as they are all man-made how can any be natural? Anyway, this is something to ponder.

In the meantime, I’ll return to Cleveland’s Bridges. I did not cross over any of the river bridges while I was visiting recently. Instead, I went under them on the Goodtime III boat tour of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie. As seen on the map above, the boat entered the river in the upper left-hand corner, traveled downriver for over three miles (though as the bird flies it was only about 1.75 miles), and turned around in the last “corner” of the river seen in the lower right-hand corner. In the process, we passed under 13 bridges, while a 14th bridge swung out of our way.

While I call Cleveland a flat city, there are at least two significant changes in elevation. One is located out by University Circle and though it continues farther out, I am most familiar with it because it separates the frats and some dorms of Case Western Reserve University’s southern campus from the rest of the campus. This is a moraine formed by glaciers during the last ice age (or so I’ve been told). The second elevation change is next to downtown. The Flats district along the river is significantly lower than the surrounding areas, including downtown and whatever the neighborhood on the western side of the river is.

All the bridges we traveled under on the Cuyahoga River were interesting and unique, at least compared to the bridges in Pittsburgh. About half the bridges were railroad bridges. The railroads tended to travel along the flats and so crossed the river with very low clearance. To allow the passage of larger vessels, such as the one we were on, these bridges raised and lowered like elevators. On the other hand, the bridges carrying roads were very tall as they traveled at the height of downtown and the western neighborhoods. This also meant that most of them were very long as they not only crossed the river, but also crossed the flats which were sometimes very broad.

This bridge was the only one of its kind on the river. Instead of raising and lowering like all the other low clearance bridges, this one rotates in either direction to swing out of the way of boats.

Here was a railroad bridge higher than the others. Though it still had the mechanisms for rising up, if it needed to, it appeared that our boat was short enough to pass under without this. A car bridge passes over this bridge before passing over the river as well, however this one will be demolished in the near future, after the one under construction is finished.

These bridges were interesting as they were two railroad bridges right next to each other, which seemed rather odd. My theories for this are that either the tracks belong to different railroad companies or one was built first and then the railroad grew, expanding to two tracks, and instead of replacing the bridge with one for two tracks just built a second one right next to the first. Either way, it’s a sight you don’t see every day.

Though Pittsburgh’s Fort Duquesne Bridge is nicknamed “The Bridge to Nowhere” (see June 19th post), this Cleveland bridge deserves the title more as the road or railroad it used to connect across the river no longer exists. I wonder why they keep the bridge in place, when its purpose is gone. It seems to me that this could easily become a hazard as the bridge weathers and there is no reason to maintain it. In the meantime, before it comes crashing down, it does make an entertaining sight.

And of course, since I was passing underneath the bridges, I had to take a shot at the undersides!

OH, Cleveland!

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Carolyn Ristau

I spent my freshman year of college in Cleveland, OH. University Circle, the neighborhood my campus was in, was beautiful and pleasant, but the rest of the city stuck in my mind as rather ugly and dull. In fact, my friends and I referred to it as “the city that always sleeps.” Outside of campus there didn’t seem to be anything to do, particularly after 7 p.m.

I often compare Cleveland and Pittsburgh in my mind and for years, Cleveland came up the less favorable of the two. This is in part due to the unfavorable impression I developed of downtown Cleveland while in school there and in part due to the vast fields of vacant lots that separate downtown from University Circle. In the last couple years, I made several quick trips to Cleveland. Every time I come home more amazed by the city.

First, I started noticing the street art and fancy trash cans. The next trip, I was awed by Cleveland’s BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system. Pittsburgh’s bus system is loosing routes and cutting back on service hours and here Cleveland was able to institute a BRT with fancy new buses, new bus shelters at every stop along the BRT route that include fare boxes and electric signs that tell you how many minutes until the next bus arrives, and dedicated lanes and traffic lights for the BRT. Last weekend when I visited was the first time I’ve spent any significant amount of time walking downtown and I was impressed with what I saw.

There is vacant property all over the city. Cleveland’s population decline over the last 60 years was much more severe than Pittsburgh’s. It went from a peak of around 900,000 to just under 400,000 in 2010, whereas Pittsburgh only got up to 600,000 and fell to 300,000. Yet, downtown, the city’s managed to still look beautiful despite the vacant buildings with greenery such as the garden in the road divider above.

I saw another method for reducing the blightedness of vacant properties in another part of the city 8 miles from downtown. Here they placed art installations in vacant lots that were for sale.

Things definitely seem to be looking up for Cleveland. I read recently that the County Executive for Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) met with the one for Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) to pick up some tips on how to help turn a struggling rust belt region around. However, I think that Pittsburgh/Allegheny County could pick up some tips from Cleveland/Cuyahoga County.

urbantraipsing

A site of urban exploration. Text and photos by Carolyn Ristau.

Category Archives: US Cities