The Observation Deck

Quick note on Crocker Park: I go there generally about 2 times a week. Mostly I hang out at the border's coffee shop. It burns me that I have to drive (!) 15 minutes to get to a decent coffee shop / bookstore with a steady crowd of people, but that's the situation. Show me a place in Lakewood of that size & scale with that volume of people and I'll check it out.

--Steve (http://grossreport.blogspot.com)

And Charyn, to add to your comments, all the sales tax generated from this mall goes to Cuyahoga County for all of us. Stores that employ Lakewood residents, Lakewood earns income tax from those individuals as well.

We don't need to think this is an us versus them concept. When Rocky River wins, Lakewood wins too. And when Lakewood wins, so does Rocky River.

And while Liberty Books IS the Little Professor on steroids (same family owns it that once owned Little Professor), it's a nice independent bookstore. Borders USED to be a great bookstore, when it was actually owned by Tom and Louis Borders. That's when I worked there. Great staff, never any turnover, loyal and dedicated people who had a lot of input into what was carried in the store.

Then Borders was bought by Kmart, and made part of their "Specialty Retail Group," that included WaldenBooks. Eventually, Borders/WaldenBooks was spun off, but the new company had a different look, in that the WaldenBooks execs took over the company, and according to my former colleagues, really worked to turn Borders into big WaldenBooks stores. Customer service wasn't as important as sales figures. Number of individual titles dropped a great deal, as multiple copies of bestseller books took their place. The place changed a great deal. For the first time, the staff included part-timers (that was a big no-no in the older Borders days ... the company wanted full-time people, paid us very well for retail, and in return got loyal and skilled staff) who got paid minimum wage, and turnover increased.

I still do shop at Borders, but it's just not the same store as it once was. It's heavily corporate now, and frankly, when I go to the one at Crocker, it's chock-filled with teenagers who are running around and being hugely disruptive. I don't want a bookstore that's quieter than a library, but I want one that's not a teen center.

And frankly, Little Professor always was a good store. I'm optimistic that Liberty Books & News will be a good bookstore. And best of all, it's just across the river from Lakewood.

I shop at Crocker Park when I need to, but it's hardly a pleasant shopping experience. Granted, the only place I'll shop at in Beachcliff will be the bookstore, but I'm glad it's only 2 minutes away rather than 12 minutes. And I'm also glad it's just in a strip shopping center, not some faux-fantasy wonderland like Cracker Park. Some bright person just realized that they could save money by taking the roof off of a mall, and thus the "lifestyle center" was born. And because we're all suckers for the newest and latest, it's a hit. But really, trying to walk around there and shop in the winter royally sucks.

Steve,

Why not pick-up a book at an award winning library, and take it over to the Phoenix?

In other threads you mention how storefront vacancies in the Wood disturb you.

This is how you counteract the economic momentum that draws energy from the small shop, mom and pop commerce AND commually held goods, ex. Libraries. The vitality of the storefronts and that of communally held goods are not independent.

A certain percentage of the storefront shops will fall to near permenant vacancy as a function of population decline. A larger factor determining the vitality of these units is consumption paterns.

Visions of Lakewood's own Cracker Pack are drawn from a consumption pattern born of neo-liberalism, and the subsequent atomization process: citizens -> consumers. We to I.

Ideologically, this is where public institutions get into trouble. The mass mind is "anti-tax", doesn't "trust government", wants the "freedom to consume" as a socially dislocated agent, predicated on the freedom to disinvest from the commons.

Where the upwardly moblie West side mass mind dreams Westward or far-Eastward, visions of corporate sugar-plums dance in their heads.

This is not a viable economic vision for the 'Wood.

Recently, local housing expert and Levin college guru Tom Bayer stated on Feaglar's show that "Cleveland's problem is that it's housing stock is working class."

Some with visions of corporate sugar plums dancing in-head might say the same about the Wood.

It's not in our interest, as Woodies, to frame our challenges is such a light. If we accept the vision of corporate sugar plums, then tens of thousands of 100 yr + homes lacking attached 2 car, 2.5 baths and the like are now an OBSTACLE. That's insane.

I would suggest that you adapt to your environment, or open a bookstore yourself. Lakewood Library and locally roasted beans at the Phoenix. That is a self knowing vision.

We must take stock of who we ACTUALLY are, as a city.

On the individual level, psychosis sets in when the demands of the ego radically diverge from the reality of the total human being.

Dreams of Crocker Park panacea are just such a radical departure from what atually IS (now and possible future).

But worry not, with many a drugstore doing biz in the Wood, we can always send the cracked and damaged for pharmacal balm.

The question in my mind: what is the path of least resistance. Ironically, an element to the answer is understanding the resistance to least resistance at the core of the Wood's demos.

Dan

Stephen Gross wrote:...I go there generally about 2 times a week. Mostly I hang out at the border's coffee shop. It burns me that I have to drive (!) 15 minute...

Steve

Why would anyone go and HANG OUT at a book store.

Oh wait...

c. dawson wrote: ...it's chock-filled with teenagers...

So we always get back the the same question. Which block of homes do you tear down? Which families can we put out on the street? Which section of Lakewood do we tear down and change forever so that you do not have to drive 15 minutes(oh the horror) to sit and hang around with disruptive teenagers?

Maybe you could find the person that does not want to drive 10 minutes to Applebees, the person that does not want to drive 10 minutes to the Browns Stadium, the person that does not want to drive 17 minutes to the Art museum, the person that does not want to drive 22 minutes to Tommy's, the person that does not want to drive 18.5 minutes to Legacy Village, the person that does not want to drive 11 minutes to the House of Blues, the person that does not want to drive 16 minutes to Fratellos, the person that does not want to drive 14 minutes to Simko Dentistry, the person that does not want to drive 12 minutes to Arthur Treacher's, 7 minutes to 2527 Club on W.25th, the person that does not want to drive 14 minutes to Fulton Cafe, the person that does not want to drive 12 minutes to the Cleveland Zoo, the person that does not want to drive 10 minutes to the airport and start a little mall with all of these things? Iff you put it in the center of Lakewood, it would only be 6 minutes away, which would save you nealy 16 minutes every week.

Or, you could live in the middle of all of this and be happy having a convenient life.

FWIW


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Jim:

The convenience snake 'oil' in the Mini that feeds the time bank means it's not, alas, walkable.

I think Steve has already challenged the walkability claims through contrasts with more densely built urban environments.

He has asked the question does Lakewood realy want to be urban?

I think from your perspective on driving convenience, and from the old Joan Roberts discussions on convenient driving the answer is no.

Kennet Warren

Does Lakewood want to be urban? Is Lakewood urban enough? Is the word we are looking for urbane?

Stephen wishes for a certain ammenity and he's not alone. Are there missing jewels in Lakewood's urban/suburban crown?

Taking a book to Phoenix is not the same thing as the thing that Stephen desires, just as another Observer points out that something that isn't Starbucks isn't Starbucks.

I don't yearn for Borders or the Buck, but I understand that others do.

I'm happy that DH & I could walk the dogs and do errands at the same time. We went to the dry cleaners, walked by a house we want a friend to buy, looked at the lights around Sinagra Park, went to the Post Office, stopped at Marc's... the usual sorts of things. We saw a few people that we know & made Jimmy come to the window of the Observer World Headquarters to wave...

I've been very grateful to be able to walk to the hospital to visit patients and to several of our doctor's offices... to the Arts Festival...

Is Lakewood not walkable? Evidently I have a different idea of what that means. Of course there can be improvement.

Dl:

I read in the urban studies/economic development thought forms Steve has been unleashing on the LO Deck since day one, his challenge to us. I think he is asking us to make an objective assessment of the built environment and the intentions and interests required to change it, leave it to the market to do what it dictates, etc.

Ultimately, the walkability issue boils down to desire, and more specifically how easily desire to shop till you drop can be satisfied by sauntering in the Wood. Not very, most would have to concede. But is this pursuit of the shopper's walkable Nivana even a game the Wood can enter and win.

That's Jim's point abt. the easy drive.

So in driving the issue is how identity expands and contracts over the River and through the Wood, depending on the retail platforms desired, with the platform signifying and mystifying class auras of greater exclusivity to lesser exclusivity.

Do we come home from a shopper's walkable Nivana and look around the Wood and find ourselves - depressed, hostile, happy?

The LO Deck has captured all these emotions at one time or another.

I often hear people compare and complain about the quality of Marcs, Drugmart, and Dollar Tree in Lakewood compared to the more affluent burbs, sometimes saying these Wood shopping venues are Third World and they don't have to be.

I walked to the park this A.M. and then drove to the Bin, Dollar Tree and Bavarian Bakery - all very convenient.

Sure you can walk around, and we all do. We can walk around here and drive around here with considerable convenience and ease right now.

You can even live without a car in Lakewood. However, the desires that have been enculturated in many people here, and those that often move here from suburbs are largely variations on the suburban spaces that are less dense. My point is the automobile pushed through the Wood, flattening density, bringing on the horizon that flatters by virtue of its historical development in ways it did not in NYC, Boston, Paris, etc.

Yet some look with heightened desire beyond Marcs - with its rough and tumble inclusivity and push-pull bargain house battle against disorder - to cleaner, prettier, more upscale retail platforms located in those more flattened places. Think how Marc Plaza itself flattened the built environment.

Walking to all the types of shopping some people desire seems to be the driver for some, and for others driving the desired destination in the Wood is assumed to be the gold standard for economic development.

Lakewood is what it is and may never capitulate to our desires, whatever these may be.

I hear and share your satisfactions.

And I think I understand the challenges Steve has issued. His posts and blog are calling us take stock of our assumptions, our intentions and the meaning we make of our experiences in the Wood, our words etc. He invites us to push these against the grain of Urban Studies. Then we can see what turns up.

Kenneth Warren

Kenneth Warren wrote:
The LO Deck has captured all these emotions at one time or another.

Ken

First as you know, we have been through this time and time again with the drill down on each particular person. I am always amazed, but this is where discussions boards rule over the "blogging concepts." Outside critical thinking.

One thing we have captured is that EVERYONE in Lakewood thinks it needs what they desire. EVERYONE has different desires. While Joan Robert's repeated cries for an Applebee's(just kidding) get canceled out by my deep desires for a Whitmore Bar-B-Que. If we were to build want many ask who would be left? Dare I say we rebuild the city as we all covet, and we are still left with a ten minute drive to get HERE!

At some point, especially in a down turned economy, with retail falling down, sanity must prevail. Lakewood and Lakewoodites must understand, we can do a lot better. But let's weigh the costs on every level.

I had the pleasure of walking with Steve Gross as he explained time and again that Lakewood was not a walkable city. He worked very very hard at explaining to me how he knew it was not with only 1 food store in the entire town. Of course this was before he moved here. I feel after looking through what I had time for it is a person trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

FWIW

Crocker Park can afford to exist because it draws customers from all around.

Would the market support both that Borders and another Borders/Barnes and Noble in Lakewood or lakewood's south border with cleveland, even if one were built? Maybe. Maybe not.

Now that the draconian smoking ban has been passed, perhaps people will begin gathering in bowling alleys and taverns to read and watch other people read, during the slower hours. The alchohol will encourage lively discussion, as it did during the Scottish Enlightenment.

ryan costa wrote:Crocker Park can afford to exist because it draws customers from all around.

Would the market support both that Borders and another Borders/Barnes and Noble in Lakewood or Lakewood's south border with Cleveland, even if one were built? Maybe. Maybe not.

Now that the draconian smoking ban has been passed, perhaps people will begin gathering in bowling alleys and taverns to read and watch other people read, during the slower hours. The alcohol will encourage lively discussion, as it did during the Scottish Enlightenment.

Ryan

I love your "half glass full" look at the world, while other are crying it is half empty.

It is funny that there are other forces at work at Crocker Park, that could put Borders out of business. Last year was a bad year and many put the fact on the people drawn to "Crocker Park" just do not want to make the walk to Borders anymore waaaaaay over on the Promenade. Talking with a manage they thought the the theater was a dividing wall. To get all the way from Crocker Park to Borders you have to walk nearly 1 empty block. In effect a dead zone like what is throughout Lakewood shopping areas. While at the same time rumor has it that sales at Barnes and Noble is far below what was projected. They believe it might be Borders, where Borders I think has a better handle on the problem.

Scottish Enlightenment? Is this when they figure it was better to throw frozen sod in the winter, and rocks in the summer? instead of sod in the summer and rocks in the winter?


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The Scottish Enlightenment was a period from about 1730 to 1800 when Scottish thinkers had a great influence on intellectuals and men of means around the world. I learned about it by reading How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of how Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created our Modern World and Everything In It. This was made possible by a number of factors. Despite being poor, Scotland had also been the most literate state in western Europe for decades. Then a lot of them got rich dealing Tobacco from the Americas to the rest of Europe.

We are in the Midst of a similar world transformation which began in the late 80s. The Hip Hop revolution has taken the world by storm. Kids all across the Globe are keeping it Real.

I'm kind of confused about Crocker Park. Does it have a Borders or Barnes and Noble? I was inside it three times, but never committed it to memory. Is there a Big K-Mart Across the street with a Barnes and Noble nearby? I can't distinguish between Barnes and Noble and Borders.


The need to gather in a place which increases the odds of meeting or being reminded of the presence of people with brains is currently met by coffee houses and big book stores. Bars and Bowling Alleys can also meet this need, during the slower hours or seasons. Especially once it is illegal to smoke in them. Does the law extend to the smoking of pipes? Libraries cannot quite meet this need, because you can't really drink coffee or talk much in Libraries. The exception is the library at the corner of my street. Yesterday a 12 year old white boy was smoking some kind of pipe outside the entrance. Inside 4 or 5 large African American youth were keeping it real with very repetitive dialog.

ryan costa wrote:I'm kind of confused about Crocker Park. Does it have a Borders or Barnes and Noble? I was inside it three times, but never committed it to memory. Is there a Big K-Mart Across the street with a Barnes and Noble nearby? I can't distinguish between Barnes and Noble and Borders.

Ryan

To keep it real...

From the North you would first pass the oldest mall of the three. A large version of the new Rocky River strip mall, with a K-Mart and Radio Shack(only things I have bought there), Detroit Ave. and the Promenade, and new Strip Mall(15 years) that used Borders and a grocery store for the anchor. Next is the theater built about ten years ago. Then the roads to Crocker Park and parking. The first real shopping would happen about a block down the first street. At the end of that block is Barnes and Noble.

So most would never walk from KMart, to the Promenade, to Crocker Park, would take way to long, and would cut into the time hanging out at the gym, or the bookstores, see below.

Which brings me to hanging out at bookstores. I go to them often shopping for books, records, magazines, etc. But I have never thought of buying a book or a magazine then sit down for coffee in a straight back chair and... I usually take it home, grew up a fresh cup of LO Brand Coffee, and relax, as you indicated.

So this brings up a rash of questions. I once saw a person using headphones at Borders that made me never want to even touch the damn things again. Real horror show stuff. Now I am wondering, are these people reading books or magazines that I later buy as new? Have the very books that brought me enlightenment now become the plague carriers on the new century? Is this why they cannot get rid of pink-eye in our lifetime? No wonder book sales are sky rocketing online. Maybe they should check receipts as people enter the coffee area, and if the periodicals are not paid for have them wear hand condoms.

So are they hanging out, much like one would hang out at Sam's Hillbilly Club on Sample Saturday? Hanging out hoping to get "hooked up"? Or just hanging out and watching the "action"? As far as the idea of networking, it would seem like hoping to "network" randomly at a mall bookstore would be like opening a deli in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe it was like the old bar downtown on East 40th, "The Office." It was between two notorious strip clubs. So a husband could stop in for a shot and call home and say, "Hon I at the office." Then go back to cruisin. You know the same way health clubs became places to get hooked up. You know.

Ryan, as always thanks for the holidays memories. I think they were "The Wine and Roses" and "The Flamingo."

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Jim O'Bryan wrote:Which brings me to hanging out at bookstores. I go to them often shopping for books, records, magazines, etc. But I have never thought of buying a book or a magazine then sit down for coffee in a straight back chair and... I usually take it home, grew up a fresh cup of LO Brand Coffee, and relax, as you indicated.

To some extent, we have aged out of this market model. I have been to wonderful places with books, coffee, alcohol, food and comfy chairs, but this was a long time ago in a place far away.

[qoute="Jim O'Bryan"]Now I am wondering, are these people reading books or magazines that I later buy as new? Have the very books that brought me enlightenment now become the plague carriers on the new century?[/quote]
Yeah, pretty much. You can just carry a little bottle of gelled alcohol in your pocket if you want.

dl meckes wrote:[qoute="Jim O'Bryan"]Now I am wondering, are these people reading books or magazines that I later buy as new? Have the very books that brought me enlightenment now become the plague carriers on the new century?

Yeah, pretty much. You can just carry a little bottle of gelled alcohol in your pocket if you want.[/quote]

DL

Genius!

Not familiar with the gell. But you are right I could carry those little airline bottles of B&B Brandy, and have a nice coffee and B&B, while reading my free books. Fight the germs as they go in. Also completes the circle.

I always buy the 4th book back. If there is only one on the shelf I hide that one, and ask if they could order in a new one. It is not a phobia, just curious. Like I said, I will NEVER touch headphones again. Books and magazines no real problem until this thread.

Is this like homeless eating scraps? If it is, I see a bigger problem. If they cannot afford the book, what else can't they afford? You know.

This is why I prefer open discussion to blogs. Many voices, can do so much more working together.

This damn thread, I always thought I was buying new books.

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