To further wet your appetite there are also food preparation and beer brewing demonstrations, plus Wild Bill’s BBQ.The family activities include Lake Farmpark’s “The Barnyard Comes to the Market” with Animal Demonstrations at 11-11:30am, health screening and information, knife-sharpening to benefit the market and a Market Basket Raffle. There will be a representative of the Ohio Farmers Union, and vendors include Burton Floral & Garden, Countryside Bakery, Ridgeview Farms, Sun Rise Farms, Middlefield Cheese Co-op and Ridgeview Farms and “a lot of Amish farmers.”Also available are new Coit Road Market Bags and contributions of recipes are being sought for the soon to be published Coit Road cookbook. (Find out more about contributing recipes via this email address: coitrdmarket -at- yahoo (dot) com.)

Also presenting their wares will be a small number of wind turbine and solar electricity generating equipment providers including AZ Renewable Energy of Euclid, as well as an insulated concrete form provider.

President of East Cleveland Farmer’s Market Preservation Society (Coit Road Farmer’s Market), which has been operating continuously at the same location since 1932, is Elizabeth Schiros. Another market project is working with the Cuyahoga County Cardiovascular Task Force to provide a “Farmer in the Schools” education program.

Joseph Stanley, a fan of urban design critic Jane Jacobs, brings an independent voice to the University Circle planning process. He has concepts that may be considered idealistic by developers and institutions, though people who actually live in the Circle may be pleased with Mr. Stanley’s approach. He is an aspiring designer of densely populated transit-oriented neighborhoods.

Developers under contract with Case Western Reserve University are now considering the future of “The Beach” and “The Triangle.” CWRU calls this area near the Euclid-Mayfield intersection the University Arts and Retail District (UARD). “The Beach” is the large parking lot along the north side of Euclid Avenue between Ford Drive and E. 115th Street, and “The Triangle” is the underutilized two-story office building on the southeast corner of Mayfield Rd. and Euclid Ave. and adjacent parking lot and auto-oriented businesses and parking lots.

Independent of the institutions and the developers, Stanley provides a view often over-looked in planning the Circle. He concentrates on the basics. Human scale, mixed uses, egalitarian design, and places where people want to be. And, unlike what the institutions and developers might have in mind for the future of this area, Stanley says that longstanding residents of a neighborhood are the core of any neighborhood.

Stanley, 30-years-old, grew up in suburban Parma and graduated from Valley Forge High School. After graduating in 2005 from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a Bachelor in Fine Arts in interior design, he is now working on a Masters of Urban Design from the Kent State University Urban Design Collaborative in Downtown Cleveland. “The most important things I learned about design are that it is about problem-solving and it is process-oriented,” said Stanley. “I think that anyone who has an interest in design could really benefit from the design programs at CIA.” He got into woodworking as a teenager and his day job is running CIA’s industrial design woodshop.

“I spent a lot of time sitting in a car when I used to commute to work in Cleveland,” he said. Now he lives in Little Italy, within walking distance of work and a transit trip to his school in Downtown. “It’s nice not to have to waste so much time anymore. The pedestrian scale of development is something that I have really come to appreciate now. I love walking around in Little Italy.”

The inspiration for Neomainstreet.com came when, “Norm Roulet of realneo.us saw my work and offered me the opportunity to share my work with others through his social computing organization. That offered me a chance to meet a lot of people.”

“I want neomainstreet to grow and continue to show my design concepts as they develop, and I would like to think that eventually neomainstreet might become a team effort and develop into a professional urban design firm,” he said.

Stanley prescribes some basic concepts for new development in the Euclid-Mayfield area of University Circle (UARD):

Do not force any current residents from the area.

Develop primarily with residential use that will animate Euclid Avenue with people on the street most hours of the day.

The “outdoor living room scale” people oriented nature of Hessler Road must be continued in the new development.

The area should come together in a piecemeal way. Lessons learned from early additions can be used to improve designs that follow.

Dense, low-rise buildings are more people-friendly than high-rise buildings.

Circle Interview #2 - Joseph Stanley, Urban Design Student, “Design for people, not institutions” is here.

“This is a work in progress,” said Pat Holland, representative of the Hessler Neighborhood Association. The HNA will meet again to firm up plans on April 20th.

The Reunion is also a memorial for the late Len “Boom Boom” Goldberg a WMMS FM/100.7 radio personality for decades, who lived on Hessler from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. He died of a heart attack at his South Euclid home on December 27th 2006. He was 74.

An old tradition at Hessler block parties, the building of a large cardboard edifice is said to be revived at this event.

HNA will provide paper places and cups and plastic utensils, tables to place potluck dishes and a grill for what guests want to cook. For refreshment it is bring your own bottle.

Please let anyone who volunteered at the Hessler Street Fair know of this event.

Also, on April 6th, the Hessler Neighborhood Association elected new officers. They are:

Kate Horner is President

Johnathan Smith is Secretary

Pat Holland is Treasurer

Janice Cogger is Trustee at Large

Eric Ambro is Trustee at Large

My Buddy Bill is advertised to be “a witty and knowing tale” about Mr. Cleveland’s friendship with former president Bill Clinton.The monologue will be performed one night only on Friday, March 30 at 7 p.m. The first show has been sold out. A second show at 10 p.m. has been added.

Writer Cleveland, the “son of an alcoholic bus driver and a drill press operator for a screw factory,” says he flunked 11th grade at Parma High School for smoking too much pot and skipping school to hang around Coventry Village. This was where Cleveland started reading Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor comic books. Astonished to discover that working class people could be authors Cleveland went off and became a successful screenwriter and recently served as executive producer for the HBO cable TV original series, “Six Feet Under.” He is a graduate of the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa, and also a founding member of Chicago’s American Theater Company.

He’s returning to the neighborhood, now a Hollywood veteran, to meet Mr. Pekar and kick off the Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland’s year-long benefit “Celebration of Coventry.”

My Buddy Bill has its genesis in a chance meeting between Cleveland, then a writer for the NBC TV hit “The West Wing,” and the 42nd President of the United States. The show chronicles their unusual and idiosyncratic relationship including a trip to Amsterdam and a spontaneous jam session in Arkansas plus more.

The following day, Saturday March 31st at 2 p.m., Cleveland will host a workshop for aspiring writers about writing for stage, screen and TV at the UUSC for a $10 fee.

In the spirit of Spalding Gray to whom the work is partially dedicated, My Buddy Bill is a comic shaggy-dog tale about a star-crossed friendship between the writer, the leader of the free world at the time, and their two dogs. Variety called it, “Relentlessly funny…delightful,” and Hollywood Reporter said it is, “amusing enough to tickle even the most demanding funny bone.” My Buddy Bill won the 2006 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, (the “Sundance” of comedy festivals), and will soon be filmed for a Comedy Central Special and DVD.

Celebration of Coventry will continue with a series of stories told by long time Coventry movers and shakers. These include Harvey Pekar, Tommy Fello (the owner of Tommy’s Restaurant), artist George Fitzpatrick, (who was manager of the old Heights Art Theatre, where the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” had over a decade run), and others. There will also be “I Remember Irv’s,” an evening with stories from lesser-known lights of the Village.

“This is the only neighborhood I’ve ever had,” said Joyce Brabner, Celebration organizer. She lived several places on the eastern seaboard before marrying Pekar 25 years ago. The series is being held to raise funds for various activities at the UUSC. “We are looking for people who have stories about Coventry,” said Ms. Brabner. The Irv’s session will be more informal than a monologue by a local punk turned Hollywood screenwriter. If you have stories to tell about Coventry Village and environs, contact Brabner at celebrate_coventryATsbcglobal.net or leave your name and number at Mac’s Backs. Find more about My Buddy Bill at www.dropshots.com/My_Buddy_Bill .

As Cory Hershberger, reporter for the Case student newspaper The Observer recently wrote, “Will a storybook ending prevail, with the local favorite emerging victorious, or will the ‘big guy’ simply steam roll everything in its way?” Find Hershberger’s January 26th 2007 Observer story about the coffeehouses here.

Mark Balogh, general manager of UCA said business slowed only a little after the two Starbucks opened. “We are a staple in the Circle,” said Mr. Balogh. “We go as the Circle goes.”

He said that about 50 regular customers appear to have been lost during the recent downsizing of Case. When there is a large event at Severance Hall, it brings business. A show at the Cleveland Museum of Art draws business. Events at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History produce business. And there are other trends. The Observer story noted that UCA’s evening business, especially from women, is down.

And a responsive local business does receive support from locals who care. “Some important people in University Circle regularly patronizes us,” said Mr. Balogh. He thinks that many students have a “counter culture” attitude that attracts them to the locally owned Arabica over the nationally owned Starbucks.

UCA, owned by Executive Caterers of Mayfield Heights, provides fresh baked goods and a wide selection of meal dishes, plus full catering services to many University Circle events, trucked in from the firm’s big kitchen out beyond I-271. Vegan chili and Mediterranean salad are prepared on site, and according to Balogh “we sell more tea than anyone in the city.” And don’t forget the Algebra Tea House on Murray Hill Road in Little Italy, which is sometimes thought of as a section of University Circle. Algebra is listed as one of three teahouses in Cleveland according to Teaguide.net here.

The innovative combo of a Starbucks combined with a Charter One Bank branch opened in an old drug store space at the Euclid-Cornell corner in November 2005, around the time the Starbucks opened in Case’s new North Residential Village on E. 115th Street. Starbucks has a small line of pastries and provides a certain amount of Fair Trade coffee (where coffee farmers are said to receive a “fair price” for their work). UC Arabica offers at least 10 varieties of Fair Trade coffees. Find the Wikipedia definition of Fair Trade here.

University Circle Arabica, located in a former post-millionaires row mansion, offers several upstairs meeting rooms as well as three large rooms downstairs. Small public activities can be held for free. Private meeting rooms are available for a fee. The Charter One Starbucks can accommodate small public gatherings in their main room. In January Meet the Bloggers conducted an interview with nine people there. It was held around two microphones set up on three tables drawn together. Call before scheduling a group event.

By any calculation UCA and the University Circle Starbucks are not the same. Starbucks provides a living room with few distractions or attractions except coffee, a place to bank, and places to set up lap top computers with a comfy seat and cup of Java. While having no place to bank, UCA does offer an evening schedule of acoustic music by local musicians. While the general manager of UC Arabica gladly discussed the local coffee scene, the local managers at the Charter One Starbucks told an inquiring reporter, “we can’t answer detailed questions from the media. Call Seattle.”

Like most of the rest of University Circle, UCA is on the Case Wifi system, while Starbucks is officially on the T-mobile system where only paid subscribers can access broadband Internet. “Free WiFi is important,” said Gloria Ferris who schedules meetings for Meet the Bloggers (www.meetthebloggers.net). A clerk at the Charter One Starbucks wondered if some of their customers are connected to something other than T-mobile. “If you live right next door you can pick up Case Wifi,” she said.

Importantly, people who distribute free literature in Northeast Ohio know the University Circle Arabica for the oasis of free thought that it is. To this writer’s knowledge all Starbucks lack a place to post and distribute free flyers and publications. UCA has four, count them, areas on its premises displaying free literature. UCA may be the largest purveyor of free printed information for many miles around. “We have a library here,” said Balogh.

“Top 10 Cleveland Coffeehouses” reviewed in early February 2007 by Sandy Mitchell here.

“Java Heaven and WiFi in University Circle” reviewed on September 20, 2005 by Lev Gonick here.

UC Arabica has no Web site. It is reviewed as a music venue by Steve2.net Acoustic Entertainment here.

UC Arabica in CitySearch here.

Starbucks Coffee Company here. Click through to University Circle locations including the Cleveland Clinic.

Starbucks and Fair Trade, Starbucks Coffee Company here.

Organic Consumers on Starbucks here.

Global Exchange on Starbucks here.

The newly formed East Cleveland Township Cemetery Foundation took over the deteriorating cemetery in 2003. Prior, most of the cemetery fell into disrepair. Next door neighbor Marlin Wiley mowed the lawn visible from E. 118th Street and paid to have a damaged tree taken down.

While the 12 acre cemetery is amidst a several hundred thousand dollar renovation by the new owners, there has been one glaring problem that seemed out of control. Many spots on the outer cement layer of the long railroad embankment wall that defines one side of the graveyard were crumbling due to water seepage.

In October 2004, Nancy West, the Foundation vice president and assistant secretary, wrote a letter to Norfolk Southern railroad. Not much came of this effort and other concerns took precedence until autumn 2006 when the Norfolk Southern corporate office in Philadelphia was contacted. First a message came back: “that wall is structurally sound.” A couple days later the railroad also wrote, “we don’t own the wall and we don’t know who owns the wall.”

In 1999, after the northeastern U.S. railroads were brought out of bankruptcy through the federally-backed Conrail, the railroad property was split up. Ms. West dug up two public documents that made the ownership of the wall look unclear. Once the holidays had passed, the new evidence was taken to CSX Transportation, the other railroad that came out of Conrail in 1999. First she was told to look for a numbered thoroughfare crossing sign.

The cemetery volunteers were considering sending a band of explorers to look for the marker amidst the vast spread of railroad tracks on the embankment behind the wall when the matter was sent to CSX’s Strongsville office.

“I apologized for her running into a lot of run around to find a responsible party,” said Marty Ludwig a staff engineer. “The outer cement shell on the wall is spalling. Otherwise, the wall is sound,” he said. Within a day of receiving the complaint at the Strongsville office, a bridge supervisor was sent to the cemetery and documented the problem. “As weather improves and workload allows, we’ll repair the wall,” he said. Appearances are that this is likely to be in time for the planned completion of the cemetery renovation in 2008.

Find out more about the East Cleveland Township Cemetery here.