Jeff Ramsey Interview, 2006

Abstract

Jeff tell about his family immigrating from Italy in 1890 and settling into an ethnic neighborhood. Later moved into what is now called the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. Jeff talks about the different places he lived as a child including the Lakeview Terrace public housing. He moved to Detroit Shoreway after coming home from college. He likes the diversity of the neighborhood which has strong Italian, Irish, Gay and Lesbian communities. Through Judge Pianka Jeff joined the Detriot Shoreway Developement Co. He talks about all the businesses that used to be in the neighborhood.

Interviewee

Ramsey, Jeff (interviewee)

Interviewer

Heil, Jeff (interviewer)

Project

Detroit Shoreway

Date

1-26-2006

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

49 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Jeff Ramsey Interview, 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 955001_304004.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/398

Related Resources

Detroit Shoreway @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Mark Souther [00:00:00] So, Jason, when you're ready I'll start it.

Jason Heil [00:00:08] We're meeting with Jeff Ramsey, who is the executive director of the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization. Good afternoon.

Jeff Ramsey [00:00:16] Good afternoon, Jason.

Jason Heil [00:00:17] I'd like to start off with... Could you give us some information on your background and things that brought your family to settle in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood?

Jeff Ramsey [00:00:17] Sure. My family on my mother's side... her paternal grandfather's family came from Italy, Calabria, Italy, actually Nicastro's the name of the city. Her mother's family were the Grecos and her- they moved here on West 67th Street in the 1890s. Her father's family is the Arcuris... Okay, reverse that. Her mother's family are the Grecos, and her father's family Arcuris. And they actually settled in the big Italy section off of Woodland Avenue in Cleveland. And the Arcuris are the family that I am very close to. It's a very close-knit Italian family. They... My grandfather married my grandmother in 1937. They rented a house on West 67th Street, north of Detroit from the Di Bello family.. was a, I think, the second floor of a two-family house. And in fact, they have a China cabinet that was left by the previous owner. It was- it's a beautiful China cabinet with carved wood that was left by the previous owner that I have since restored. It's important because it really belonged to my grandfather. They- my grandfather's family, his mother and father and my grandfather purchased a house on West Clinton Avenue. At that time was called Clinton Avenue in 1940. They were the second Italian family to purchase a house on Clinton Avenue. At that time, the Italian part of our community was predominately north of Detroit. There were two houses on the same lot. My great-grandparents lived in the front house with my grandmother's. My grandfather's two sisters, my Aunt Joan and Aunt Nancy and my Aunt Nancy's son, my cousin Frank. And then my grandfather lived in the back house and he raised his four children there; my grandfather and grandmother. And that really is what I regard as my childhood home. My mother is the oldest child and I was the first grandchild. And I have a very- still have very close relationship with my grandfather. He's 91 today. His birthday's in March but he's is 91 now. My parents lived right around the corner on West 58th and Clinton when I was born and my mother worked, so we spent a lot of time at my grandparent's house and it was a wonderful place. My grandfather built a sandbox for myself and my brother Mark. My brother's a year younger and going to my grandparent's house was like going to Disneyland. My grandfather had all kinds of different animals. He had beavers and raccoons and a turtle in the sandbox. He had a monkey. He had in his dining room 40 different bird cages. My grandmother liked to play pinball, so he bought a pinball machine that they put their dining room. So it was just a wonderful place to grow up as a kid. My parents were separated when I was young, so we- my mom and my brother and I lived at Lakeview Terrace, just public housing. At that time, I had no concept at all that we were poor. I mean, all of my needs were met and was a very happy family. And.. but today, that really has made me appreciate how important public housing is in providing affordable housing for low income families. My mother worked, so we were like many families today where there's a single mom with kids and providing good, safe and decent affordable housing is important for kids and growing up. The Lakeview Terrace was wonderfully designed. It's one of the oldest public housing estates in the country and the buildings were U-shaped and in the center of the U was a playground and the kitchens all face the playground area, so moms could make- be making dinner and watching their kids at the same time. And then the buildings that were all on a center courtyard lined with trees. And it was really a beautiful place to grow up as a kid. And like I said, I spent most of my time at my grandparent's house. At that time, there was no names of Ohio City or Detroit Shoreway. Ohio City is the historic name, but people really didn't start to mention that area is Ohio City until the '70s and Detroit Shoreway's name didn't really come about until the '70s. Also, our organization was founded in 1973. And my perception is that people kind of viewed this as the near west side area. They were very closely knit, very tight, tightly knit neighbors, neighborhoods, people knew all their neighbors on the street. In fact, Judge Pianka once joked to me his family lived on Clinton Avenue, too. My aunt had called the police on him. He was a paper boy and he was out delivering the paper too early in the morning. So he joked around once that my two aunts and his mother formed the Homeland Security before that concept was ever thought about. So as you know, everybody knew their neighbors on the street. It was a very close neighborhood where people walked, everybody. My Aunt Joanne is 10 years younger than my mom and she babysat us a lot as kids. And I remember her taking us down to Hermann Park. There was a wading pool with a fountain and playground equipment there. And we would walk over to Kings Hill and slide down the hill on cardboard. It was just a great place to grow up as a kid. My folks were moved to the suburbs when I was well, actually out by the airport when I was 7 and Parma Heights when I was 10, and I left when I was 18, went off to college. I went to high school at St. Ignatius, so I was very involved in the neighborhood and I am very close to my grandparents. So in high school on Fridays, I stopped at my grandparent's house on the way home and have dinner with them. And when I.. after I left college, I came back here when I was, I think 24 and lived at West 28th and Clinton and then bought a house on West 58th in 1987 and actually I got a job in Detroit Shoreway in the fall of 1987, and then bought my house on West 58th in the summer of 1988. And so I've lived here now in Detroit Shoreway for nearly 20 years and I've been back in the near west side for 25 years or something like that. And you know, I really just love living here. This has been an area that I think is so diverse and that's really one of the strengths of this neighborhood. People from all different signs of all different types of ethnic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, people of all different kinds of income levels. I'm gay, and so it's important to me to live in a community that embraces diversity and where you can be openly gay and don't have to worry about it. You know, tolerance is important to this neighborhood and we just respect each other as neighbors and try to treat everybody as an individual. And there is a fairly good sized lesbian and gay community here. The chairman, my board, is openly gay. That's just a coincidence. But, you know, it's like no big deal. We're just other members of the community. The Lesbian Gay Community Center is located in our building here. The Gay People's Chronicle is in our neighborhood. They publish; they have an office here. So but we also have the first Mexican-American club founded in the state of Ohio. Club Azteca was founded 70 years ago. Now it's more Puerto Rican and a variety different Hispanic groups. But, you know, the roots go way back. We have the Vietnamese Community Center here, is located at the Gordon Square Arcade, the Vietnamese Buddhist temples on Franklin Boulevard. The Vietnamese Catholics worked- worship at St. Boniface at the Stockyards neighborhood, just a short drive away. We still have a very strong Italian community. They worship at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church and an Irish community that Irish Catholics at Saint Coleman's Church. So diversity is a real important part of what we do in our neighborhood, important component of our neighborhood, I should say. In terms of housing, there's been a lot of... But I'll just pause for a minute and let you... Okay. You know, part of that diversity is maintaining the character of the neighborhood as a mixed income neighborhood. We... this Detroit Shoreway is one of the hotspots for new construction in Northeast Ohio. Cleveland is... The Cleveland area is a weak market city. Our region is not growing. But, the city of Cleveland has led the entire region and housing starts often during the past 10 years. In this neighborhood, Detroit Shoreway, and near West Side, Ohio City Tremont have led the city of Cleveland. So this near West Side Market is one of the strongest areas for new construction of market-rate housing in the entire region. And that's a good thing. The flip side of that is that it's driven up housing prices and made it unaffordable for low income families. So we want to preserve the character of this neighborhood as a mixed income community. And projects like, we had a groundbreaking for yesterday, an 85-unit affordable housing project are really important to offer choice to low income families. There is a buzz word and community element these days. It's called Creating Neighborhoods Of Choice. We want to be able to offer that choice for low income residents to choose to live here if they want to, and to hopefully ensure that people are not being forced out because they can't afford it. You know, some of the cultural diversity continuing on that theme that you'll see in the neighborhood; Minh Anh Vietnamese restaurant, the Harp Irish restaurant just on the other side of West 45th Street. There is Rincon Criollo, which is a Puerto Rican restaurant, Ferris Steakhouse at West 87th. Actually, in that Cudell neighborhood just across our service area boundary, there are two Lebanese owned- Lebanese family and Ferris's has the best steaks in Cleveland, in my opinion. Snickers is a gay-owned restaurant but that caters to a lot of different people. We have an Irish pub opening down the street at the Ballycroix [provisional name for what was ultimately named Stone Mad Pub] that will have a bocce ball court, so... as well as a restaurant. St. Helena's Church across the street, Romanian, there's still a very strong Romanian community here. This neighborhood at the turn of the century had the second highest Romanian population in the world outside of Romania. There's a... They left a rich legacy of architecture in and around the neighborhood. The St. Mary's Church on Detroit was built... It was a rivalry, neck and neck, to see who would build it first. St. Mary's, which was Orthodox, and St. Helena's, which I believe is Byzantine. The Romanian churches and I think St. Helena's was built first 1906, 1907. The St. Mary's is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was a small village church. It's part of the Gordon Square Historic District. That's the National Register Historic District and also a Cleveland landmark district. St. Mary's moved to... on Warren Road in the '50s, and the facility now is part of our... it's slated to be part of the expansion of the Cleveland Public Theatre campus. The Romanians also left the Romanian Press building at West 57th and Detroit. The Romanian Savings and Loan was originally located at West 55th and Detroit. Later, the name changed to Pioneer Savings and Loan, and there across the street, Carpatina Hall on West 58th, which is now the Fraternal Order of Police Hall. So there's a lot of wonderful architecture left here from the original Romanian settlement. What's really interesting is that now there's been another wave of Romanians coming here during the past decade as the communist countries have opened, former communist countries have opened up. And I live on West 64th Street, one block away and I'd say about half the street are Romanian families, a lot of younger families that have children and their middle income working families. So it's nice to see families with children in our neighborhood. Oftentimes that's not the case. Most of the people buying the new construction are either singles and couples 25-45 with no kids or empty nesters coming back to the city. So it's great to see families with children purchasing homes in our neighborhood. So it's a little intro; I'll take a break here. Let you ask your questions.

Jason Heil [00:12:38] Ok, you talked about all the cultural diversity. Is that what brought you back to the neighborhood?

Jeff Ramsey [00:12:43] It's one of the things for sure. Absolutely. But I wanted to be close to downtown. I want to be where the action is- the hotspot. And I think that's what brings a lot of people to our neighborhood and to the near west side is just the feeling that this is where it's at. You know, the suburbs, in my opinion, are oftentimes the strip mall architecture, the tract housing is lifeless and spiritless. And so, the community here has a character and a texture to it that you can't find in the suburbs. You know, I shop every.. plus the amenities that are here. I shop every Marc's [on] Saturday at the Westside Market and I love it. You know, the fresh produce and just the experience and being in a European-style market hall and I pay half of what you pay at the grocery store for good, quality fresh produce and meats. I walked Edgewater Park in the summer. We've got a beautiful bike tunnel that has public art on both sides of the entrance and mosaic tiles. And you know, where else can you walk to the lake? There's not too many places that people can walk to the lake in the Cleveland area. So there's lots of wonderful things here. And just the fact that there's a lot of historic architecture, too, that's another thing that I've been attracted to and that I really like.

Jason Heil [00:13:56] [inaudible] Edgewater Park a little bit. Do you have any fond memories of growing up, going to Edgewater Park?

Jeff Ramsey [00:13:57] Oh, sure, my dad was.. played in a baseball league and they had their games down at Edgewater Park. I remember going there to watch him play. The fireworks in the summertime was always a lot of fun to be able to walk down there and watch the fireworks. My aunt would take us to swim at the beach. So yeah, it was a great place to go. You know? And it still is, it's a huge resource for people [who] live here.

Jason Heil [00:14:30] You were part of... You worked with Progressive Urban Real Estate for a while. Can you talk about how you got started with that, and some of the goals that they came up with?

Jeff Ramsey [00:14:42] Sure. Well, I was in my 20s after I got out of college, was a young partier and I was turning 29 and finally realized, "well, you know, I better get serious about getting a career. I'll be turning 30 soon- 30 soon." So I started praying and I asked God to direct me and use my talents and abilities. And I prayed for a year and a half, and about a year through that period, I decided to become a realtor. And I started with Progressive Urban Real Estate and they were young [a] company in Tremont. And they were, you know, their ads in the old Cleveland Edition, were fun. They poked fun at the suburbs and they were humorous. The person who actually put their ads together, Charlotte Pressler, is an English professor and they were just really wonderful, witty ads compared to suburban ads, which would say, you know, "Dollhouse, must see!" that kind of crap that you.. non-creative people. Charlotte was- Charlotte was a very creative person. So that's what attracted me to Progressive. And plus there office was here on the near west side. This is where I wanted to be and the kinds of houses that I want to be in. I like old houses and I like working with people. So I really didn't know what to do for a career. I got a real estate license and started working with Progressive and I loved it. One couple that I had sold a house to, and the people that I worked with were, you know, houses at that time were selling for $10,000, $20,000. So, you know, it wasn't people. It was young people who wanted to be in the city, but also, you know, working people who couldn't afford a lot. And I had sold a house, had signed a purchase agreement with one family to buy a house for $20,000. But the bank denied it because the appraiser said that the bathroom was off the kitchen and it was functionally obsolete. So it really made me mad because this was a house in good condition this family could afford and it was a fine house. At that time, there was a practice called redlining, where banks didn't want to lend money in urban neighborhoods and they would take a map of the city and they would literally draw a red line and say, we won't lend in this area. So the city of Cleveland was considering legislation called the Bank on Cleveland Ordinance. It was sponsored by Ray Pianka, who was at that time the councilman. He was the founding executive director of Detroit Shoreway, and by Jay Westbrook, the councilman for Ward 18. And what the Bank on Cleveland Ordinance did was the city put had a half billion dollars every year that they put on deposit with banks. They want to put that money and reward banks that were lending in the city. So I went to testify at this hearing, and the councilman Pianka liked what I had to say, and I met him afterwards and we talked and he told me about a job opportunity at Detroit Shoreway. And so I started here full time in November of 1987. And that's when I really knew that my prayers had been answered. And, you know, I viewed this job as a calling and I felt that I was called and really had been planted here. And it's now 18 years since I started. My first job responsibilities- my title was the Ward 17 development specialist with a very small staff, six people. So I did Stauffer Innovation and community organizing with block clubs and home repair and merchant outreach. It was, you know, a lot of work, but I got it. I really learned every job within the organization. I was promoted in 1990 to become the project manager heading up a real estate department. I was the real estate department and I didn't know beans about real estate development. I had experience in real estate sales, but I went to lot of specialized trainings from the National Development Council. I took Urban Development Finance at Cleveland State and brought my skills up to speed. And we took on some small projects and then gradually began to build steam. And I think that people acknowledged that Detroit Shoreway's real estate program is one of the most successful of any CDC in Cleveland. And we really changed the real estate market. I became the assistant director in 1995 and then the executive director in 2003. So part of our work in using real estate as an intervention tool was to stimulate the real estate market. And I want to stress before we start talking a lot about real estate and housing development, we are a community organization. Real estate development is a tool that we use to achieve our mission. We're not real estate developers. We are real estate developers, but it's really- it's the purpose of it is to achieve our mission of creating change in the community. In the 1990 census, the median sales price in the neighborhood was $16,500. People couldn't sell their homes. They couldn't get appraisals to borrow money, to do home repair if they wanted to. And certainly nobody was building new housing except for Father Marino of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, who was a visionary and just a wonderful man. The.. so that was our job, to kind of stimulate this real estate market. So we did a number of new housing projects, Tilman Park on West 49th and Tillman. We started the planning work in the mid-90s and began construction. And this.. I think this in 1997.. completed construction in August of 1998. At that time, Franklin Green was the first new construction on the near west side in the Ohio City neighborhood. The average price was $135. So we were being very aggressive and our base- we thought we're being aggressive with a base price of $150.99. At closing, the average sales price was $200,000. So that tells us that we really undershot the market. And it confirmed 2 studies that Professor Tom Buyer had done at Cleveland State. Professor Buyer, one of his studies said that there is a demand for upper income people, but not enough housing to meet that demand. The right type of housing. So this is the success that Tillman Park confirmed that. Tillman Park was the first project to have roof decks in the city of Cleveland, taking advantage of the lake and downtown views. Today, those units are reselling between 250 to 300 thousand. The success of that project is that it created a market for new housing in the neighborhood. Professor Buyer did a second study identi- in the early 90s identifying the top 10 sites in the city of Cleveland for that development. And this area north of Detroit, which we call the Bluffs, was selected as one of the top 10 sites. It's called the Bluffs because Detroit Avenue is a ridge that- the hillside runs down towards the lake. So you get wonderful views looking out over this hillside. Since the completion of Tillman Park, we've had a lot of new housing- 400 housing units in the past decade. Most of that was done by the nonprofit Detroit Shoreway or our sister organization, Lasko Housing. That's the development arm of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church that Father Marino founded that built the Casa Belvedere on West 69th and Father Caruso Boulevard. That- so again, the two nonprofits built the housing in the 90s. Today, we have 500 housing units planned or under construction right now. It took 15 years to get 500 housing units built to be rehabbed. Right now today, there are 500 units planned or under construction and almost all of it is by the private sector and it's being built without subsidy. So we did our job as a nonprofit to stimulate the housing market and create private sector investment. So we have reexamined- are taking a look at that and are focusing our resources on creating affordable housing, because we don't really need to do market rate housing. There is the western third of our neighborhood, the Weed & Seed area, that is still a weak market area. We're meeting prices around $35,000. So there the appropriate intervention is to do market rate housing. And we have a grant from the city of Cleveland Housing Trust Fund to build and rehab new housing in that area.

Jason Heil [00:22:49] When I was looking on the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization website, it said the mission is.. it guides physical, economic, social development of the neighborhood tours, improve toward and improve quality of life. Can you hit on the physical? You hit on the economic a little bit in the social development; and how the organization works to guide the physical and social development?

Jeff Ramsey [00:23:15] Well, we talked a little bit about the physical, too, with new housing, but some of the things like the bike trail, getting that connection here, we've got this great resource in Lake Erie and Edgewater Park, but no way to get to it. So the bike tunnel was very important to make that happen. I think the Campbell administration was very visionary in creating the Lakefront Plan and we very much supported that and helped us convene community meetings to get the community's input on it. And that's going to radically change the dynamics of this neighborhood. There'll be 4 new streets cut in to connect with the new boulevard. The Shoreway was actually built around the turn of the century- was called the Edgewater Parkway. And it was a park road. It was a road to get people from the city to Edgewater Park. And so converting it back to a boulevard, 35 mile per hour really is returning it to what it was meant to be. And the 4 new streets will help to provide access for people in our neighborhood to get there and really continue to help support our housing market. Physical development; we look at the Eco-Village. The Eco-Village, the national model, to teach about green building and sustainability. How can we do development that respects the environment? So incorporating energy costs, energy efficiency, recycled materials, materials that promote health- human health like nontoxic carpeting that doesn't emit toxins or paint that don't emit toxins. Those are all things that the Eco-Village has helped demonstrate. The first new construction project in the Eco-Village; Detroit Shoreway built Eco-Village townhouses. The homeowners heat and cool their units for 40 bucks a month. So, you know, that's, I don't know, four or five hundred bucks for a year. Some people pay that in a month for [a] gas bill. So it's really teaching people and new developers a new way to do development. And during the construction period, thanks to support by the Gund Foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, we were able to host a lot of educational seminars in cooperation with the Green Building Coalition that taught architects and developers, CDC, other nonprofit developers how to incorporate green building and sustainability. And now I think Cleveland really is, from what I understand, leading the country in many regards in green building and sustainability. And in fact, the city now has a sustainability director Andrew Watterson, who was actually an intern here at Detroit Shoreway when he was getting- when he got out of college. So that's one way we look at physical development. The R.. convincing RTA to build a new.. our rapid station. They wanted to close that rapid station because it had the lowest ridership on the west side- second lowest ridership. 65 people a day were riding the red line at that stop. The other, the lowest was at the Tri-C stop where there is, I think, 30 people a day that board. We had a community meeting, and we turned out 150 people at the basement of Saint Colman's Church. And RTA said that's the biggest turnout they'd ever had. And we convinced them that people would ride the rapid if they made a station that was safe and attractive. And RTA was a wonderful partner. They incorporated green building into the station; it's glass enclosed. People feel safe. It's a heated environment, so people waiting for trains aren't out in the weather. And we did a survey recently; counted the numbers of riders boarding the train. And there were 350 people that use the train a day. So, you know, it really confirms that people will use public transit if it's, you know, in a safe environment that's helps them to stay heated and warm and all that stuff. So, and the reason that the station is important is that it's also an anchor for Lorain Avenue in the Eco-Village. We're trying to create a- it's called a Transit Oriented Development, using public transit as a catalyst to fuel development around that area. Across the street is Zone Recreation Center. Again, people look for quality of life when they move to a community. Zone Rec is named after Councilman Matt Zone's father, Michael Zone, who was the councilman here for many, many years in the 60s and early 70s. He passed away in office in 1974 and his wife, Mary, Matt's mother, took over his council seat. And so Mayor Voinovich, when the city wanted to build- decide to build a rec center there, asked to name it in honor of Michael Zone. And the plans are now today to invest for it. We've just completed a planning study for the Zone Rec Center to put over four million dollars of improvements into it; recreation combining the best and passive green space preservation. So on site, there will be stormwater retention ponds instead of putting all that stormwater back into our sewer system. You know, our sewer district is spending a billion dollars, a billion, putting money into new storm sewers. You know, you'll go out to some suburban shopping centers and you look at the sea of asphalt and think of why are we paying for these shopping centers to do that? So this is again, educating people in a different way to do things as well as creating an recreational amenity. There'll be new baseball diamonds and tennis court and picnic areas and all kinds of things. So it's gonna be a state of the art rec center. You know, you hear about rec centers in Westlake, in Middleburg Heights and other places. Well, we in the city, we want quality rec access to recreation, too. So this is what we have to do to compete. And I'm really glad that under Matt Zone's leadership, we're moving ahead with that. So that's kind of physical development, quality of life. The.. our plans for the Detroit Avenue streetscape in the Gordon Square Arts District; one of the great things about living in the city is that it's walkable. It's pedestrian friendly. You out to some suburbs, they don't even have sidewalks or lights. You know, here you can walk anywhere you want. And we are.. have secured funding with Matt Zone's work to redo the Detroit Avenue streetscape. In a 4-block stretch, we're actually narrowing the streets. The parking lanes will be narrowed 2 feet on either side. And that enables us to expand the sidewalks, put in street trees. We're going to get all the wiring underground, put in historic lighting, public art. So it's going to be a really beautiful, attractive, pedestrian friendly district. And the streetscape improvements will extend all the way from West 58th to West 75th. The narrowing part is just in the 4-block stretch, but Trade Avenue is going to be a beautiful street. So economic development; our plans for the arts, the Gordon Square Arts district. This neighborhood was built up right around the turn of the century and the Gordon Square Theater was built in 1911. It was originally built as a repertory theater, and then became a vaudeville theater and later a movie theater. Today, it's the oldest standing theater in the city of Cleveland; predates the Playhouse Square theaters- were built in the 20s. The Gordon Square theaters owned by Cleveland Public Theater, and it's their main stage where they have their bigger shows. They also own a building next door, which was at one time, McLaughlin Stance Hall later became an Irish American club. The second floor that they have there, a black box seat or the James Levin Theater. The ground floor is a really fine bookstore. The Capitol Theater is here in part of the Gordon Square Arcade complex. It was built in 1920 as a 1,200-seat movie theater. We planed to redevelop it as a 4-screen theater featuring art and independent films and then finally near West Theater, they currently perform in Ohio City. They're more of a mainstream community theater with a mission to helping empower young people through the theater arts. They plan to build a new auditorium at West 67th and Detroit. So the three organizations are partnering on a capital campaign. And including the streetscape, this is a 20 million dollar effort. So that's economic development, physical development, quality of life. You know, you can't just pick and choose one thing over the other. And I think that's one of the strengths of Detroit Shoreway, is that we've been able to help improve the neighborhood a number of different ways. Steps to a Healthier Cleveland is an initiative by the Cleveland Department of Health. We're very honored that they picked Detroit Shoreway as one of the organizations to participate in that program. So it's.. there are a number of different initiatives in there to help people stop smoking, addressing diabetes, asthma through education, healthy lifestyle initiatives. So those types of things are really important. It's not just about bricks and mortar. It's about the people who live here and helping to create a good neighborhood.

Jason Heil [00:32:03] We've had pretty much hit on all the questions that I had.

Mark Souther [00:32:09] I have a few questions I'd like to add and they are rather wide ranging or subtle things here and there. You said that I wanted to know a little more about. For one thing, I just want to go back to the naming of Detroit Shoreway. It strikes me that one of the interesting things about neighborhoods and urban development over time is how people conceive of the place and how that changes over time. So it interested me to hear you say that Detroit Shoreway and Ohio City were names that, well Ohio City was a forgotten name. Detroit Shoreway was s

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