This run was the heart of the Tremont historic district.   I started near the recently closed Sokolowski's University Inn (RIP) and worked my way around the northern ridge line where one of the final parts of the Towpath connection is being completed. From there, I ran down Fairfield to W. 14th where I passed a diverse and historic collection of churches:  Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church , the first Greek church in Cleveland St. Andrew Kim , a former Polish church converted to a Korean catholic parish The former Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church , originally a Carpathian Rusyn church and now a cultural center St. Augustine Roman Catholic , one of the oldest parishes in the city Iglesia Pentecostal El Calvario (a.k.a. “Calvary Pentecostal Church”) which serves primarily the Puerto Rican community St. George Antiochian Orthodox ,  serving Tremont's Arab community Pilgrim Congregational , a massive Romanesque structure and the first building on the west side of Cleveland t

This neighborhood included portions of Duck Island and Tremont. I started at the one of the uber popular Cleveland script signs overlooking downtown then looped under the I-90 underpass and down Fairfield until I hit Scranton Ave (lots of art work under the bridges on this run). Scranton is one of the development hot zones in Tremont. It features new apartment buildings such as Ohio Awning  (once home to a 150 year old city business) and  The Tappan (which includes a great new bakery called Leavened ; also 60% of the units are for middle-income individuals).  The same development team that did those projects also as did the nearby  Fairmont Creamery which is a mixed-use building that features apartments, office space and the Tremont Athletic Club . Of course, Scranton Ave is also home to the Tremont Tap House which is known to have some of the best pub fare in the city. Off Scranton, I weaved my way through a network of tight, older, smaller streets lined with a mix of older and rec

Today was a rainy but rare 50 degree day in December and I couldn't let that go to waste so I hit the streets. The Flats West Bank - which I'm defining as west of the Center Street bridge and north of Detroit Ave - is a neighborhood that feels a bit desolate in areas but the sum total of its parts represent Cleveland well.  It's industrial (Ontario Stone and the Cargill salt mines ) mixed with some residential and a lot of entertainment ( Nautica Entertainment Complex ,  Music Box Supper Club , Brite Winter ). There's a wide spectrum of housing, from public ( Lakeview Estates (Terrace) ,  which opened in 1937 and was among the first federally funded public housing developments in the United States) to luxury condos, some of which date back to the 1980s. Some of the city's oldest watering holes ( Carney's  and Harbor Inn , a "division of Wally World" and the oldest dive bar in Cleveland) still remain and exist symbiotically with "newer" ones