Victoria Justice and Nickelodeon’s Fun Size film caravan are leaving town this week, after a month of transforming downtown Cleveland and several suburbs into a fictional place called “Westbrae.”
But the excitement continues as East Ninth Street becomes Manhattan for The Avengers beginning this week. The filmmakers promise plenty of fireballs and gunfire for your rubbernecking pleasure, plus the usual array of downtown panhandlers.
But what is it about Cleveland that makes us so easy to morph into just about anywhere else? And how exactly does this help our image? For one thing, our endearingly modest downtown bustle is way more accommodating than most other cities.
“They are closing down East Ninth for a month. Name another city where you can do that,” says Ivan Schwarz, executive director of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission.
This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2011.