Columbus, as any true-blue Clevelander knows, is a nice town. Too nice. Outside of OSU’s big, fratty sprawl, the state capital is about as exciting as a sneeze. That said, topping the list of reasons to stop by our southern neighbor is the area’s very own Emerald City just north of city proper, a retail Mecca fielding hordes of adoring pilgrims: Easton Town Center
The huge shrink-wrapped, chain-store choked, Mulberry-aping Easton is an uber-mall, a veritable shine to consumer spending, so much so that the site reportedly made the short-list of possible attack sites for Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, the mall was the scene of gun violence this weekend. And the people of Easton are not exactly acting like Good Upstanding Citizens in the wake of the incident.
This article appears in Feb 9-15, 2011.
The C-bus mall shooting range used to be at City Center downtown where thugs would practice their shooting skillz on escalators near the Cin-a-bon and Jacobsons. Now that City Center’s gone, the Apple store at Easton is the most logical place to shoot-em-up, unless of course, Northland Mall reopens – that would be totally gangsta.
WOW writer-sir, you sure seem to have a lot of disdain and/or dislike for Columbus – so much so that you could just about choke on it, while reading this store. BTW, urban violence – is urban violence regardless of the scenery, even with “gaggles of high schoollers … suburban housewives sniffing and dragged-along husbands” and its not because people live by some pure loyal creed of “don’t tell”. Its more because people are not willing to get invlolved and mainly because the police don’t have a real way to protect witnesses from being targeted by the criminals we are asked to speak against.
You want people to “open up” then provide a safe environement, where the safety of their lives is not treated like so unimportant thing as long as the police/ DA/ whomever get what they want.
I made Easton and for all intents and purposes own that god damn place. The idea that this Mickey Mouse shit-rag of a paper could possibly have one fucking thing to say positive or negative about anything in my vast empire is an outrage.
I hereby announce that at noon tomorrow I am buying the Cleveland Scene and at 3 p.m. what is now known as Cleveland Scene will be the biggest inferno Cleveland has seen since the Cuyahoga River went up. Bring your marshmallows and weenies you losers, this will be a good one. Assholes.
Although the shooting is tragic, the writing on Columbus is refreshing. Columbus is as lame as a city could be. It abounds in mediocrity. Easton is quite typical of what Columbus thinks is cool: a bunch of chain stuff with no character. Most cities have single places that have more character than the entire city of Columbus. People that move there become concerned only with watching OSU football, eating at Olive Garden, and shopping at Abercrombie. College-age people think its cool because there are a bunch of idiots running around constantly. There’s no reason to visit Easton and Columbus is a tourist destination for no one. The state government tries to prop it up, but it’s still lame.
Your a writer professionally, because Why?
If Columbus sucks then Cleveland is a total shit hole! Cleveland is a dying city.
It abounds in mediocrity. Easton is quite typical of what Columbus thinks is cool: a bunch of chain stuff with no character. Most cities have single places that have more character than the entire city of Columbus.
Thank You
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Harry
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And what does Cleveland have that comes close to High St? Edgewood is probably about it. There’s one block in Ohio City, a handful of scattered businesses and galleries in Tremont, and a couple decent blocks of North Collinwood. Oh and how could I forget Downtown, i.e. a block of 4th St. And lets be real here: if Clevelanders were so much more cultured then why did 70,000 city residents leave for other cities (like Columbus) and the burbs in the past decade? We have our share of philistines (which is why Easton and Polaris thrive), but at least we have a handful of vibrant, revitalized *dense* urban neighborhoods which Cleveland can’t match whether it’s the urban density of the Short North (Cleveland has no answer to this), the all-brick architecture of German Village (vs. Cleveland’s wood-framed homes), or Old North Columbus for its higher concentration of live music venues (more than Edgewood). I’ll admit, Brigade is a nice addition to the Short North which already has lots of local independent retail (again, to a level which Cleveland has yet to reach), but you can take back Sushi Rock. Oh wait, Brigade is in Cleveland Heights not Cleveland, so just keep Sushi Rock in Cleveland, thanks!