The North Collinwood neighborhood was settled by eastern European immigrants who worked at the nearby railroad yards. But when the freeway bisected the neighborhood in the early ’60s and railroad work tapered off, the neighborhood fell into decline.
That’s being reversed by a band of determined entrepreneurs and creative types who have turned one of the neighborhood’s main streets, Waterloo, into an arts and music mecca. The evolution began when the Beachland Ballroom & Tavern opened in 2000, slowly attracting galleries, shops, record stores, art-making spaces, galleries and restaurants. Each year in June, it shows off its progress during the Waterloo Arts Fest.
It’s built on those businesses by landing grants to transform the street through a recently completed full-scale streetscape project and to rehab nearby homes that had fallen into disrepair and market them to artists and musicians, attracting a community of doers. Meanwhile, vestiges of the past remain in the ethnic restaurants, bakeries and sausage shops that still dot the area.
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One Response to “North Collinwood/Waterloo”
Thomas Slabe
I am looking forward to my purchase of a home in N. Collinwood because of the presence of “doers” who work to transform the neighborhood and community. I know there is great emphasis on various forms of art. I am a retired biologist and I hope to get involved in the community. My angle would be to promote landscaping, including “wildscapes”, which is an artistic form of ecological restoration. I recently moved from Denver, CO, back to my home town, Cleveland (actually it’s Parma). While living in Denver I was heavily involved in community efforts, including expanding city parks, creating a community garden, and promoting green infrastructure (rain/pollinator gardens, bioswales, green roofs) and public transit (Fastracks), and other sustainability efforts. I suspect that expanding your focus towards ecological restoration in your region near the shore of Lake Erie would be a positive development. It wouldn’t be very difficult, either. It could be as simple as planting just native plant species, of which there are almost endless numbers of species and varieties. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you like this idea. For full disclosure, I am just a concerned citizen who is interested in volunteering to help promote community.