In October of 2016, I moved to Downtown Cleveland. As a native Clevelander who lived in New York City for nearly 25 years, I’m experiencing my hometown through a unique lens. In the interest of looking good and living well without being rich, a city like Cleveland is very cost-effective and full of possibilities (and pitfalls). With this section of the blog, I’m exploring both the good and the bad with relocating to an affordable but challenged midwest city after decades in a booming metropolis.
I’ve struggled for a long time about how to gracefully incorporate my move to Cleveland into this blog, which is about the pursuit of sartorial stealth and effective living for the self-made thousandaire. (I have to write that now and then to remind myself.) A year and a half in, and I’m still adjusting. When old friends ask me “How’s Cleveland?” I think I have a different answer every time.
Cleveland is a lot of things, good and bad. But I’ll start with the one trait about the Forest City that pops up more than anything: Cleveland is cheap.
If you live in Lakewood, Parma or Cleveland Heights, are you a Clevelander?
After recording our first episode of The Downtowner, my co-host Amy and I got into it with our guest, historian Mark Souther, about what is considered “Cleveland” in our first bonus episode of the podcast.
Some months ago, I got a pitch from my friend Amy Eddings, host of Morning Edition here on WCPN ideastream, Cleveland’s NPR station. She wanted to do a podcast with me. But first, a little backstory…
I’ve skipped a month in this series, but my principle thesis remains the same: car ownership is unnecessary when living in a city. I’m living proof of it.
I moved to Downtown Cleveland at the beginning of October 2017. At the completion of my first full month living downtown without owning a car, I wrote a piece about my actual transportation costs for that first month and compared them with how much I would have spent with a car. The difference was staggering.
One of my side hustles here in Cleveland is working as a freelance editor and writer for Great Lakes Publishing, the Condé Nast of Ohio responsible for a roster of magazines that started with its flagship, Cleveland Magazine, in 1972.
My boss is Lute Harmon, Sr., the executive publisher and founder. One might think of him as the S.I. Newhouse of Ohio. After a mutual friend connected us last year, Lute immediately assigned me to write about notable Cleveland figures who were doing good and making a difference for his latest venture, a magazine called Community Leader, a quarterly supplement to Cleveland Magazine.
I jumped back onto the saddle this week after a brief but fantastic trip to Palm Beach, Florida last weekend. I have a client down there who showed me the ropes in their little universe both in Palm Beach and in the charming town of Lake Worth.
This episode is about a fabulous Ethiopian restaurant I discovered in Cleveland, my new (old) Harris Tweed and the joys and challenges of furnishing my new apartment.
Everyone told me I'd need a car. I'm still not feeling it.
According to George Frazier in Esquire in 1960, Walter Halle was one of the best-dressed men in the U.S.
