Callahan’s Cleveland Diary

I thought you all might like a peek at the newly opened section of the Towpath Trail running through Stripmall Steelyard Commons. Click on the picture for a short slideshow…

The pictures were taken walking south from the rear of Home Depot to the rear of Target. As you can see, this is basically a long, narrow chainlink tunnel with the Mittal railroad yard on one side and, um, the back of a brand new strip mall on the other side. So lucky Towpath visitors can now glimpse Cleveland’s recent industrial past juxtaposed with the symbols of our postindustrial future — prefab architecture, loading docks, dumpsters, the whole exciting World Class Retail package.

(Soon, I’m sure, the view through the chainlink will include 21st-century Clevelanders grabbing a smoke on their break and watching other 21st-century Clevelanders root through the dumpsters.)

It’s hard not to admire such a compelling representation of Cleveland’s modern economic history. And though the new stretch of Stripmall Steelyard Towpath may seem isolated and constricted — maybe even claustrophobic — it isn’t really that unfriendly; the eight-foot fences aren’t topped with razorwire. You can get over that sucker if you really need to.

But it sure seems a long way from the canal.

Update 5/7:  There’s been some debate about this post in comments at BFD.  My friend Laura says I’m being a curmudgeon and wonders where I buy my underwear.

I reply at curmudgeonly length.

If you’re unfamiliar with Stripmall Steelyard Commons, here’s a recent panorama.  Here’s a closer view with the mills behind it.

And here’s one of the Towpath tunnels that Adam and Phil were talking about.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 5th, 2007 at 6:23 pm and is filed under Planning, Poor Cleveland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.