In order to better understand how the area came to be as it is, and in order to take its history into account as we envision and begin planning its future, the Collaborative Campus Project did some research.

Before it was dubbed the ‘Campus District’ in 2009, the area was known as ‘The St. Vincent’s Quadrangle Distict’.  But this is all recent history.

We wanted to find out what sort of identity this place had over the last century and how it has been shaped by the passing decades.

Anurag Saxena, Lead Researcher for the Collaborative Campus Project, set out to find answers to some of our questions by meeting with one of his esteemed professors from Cleveland State University’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs (and Cleveland planning history buff), Dr. Richard Klein.

These are some of the notes Anurag took from his meeting with Dr. Klein:

The area from E 14 St to E 55 St, from the lake to the bluff (the RTA train tracks) was called the Cleveland Out-Lots. It consisted of 50- and 100-acre parcels and was part of what was known as Cleveland Township until the 1830s.

The allotment consisted of St. Clair, Euclid and Woodland. E55th St was known as Willson Ave, E 40th St was known as Sterling Ave and E 18 St was known as Huntington St.  It consisted mainly of farmland and forests.

In 1830s there was an attempt to build a high-class residential district around E9th and Lakeside. The area was predominantly wilderness and farms until 1850s.

Later Euclid Ave emerged as a high-class street. Around 1850s, the area surrounding Euclid was mostly low to medium income housing (E 30th St and West of it). The Cleveland-Pittsburgh railroad ran down St. Clair.

Post Civil War (1865) there was a rapid development. After 1875, industrial development came to Cleveland.

Around 1900, Euclid Ave, which was also known as Millionaire’s Road, became less and less significant. E 22 was given to low and middle income housing areas.

Around 1940s, the vast majority of mansions on Euclid were turned into County Agencies, halfway houses & many were torn down.

Around 1920 to 1930: Proposal to build an Athletic Club & Central Park along Euclid, north of 24th St. Clubs went bankrupt and the park was never built. But the legacy still remains in the Fenn Tower (Athletic Club) on Cleveland State University’s Campus.

Around 1920 to 1950: North of Euclid, between E 20 and E 55, did financially well. The Western part, E 9 to E 18 was going down by the ‘50s, and was targeted to be part of the Erie View Urban Renewal Program. E 18 to E 55 remained intact, but was losing value as industry began to move out to the suburbs.

Click here to see Part 2.

When proposals were made to build the Inner Belt in 1950s, owners of houses and shops and warehouses put pressure on the mayor not to take tremendous acreage for the highway. Which is why the highway is narrow and why Deadman’s Curve exists. The highway separated the District. CSU’s construction was considered to be a part of revitalization.

Since the construction of the highway, the Campus District has remained divided.  It’s time for a renewal that springs from the community that lives there, and the goal of the Collaborative Campus Project is to bring together the local residents, business owners and institutions to do just that.

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“The students are surveying neighbors, engaging with professionals in a dialogue about how the built environment can improve quality of life and sketching out solutions to issues of isolation and to promote a more a positive street scene.

The early results show one thing: These kids don’t carry all of the baggage of being told no—see their visions for bike routes, walking paths, gardens, dance programs, festivals and new housing. It’s a big goal: to redraw connections between a part of the city that the highway helped time forget.”

Marc Lefkowitz, the author of the article and Web Editor for GreenCityBlueLake, brings up an excellent point about the history of the Campus District and how it came to be so divided by car traffic.

Since the idea for the Collaborative Campus Project came out of the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit last year, the article mentions the project consultants who attended the Summit.  Click here to see all the other exceptional individuals who have contributed to the success of this project.  Read this post to learn more about how this project is connected to Sustainable Cleveland 2019.

To learn more about how the Campus District and this initiative have come along since the August presentation, visit the Collaborative Campus display at the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit this September 22-23.

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The morning of the final presentation was inevitably frantic:

• A few of us were making last minute formatting and text edits to the proposal initiatives, a booklet soon to be in the hands of the Campus District Board members.
• With careful teamwork, we had to transport the 3-D maps across Tri-C’s campus to the auditorium.
• A bit of team tenseness could be heard as visual designers debated whether it was ok to make last minute alterations to the PowerPoint, in order to correct coloring glitches.
• Beside the stage, we trimmed and re-mounted the students’ rumpled scripts.
• We took multiple group photos, since of course after each one a missing team member would reappear.
• 20 minutes till show time, and a couple presenters still hadn’t arrived!

However over-practiced or underprepared our team members may have felt, it was Go Time.  The intimate auditorium rapidly teemed with Campus District Board members and community stakeholders, Tri-C faculty, Cleveland professionals, family members, and video cameras.

We talked together, in our collaborative group, for seven weeks.  It was both inspiring and challenging.  At times, we might have felt frustrated, questioned our process, or doubted that our work would make a significant positive impact on the Campus District community.  But in the end, we have designed a policy proposal that I think all project members are more than satisfied with and excited about, and now that we’ve talked about it for almost two months, it’s time for implementation.

Part of the speech Jasmean delivered vividly communicates this:

Together we emerged ourselves in research.

We studied best practices in the community.

Then we came to Brainstorming: We had group discussions, we deliberated, we hypothesized, we planned, we pitched our ideas, we conferred, we considered, we argued, we synthesized, we analyzed, we explored, we hashed it out…

We sure Talked the Talk.

But at the end of the day…

All we knew is that we would need to WALK THE WALK.

1. Walk the Walk implies accountability and empowerment.

2. Walk the Walk: It’s how we walk, how we sway, our style—it’s District Pride. [our Swag]

3. And of course, we can literally walk the walks our solution plan endeavors to create in the district.

• The presentation went smoothly.
• I was gratified that I could hear and understand all of the students’ speeches.
• A strong message was conveyed.
• Questions from the audience were thoughtful.
• Answers evidenced our designers’ meticulous planning.
• The audience was impressed.

How do we Walk the Walk?

Later this afternoon, the Campus District Board will meet to determine the next steps.  They will be armed with our presentation view book and a packet containing every single initiative—spelled out with who, what, when, where, why, and how it can be achieved—we propose for the Campus District Plan.  The hope is that the Board that commissioned this project can use our final product as an abundant resource in order to set a time line (like the short-to-long term one we devised), an infrastructure, and a staff to realize the Campus District’s future potential.

-Alex, Final Day

As this project comes to a close, I am very excited about the end results of our proposal, but I find myself a little sad about disbanding the team. In a quick seven weeks, a very diverse group of people with a snapshot introduction was catapulted into a very complex community design/problem solving workflow.  While there have definitely been some moments of stress co-managing such a diverse team, it has been a very rewarding experience.

For starters: Wow! To get the opportunity to really work on a project that makes you actually feel like you’re making a difference in our great city has been amazing. Cleveland has received so much bad press in recent days. With the city plastered with “Believeland or LEAVEland?” billboards and other such messages it easy to become discouraged. It’s nice to be working for a district that takes the local community members into consideration. So often people are quick to rave about city issues and label a city a sinking ship. The Campus District Collaboration Project has been able to identify challenges within the district and turn them into opportunities. It’s created a very exciting workflow that can easily be adapted into a way of life. We have spent the last seven weeks filling that half empty glass. Painting our city canvas.

Photo by Julie Meade

Secondly, our Student Consultants are the true gem in this project. They have not only been our eyes, ears and voice of the community, but they have also exceeded our performance expectations. As teenagers, they face the daily challenges of defining their own identity, balancing the responsibilities of becoming and adult, and dealing with peer pressure. As residents in the community, they have the added stress of dealing with the social issues that exist due to the impoverished state of the district. These students have a very vast scope of life experiences. They come into work every morning with a whole slate of issues and we give them a laundry list of to do items, involve them in advanced theorizing and problem solving and expect them to complete daily assignments. Now that’s a mouthful.

I’d be lying if I said this project came to fruition without certain barriers. Lead Coordinators had to adapt their behavior and even simply learn how to talk to Student Consultants. Not only did we have to abandon our common professional vernacular, but we also had bridge a generational and socio-economic gap. We were strangers —strangers with a mutually overwhelming challenge.

Watching relationships develop within the group has been one of the most fascinating elements of this project: from small things like watching College Design Coordinator, Marcus and Student Consultant Brian skateboard to lunch together, Lead Design Coordinator Mark Duluk almost riffing poetry in solving problems with Student Consultant, Rena; Student Consultant Jasmean breaking out into song and dance when she found out that she was on the research team with Lead Research Coordinators Adam Stadler and Anurag Saxena; to watching College Coordinator Brian give Student Consultant Quentarious his first tour of the Waccom tablet. Finally realizing enthusiasm and involvement from even the most skeptical student gave me goosebumps. We have built relationships. We have built camaraderie. We have built a team.

We have become allies.

Challenges aren’t so bleak when you have a strong team. And I will miss the team.

This morning our high school and college speakers ran through the final presentation three times, familiarizing themselves with the program and auditorium and practicing their public speaking skills: speak slowly, enunciate, engage the audience, be excited, and smile.

The entire team sat in the auditorium to see the third run-through.  While waiting for the rest of the group to arrive, Dasha and Jasmean used this down time to sing duets with the microphones; they were quite good!

The non-presenters have been putting final touches on the 3-D Campus District map, mounting our collection of collages, story boards, and mood boards on themed displays, and taking care of all other last-minute logistics (until the early morning hours for many of us…).

This behind-the-scenes scramble would rush on until the minute we all sat down for the presentation Tuesday morning—making formatting edits to the final proposal packets for the Campus District Board, mounting students’ ruffled script papers on card stock, finding lost nametags, etc.  The typical last-minute production rush, all worth the extra effort, would culminate in a room full of expectant community stakeholders and eager urban developers, and Planning Project Team members ready to loudly, clearly, and proudly broadcast their collaborative masterpiece—their vision and proposal for the Campus District.

-Alex, Day 35

Photo by John Malanij

To say they have worked hard to reach this point would be an understatement.  The phraseology of many of the professional consultants included that, “they were building the ship while out at sea.”  In those seven weeks, group members were introduced to one another, they came up with a plan for how to proceed, they researched the Campus District by talking to local residents and business owners, they toured best practice neighborhoods, they drew dozens of maps, they designed, they designed some more, they taught and learned from one another, and now they are presenting their final proposal.

Come find out what all the fuss is about.

The Collaborative Campus Planning Project Presentation

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Design Team Presentation: 10:30 am

Q&A: 11-11:20 am

Reception: 11:30 am – Noon

Location: Cuyahoga Community College, Unified Technology Center, Room 140, 2415 Woodland Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115

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As I mentioned in Monday’s blog post, we are presently in the “Falling Action” stage of our project’s storyline.  This phase is still focused toward our final goal—the presentation—but it has a calm ambiance centered on reflection and tying up loose ends.  The meat of our work had to be completely finalized on Tuesday, when we sent our view book and presentation materials to the printer in time to be ready for next week’s presentation.

This morning I met with students one-on-one to discuss their responses to this week’s reflection questions (see Tuesday’s blog), advising them on how to expand their answers and provide more detail about their specific involvement in our design process and their impressions of this summer’s experience.

Photo by Stacey Cassidy

Stacey led a quick full group session, in which she asked team members to share their favorite aspects of our project.  It’s uplifting to continuously hear positive feedback, especially from the high school students, many of whom seemed less than thrilled to start this summer job in June.

Destiny: Designing the T-shirts.

Marcus: Brainstorming sessions, conversations we had, seeing the ideas turn into reality.

Jasmean: I liked some of the people.

Brian: Working on the park.

John: Just helping out in general.

Next activity: Thank You Notes, of course!  I gave a tutorial on proper thank-you note structure, and students wrote thank you notes to the Campus District.

At the end of the day—to be continued on Monday—the high school and college students did a run-through of their presentations, working on the essentials for public speaking: talk SLOWLY, take pauses, and look up and engage with the audience.

-Alex, Day 33

ELECTRICITY OUTAGE CAN’T STOP OUR ENERGY!!!

Most of us woke this morning to calls— repeating every 20 minutes for a couple hours—from Tri-C’s notification system, alerting us that the electricity was out at Tri-C’s Metro Campus.  No students, staff, or administrators were to report to work today.

That won’t stop our group’s impetus to the finish line.  The lead coordinators had a breakfast meeting at Cleveland State’s Viking Hall—where we eat lunch daily—and then everyone worked from home the rest of the day.

I was even more pleased to hear the students report that they used the extra time to rehearse their portions of Tuesday’s final presentation.  The work is all done, it’s just tying up any loose ends and preparing for Tuesday now.

-Alex, Day 32

In addition to collecting students’ written reflections about their involvement in the Collaborative Campus Planning Project, lead coordinator Russell conducted video interviews with a handful of students to gain more insight into their impressions of the project.  He took students to various landmarks in the Campus District, where they expressed—on camera—their experiences this summer, personal topics of interest with the project, and hopes for the district’s future.  I encountered Russell in the studio hallway upon his return from the interviews; he was deeply moved and brightly inspired by the students’ thoughtful and heartening words.  This blog post is Russell’s account of the day.  It is not a script of the students’ remarks, but rather an illustration of Russell’s reactions to the students’ high performance and the positive atmosphere surrounding our project:

Photo by Charles Schick

The first destination was the Tower Press Building, for an interview with Tyrone. We have come to realize that Tyrone is a born MC with a very casual, and often amusing delivery style. Tyrone has been tasked over the last several weeks to open our presentations and introduce the proceedings. The Tri-C Video Crew has done a spectacular, and extremely professional job of videotaping all of our activities and presentations, and today they are really great getting the ball rolling. After being microphoned and sound checked, we are ready for the cameras to roll. The hustle and bustle and street noise of Superior Ave. provide a fitting background for these interviews, and often people stop by to witness the activity.

Questions have been prepared for our interviewees as a way to launch them into talking about their experiences and how the Campus District Project has had an impact on them, and the challenges they have faced and overcome.  Tyrone explains that he has thoroughly enjoyed his experience over the last 7 weeks and hopes that our plans come to fruition (a sentiment expressed by ALL of our students). Another highlight in Tyrone’s interview is his appreciation for the opportunity to work with design professionals and how it will help him achieve his goals of becoming a Video Game Designer…..

The next stop on our video journey was The Juvenile Justice Center on E.22 St.

Renee, who has been the most eloquent and vocal advocate for the citizens of the Campus District is a little camera shy, and we convince her that she has absolutely nothing to worry about, as she is such a wonderful, passionate speaker. Once the camera begins to roll, she is at ease and exudes her passion and sincere concern for her fellow citizens of the neighborhood, especially the senior citizens.

There is a lot of foot traffic around our filming site, but Renee and camera crew are undaunted by this, even as people stop within feet of Renee to listen to her speak. She has very impressive poise and concentration.  As we are finished with Renee’s segment, a man on crutches who has been intently watching the proceeding starts to engage Renee in conversation.  As we all pack up to leaves for our next filming destination, Renee stays behind to answer all the man’s questions about our project, and this simple act speaks volumes about her compassion for this fellow man and her neighborhood “family.”

Next stop…a Quadrangle Kiosk at Carnegie and E.22 St….and it’s Jasmean’s turn to face the challenge of a live interview.  Jasmean has come alive over the course of this project, and she is the one interviewee that is actually looking forward to her session.  By the time the team sets up on Carnegie, the temperature has risen dramatically, and Jasmean is looking directly into the sun.  She is a real trooper as she explains with great enthusiasm her participation in a variety of projects, her favorite being the Swagga Initiative that includes the items we are producing to show the pride of the youth of the Campus District…T-Shirts, hats, buttons, etc.  She very eloquently explains the meaning of the word Swagga as it relates to her peers in the neighborhood.  She also recollects her positive experiences working in a collaborative setting with professionals, and how it will benefit her in her future endeavors.  Jasmean has a very endearing quality that has emerged over the course of this project, and she has a vitality that broken through her quiet demeanor.

Our final video session was at Frank Kidd’s Nursery with Marcus.  We chat briefly with Frank Kidd, and he is typically gracious about our filming on the premises.  Marcus begins to explain his perspective as a College Coordinator, and, as he speaks, we are all taken with his eloquence as he describes his desire for this initiative to come to fruition.  His approach is to create smaller, more intimate programs that have an immediate impact on a personal level.  One of the programs he has envisioned is a Youth Painting Program that involves collaboration with area youth, paint companies, mentorship, and it would improve the interiors of public housing. This is a project that has been extremely well received among everyone on the team for its elegant simplicity and for how humanistic Marcus’ vision is.  It’s getting hotter as the day progresses, and we marvel at the depth of Marcus’ commitment to this project. We end the day of filming and thank the Tri-C video team for being so patient and accommodating in helping us tell our story.

-Alex, Day 32. Blog Contribution by Russell.