Cleveland and what to do therein

May be there for a day or two soon.

where u staying? downtown?

1. Don't stay downtown unless hotel name includes "Hyatt" or "Renaissance."

I will probably need to stay downtown or convenient to downtown (courhouse area). Haven't booked hotel yet.

there are some nice restaurants downtown (e. 4th street and warehouse district), if you like theater there are some great venues, also a casino in Tower City (thats where the Renaissance hotel is and is very close to the Federal Courthouse). jump on the health line and take it to the museum district where the main museum has a new wing and there's a new modern art building (standalone). little italy is also in that area. i can suggest more when you get closer to your arrival date, maybe meet for a beer if you're up for it.

it's probably going to be cold so there won't be any outdoor stuff happening like the summer but just taking a stroll around might be fun.

so sounds like I am getting in around 11pm and flying out at 4pm the next day. Not much time to enjoy the city. Meh.

guys I'm staying in downtown Cleveland for a week

what should I do???????

????

?

rent a car

http://www.ubuprojex.com/calendar.html

Former Cleveland based band in the UK on tour

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/visual-art/Category?oid=1518229

I don't drive

also that site has not been updated in like a year and a half :(

From downtown you can take public transportation out to the Cleveland Museum of Art, about a 10-15 minute ride. One of the best free things you can do here.

Where are you staying?

Oh its updated here I think:

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/everywhere-you-turn-the-next-7-days-are-filled-with-more-art-than-you-can-handle-try-anyway/Content?oid=4380422

Guessing you did the kinda meh, kinda interesting Rock n Roll Hall of Fame already

there are some good record stores and if chelsea's is still there, it's the best old clothing emporium i have ever had the pleasure of getting lost in

just a heads up: i couldn't get served in cleveland with just my passport. according to the tools i dealt with in their desolate downtown bars, a driver's license is the only kind if legal ID that exists in the world.

Each state sets their acceptable IDs for liquor service. A passport contains no demographic information (height, weight, eye/hair color) so it makes sense to me not to accept it.

Sorry visiting interntional tourists, you all look too young to drink, and even if you are old enough, you do not drive here, so you're out of luck...

Wow, is that how it works?

What do non-drivers in Thermo Thinwall's country use in bars there?

Any other ID with demographic info? And some states will take passports but not native licenses. Roll with both!

And it's not like bars and bouncers are doing this to be dicks. They want people in there, drinking and spending money. Cops and liquor control boards conduct frequent stings, however, and if a bar is caught serving minors, they can be fined and closed for several days. Better to lose a few foreign tourists or college students than several days of revenue.

also let's face it -- the # of foreign tourists in cleveland is...not especially high
(not nonexistent obvs but hardly a vocal presence)

There are a lot of foreign nationals these days in the student bodies at CWRU and at the Cleveland Institute of Music. And on staff at University Hospitals and the Clinic. Not saying it's like some huge number but college students have been known to imbibe alcohol.

Ha, turns out you can find it online - 12% of the freshman student body at CWRU is international: http://www.case.edu/president/cir/freshmanprofile.html

i wasn't trying to be argumentative! but students aren't tourists anyway.

resto recs???

I liked Noodle Cat quite a bit and ate there 3 times but I also stayed in an apartment two doors down so. But really, it's great.

Prosperity Social Club was like idk p decent bar food but was SUCH a cool space and I loved being there so much, like I went alone for brunch and just sat at the bar and felt like I made friends w/ the entire staff just sitting there shooting the shit, it was a v warm and wonderful atmosphere, low key and friendly and not crowded

Happy Dog was also p magnificent

Barrio is a good "creative taco" kind of mexican place, very cool murals on the walls, good food, very good drinks

i think there are a few locations but i want to the one in lakewood

where u staying? car? budget?

for cambodian/vietnamese i love phnom penh on w. 25, fucking tremendous

i hear all kinds of awesome things about el carnicero, also in lakewood, upscalish tamaleria and taqueria

(btw i don't live there, i just visit yearly because all my folks live there)

im staying at the marriot which is near the convention center. i will have a car

budget is flexible, mostly looking for a place for saturday night that serves food later since i may not be free until 9:30

best food is in tremont and lakewood afaik, very good thing you will have a car

there is a barrio in tremont, they are definitely open late for food

melt is another very popular late night (or anytime, really) food spot, good beer list and they serve grilled cheese in all kinds of ways, it is extremely popular though some people are very anti-melt

they have locations all over cleveland, i've only been to the lakewood one

Noodle Cat that marcos mentioned is like a 2-minute walk from your hotel, and they have a "late happy hour" menu where you can eat cheaply. They're open until 11pm. Just around the corner from there is the E. 4th entertainment strip with a bunch of restaurants open until at least 11pm - Greenhouse Tavern is p. good there.

xp I live just up the street from Melt in Cleveland Heights. We go there a lot just to hang at the bar, they have v. cool bartenders.

E.4th has restaurants - very close to where you are - they tend to be pricey (I like the Greenhouse). Szechuan Gourmet in Little Asia I like. Superior Pho is also good.

Noodle Cat that marcos mentioned

this was stevie! just want to give credit

Public Square is now closed for reconstruction, as a driving fyi.

Melt was great, gimmicky but delicious, A+ would recommend

Lamp if you like divey gay bars there's a place called The Hawk that is actually legit my #1 gay bar in all of America bcz the first time I went they were blasting Kraftwerk deep cuts and whisky sours are $2.50 and there's a claw machine and like 3 diff dudes tried to pick me up, so seedy, so fun, but still well lit and totally not threatening

also next door is Now That's Class which is a REALLY divey punk bar

I'm so glad you went to all the places I told you about Stevie! Next time, WE'LL DO IT TOGETHER

so i've recently learned that cleveland is the 'sixth city'

presumably nyc is 1, chicago is obvs 2 and we seem to have stopped numbering cities before la came into its own

so what are the others? philly, detroit . . . ? sf?

It WAS, at one point, 6th in population, and I guess they won't ever let it go. Now it's more like the 48th City. There's no way Cleveland is the 6th ANYTHING city apart from "emptiest" or "most boring".

No one is Cleveland calls it the 6th City. I only learned about that moniker after I saw it on an antique postcard.

And fu Stevie! You had a great time there ya punk!

hahaha okay okay I had an alright time there, I did some fun things, but the city as a whole was kinda womp-womp

Says a Philadelphian.

You gotta have a Clevelander with a car show you around. Things are really spread out.

LOL at a Cleveland, OH advertisement in a Washington, D.C. metro station.

"More LIVING than COST!" *picture of pretty 20-somethings drinking craft beer and showing off their porcelain veneers*

Which DC metro station, you ask?

Cleveland Park, obv.

Pretty sure the pretty ppl are all white, but I will double-check tomorrow when I board the metro at CLEVELAND PARK in Washington, DC

I could buy a nice house there with the change I have rattling around the bottom of my purse. But it would be so close to my parents.

Columbus, Ohio advertises on the Washington DC Metro subway too

Would Ohio even take David Brooks? They are more than welcome to him.

i love cleveland. i think about moving back there all the time. all my folks live there and are pretty committed clevelanders so they are plugged into all kinds of cool things happening with art, music, food. as an outsider visiting though i think it would be tough to immediately get a sense of things, it is also so spread out and you can't really walk between the various happening neighborhoods. also even with all that is happening there i will be honest and say it is a rough struggling city for sure. though in its struggle it is not that different from pretty much any rustbelt city and in many cases is doing much better than others. i'd still rather live in cleveland than any other OH city for sure. i mean even in that whole IN-MI-OH-eastern PA-eastern NY stretch id still pick cleveland/

living in boston i am pretty used to a bustling active city and i am def reminded of cleveland's shittiness when i drive through desolate sections of the city but tbh the cost of living is pretty serious, you can get a sweet fucking gorgeous beautiful house in great neighborhoods for less than $200k. you can't get that in boston. you probably can't even get a shitty 1br condo for less than 200k.

"eastern PA-eastern NY"

woooooooops meant western PA-western NY obviously

goddamn, the A+ lapdance i got at a now-gone strip bar here...

I'm going to be here for a few days in early October. Recommendations for record stores?

Any other recommendations are welcome too. I know nothing about Cleveland. Think technically I'll be staying in Cleveland Heights.

Bent Crayon used to be the place to go for electronic records used and new— haven’t been in more than a decade but I doubt it has changed much.

Zubal and Mac’s are the decent bookstores that I know of.

also i don’t know you well but if you enjoy thrifting at all, the thrift stores in Cleveland are among the best in the US.

that's a good tip, thanks. i do a lot of thrifting out of necessity basically, but it can definitely be fun sometimes too

zubal looks like it's just across the street from a pupuseria = :)

i'm seeing an old family friend who has insisted we go to the RNR HOF but i'm really hoping i can talk him out of it

that’s the other thing— Cleveland has really good food!

My Minds Eye Records
Blue Arrow Record and Books

Collision Bend for the river views (decent beer and food as a bonus)

The Art Museum is really nice and free. They have food/beer/wine there.

Szechwan Gourmet (Asia Town) for Szechwan food and there's Barraco (Lakewood) for Arepa's.

*Barroco

thank you!