BlackTable Ohio
Appropriately enough, Ohio has just been profiled on BlackTable.com in their “Six Things You Didn’t Know About” series, which has so far featured Texas and South Dakota.
The six things in this article are:
- the non-accent newscaster’s accent is from the middle of the state
- it’s where the Wright Brothers worked and has a big aviation museum
- sneakers are thrown bola-like at overpass struts to mark out territory instead of at lamp posts like they do at 2nd Avenue and St. Marks Place
- rock-n-roll has a great heritage in Ohio, in part because “there’s just not much else to do”
- there are a lot of lawn decoration, including gnomes and flamingos
- the Ohio and Michigan militias almost fought it out around 1836 for Toledo.
We’re actually flying there on Saturday to look at apartments. Most of them are in the Downtown Cleveland area, with a few in the eastern suburbs like Beachwood. The more interesting places are The Statler Arms, The Bingham (a forum discussion here), (pricier) Quay 55, where I will learn how to pronounce “quay”, and The Four Seasons in Beachwood. These are all “luxury” developments, with an in-suite washer/dryer, covered parking for some nominal fee, and a fitness center. I’m leaning towards having a fitness center on the premises, because Downtown gyms like FitWorks closes at 8PM and isn’t open on Sundays.
The things we have to look for in the neighborhood have to do with convenient services and amenities, like a nearby grocery, something like a Duane Reade, a bank, stuff like that. Commute time is also important, though we won’t get realistic times this weekend. The Downtown apartments should be 10-15 minutes away, and Beachwood is about 20-25 away. Covered parking will be important, mainly because of the snow and the early hour residents have to be at the hospital.
We still have to find an area guide book. Barnes & Noble is relatively scarce, with Borders being more convenient, mainly in the Cleveland Heights and Beachwood suburbs. We’ll need a laptop and wireless for our trip, and we’ll probably use the free CWRU wifi network to get access.
Update: A quick Avis calculation for my own move this summer, after Grace goes with the bulk of the furniture, shows that I can get a minivan (from LGA to CLE picking up on Friday morning and dropping off on Sunday morning) for about $250 + tax. An intermediate sized car would be about $200 + tax. Just some more stuff to file away for a few months from now.