You Are Here # 1

You Are Here # 1

Tara Zeigler
27 years old
Sales Representative, Toms of Maine
Lakewood resident for 3 years.
Moved here from New Castle, Pennsylvania via Baldwin Wallace College

Favorite Place: Lakewood Dog Park

"So, one of the…things I think is very cool about Lakewood…there is a good renter population. And maybe, you know you don’t want it to be overwhelming and in Lakewood it’s often teetered on being too much of a renter population, but the cool thing with it is that you do get this regular infusion of new people and new ideas. So Steve and I are kind of part of that population. And it’s not so bad having a part of your community where people are [going to] come in and they’re [going to] rent for a little while. And you know what, maybe they are [going to] move on to somewhere else but then you get new people that come in and replace them so you constantly have, and some of those people will stay, some of those people will definitely stay but it’s what keeps the communities vibrant and interesting and a good mix of ages and all of those things. So I think there’s this misconception that if anybody moves out it’s a bad thing. Not necessarily true because somebody else is going to move in. That’s my little soap box. I just get so tired of hearing that, like oh, we [have to] make sure we keep everybody here. But I think…people do move into Lakewood pretty regularly. I’ve heard of more and more people deciding that this is where they want to raise their family, this is where they want to stay. I mean the Lakewood schools are still very good. So, you know, it’s a good mix. And that is a nice feature of it cause a lot of other communities in the area…inner ring suburbs do not have the quality of schools Lakewood has."

Steve Gross
28 years old
Software Developer, Case Western Reserve University
Lakewood resident for 1 year.
Moved here from Massachusetts and Virginia via Cleveland Heights

Favorite Place: Lakewood Dog Park

"I like the fact that we can have a lakefront apartment for not a fortune, wake up every morning and see the sunrise over downtown I mean it’s just astounding…you know our windows face east, [sort of] northeast and the sun’s just right behind downtown, the light is usually lit up on it, bright yellow. And actually, do you know about the light effects on downtown in the evening? In the evening we have a lot of, it’s pretty cloudy around here and you get a lot of cloud cover most of the time. So the cloud cover sits at a couple thousand feet and there’s a point in sundown where the sun drops below the cloud line and if it shines directly on downtown, I’ve tried to capture this with my camera, downtown lights up like a city of gold, but everything else around it stays dark. That’s pretty interesting."

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You Are Here* is a project that highlights what Lakewood residents think and feel about their city. We feel that a project like this shares a great affinity with many of the community efforts beginning and ongoing in our city. We are witnessing the emergence of an engaged, pro-active and committed community dedicated to creating the kind of place that we want to live in. But the question remains: who are you? To that end, we would like to use this project as a forum to meet as many Lakewood residents as possible. We would like to photograph you in your favorite place in Lakewood and discuss with you what you feel makes Lakewood a special place. These biographical vignettes will regularly be published in the Lakewood Observer. Publishing them in the Observer means that you get to share, and other people get to learn about, who you are and what you feel makes Lakewood a special place. Ultimately, a quilt of individuals and experiences will be available to all who live here, and those who do not live here yet, strengthening the sense of community that is Lakewood, Ohio.

Are you interested in participating? Contact Jason and Kristine at lakewoodandyou@yahoo.com.

*A photo-documentary project highlighting the individuals who live in the city of Lakewood, Ohio.