I went to Scottwood Elementary, Columbus public. Then we moved to Whitehall, I wasn’t thrilled about it. My brother still attended Columbus public. I was kind of irritated by that. I wanted to be with my people, my friends. I felt like I got taken out of my element. Although there were some perks to being in Whitehall schools, I got to experience some things, I could not wait to go back to Columbus public. My ninth grade year was when they had a city-wide open enrollment. Anybody could go to whatever high school that they wanted to. As long as they could get there, they could go. This was a great welcome home for myself, to go back to Columbus public at Walnut Ridge. It was so crazy because all the people went to the schools that they wanted to. The gangs were high around that time. All the Bloods went to one school; all the Crips went to another. They started linking up with their cousins. But I was excited about it because I was around my people.

The east side has changed a lot. I remember a time when you could be in a neighborhood, open up your door, just have your screen door open and your main door open and people would knock and you didn’t have to deal with all the nonsense. The east side is family oriented, although poverty is starting to push out. I remember when poverty more or less resided in central Columbus but now it’s pushing out a little bit. The east side is kind of like what you see on TV with water fights, kids running in the streets, coming home when the lights came on, being able to walk the neighborhood with your crew and not worry about nothing. Riding the bus, going to your local mall or the flea market on Saturday. The east side was middle class American families, all cultures, all creeds getting along, doing their thing. The 80s and the 90s were pretty awesome. 2000, it kind of shifted.

The Coming Home festival – everybody who had left Columbus and moved out, this would be a community block party where you would reunite. People you hadn’t seen in ages would walk up and down the street. Listen to music, barbecue, everything. The Coming Home was like Comfest, but not like Comfest in any way, shape or form. It was like the Harlem party of the city. You would see your cousins, uncles, auntie, great auntie, meeting everyone, one big reunion. They had it every year. They had to shut it down because it started to get shot up because the generation above me in their 20s was going over there. You would see all the different styles of cars and the music pumping, but they started shooting out there so they shut it down. There’s always somebody there to ruin the party.

I would love to live in the King Arts District. Just because the memories, the things that made me fall in love with Columbus are being revitalized now. My father is the one that introduced me to the city and help me fall in love with the city. Don’t get that twisted, I would love to live there. The right house, the right character. I would do that. What my father used to do is when we were younger, we would go for a late night drive. He would take us around this whole city. That’s why I love the city at night. We would drive around the city, downtown. He would point and say what everything is. He would connect me to parts of the city. He would show me that parts of the city were an extension of me through him. He used to perform over at the Marble Game, or the Cannon Bar, because my dad is a singer. He was a known singer in the city. If you’re in Columbus you know Kenneth Latham. When we had the Coming Home on Mount Vernon, I’ve been there. Just to see all the communities come together and have fun. You hear the music playing from the Marble Game and all these different places. I would say my identity is in the King Arts District.

Weinland Park is doing great in that that there has been an intentionally built community that respects everybody’s gifts. A core principle that has led a lot of the resident engagement in a neighborhood which has seen crime and violence and disinvestment and vacant, abandoned properties and arsons, and all kinds of negative things that would make many people not want to trust the people living next door to them. As the neighborhood has physically improved, there has also been an intentionality about building the capacity of people’s individual ability to be successful in life, whatever that means for them.

What has been different in that neighborhood than in past efforts of neighborhood revitalization is this respect that everyone has a gift to give. Whether you're Ohio State or United Way or J.P. Morgan Chase or the Columbus Foundation or the City of Columbus that has been investing money in both services and improving real estate and fixing streets and dropping crime, there has been this respect and support for everybody’s gift. If your gift is you want to play football and start a football team, there is a moral obligation to give you the tools that you need, whether that’s literally equipment and supplies or it’s the financial tools, and you’re going to do a football team.

There are 37 residents of Weinland Park, almost all of which live in low-income or some kind of subsidized housing, who volunteer their time to make sure that the neighborhood has a football team and cheerleading program. I don’t believe that most people think that low-income people in subsidized housing are volunteering their time to give back to their community, and a football program and cheerleading program may not seem to be important in a neighborhood with vacant and abandoned housing and crime and gangs, but it’s what a group of people cared about, and therefore they’ve organized around that, and they’ve got 140 kids in the neighborhood that are participating in that program.

There’s an incredible level of participation. Ten years in, 60-70 people are still coming every month to a community meeting, not because they’re angry at what the city did or didn’t do, or because of an incidence of violence, people are coming out every month because they feel that there’s a way for them to contribute. That has been an incredibly supportive community.

Within the last 72 hours, I’ve had a Muslim traditional family that lives a block from me invite me to go with them to Egypt to visit family, me, an openly gay man, to go to with them. How often does that happen? I have ex-felons, people with sexual predator profiles attached to them on my block. I have people that are low-income, people that are college professors, and high-income people. All on my very block. Everybody speaks to one another with a smile, with a hello, and we have built community. It’s amazing to me – that diversity.

They are able to break bread and treat their neighbors who have different religions, cultures, incomes, everything – with a level of love and respect.I believe the most important story of Weinland Park is not about the reduction in crime and the number of vacant houses that have been fixed, it’s about the supports that have gone into place that have allowed the neighborhood to address it’s collectively owned neighborhood trauma and allowed people the ability to heal with their personal trauma. Therefore, they are able to break bread and treat their neighbors who have different religions, cultures, incomes, everything – with a level of love and respect. That is a narrative that is incredibly hard to put down on paper. That, to me, is the story of Weinland Park.

It’s good for international growth and I think it makes the city stronger and more open minded when you’ve got more points of view to consider.

I came here for Bank One, I worked there for six or seven years, went to 5th/3rd, went back to Chase. The employment situation has been strong here. It didn’t feel like I had to move to support the family. That’s been a real benefit of being in Columbus. It’s a strong employment market. A lot of different types of jobs for banking and government, IT. The suburbs are probably more weighted towards the upper middle class, not as much diversity.

Another thing I like we are incorporating more of the Hispanic, Somalian, Filipino kids in schools. It’s a pretty laid back, welcoming culture to a lot of different types of cultures. It’s good for international growth and I think it makes the city stronger and more open minded when you’ve got more points of view to consider when you want to do something, more voices that have a say, it’s better for the whole community. Thinking about places where there’s just a family or a handful of people that have been the elite forever and they’re always going to have the governing say. People don’t want to stay in places like that.

It’s pretty laid back. People are very supportive in schools. People really care about the community. There’s a lot of opportunity for people to get involved. I think that’s true in Columbus, too. Whatever passions you have, you can find a way to make a difference.  I was on the Uptown Review Board in Westerville. We have a historic downtown. For years I was on the board to make sure that the historic elements in the architecture were maintained. I was the chairman for two years. I was a baseball coach, basketball coach. I play in the worship band now. There’s great opportunities to get involved. It’s not so big that there’s not opportunities for people. You don’t have to be an expert or a virtuoso to play and be a part of the community.

My husband and I were driving back from the Blue Jackets game and looking over at the condos being built and saying that if we lived there we would be home already. So after thinking about it for a year, we bought a condo in the Arena District. We love it. It’s so much fun. The energy. I’m in my early 50s, my husband is in his early 60s. We’re grandparents, but living downtown, you just feel the same age as everyone else. We have neighbors in their 20s or 30s or 40s, and you don’t notice an age difference. When you go out to dinner or things like that, you feel younger. More vibrant. There’s things to do. You’re more electric and alive.

There’s some sadness of change in the Short North, that we love. But we’re trying to embrace the new Short North and the new Franklinton. We miss the galleries and restaurants and bars. The things that made it eclectic. You would never know who would be next to you, someone with tattoos and an alternate hairstyle or piercings, clothes that are unique. Everyone was just uniquely themselves in the Short North. A lot of that is gone. It’s a lot of pretty people. People just look the same. You still see some of the unique people come out, but I think they’ve all gravitated toward Franklinton. It’s just the uniqueness of the energy. I love seeing people being who they are. Even being around that atmosphere is energizing to me.

I grew up on the West Side, my husband came from a very poor background. We didn’t know how we would fit in living in a condo where there’s a lot of wealthy people. A lot of names that you would know, or their children. I wasn’t sure how we would fit in, since we’re just regular, hardworking people. We both put ourselves through college, worked hard. But there’s a community that lives there that is wonderful and amazing. It’s just because we all love where we live. We love to check out the new restaurants, the new plays, or the new things that are going on. We have this common bond because of it. It’s a community.

My interest is in seeing us become a city that is known for social entrepreneurship. Most of my career has been focused on how we can leverage business for social good. From that experience I want to be able to encourage our city to become what I call, “the Silicon Valley of social entrepreneurship.” One of the things that’s most exciting about Columbus is the spirit of innovation. As a social entrepreneur, every week at least, I go to a place like Bottoms Up coffee, talking to two young ladies who have a strong passion for leveraging their business to impact society in a positive way. Specifically, for them, they’re interested in reducing the infant mortality rate in our city. That is the type of energy that I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.

I live on the southwest side, right off of Harrisburg Pike. There’s not really a name to our neighborhood. If you were to compare it with Chicago, we lived on the west side of Chicago, which was a very dense urban area. Where we live now almost feels like country compared to Chicago. We love it. I think one of the challenges we have on the southwest side, the Hilltop area is having access to viable options in terms of where we spend our money to eat, what we buy. There’s really not a lot of options. There’s a handful of fast food options, but in terms of substantive, local places to go hang out and relax and enjoy yourself, there’s not a lot of options.

I came back, and as what often happens in Columbus, things kind of take you by surprise. No one really plans on coming to Columbus, but then things start working out. It begins to make good sense, because why would you ever leave California otherwise? Rent was exponentially cheaper, while still a great quality of living. And it was like, “Man, I knew this was going to happen. I knew I was going to come back and get sucked back in.” Because me and my friends in New York and California were from Columbus ourselves, and we joked that we would all end of living here again. It’s just so damn easy to live here. It’s not to say that people who live here aren’t capable of living elsewhere, but why would any logical person not take advantage of a really great place and the opportunity to live well, and not for an arm and a leg?

I was a bit sad to see Short North lose some of that really artsy-fartsy vibe. This was where all the super creative types were. It’s become more commercial, which isn’t in it of itself bad, but it’s all consumerism and capitalism. I don’t want it to lose that Short North quality, which is why I’m very proud of the Short North Alliance for keeping this the Short North and everything that it represents.

I learned that OSU had bought a great deal of real estate on High Street, and then shut down dozens of these iconic, gritty neighborhood shops and stores that were very iconic of the campus area. Those hundreds of thousands of people that throughout the week and on Friday and Saturday nights that were haunting those places, are now all going to be coming to Short North. There’s been a long-running plan from the developers up-top and the people with the big bucks to make things happen. There’s this big plan to drive a lot more business down into the Short North, which is why it has become so much more commercial and able to serve more people.

It’s a good thing, but I was around when it was the Den of Iniquity. When my mother was around, it was like the Red Lights district cesspool of danger. Night and day difference of course from its beginning to now, but somewhere in there it was this thriving place where artists and bands and creatives and weirds and queer people would go. As long as it never loses that, I’m fine with it.

I think bridge-building is always a willingness and a level of personal maturity in order to even have that conversation. Whatever the two sides are engaging over, we have opportunities to do so in Columbus. There are all these different opportunities that pop up. I know a lot of people who start home groups or support groups or get-togethers, even under their own homes. I have transgender girlfriends who have done that. There are art communities that meet to critique each other’s work. What I want to get across] is that where the conversation needs to be happening, there is a space and a willing heart in Columbus, OH for sure. There are warm, loving, inviting spaces for people who need support and are just looking to find that in the form of support groups or community centers or mentorship programs.

The transgender culture is the one community that is lacking in terms of organization or availability here. Not individually, there are many wonderful trans people here of all kinds. There are organizations, like the Ohio Transgender Group. Stonewall does represent the T aspect of that lineup as best as they can. It is a more conservative state. There are a lot of things on the docket and legislation that we keep seeing knocked down or pushed back or removed because of uber uber right-wing leadership who I guess find us very dangerous, which is crazy.
But I can’t think of many trans-specific events or places off-hand. Not that I want a tranny bar. I think we have a great deal of safety compared to other places. Again, you can always praise the progress that’s being made while still acknowledging the progress we need to go towards. Trans women of color are the most murdered minority group in the entire world. We’ve reached record numbers since January 1, 2016 in terms of specifically trans-hate related homicides. That fact still stands while I celebrate everything that all the groups are trying to do in town. Being trans myself, I didn’t even know what was available to me. I think a lot of trans women don’t know what’s available to them. You’re just left to figure it out for yourself in terms of your insurance, your health care, and finding the right doctor.

I’ve even thought to myself, “God, I just want to have all the girls over for dinner. And if they know others, bring them over. Let’s connect.” I could be like, “God, you know what it’s like to shave everyday and put on lipstick?” And they’ll say, “I know, right?” And that sounds so petty, but even just hearing stories about... Who’s your doctor? How did you find success here? Someone who’s in a loving relationship, hearing their story. Someone who’s a sex worker, and hearing their story. Someone who, just to get their body paid for, had to work this construction job. You hear all these amazing, brave, beautiful stories. I just want something like that to exist in Columbus so much.

One of the things that has come out recently is that as much as we are growing, we’re still one of the most segregated communities. It’s surprising in some ways because I don’t see that in my life. When you look at the education system and everyone in the suburbs, you do see that segregation that exists. We are economically segregated. That’s shocking and disheartening, but there’s opportunity for growth everywhere. It’s possible to make those changes. But learning that has been disappointing. How do we make that change? Recently, I visited OSU Star House, it’s like a drop in center for homeless teenagers. To see the numbers that pour into that space is overwhelming, to know that there are that many youths that live on the streets, that don’t have a place to go. Some do, but don’t want to. That’s disheartening. They’re not graduating from high school. They probably won’t go to college. Stuff like that is really tough to see. As much as Columbus is thriving.

As hard as it is to face those realities, I still feel like Columbus is one of the better places to be. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I would have left. There’s no reason to stay outside of the communities that you have, and my husband is here. If I didn’t believe that there was hope for change, why stay? I might as well go back to Youngstown and work in the communities there.

Everybody doesn’t believe or think the way you do. It can be a struggle sometimes. When you start dealing with people’s trauma, everybody’s not always in the space to handle it, so differences come out. You’re rubbing up against each other’s wounds. It can create some separation. I’ve definitely had those moments, especially with MarShawn McCarrel’s death. There’s been a divide because of that. It’s been an interesting space to be in. Sometimes I feel disconnected and sometimes I feel more connected than ever. I didn’t do a lot of the protesting, although I am for the movement, I wasn’t completely a part of that. Sometimes when you’re an artist and you don’t speak up for those things, it can come down on you. Because I walk this thin line of having a conservative faith, and I don’t always agree with what’s taking place in society, there can be a divide. I’ve experienced that. It doesn’t make you any less a part of the community.

We have to make people aware. Once they become aware, people open up to have those conversations. There is fear that surrounds them, but there are people here who are willing to do the work. I say that because I see it being done.

Being in seminary – the Methodist Theological School, so it’s not just a seminary where they train you to be a certain way – It’s very open ended. They would consider themselves very progressive. They are heavily involved in uplifting the LGBTQ community. Had it not been for that school and poetry, I might not have any connection with those individuals. I’ve come in contact with them and learned the things they go through. I’ve been in community with them. It means to do life with someone, and to not look at them as other. You have relationships, you become accustomed to their vulnerabilities, and they become accustomed to yours, and you have the hard and confusing conversations. I don’t think we should shy away from that stuff. But we do.

If I wasn’t living here in Columbus, I would stay here in Ohio, maybe Westerville. We’ve lived in California, lived in Ohio. I think Ohio is a pretty good place to work and raise your family. Here there’s not that craziness of being in a big city, and all the chaos that goes with that. So I gotta say that Westerville will be the place for me, in the future, to purchase a home and grow my family there.

Even though, going to good schools doesn’t guarantee you being somebody in life. It all depends on the person, how hungry that person is to make it out of where they’re at. So you can go out to Westerville, and they’re one of the top schools in the country, but if you don’t set yourself to succeed, you’re not going to do anything. There’s kids that went to inner city schools, and I, personally, can vouch for that, friends who grew there, and we made it out. We’re making it. We’re not multi-millionaires, but we’ve got a good life. So now that I have kids I want them to go to have a little more and better than what I had growing up. It’s amazing. Me, and other people that have struggled just to get a license. Y’know, those little things for me are the greatest. People take getting a license for granted. Somebody that couldn’t get a license and now can get a license is one of the best feelings ever. Knowing that you’re the same, that you have the same rights as other people. It’s great, it makes you want to work harder for the years that you spent waiting and getting the “no no no no.”

My father was forced to leave the country, to adjust his immigration status, and our family was broken up. And not just us. Hundreds and thousands of families, not just here in Columbus, nationwide. Everybody struggles. A lot of Hispanics need guidance and more education on immigration laws. I know it’s unlawful to enter the country illegally… but back when the first people came to America, why did they come to America? For a better life. So that same theme of immigration is still true to this day. And you know, we put on our happy face. But inside the house, it’s a whole different atmosphere. My mother, she’s here by herself, and she has to work here to maintain her house that she owns. The house is paid for and she doesn’t have any debt or anything like that. My brother, he’s married, has a kid. My sister, she’s married, has three kids. One of my sisters is in the process of getting married and my other sister’s just going to school. And even though we’re grown, we still need our father here. Right now we’re just waiting. It’s a long and expensive process. Thousands and thousands of dollars are spent on lawyers. There should be a little more education and a little less hardship, better ways to fix your status without breaking your family. I was fortunate to be an adult when my father had to leave. And my other siblings – we’re five but we’re all over the age of 18, and that made it a little bit better. Other people get separated and they’ve got newborns – and a lot of people hurt. A lot of people don’t understand the struggle you go through when your father gets taken away from you or your mother. And it’s not because they’re killers or they robbed somebody. It’s just that they chose to come to this country and give you a better life and they’re getting penalized. And I understand, it’s law and they broke the law, but there should be better ways to deal with situations like that.

The prostitution and drug use is apparent. It’s a fact of life. When I leave for work in the morning, I’ll pass anywhere from one to ten of what I would deem prostitutes. Sullivant Avenue is the busiest for the street prostitution where they do the business in the cars with the dudes. I found used condoms in my alley behind my garage. Just a couple of those. I found a crack pipe on my front porch. Somebody had thrown it out of a car window. Presumably. I’m hoping they weren’t on my front porch.

If you drive down Sullivant Avenue, you can tell who’s hooked on heroin. They’re strung out, they’re skinny, they’re usually white, they’re usually our age, they’re usually under 30. They look like death. It is a rampant problem. The bigger problem is that law enforcement is not going to be able to fix it. It’s got to be fix on the treatment side. Whatever your politics are, law enforcement will tell you that they can’t arrest enough people or search enough homes to solve this.

I still remember the first night when we closed on a Thursday afternoon. We didn’t have the dogs yet. We decided we would go grab a mattress and sleep there our first night. It was just the two of us. It was just a mattress in the front room. I bought a butcher knife and a baseball bat from Wal-Mart. I’m very anti-gun. Given the neighborhood I live in, I certainly could justify it, but I believe it makes me less safe, not more safe. But it was like, if somebody comes through the door, what do I do? Megan and I have talked about that, so we bought a couple big cans of mace and we keep one by the bed. We talk about what it would look like if somebody came through the door, what would happen. The dog would probably wake us up, we wouldn’t know what was going on. I’m gonna grab this, you’re going to grab that. Saying it out loud is weird. Most people probably don’t have to do that.

Urban revitalization is a contentious subject. Call it gentrification, call it whatever, but a true mixed income neighborhood is really hard to come by.East Franklinton, this part, used to be way worse than anything I’m describing over here. Over where I live. Then they came in and cleaned it up. This stuff doesn’t go away though. It just moves. So, a lot of it moved west of 315 and now they’re working on west of 315 and it’s moving up to the Hilltop, so the Hilltop has gotten really bad. Urban revitalization is a contentious subject. Call it gentrification, call it whatever, but a true mixed income neighborhood is really hard to come by. The Short North is not mixed income anymore, German Village is not mixed income, so how do you revitalize the neighborhood without pushing out the long-term residents? But at the same time, some of those residents need to leave, some of them are dealing heroin. That’s a tough question. Not everybody over there is great for the neighborhood and should stay. The other issue is that Franklinton is bearing an incredible burden serving the homeless and low-income people. It’s really not sustainable as a neighborhood, with how dependent it is on nonprofits for support. To me, there’s no fairness in that. Some of these people should be diffused out into the neighborhoods. Displaced on some level, but… I’m conflicted on that. The jury’s still out.

My first experience in Columbus that I truly remember and think back to was our first time in the North Market, which was in turn our first Jeni’s experience. This was 2003. I can remember to this day that Jaime and I split a duo of salty caramel and lemon yogurt. I remember thinking – because I was still having a bit of culture shock – that when we were in New Orleans, everything was funky, everything was offbeat, in a way that you see more commonly now in Columbus. But at the time, it felt like you had to really seek out the pockets of it. I saw Jeni’s and I thought it was interesting, so there must be people here doing something different than what other people do. It’s just not as prevalent, you have to seek it out. That was the first thing that I latched on to here in Columbus.

We’ve built the Jeni’s business as a community, and going all the way back to 2002 with Jeni’s and the North Market. You could go back to ’96 with Jeni and Scream in the North Market, going back to Jeni making the ice cream herself, serving to everybody on the floor in the market, having interactions and conversations with customers. It’s been the community of people, whether in the Market, the other vendors, or the people in town who decided to come back and tell other people about it and bring their friends. We could never do what we do the way that we’ve done it without the support of people within the community and people buying into it.

Even from an operational standpoint, the reason we have four seasonal collections throughout the year now is because of the ingredients that the vendors at the market had in 2002. So there was something about the community here in Columbus that enabled that. The thing about the Midwest is that we have proximity to an unbelievable amount of fresh produce. Maybe that wouldn’t have happened somewhere where we didn’t have access to such bounty and if those same farmers who are growing the fresh strawberries, if they hadn’t been at the market, maybe it wouldn’t have all come together.

I come to work, but I’ve got two young kids. I’m not out on the ground as much as I used to be. I don’t have the ability to right now. That’s the honest answer. When I was doing work that I didn’t identify with, that didn’t fulfill me in a certain way, I had to find connections elsewhere. That’s why I did that early community engagement. That’s where I got that. Now, I’m at a place where I get that through my work. So my cup gets filled pretty full here, then I add in the family stuff. There’s not room for much else right now. So while I am disconnected from an earlier community which I felt really tied to, right now I’m not at a place where I can be an active and engaged member of it. Not that I don’t identify with it anymore, it’s just not a reality that I can live.
At the same time, I see people out there doing it. Wolf is a great example. Sometimes we’ll joke that Wolf is like a younger me. We’ll see him doing so much stuff around town. Kudos to people who can keep doing that with young children. I haven’t figured out how to do that. We’ve got a group of friends who have kids. So now I have a birthday party to go to every weekend. I guess we’re in the tribe of young parents. Maybe that’s it? My son is in Tae Kwon Do, so I guess I’m in the Tae Kwon Do parents community. I guess the community that I’m experiencing now has to do with being a young parent, to be honest. As uninteresting as that might be, that’s the reality right now.

The most important thing is bringing people together. Something that facilitates conversation. It’s so easy to have impressions or mis-impressions about people. Particularly online. Until you get face-to-face and have actual conversation, and share ideas and feelings and a point of view and actually get to know somebody. Just being real and connecting on a human level with other people. The very act of intentionally doing that is what then spawns that sense of collaboration. Being open and ready to share an experience with somebody. If time permits it. Being open to whatever happens to come your way. I don’t know if you’re a Charlie Rose fan, but there’s a great Bill Murray interview with him, it’s like an hour long. His whole thing is about being open to life as it happens. If you’re not walking around with your eyes open, the things you’ll walk by and opportunities that you’ll miss that may never happen again. It’s having an open mind, being vulnerable and sharing a piece of yourself.

Janeen: I think Chris and I are both good at authentically representing ourselves no matter where we are. And I think that is something we're also trying to instill in our children by putting them in lots of different situations with lots of different people. That's why we live here, and our kids go to school in the Short North, we go to church in Reynoldsburg, they go to camp at Franklin Park Conservatory and Far East Recreation Center. Right?

Chris: They get all of it. All races, all economics, all genders…

Janeen: ...So that they understand that everybody's life is a little bit different. And there's a way to make a relationship with everybody. You just have to figure out what your commonality is. There's always something. And they have to figure that out. Don't tell them though. Don't tell them that's what they're learning.

Chris: It's like making them eat their vegetables, but they like vegetables?

Janeen: Right. They find vegetables interesting so they eat their vegetables.

Chris:  They love reading. They were always told – I was always told – make sure you read to your kids every night, read to your kids, encourage your kids. But, I feel like those are things that were done to me, too.

Janeen: ....(whispering) they don't know...shhh...

Chris:  … so they are well rounded citizens…

Janeen: ....(whispering) don't tell them...

Chris: And they're super-smart! Goodness gracious.

Janeen:  Teach them how to take risks. Teach them how to solve their own problems.

Chris: They've been pretty good so far.

Our neighborhood is immediately bordered by the third largest population of Somali refugees in the country. I love that. That’s one of the reasons I feel good about raising kids in suburbia. Now I think it’s valuable that we’re going to turn a corner and Tommy is going to see, every single day, that not every house and neighborhood look like yours. This is what, frankly, most of the world is living like right now. I feel really genuinely fortunate that our greasy spoons are going to be like the Somali bakery up the road where we can go get coffee and a couple of pieces of sponge bread. Some real authentic places.

My bone to pick is that that’s such a huge population of Columbus, and whenever I see Columbus marketed or represented or talked about in media or conversations, it’s all about buckeyes, Jeni’s Ice Cream, Columbus zoo, Short North, German Village. We never talk about, or don’t talk about enough, the really diverse population that we have here. I don’t have any numbers to back anything up, but in my experience of Columbus, it’s a richly diverse city. I think it’s a big part of who we are as a city that doesn’t get celebrated enough. If anything, people tell you not to drive down Cleveland Avenue. It is rough, it’s depressing. Parts of it are bleak, but it’s also who we are. You could fly into the airport and see all the pictures of German Village, Short North, Victorian Village, Dublin, Powell, but also Linden!

Yeah, it’s in the middle of corn, but that means anybody with a brain or a heart or an idea or a drive to be a little different can flock there. They’re going to hang out there and do cool shit together. We want to keep doing our thing. We like the sandwiches and the beer and the restaurants and the nightlife and the parks and the library and the zoo and everything. It’s as good here as it is anywhere. We’re just not aggressively pushing it on people. We’re just like, “It’s nice, come on in.” There is probably a certain amount of, “Keep Columbus Weird,” but I don’t sense that there’s an attitude of Columbus used to be cool, but now there’s people who are looking to leech off of the vibe we had for a while.

We made a big loop around the city looking for neighborhoods to live in and we created something called the "negro friendliness index.” We'd go to random parts of the city and go into a CVS or McDonald's or Panera and walk in and we'd pay attention to the non-verbals of people when we walked in.

The truth is this city spoils you. Once you get used to not having traffic, how do you readjust going back to traffic? When you get used to going in and out of the airport with no effort or stress, how do you readjust to needing to go through effort and stress to go to an airport? When you get used to this cost-of-living?

In 2011 I created the Columbus chapter of Black Girls Run. (http://blackgirlsrun.com) It feels really good to me that I was able to create something that changed the way people respond. Because when you see black girls run at the city half marathon at the Columbus half marathon or whatever and people are like “oh my God we love the energy of Black Girls Run” that is a whole different thing. You don't know what it was like when everyone was like “there's that one black, crazy woman who runs.” It’s a whole different reality for them and I love that their idea of Columbus includes active, black women. Columbus is so easy to like and it feels really good to have added something that makes it an even better place to live.

When I came back in 2003 or so, I hated Columbus. I still don't like Columbus. We’re close to a lot of things that I do enjoy. Cleveland has one of the best film festivals in the country. Detroit Jazz Festival is one of the best jazz festivals, and for free, in the country. There's the African Cultural Festival of the Arts in Chicago, which is fantastic. So you're close to a lot of great activities without having to actually live in those terrible places.

Stefan: I feel like our story with Columbus was the benefits of a lack of choice, the benefits of assumption, as opposed to paralysis of choice. Kids look at twenty schools now. I looked at one. I don’t have any regrets about not having the choices. Our kids went to Academy, where the whole environment is that the world is your oyster. They might stay in Columbus. Most academy kids end up coming back.

But I would almost not be as happy. I don’t wish it for them, I don’t not wish it for them. But I don’t wish it for them, because they would be staying in Columbus while seeing the whole world is an option. We stayed in Columbus because we didn’t have other options. If they look at all those other options and end up here, that’s great. There’ll be grandkids and a close knit family and all that is great. But I want them to go and have their own adventures because we expect them to. I think that we’ll retire and we’ll live in Columbus.

So that’s the plan. We’ll die in Columbus.

I hated it. I hated Columbus when I first got here. I spent a lot of time on the weekends at home. It was different, culturally. I was surprised how different it was at first. I didn’t really feel accepted at first. If you were from here, and you knew people, you were good, but it took a while for me to get acclimated to the culture. Columbus sharpened me, politically. It forces you to get to know people or learn the lay of the land. So for a long time I just felt like an outsider. It kinda grew on me, though.

The canvas hasn’t fully been drawn for Columbus yet. It’s still trying to figure out what it’s going to be, in terms of this big city. And I’m a part of that fabric and trying to help the city.

What I did notice, me and my partner, we still didn’t find – and don’t find – many people of color in those spaces. When we would go to design conferences and events, we would be one or two of very few at those events in these industries where we know some very dope, creative people of color. Why aren’t they here? And so it took me back to my freshman year where it was this issue of culture within the design community. And then, ten years later, when I was adjuncting at CCAD that same culture was on display as somebody’s thesis. You’ve got graffiti and hip-hop culture being featured as a thesis work. And we noticed that when we’d go to this great conference in Cleveland called Weapons of Mass Creation, and this stuff is like really fun and really inspiring and really great design, and we aren’t in the picture, but our culture is there. We were doing this stuff on club flyers back in the day and it wasn’t accepted in the design community, and now these people are making money with the NFL and things like that. But we’re still not looked at as influences within our own industry.

I live in the Long St./King-Lincoln/Bronzeville area. I really love the history and the culture of that area. I tell people, if you’re willing to deal with some riff-raff, it’s a great area to live in. And it’s weird because you have extreme affluence and abject poverty right next to each other. One street is historic homes, very affluent people live in them. And then the next street over you have people barely eating, barely making it.

I come from a very similar neighborhood in Cleveland. So that empathy is real. Yeah, I was a knucklehead when I was 15 and 16, and I did stuff I shouldn’t have done. I’ve experienced that. I know what it’s like to not have lights and to be on the verge of doing something you deplore just to get by.

There are some challenges that any inner-city neighborhood has to deal with. I tell people to invest. That’s the only way to see change and make change, invest in the community. And don’t push people out. Educate ‘em, empower ‘em, show ‘em how they can take pride. Even if they’re renting. It’s better to make the investment, not just in land and property, but in helping to build a community that’s accepting of all people in the area. It’s very complex. It’s not just getting rid of the riff-raff. We need to really look at this introspectively. You’ve got three or four schools within that area.

And you’ve got kids who are hungry, and by the time they hit eighth grade and they’ve been dealing with it for years, some of them are working to support their families. What looks like apathy is really just survival. I think the biggest thing we can do is provide exposure. Some of those kids have never left the neighborhood, never left the city. You’ve got the art museum right there, they’ve never been to the art museum, they’ve never been to the King Arts complex, which is right there. For me, it was exposure. I had great parents, they exposed us to things outside of my neighborhood. It showed me another path, another way.

I had tried to get in to the army college in Jordan, and I couldn’t, because of politcal reasons. I tried everything to go in the army, but it was a decision made by the King. We are from Palestine. My dad is from Palestine, and he served in the Jordan army for twenty years. I was born in Jordan. But that year, the decision came that the army would be only for Jordanians. I was born in Jordan, and my grades were higher than the required grades for the college, but they told me “Do not try. It’s not you, it’s where you came from.” And since that day, until now, not one Palestinian got accepted into the army college. It was a decision from the king. That’s all I wanted to do in Jordan was be in the army. So, I came here and I went to college.

In Jordan, it’s very hard to get a visa to come to America. I got the visa when I was in the 11th grade and they gave me a year. So, the last test, I had two days left on the visa. So I either have to come here, or go back to the embassy to renew the visa, which I know they’re not going to renew it, because they know that I’m going to come to America and stay.

When you’re in middle school, kids ask - “You don’t believe in Jesus? You don’t celebrate Christmas? You don’t get Christmas presents?” It’s the stuff kids really care about, discussions like that. And then as I got older, it’s “You don’t drink? You don’t have a girlfriend? If you don’t have a girlfriend how are you going to get married?”

So let’s say me and Matt had history. He bumped my car, we got out, we fought, Matt got the better of me – so me and Matt aren’t friends. If I walked in and I saw Matt and I started to fight, in our culture Atef, because he’s the host and Matt’s a guest in his house, he has to defend Matt.

When we moved to Grove City, I was there like a week before two kids came into the bathroom and said “We’re going to beat you up.”

I don’t actually live anywhere on campus; I still live out in Grove City. But I go to OSU. There’s like old town Grove City, which is like here, and then there’s the new town which is near the highways. I’m in the more suburby area. There are some areas in Grove City that are super spacious and a lot of farmland, but I’m more where they have a lot more housing developments.

Grove City itself, the old town, has a good amount of history to it, it’s been around for a while. But the new stuff is all commercially based. It’s all big fast food areas and hotels and stuff like that because we get a lot of highway traffic through Grove City. A lot of people have to make quick stops and leave. I learned that mostly from when I worked at a gas station and saw how many people file through.

I think Columbus is really fertile. There’s a lot to be had here. There’s a very good community here. Being from Grove City I feel like I’ve been a little outside of the city a times. To be in the city of Columbus and to be involved in it would be something very exciting. There’s also the weight of the fact that I’ve always been here. At least for a good chunk of my life, growing up. The connotations that I have with the city are extremely personal. With my family and all that stuff. I’m very tied here.

I think that I’ve probably known more people who have ended up staying in Columbus too. That’s maybe the key phrase, “ended up.” I don’t know how people would react if I were to stay I’m, “staying in” Columbus, rather than life happened and now I’m here. I don’t know, I’d have to ask some people and figure out what they’d have to say.

There are little pockets of stuff like that around Columbus. I feel like a good way of making my mark would be to find a way to connect all those. I guess this wouldn’t be leaving my mark, but affecting my experience of Columbus, would be tapping into those things. I’ve never seen the Columbus Orchestra, or I’ve never seen an opera here. These little things that we do in Columbus that we’re aware of, but we never go seek out. Staying in Columbus will give me an opportunity to experience those. It’s almost like I’ve always been with the community of Columbus, but I’ve never engaged with it. Staying here would be like an engagement with it.

My six words story was, “Red state woes, blue city grows.” Let me give you a little bit about my background. I grew up in Lancaster, Ohio, which is a Republican stronghold. My parents were incredibly religious and incredibly conservative. I grew up in the homeschool movement. I was homeschooled for pretty much my entire school experience. I was also segregated and separated from the rest of my peers at that time, because my parents were afraid of the corrupting influence of the world around them. All I ever knew about Ohio was people that sucked the dick of George Bush and anybody else who was walking in his shadow. I kind of lost hope on this state and I wanted to move away from here.

I had a lot of friends who lived up in Columbus, and I ended up going to Columbus a couple times. I just ended up finding that it was a completely different experience than everything else I’ve known. It’s very progressive, very openly gay, which is great. I’m not gay myself, but a lot of my friends are. I’m very inclusive of them in my lifestyle. There was none of that where I grew up, just 45 minutes away. My opinion of Ohio changed when I moved to Columbus. I think the city had definitely changed a lot since I moved here in 2013. I spend the majority of my time here, even though we moved outside of town. Especially the maker scene and the beer scene. I feel like there’s a lot of groundswell movement coming in here, and a lot of new creativity. Creative people tend to be more progressive. I feel like a lot of progressives that moved to other places like Austin and Portland, cities like that, are coming back to Ohio and starting their own thing. Fox in the Snow was started by people from New York City. I feel like there’s a big undercurrent of creativity going through here, and that breeds progressivism, which is really good. I feel like Columbus is still a balance between that and a lot of old money Republicanism. Although it’s more progressive than in the rest of the state.

Columbus was founded right here in this very spot, 1797, the village of Franklinton. Columbus was called Wolf’s Ridge, and from the very beginning, Columbus was a planned capital. One of the only planned capitals in the entire country. It was going to be called Ohio City, but after a night of drinking in a bar that was probably really close to here, one of the guys decided that they wanted to name it Columbus after Christopher Columbus, which was a bad decision, because Columbus was an asshole, but they didn’t know that back then. I’m sure they had the best intentions in mind.

Ohioans are resourceful and scrappy, we don’t have all the money that comes from the West Coast and the East Coast and all the industry, but we do have industry. We work with our hands. A lot of us were famers, a lot of use were trappers and pioneers a long time ago. That blood has been with us for generations.

The economy has been really shitty for people like me. Millennials. We realized that we can be disruptive to that. People like us want to buy from people like us. They don’t want to keep buying from the same people. I feel like Ohio is really poised to be able to do that. Columbus is a progressive place with progressive ideas, and people are able to inspire each other to do awesome things. Property taxes are low compared to other cities, prices for rent are low. It’s still an emerging market, so it’s easy to start something. My wife has a soap company. There aren’t that many soap companies here, so she’s able to build up a pretty big following. Go to Moxiemadeco.com. Best damn soap you’ll ever have. I use it every day. I’ll never use anything else.

I almost forget this now, but one of the adjusting things at the time was that I was also interviewing for a job in Portland, Oregon. Career-wise and still being closer to family and friends in New York and the Midwest, Columbus made more sense. But, everyone knows about Portland, everyone knows about that reputation. And a lot of friends in the end were shocked that I chose not to go to Portland. But I think it was the right move.

At first when we moved here, I was trying to meet people and doing so much, so I was really getting out, at least around Franklin County – or even to Polaris and in the immediate suburbs. Over time as I've gotten settled in and built up my friendships and other connections like that, I feel like I have gotten a little bit lazier.

If you live in a place like New York, you're competing for housing with Russian billionaires, and South American trust fund kids, and Chinese entrepreneurs. You're competing with the whole world for housing, for theater tickets, to go to this venue or that restaurant. And you don't have that kind of competition in Columbus. The vast majority of stuff like good restaurants, good coffee – that's available in a lot of places now, including here.

The thing about walking is that you can let your mind wander and just observe, and you're not… you start the workday when you get into the office. But when you're driving feels like the workday starts as soon as you get in your car. With walking and bicycling as well, it's a different mentality. You're just a little bit more relaxed and you have time and space to think a little bit. You see everything going on. You see some of the development things happening, you see the for sale signs, you see people on the street. There have been times that I've been a little bit late to work because I run into people I know, and then you stop and chat, and then you run into someone else again. It's a lot more social to walk than to drive in, where you’re just in your little bubble.

It’s really nice. I like it cause there’s a lot of stuff going on like people are really friendly. You could do stuff in Clintonville. It’s like this more artsy neighborhood. I like to just walk around all the shops and sometimes go to the food trucks with my friends… like Global Gallery and Pearls of wisdom… you can just sit in there for like an hour and they play like séance-y kind of music. It’s really nice.

I like getting to help other people and other causes and stuff. I don’t do as much anymore. I used to go to Cat Welfare sometimes and get them stuff for the cats and we adopted our cat from there, I run in the 5k and get other people to too. And then in elementary school me and my friends got this petition together to get our school to recycle and compost and stuff cause we were bored. We were just bored and it was indoor recess so we were like, “You know what? We’ll just do that.” But I don’t think they’re still doing that. We did different charities with my school through The Clintonville Community Resource Center and stuff where you get everybody in our school to like donate something for them. So I thought that was fun.

I’ll probably go to OSU and then either travel for a while then come back here or just stay here. I like Chicago, it’s huge and I like that you can see all these different people going through everything different at the same time. There’s a really sad person, there’s a super happy person like getting engaged to some other person, and standing on the same street. I like that. In Columbus there’s a lot of people but usually they’re all next to each other like this. Like everybody’s next to each other but they’re all really happy… not saying that I don’t want people to be happy.

Columbus is my favorite city. That’s five. Columbus is my favorite… place… ever… no, that’s only five. Columbus is the best place ever.

I told myself that if all else failed I would go to Columbus, because Columbus has an incredible, saturated theatre scene. I came to Columbus and got an apartment here like two streets down in the Short North. Just a little dinky hole in the wall. Honestly, it was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made. The goal was to build a resumè. No matter what that was. This community is so welcoming and so good to new actors and people who want to give acting a try. I don’t know what your experience has been like, but this place is great. Ohio’s always my home, and Eli kept telling me how great a community it was. This place felt so big when I moved here. If anything, this would definitely be the best place to get a start, get used to city living, get used to theatre and film. I think it’s a good foundation, a first step. At least it was for me.

That’s the best part about Columbus. Before I moved here, I thought that the focus would be just acting. This is what I’m going to do, this is how I’m going to do it, and I’ll do it for a while and then I’ll move on. However, I found that there’s so much more to it. These crossovers in art forms, these collaborations between theatre companies. Everyone seems to not just know everyone, but support one another. You get more art done that way.

This community wouldn’t be what it is without the passion and the drive. I couldn’t imagine being able to focus on anything more than acting if I were in a bigger city. You just need laser focus. Here, the city’s not quite big enough yet that the theatre companies are far away. I hope it never gets to the point where they are separated, because that’s the best part about Columbus. My girlfriend works at CCT, now I work at CATCO. It’s so interesting to make connections between different theatres. I know Short North Stage does Dark Monday, where all the theatre companies come together and perform just a highlight piece from their season. That’s awesome. There’s this thing called the Jebby Awards where – I had no idea it was a thing – but it literally brings community artists together to celebrate the art.

Hopefully as it moves forward into the future, that unity grows stronger. I feel like Columbus is far from being tired. It’s got a long way to go and it’s just going to keep going.

I’m a junior. It’s so cool. I’m more comfortable in a city now. A lot more independent, just being able to drive downtown all the time instead of staying in Hilliard where there are just cornfields. But it’s really cool. I learned so much about Columbus that I didn’t know. I used to hate living in Ohio and I thought there was nothing to do, but there is SO much going on that I was completely unaware of—just things like this! So it’s definitely opened my mind up to that.It’s called Mosaic, the program I’m in. And we’re all encouraged to go out on the weekend and discover Columbus. We have a really big Facebook page and they put whatever events are going on and so I’m volunteering and stuff like this. We call them Mo dates.

I love just like… I’m in an art community that no one knows about. Our art and music and our poetry community is so strong…And no one realizes it. It’s just really underground and its really cool. I just hope it gets more cred! You know what I mean?

When I worked for United Way, there was a panel discussion focused on new Americans, from different African countries. A pivotal moment for me was when a professor on the panel, I think he was from Ghana, said, “African Americans have a responsibility to new Africans Americans, to reach out to them and to help them.” And I was like, “Wow. I thought that y’all didn’t want to have anything to do with us, basically.” So that was a mental shift for me. My struggle, one of them, seeing specifically Somalian people and people from different cultures, I need to reach out and say hi. At one time I was volunteering, doing ESL for Somali women, because I had this awkward feeling, walking around, I didn’t know if I was going to do something wrong, or offend them. So for me it was a first step towards breaking that wall. That centers around my identity, my Afrocentric, Pan-African responsibility.

Larger than that, it could be done for different sides of town. It could be an open house to rotate around to different neighborhoods, and invite people in.Each neighborhood is in it’s own silo. I feel like there’s a lot of pride in individual communities and individual neighborhoods, but people don’t go outside of that. So when I think about people who work downtown, and live in Dublin… they don’t ever come down to the city. Some people say that, especially executives, they say, “Outside of work I’m never down there.” Or is you’re from the west side you might not going to the east side, because you have no reason to. Nothing you need is there. I just wish there was more communication and interaction between the different sides of town. Especially as new communities are coming in, new immigrants… It would be more valuable for everyone, coming together and having a place where they feel comfortable and safe. So people can start to build those relationships and not just stay in their own segmented areas. But that’s hard. Sometimes people just want to be where they’re comfortable, and if there’s similarity with others, it makes them feel that way.

I’m in the salsa community. It’s really diverse. People from all walks of life are there. Being a dancer and an instructor, has given me the opportunity to have friendships and interactions with people I wouldn’t normally know. People from different cultures and different countries. For that little moment, you’re dancing and you’re communicating without saying a word. And that’s really cool.

I wish the different theatre circles would communicate with each  other a little more. When I started acting in Columbus, it was all black theater. And that was totally different, a whole other sector of theatre, and there was really no going in between. So there’s a black theatre community, and there’s a larger, mainstream, white-oriented theatre community, and I’m involved in both of those.

And there’s a young, black, professional type of crowd that does artsy things like poetry and spoken word, being aware of what’s going on in the community from the Afrocentric point of view. I’m also part of the non-profit world, from a career that I had working at United Way. People that are thinking about philanthropy and giving back to the community. Those are my big circles, and then outside of that there’s my family.

Collin found out about the Franklin Development Association. He made lots of calls, bugged the crap out of Jim Sweeney. And they were building these two houses, and Collin said, “I’ve been driving around, looking at this neighborhood. I really wanna move there. Let’s go look at this house.” So we walked through the house, and we met our neighbors and talked with them. And we happened to meet the lady who lives on the other side. Collin did the research on what it would take to put down a down payment, and what our mortgage would be. And when he brought the mortgage to me, it was like… We can’t not do it.

I became really interested in the area because of the different social issues, from the perspective of social justice. Collin has always been attracted to the revitalization of it. We argue about it. There’s a part of me that’s resistant to the gentrification, because I think that there are good people in this neighborhood that are going to get kicked out when their landlords raise the rents. Collin looks at it from the perspective that people like the guys in this house behind us, who are running drugs, they’re going to get moved out. It’s an ongoing debate.

I was really skeptical. What I knew of Franklinton and the Hilltop was that it was a really bad neighborhood and that it was pretty dangerous. The mortgage helped sell it to me, but also driving here. Because people sat out on their porches, and people waved at us when we drove by. It felt so much more like a community here than I ever felt living in Arlington or living in Clintonville. And I like that feeling. But the debate still is ongoing, even though we’ve been here for two years.

I really imagined that it was going to look more like Milo-Grogin. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t feel as threatening. In Milo there’s a lot of overgrowth, a lot of vacancy, which there is to an extent in Franklinton. Different groups have done a good job of reducing the vacancy. But Milo-Grogin just feels so hollow. You’ll see houses that are half-burned down and falling over. The lots are filled with tires and car-parts. And you’ll see that in Franklinton.

But, depending on where you are in Franklinton it can feel very different. North of Broad St. and south of Sullivant are completely different worlds. Sullivant feels like Franklinton the most because that’s the biggest stretch with prostitution. On days that are nicer like this it feels less like Franklinton. It’s pretty out, and people are outside, and things look nicer when it’s sunny out

Christmas Eve, we went to Collin’s mom’s house for Christmas. And we came home that night to our street covered in police officers because someone had shot the shit out of our neighbor’s house, the front of their house. We’re fairly certain it’s the house behind us, that they were making a statement, because these guys, our neighbors have no problem standing up to the drug guys. So we came home and… shell casings all over the street. Just like something out of a crime drama. And nobody said anything to us, like, “You need to move right now,” or “You’re staying with us,” or “We’re putting you in a hotel.” They just let us make our own decision, which was, obviously, to stay. As time has gone, I think their worries have decreased.

The first thing I felt was anger. I was really, really angry with whoever shot my neighbor’s house and whoever ordered them to shoot it up; because I had felt so safe and secure here for two years and I wanted this to be our home. We talked about it, about, “Do we move?” Ultimately it came down to… no, we’re fairly certain that was one isolated incident, that provided we don’t make a stink about “them” we’ll be fine.

Shocked. The me of two years ago would have been... I think when we moved to Franklinton we even had a conversation that was something like - if our house got shot, we’d move, we’d be done. So, yeah, a lot has changed in two years.

AA: My mom is from here. Her parents were from Ironton. My dad grew up in Nigeria. My mom went to Africa in college, and they met. Then they moved here and they had me, and so we’ve been here. My dad moved here in the winter. He’d never seen snow and he hated it, because it was super cold that year. He still doesn’t like winter.

ELA: We’ve been together since we were five all the way to being sixteen now. So we experienced the hippie, kinda artsy side at Indianola, and we met a lot of people who go to ComFest. And then at Ft. Hayes, there’s a lot more people who are interested in the arts more seriously, who have bands and write poetry. When you get to high school, there’s a lot more independence, so I feel like we were more exposed to people who were trying to find their way in with the professionals in Columbus, trying to be writers, and artists, and musicians. A lot of our friends know a lot of adults and they’re going to work their way into that world.

AA: There’s a lot to do here. There are always performances and festivals and new things coming around. It seems the same, because I’ve always lived here, but it’s also always growing a lot. My uncle writes about city planning, and he’s always writing about the new developments, which is really cool. I feel like if I stayed here it wouldn’t be like I would feel stuck.

AA: I’ve always thought about leaving Columbus for college and coming back. That’s what a lot of my family has done. While you’re younger you can go and live wherever you want, and then come back here and live the rest of your life.

ELA: Amina and I… I’ll always remember walking around this area, and by her house. You see all the fun parts of Columbus, all the arts shops and fun places. When I walk around here it makes me feel like I’m home.

Murray: I came from New York. It was 1961. Ohio State offered me a job. I grew up in the Bronx, I went to college in Manhattan. So, coming from a big city to here took a lot of adjusting.

Ellen: Tell the story about looking at the map.

Murray: There were no campus visits in those days, so I had never been to Columbus. I got a letter. That’s when I had to really check it out, look at a map of the United States and figure out where the hell Ohio is. It was so far to the right. I found that was metaphorical as well as literal.

Ellen: That’s the hardest thing about living in Columbus, not having walkable neighborhoods, not having shops within the neighborhoods. I know Mayor Coleman worked really hard at having more livable neighborhoods, but that’s the hardest thing.

Ellen: Culture has improved exponentially. Attempts to beautify the city more. Things like the Ohio Theatre are huge. The fact that there are buildings for music and dance and actual plays, that’s amazing.

Murray: When I came here, there was a Columbus Symphony, and I don’t want to be condescending, but it was what it was, which was not really first class. Now it’s not world class, but it’s first class.

I guess I just knew I was going to stay in Ohio, and I knew Columbus was a bigger city that was more liberal. When I moved here I didn’t know much about it. So I would see theatre or be involved with theatre a lot. We would hang out at old Mohawk a lot. That would be the late night going to get drinks sort of place. Obviously I’d go to gay bars too, the ones in the Short North like Havanna – that’s not there anymore. Union when it was in its old location, although I like the new Union still. I can see why they like the new one, but I have a lot of good memories about the old one. Being young and stupid, I suppose.

I really love Columbus. I don’t see myself leaving. The closest consideration I ever gave it was when I tried to long distance date someone. I might be stuck. Plus, my family is still a couple hours away. It’s far enough, but close enough. Especially because I’m a momma’s boy. Especially if you’re from Ohio, Columbus is a nice place to be to be close to family because its central. You can come here from any part Ohio and live in a more liberal, accepting, and understanding part of the state, but you can still go back and visit home and appreciate that too.

It’s a big city in name but it has a home town feel. That’s weird to say. I don’t want to dig on it. I don’t mean it as a weird backwards compliment. I do think Columbus is great. I just feel like if I say it’s not a big city then I’m saying something mean about Columbus, which is not what I mean. Maybe it gets a bum rap because of that. It’s part of why I love it, though. I wouldn’t want to live in a New York City.

I remember when I first moved here, my one friend was young and gay at 19, so we would look at the little magazine that had gay spots in it. Once we turned 21, we decided to try to visit every single one on the map. We did do a lot of them, but now there’s definitely less, and they change more. Wall Street’s gone, It’s crazy to think that.

I definitely think it seems tamer and more developed now. Compared to what I remember, but I don’t remember feeling unsafe. It would be very likely that we would walk from the old Union to Havana all the time. I remember thinking that off where Axis is was a little shady back in the alley, but that’s gotten less shady. I wouldn’t want to go walk by the park at night. Maybe when I was younger, especially. Once it gets dusk, I wouldn’t do it. You’d always hear scary stories about that. I don’t know if it’s as bad anymore. But you’d hear the same thing about Schiller Park, people would say you’d get jumped or something.

Jen: We live in Franklinton.

Joel: We live in West Franklinton. About three years.

Jen: It was an accident.

Joel: Yeah, it was kind of just happenstance. A friend of ours bought a house.

Jen: We needed a place. She told us we could have the house in exchange for rent. We figured it was a pretty good deal. Then we caught the rehab bug and bought our own house and rehabbed it. And that was three years ago.

Joel: We put so much love into remodeling our home and we were very particular and specific about how things were, just because it’s our house. We used a lot of crazy colors and did what we wanted to do with the house. We weren’t concerned with resell value or it looking “nice,” we just wanted it to look like our house.

Jen: Its sort of like a timeline of our relationship, room by room. It’s us learning how to compromise better, instead of one of us losing a fight and the room gets painted orange, or losing a fight and the room gets painted purple. It’s like we’re learning to blend our preferences.

I’m a drag queen in the Short North. I try to find any outlet creatively that speaks to me. Honestly doing anything artistic. Just being able to make my work physical and to be seen. Whether it’s through performance or through physical art.

New York City sounds interesting to me. Even if it was for a year. Or Chicago, because I hear Chicago is like a bigger Columbus. I really like it here, I’m comfortable here. The people are nice. Fashion-forward, creative, open-minded… Everyone can be who they are and not feel like they have to be in some box. That’s what I like about here.

I think a lot of people who live here don’t realize how interesting this city is. We take people on tours. We get tourists and visitors, but we get a lot of people who live here, and they’re constantly surprised by places that we take them to. They don’t realize the actual diversity of Columbus: they don’t realize the food truck scene or the micro brewing scene or some of the things that are kind of hidden away in different neighborhoods. It’s so easy for people to get in a rut of their day to day routine, and they go to the same places and are busy working and with their commitments, that often they just don’t have any opportunity to get out and explore.

The first thing that comes to mind, in part maybe because its Saturday, is going to farmers markets any buying food from people that grow it and people that make it, and buying something that’s local and seasonal, and going one week and they have amazing grapes and going two weeks later and the grapes are done for the season. That being in touch with the place and the seasons and the people, that’s something that’s really meaningful for me.

There are definitely are a lot of cities that have that. It’s interesting, I actually just met a couple that moved here today from Atlanta. They’ve moved back and forth between Columbus and Atlanta like three times, and they said nowhere compares to Columbus. Atlanta’s a big city and its more diverse, but I think Columbus has a sense of community and collaboration. It’s hard to articulate, but there’s something about the people in Columbus and the atmosphere and the ability to get involved and the way people do things extracurricularly. It’s very rare that I meet people in Columbus who just do their job and nothing else. I feel like there’s so many other people that run theatre companies, or are comedians, or write comic books, or have another job, or run a nonprofit. One of my theories is because in Columbus we generally don’t have those big commute times, especially if you live in Clintonville. or Grandview, or in the urban core, you have a couple of extra hours a day that people who live in really big cities don’t have. There’s just so many other things that people do in addition to what pays the bills.

I would have to say my favorite thing is the amount of space that’s here. My dad works in a place that’s a city, but where we live, it’s more like a suburb. It’s very spaced out, but when dad goes to work there’s less space. It’s fun to hang out in the city. We go to cool restaurants where they have good music and good food. We think that’s pretty fun. But I like the space in Westerville.

I know a lot about Columbus. We’ve apparently been building so many buildings. I think Columbus has a way of making old buildings into new structures. That’s pretty cool. I think it’s a very creative way of doing things. They have different types of parks. There’s this one big one where they have a sandbox way over in the end and this huge spider web thing. It’s big. But they also have little tiny ones for little kids. They have different playgrounds for different people, which I think is nice.

This might sound weird, but Columbus is a big thing of mystery, but fun, and everything that you can experience is amazing, but mysterious at the same time. Like, when it’s Christmastime and you’re driving around, Columbus makes it fun even if… it’s hard to describe. When you have fun at someplace that you don’t really think would be fun, it’s sort of a mystery why. I’d never really been to COSI when I was like eight-ish, because we were so busy with everything. Then when I finally went, I didn’t think it would be fun, but then when I came in it was fun. Some of the things were fun, but mysterious why we were doing it.

We have many amazing traditions that we do here. Two, we have many amusement parks and things that you can go to that are really fun. And three, Columbus is a place where you get to meet new people from different places. There’s people that come from Asia and France and England. They come all the way down to Columbus. I see them a lot around. I think that’s a very good thing. If you think about how many people from their country come to America or Columbus, it’s a new place where you can learn different things.

My mom also loves Columbus. She was going to get the same tattoo I did, but she chickened out at the last minute. She does have an Ohio State tattoo on her ankle. I don’t know why. I’ve wanted it for a while. It’s a cliché at this point to get this tattoo in Columbus. You see a lot of people with Ohio tattoos with a heart in the middle. Or some variation of it. I know people who have their zip code in there, or my friend has the number of his house when he was a kid on there. That’s a cliché, but I wanted it.

I’ve never been queer-bashed or sexually harassed in Columbus. Just walking down the streets. I have other places. Further proving my point that Columbus is better. I have a lot of positive memories. I’m single now, but when I was with my girlfriend of two years I would take her into Columbus when I wanted to lavish her with attention. We went to Florentine’s on West Broad street. We were clearly a couple and that wasn’t a problem.

Last June, the day marriage equality passed, my friend and I were going to see Walk the Moon, at what was then the LC Pavilion. Express Live. It’s such a stupid name. We went there, we had gotten dinner beforehand, and there were rainbow flags everywhere. The whole town was covered in rainbows. When we went to the actual concert, the news was on telling the story of the first couple in Columbus to get married. It was a lesbian couple; I don’t remember what their names were. Everyone had rainbow flags on. It was raining and no one cared because everyone was crying too hard. That was a good day.

I specifically wanted to do a three-year program at Loyola that was an MSW, a master’s in Women’s Studies, but I realized that I don’t really want to write a dissertation, which you had to do. If I didn’t want to do that exact program, there was no point in moving to a city that’s really unaffordable. My mom brought up the point that my cousin who also got her MSW at Ohio State has a job now because of an internship in grad school. The social work community is very tight knit and does not like to let outsiders in. If you do your social work stuff in Columbus at Ohio State, you’re more likely to get a job. It was more practical. Also, my mom has wanted me to go to Ohio State since she found out she was pregnant with me, so it was a lot of things. I had a lot of moments where the dust kind of settled and I realized that was the answer. I make a lot of decisions like, “Why not? I can stay in Columbus.”

A group here in Columbus called Vaudvillities I was in for almost twenty years, that adds a lot of meaning to my life, outside of going to work in and out and getting  a paycheck. A little enjoyment and hopefully some other people can enjoy that.. I’m trying to be good for something instead of good for nothing.

They’ve lived in Columbus, the Clintonville area, their whole life, only been downtown three times in their whole life. I think a lot of people are afraid of downtown. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. A lot of positive experiences can come from just getting outside of your box for a bit.

There’s a lot of people that have this mindset that it’s going to be dirty or dangerous or whatever. The only thing you ever hear about the bus is the girl who got shot in the eye. Not the thousands of people who get on every day and have no problems.

I think there’s something special about Columbus because I have a lot of connections here, locally, in the community, in the disability field — and it is kind of the hub for Ohio, being the capital city. And it’s centrally located. And we love what we do. I wish the airport had a little more access. I wish I could get somewhere without going somewhere else to get there.

It’s a very accepting city. I’m gay, so it’s a great place to live. We don’t really feel any kind of “difference” here. There’s not discrimination. All the political figures in the community are, at least as we speak, very supportive. Columbus was one of the first to pass domestic partnership benefits. That’s a huge thing for me. And that’s evolved over time. It wasn’t that way day one. I think it’s a lot more progressive than a lot of Midwest cities. I mean, it’s not Indianapolis for goodness sake.

I love the city in the summer. From the Arts festival all the way thru until now, the Independents' Day festival. I try to come every year. There’s so many opportunities to do things in the summer. I mean that’s when everything comes alive in the city. There’s outdoor music. I just went to the Topiary Garden for the first time in my life last week. We’re all over the city. We go downtown all the time. The Short North always makes me feel like a real city. You know what I mean?

When I was looking for college, I looked in New York and I didn’t like the whole concrete jungle sort of thing. I felt like New York was filled which a bunch of old tires. So when I was looking for places to live, I was looking for a youthful city.

I fell in love with Columbus. I had no idea that a place like this existed. I was looking at Portland and Seattle, all those popular, young kid places. But I didn’t really ever think of Columbus. I got here and I’ve been happy ever since.

I can have that big city experience, with the different melting pots and all that. I’m Puerto Rican, so it's cool to know there are areas in Columbus where the people are from where I’m from, and even the people who are not from where I'm from... Lots of them are in Dublin. There are also a lot of Vietnamese folks in Worthington, and I know a lot of Somalians hang out up north, too. But I found most of the diversity in Dublin. Columbus, the city, is only twenty minutes away. So you can get the huge suburbs, with seclusion and big plots of land, but not be too far away. I picture getting a big farm house and still being close enough to work.

All throughout high school I dealt with depression and it came to the point where self-harm kind of introduced itself into my life. I was dealing with a lot of self-hatred and anxiety and that took my life south.

But then I got introduced to an art school, Mosaic, that motivated me to go into Columbus, meet new people, and really see what was going on in my city. And being introduced to that, I saw so many people who were out doing things and were just creating and living their life. And that inspired me to be me… Columbus really made me stand up on my feet and pulled me out of that depression and made me who I am now.

The people here make a big difference in your life when you allow them to. When you get involved in “what is Columbus” that can change you life.

I feel like I’ve always been here. Even when I’ve lived away, I never considered anywhere else my home.

There’s something about flying into Columbus because I grew up here and I lived near the airport. In high school, in the summer time, before there was 9/11, before there was awful security, you used to be able to park on Hamilton Road and you could watch the planes land. They would fly right over you…we would climb out the sunroof with our Dairy Queens in hand and sit on the roof of the car and watch the planes land. And listen to the Beastie Boys. So, there’s something about flying over Hamilton Road and knowing that you’re home.

Growing up in the Midwest, we have heart here. There’s a depth to friendships that I didn’t find as easily in other places – and an openness, and a trusting, and a warmth that was always my experience. And a sincerity.

I definitely have a passion for the businesses in Old Town. There’s some change there – I just learned last night that a favorite art gallery is going to be closing. Hey, this is change! We don’t have Union Station anymore, we can’t change that. This town has progressed beyond when they were going to tear down the Ohio Theatre, in 1968, but they did tear down Union Station. Developers still call the shots in this town. And right now it’s about the density - getting as many butts as you can per square feet. And that’s going to expand out. It used to be a mile or two from Broad & High and I think anything within 3 or 4 miles from Broad & High is going to be ravaged. Ravaged has the wrong connotation - some of it’s going to be cool. Weinland Park is a good example - there are going to be some neighborhoods transforming. I like to ask people, “Where is the next Franklinton?”



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I came back at the age of 30 in 1990. At that time we came back in order to raise our children. We were living in New York and we didn’t want to raise sophisticated, world class kids, we wanted to raise children. So we came back to Columbus where it’s flat and you can see than and call them home to dinner. I still think it was a really great decision. It’s a good place to raise kids.

I believe that we tolerate but we don’t accept. We know that people are different but we don’t embrace it. We roll up our windows, or put some landscaping between us and them. We believe in live and let live, but we don’t go to their weddings and we don’t have them over for dinner.

All of a sudden I heard a huge commotion outside. So I pull the curtains back and do the snoopy neighbor thing and heard them start yelling at each other…and someone was yelling about heroin addiction…That made me go “what kind of neighborhood have I moved into?”

It seemed like everybody just wanted to stay inside and ignore the fact that other people lived around them. So that was probably the first indicator that this is probably not the friendliest, most opening, and welcoming neighborhood that I‘ve ever lived in.

It didn’t seem like anybody willing to be a part a community. So it was like, when in Rome, do what everyone else is doing and stay to yourself. But I miss it. We really put a lot of heart into the house.

Nobody really wanted to come over. I actually had a friend who I invited to come to a party and her mom told her that she couldn’t come to my house for the party. Even though she was in her late twenties or early thirties…my mom came a couple of times and always made a big point to lock her car in front of me.

People always looked at me funny. “You live in the Hilltop?!”

There’s Upper Arlington but there’s no Lower Arlington. There’s Upper Arlington and Old Arlington. And Old Arlington is like the old OLD families. The established families. And Upper Arlington had a lot of families that 30 years ago would not have been allowed to live there… not white enough. And so when the schools came together in like seventh grade there were the people who went to Jones from Old Arlington and the people from Hastings who are all from Upper Arlington and being Greek and having a crazy unpronounceable name that scared everybody and never being here in the summertime because we always went home to Greece… All of my friends were the people who were not white enough, so all of the people who had English as a second language or were different. We were all like the outsiders in many different ways, so nothing really kept us together as a group except that we weren’t in any other group.

My husband went on the job market when I was in Louisville and we sort of like on the precipice to go anywhere and that was super exciting and then he got his dream job, which is at Dennison and I remember him calling me and I was in the Louisville parking garage and him telling me and I remember thinking “This is awesome” and “Wait does this mean we’re always staying in Ohio?...Okay?! That’s... that’s great! …wait”

I have kept this saying with me and it’s so cheesy but I remember my brother saying it when we were little. “You have to go away and slay your dragons before you can come home and be a hero” and I felt like I hadn’t slayed any dragons. And I just wouldn’t have done anything. But then it was a couple years later looking back and I’m like, “Holy shit I lived in a bunch of different places and done a bunch of different things.” Lots of dragons have been slayed it’s cool.We love it here. We’ve talked about like on a sabbatical going somewhere for a few months like taking a workshop or a retreat that would take us away for a little while but to go completely away? No. Every winter I do think, “Well if winter really comes again this year maybe I’ll think of something else.” No. It’s home in so many different ways.

Home: it’s family. Home: its memories. Home: its like ‘X’ different communities that are really important to me and its where even though growing up in Upper Arlington had been hellish, there are people I’ve known for a really, really long time.

I love that it has a small town vibe about it, but it’s a big city.

For me it’s mostly about weather – coming from L.A. I send so many snow photos back home. Last year was kind of depressing. Seeing all the snow was really pretty, but it dragged on to February and March I just wanted to get out of here.

I love the parks. My first goal when being here was to go to every Metro Park and see what they have.

Brunch in Columbus is amazing.

It affects my fashion context as well. It’s a bit casual here, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just different how people buy into trends in a way that they’re comfortable wearing, rather than taking it straight from the runway.

If you think about terroir in terms of wine. What makes those grapes awesome is that they’re clinging to the side of a mountain and they don’t get nearly enough water, and they’re wind-blasted. And if they survive they have this incredible flavor. And when you think about Pittsburgh or Cincinnati and there’s beautiful architecture and bridges and the buildings are really cool and you ask why – Pittsburgh is on a bunch of mountainsides and three rivers, and in Cincinnati, all those natural waterways make it really difficult to build a city around. In Columbus it’s way too easy.

When you’re in the Short North, it’s like “You don’t want to go to Clintonville, it’s a bunch of hippies.” And then you go to Clintonville and it’s like, “These people are nice.” And then you’re in Beechwold and they’re like, “You don’t wanna go out to Easton, that’s the mall crowd.” And then you go to Easton and you know what, those people are nice. Friendly, normal, fun people.

I’m on the board of Franklinton Fridays, opening up Franklinton to make it a little less scary a place. Maybe people feel like they can come down, have a drink, have dinner, see artists whose studios are open, making it fun to be a part of this community. It’s not really artificial feeling, it’s been very organic the way it’s formed and for us, as artists, we’re the ones who Franklinton Fridays to actually be something. We’re were like, “We want something to happen.” And guess who’s going to make it happen? We are. If you don’t work to help create, there won’t be opportunities for others.

I don’t know if there’s anything holding it back, except a little bit of fear. A scene like Franklinton could get too big, too fast, and the artists could abandon it. That’s one of the things you hear over and over when artists talk about the Short North, because they feel that parts of it have become commercial versus small business.

You can live and work here, and it doesn’t cost as much as living in Portland or Chicago. You can do anything from here.

I would like to see less traffic on the roads. They keep building more houses and apartments, but not more roads. I don’t even want to be on the roads early in the morning or from three in the afternoon to about 6:30pm. Other than that I can’t think of anything that really irritates me or bother me.

What do I like about staying here? I like the familiarity, I guess. That’s the biggest thing. It’s been a struggle being in the creative world, playing in bands. To get some recognition for what you’re doing and what you’re putting out there in the world. It’s been a struggle with that aspect of living in Columbus. Other than that, if I wasn’t in the creative world I would love it here. It’s hard to get people to latch on to what you’re selling creatively. Especially in the band world. It’s been tough to get people to come out. This is a football city. For example, when Ohio State’s playing, even Independents’ Day didn’t have a ton of people. There’s great restaurants and night life and things like this festival. The art scene is amazing. That’s what I love about the city, that’s why I’m proud.

I live up in Clintonville, now. Like I said, I’ve lived all over this area. We just moved into that house. I guess it’s been five years now. I’d say at this point, I’ve lived more in the suburbs. I went to high school in Worthington. I lived in Westerville when I was younger. Victorian Village for a while. All over. But Clintonville is more our speed, my wife and I. We’ve got a nice porch to sit on and watch people go by, play music on and that kind of stuff. I ride my bike down to the record shop and stuff like that. We’re creative people living there. It’s got that kind of vibe.

The stories I’ve told about the neighborhoods over the years, they’ve always started with a person, it doesn’t start with someone from an ad firm, it doesn’t start with someone from a branding agency, it starts with individuals who decide they want to clean up their neighborhood and they start a garden club. And then they think, “Oh, why don’t I start a garden walk in our neighborhood and raise money so we can buy more trees for people who can’t afford trees.” There’s great stories like that and I think that’s where a lot of it starts.

I honestly don’t know what the whole problem is. I’m from Michigan. I’ve never had a bad image of Columbus, except for back when you couldn’t find anything decent to eat. I wish they would just stop and just let it do its thing. I’ve never understood why they got rid of “The Heart of it All” for the state motto. It’s the best thing you could have ever had! Everyone’s always trying to reinvent the wheel when it come to an image. I think Columbus can stand on its own two feet now with an image and doesn’t have to have one manufactured.