Welcome to CLEVELAND

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately 60 miles (100 km) west of the Pennsylvania border. It was founded in 1796 near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, and became a manufacturing center owing to its location at the head of numerous canals and railroad lines. With the decline of heavy manufacturing, Cleveland's businesses have diversified into the service economy, including the financial services, insurance, legal, and healthcare sectors, though the city's population has continued to decline. Cleveland is also noted for its association with rock music; the city is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

As of the 2000 Census, the city proper had a total population of 478,403, and was then the 33rd largest city in the United States, (now estimated as the 40th largest due to declines in population) and the second largest city in Ohio. It is the center of Greater Cleveland, the largest metropolitan area in Ohio, which spans several counties and is defined in several different ways by the Census Bureau. The Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor Metropolitan Statistical Area which in 2000 ranked as the 23rd largest in the United States with 2,250,871 people. Cleveland is also part of the larger Cleveland-Akron-Elyria Combined Statistical Area, which in 2000 had a population of 2,945,831, and ranked as the country's 14th largest.

In studies conducted by The Economist in 2005, Cleveland and Pittsburgh were ranked as the most livable cities in the United States, and the city was ranked as the best city for business meetings in the continental U.S. The city faces continuing challenges, in particular from concentrated poverty in some neighborhoods and difficulties in the funding and delivery of high-quality public education. Residents of Cleveland are usually referred to as "Clevelanders." Nicknames used for the city include "The Forest City," "The Cleve," "The Metropolis of the Western Reserve,". The New American City," "America's North Coast," "The Sixth City," "The Rock 'n' Roll Capital of the World" and "C-Town."

Tourism

Five miles (8 km) east of downtown Cleveland is University Circle, a 550-acre (2.2 km2) concentration of cultural, educational, and medical institutions, including the Cleveland Botanical Garden, Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals, Severance Hall, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and the Western Reserve Historical Society. Cleveland is also home to the I. M. Pei-designed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, located on the Lake Erie waterfront at North Coast Harbor downtown. Neighboring attractions include Cleveland Browns Stadium, the Great Lakes Science Center, the Steamship Mather Museum, and the USS Cod, a World War II submarine. Cleveland is home to many festivals throughout the year. Cultural festivals such as the annual Feast of the Assumption in the Little Italy neighborhood, the Hellenic Heritage Festival at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in the Tremont neighborhood, and the Harvest Festival in the Slavic Village neighborhood are popular events. Vendors at the West Side Market in Ohio City offer many different ethnic foods for sale. Cleveland hosts an annual parade on Saint Patrick's Day that brings hundreds of thousands to the streets of downtown.

Fashion Week Cleveland, the city's annual fashion event, is one of the few internationally recognized fashion industry happenings in North America. The show is considered by many to be the best in the Midwest—perhaps second only to New York for fashion weeks in the US. In addition to the cultural festivals, Cleveland hosted the CMJ Rock Hall Music Fest, which featured national and local acts, including both established artists and up-and-coming acts, but the festival was discontinued in 2007 due to financial and manpower costs to the Rock Hall. The annual Ingenuity Festival and Notacon conference focus on the combination of art and technology. The Cleveland International Film Festival has been held annually since 1977, and it drew a record 66,476 people in March 2009. Cleveland also hosts an annual holiday display lighting and celebration, dubbed Winterfest, which is held downtown at the city's historic hub, Public Square.

Sports

Cleveland's professional sports teams include the Cleveland Indians (Major League Baseball), Cleveland Browns (National Football League), Cleveland Cavaliers (National Basketball Association), Cleveland City Stars (United Soccer Leagues), and Lake Erie Monsters (American Hockey League). The Mid-American Conference (MAC), an NCAA Division I athletic conference, moved its headquarters to Cleveland in 2000. In conjunction with the move, the MAC Men's Basketball Tournament was also moved to Quicken Loans Arena established itself on the Cleveland sports scene. The MAC Tournament is the biggest college sporting event that the city hosts on an annual basis. The Tournament consistently ranks among the top 10 conference basketball tournaments in average attendance, thanks in large part to the support of more than 300,000 MAC alumni that live in Northeast Ohio. Other sporting events held in Cleveland include the Champ Car Grand Prix of Cleveland, the Cleveland Marathon, and the Ohio Classic college football game.[100] The city hosted the Gravity Games, an extreme sports series, from 2002 to 2004, and the Dew Action Sports Tour Right Guard Open in 2007. Local sporting facilities include Progressive Field, Cleveland Browns Stadium, Quicken Loans Arena, Middlefield Cheese Stadium and the Wolstein Center. The Cleveland Browns dominated the NFL from 1950 to 1955. The city's franchise is one of the most storied in football, though it last won an NFL championship in 1964 and has never appeared in the Super Bowl. The Cleveland Indians last reached the World Series in 1997, losing to the Florida Marlins, and have not won the series since 1948. Between 1995 and 2001, Progressive Field sold out 455 consecutive games and held a Major League Baseball record until it was broken in 2008.[101] The Cleveland Cavaliers are experiencing a renaissance with Cleveland fans due to LeBron James, a native of nearby Akron and the number one overall draft pick of 2003. The Cavaliers won the Eastern Conference in 2007, but were defeated in the NBA Finals by the San Antonio Spurs. The city's recent lack of success in sports has earned it a reputation of being a cursed sports city, which ESPN validated by proclaiming Cleveland as its "most tortured sports city" in 2004.[102] The tradition of professional hockey in Cleveland started with the original Cleveland Barons in 1937.[103] Cleveland fielded an NHL team, also called the Cleveland Barons, from 1976 to 1978, which was later merged into the Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars). Cleveland's current hockey team is the minor-league Lake Erie Monsters, which began play in 2007.[104] The city has had other major and minor-league hockey teams in the past including the Cleveland Lumberjacks of the International Hockey League and the Cleveland Crusaders of the WHA. Cleveland was also home to the Cleveland Rockers, one of the original eight teams[105] in the WNBA in 1997. However, in 2003, the team folded after owner Gordon Gund dropped the team from operation. In 2005, Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber announced that Cleveland was one of several top areas in contention for an expansion team in 2007.[106] Delays in securing a soccer-only stadium have now prevented any such team from beginning play until the 2009 season, but the Cleveland area is still a contender for expansion. The city's current soccer team, the Cleveland City Stars, play in the USL First Division They play there home games at Middlefield Cheese Stadiumin Bedford. Cleveland also fielded two indoor soccer teams, the original Cleveland Force of the NPSL . This team folded in 1988. They were replaced by the Cleveland Crunch of the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL), but the team ceased operations in 2005 after having won three league championships in the 90s.

Culture

Fine arts

Cleveland is home to Playhouse Square Center, the second largest performing arts center in the United States behind New York's Lincoln Center. Playhouse Square includes the State, Palace, Allen, Hanna, and Ohio theaters within what is known as the Theater District of Downtown Cleveland. Playhouse Square's resident performing arts companies include the Cleveland Opera, the Ohio Ballet, and the Great Lakes Theater Festival. The center also hosts various Broadway musicals, special concerts, speaking engagements, and other events throughout the year. One Playhouse Square, now the headquarters for Cleveland's public broadcasters, was originally used as the broadcast studios of WJW Radio, where disc jockey Alan Freed first popularized the term "rock and roll". Located between Playhouse Square and University Circle are the Cleveland Play House and Karamu House, a well-known African American performing and fine arts center, both founded in the 1920s. Cleveland is also home to the Cleveland Orchestra, widely considered one of the finest orchestras in the world, and often referred to as the finest in the United States. It is one of the "Big Five" major orchestras in the United States. The Orchestra plays in Severance Hall during the winter and at Blossom Music Center during the summer. The city is also home to the Cleveland Pops Orchestra. There are two main art museums in Cleveland. The Cleveland Museum of Art is a major American art museum, with a collection that includes more than 40,000 works of art ranging over 6,000 years, from ancient masterpieces to contemporary pieces. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland showcases established and emerging artists, particularly from the Cleveland area, through hosting and producing temporary exhibitions.

Film and television

Cleveland has served as the setting for several major films, including The Fortune Cookie (1967) with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, Major League (1989), Antwone Fisher (2002) and Welcome To Collinwood (2002). Cleveland is also the setting for the film American Splendor, the lifelong home of writer Harvey Pekar and also the setting for most of his autobiographical comic books, upon which the film was based. The city was also the setting for the popular television sitcom, The Drew Carey Show which starred Cleveland native Drew Carey. Also, many of the external shots for the widely beloved holiday film A Christmas Story (1983), which was set in Cleveland. Because of its architecture, its proximity and its ease of access, locations in Cleveland are often used by filmmakers as a stand-in for other places. For example, a complex battle scene that was set in New York City in Spider-Man 3 was filmed in Cleveland in April 2006. The popular action film Air Force One, with Harrison Ford, William H Macy, Glenn Close, Dean Stockwell and Gary Oldman had its opening shots filmed above and inside Severance Hall on University Circle, home of the Cleveland Orchestra. The Video-Game to Film adaptation of Double Dragon was filmed notably in an abandoned warehouse along Cleveland's Lake Erie shoreline, the Cuyahoga River along the Flats, and Cleveland's Terminal Tower-Tower City Mall.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shores of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, dedicated to recording the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, and other people who have in some major way influenced the music industry, particularly in the area of rock and roll. The museum is part of the city's redeveloped North Coast Harbor.