Rep Yo' City: What's Dope About Where You're From?

Fondren

This is an area in the city that's sort of like the Arts District.You're likely to see things that have been turned into artwork like firehydrants and stuff like that.This is where I was born and lived during the early part of my life .Well,partially anyway.My parents moved all over a lot.

Duling Hall is in Fondren as well.It was once a school,now they book mostly national performers,but you can still catch locals here too.And there's a bar in the back!


There's always something going on there.The first thursday of every month is Fondren First Thursday,where you'll see vendors of all sorts,people hanging out,bands/duos/ensembles,performance artists,flash mobs,dance battles (my favorite thing),and anything else exciting.


There's another place I'm really into that I've only started frequenting this year called the Offbeat.It's a record shop (like,literal vinyl records) and they also sell toys,action figures,and comic books.The OB hosts a lot of events too such a music performances,comedy nights,and movie viewings.The last thing I went to there was a viewing and discussion of Do the Right Thing with a panel (we talked about how it related to modern issues,yadda yadda yadda).
The owner is a dj,so there's always good music playing when you go.The environment makes me feel at home.I finally found out where all the black hipsters are .





All of the performers I love---->Local Talent

 

I am from Baltimore, MD. The crabs are ALWAYS good, home of the Ravens and Johns Hopkins Hospital/University (one of the BEST medical and research institutions in the country), and home of The Wire the area I live in, but will be changing soon.

 

Forget @ColumbusGuy he ain't no booster. Off the top of my head, where I grew up:

CENTRAL OHIO

"A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll"
I always liked that growing up in Central Ohio, especially the southern part of Franklin County, I had enough technical and urban things to keep me entertained (CompuServe, inventors of the GIF and other pre-Web stuff was from there), business and entrepreneurial examples to model (White Castle, Wendy's, The Limited), but I could still play in the woods in the backyard as a kid just like Southerners.

The Arts (my arts)
Was always a hotbed of cartooning and comic art. Major 90s innovators like Jeff Smith (Bone, RASL), and former DC, black artist Darryl Banks (Green Lantern), are from there. Ohio State actually has a whole library, Billy Ireland Museum, dedicated to just comic strips and comic art. The Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) used to be considered (don't know of it still is) one of the best art colleges in America. Ironically, they used to look down at comics. Smith told me CCAD looked down on him for being a cartoonist when he went there before transferring to Ohio State and starting his own animation and publishing company. Now they kiss his successful entrepreneurial ass big time lol. And of course, the author and cartoonist James Thurber (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty author) one of my childhood heroes, is also from there.





Lex Wexner

The billionaire behind Victoria's Secret and The Limited is a big educational and civic booster and arguably has done more for local development and employment by citing his distribution center there and building major shopping and residential areas like Easton and New Albany, and forcing change even when the Peyton Place crowd that traditionally ran Central Ohio had no economy vision. I expect ColumbusGuy to pooh-pooh this, but I'm not a socialist (lol).

Gay Rights

City Hall is even situated at the end of Gay Street on Marconi lol. I didn't realize it growing up, but Columbus was, in its own cowtown way, way more progressive on gay issues than a lot of America outside of San Fran. Ohio State and big employer Nationwide Insurance seemed to be ahead of the curve on insurance protections for domestic partners, etc. Sadly, the redneck red state bullshit of the rest of Ohio has encroached on a lot of good that came out of Cbus.

Politics
Unlike asshole John Boehner Ohio (south) or moonbat Dennis Kucinich Ohio (north), Central Ohio was always politically and fiscally in the middle. Where Democrats belonged to the NRA and Republicans joined unions. I get my ideological independence and idiosyncrasy from growing up there. Plus diversity. What I hat about Chicago is the segregation and xenophobic bullshit. At least for now, you can walk into Walmart in CBus, see people from all walks of life, black, white, Latino, East and West African, southeast Asian and everybody's chill.

Can't think of shit that's good about Chicago. Ironically, I think non-Chicagoan @Sean has more good to say about it than I do lol

 

I currently live in Paris, France, also known as La Ville Lumière or City of Light. It is a wonderful place to be living at the moment but I wouldn't call this my city. I am from the Tampa Bay, Florida. My city is where people come to vacation. I use to take living near the beach for granted. Now I miss that Florida life.

 

Not a bad writeup at all @Rico. LOl I used to be a socialist but not any more. The one other thing I would add is it is pretty lively and growing. Since 1970 Ohio has gained about a million people, Columbus and the six counties around it have gained about 800,000. Cbus is where the growth is, and should add nearly another million to the area by 2050. And the increase is happening for a variety or reasons-natural increase, intra state migration, inter state migration, and international migration all in good amounts.

And if you start a thread like this, you need to be the first one to post in it regarding the topic, @Nick Delmacy where is the rep for your town(Either hometown or Atlanta)?

 

I don't know where to begin...

KC is a rather artsy place. We've got several museums like...
the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art featured back behind the trees and the relatively new Bloch Building (the shiny white building on the right).


Then there's the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art that was a couple of blocks from the Montessori school I attended. It has this creepy ass alien spider statue that scared the shit out of me growing up.


The Kauffman Center. The Kauffmans fund damn near everything art-related in KC.
It's an incredibly beautiful building with an auditorium for the city's ballet company on the left and the city's orchestra on the right.


Speaking of ballet...

The Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity (fka the City's old abandoned powerhouse). Before they moved here, I use to go to the old building for tap and ballet classes when I was younger.


Lastly, there's the Kansas City Art Institute. Don't know much about the place.


The Kansas City Plaza with it's most iconic fountain (there are more) in the forefront.


Food:
Kansas Citians love barbeque. There are a shitload of barbeque joints. Arthur Bryant's, Joe's, Famous Dave's, Gates (my personal fav), Danny Edward's, etc.


Then there's the Winstead Skyscraper. If you ever get one, I recommend getting strawberry.


The Power and Light District (P&L) is a place you can not only get smashed, but go to concerts and eat too. Some of the nightclubs were under fire a few years back. They pretty much had a quota on the number of blacks and latinos they'd let in. The type of bullshit you gotta deal with when your city is gentrified. I don't even hang out there anymore (especially not at night...seen too many black people stopped and questioned by the police for no reason).


If you're interested in some history, you can go to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM)...


and the American Jazz Museum...


and the Black Archives Museum of Mid-America. Highly recommended! Don't be fooled by the exterior.


That's it. This is long enough...

Oh, and Kansas City has an interesting history with the Mafia.

In fact, in some of the old homes that Mafia/Mob families, like the Civellas, lived in built underground tunnels beneath their homes as clandestine escape routes in case anything went down.

 

This was his sneaky way of getting everyone to write the travelogue thread lol but a great idea

 

Maaan, my hometown is known for great colleges, Kodak and Xerox (as we now live in a paperless world, so...yea), and for running out of chicken at all Popeye's locations.

My friends rag on me for the latter any opportunity they get. I can bust chops n be like, 'u from Detroit, how many bullet wounds u got? The comeback is always, 'u from rochester, yall aint got no chicken'. Smh

But, now living in the big apple, I think it speaks for itself. BK all day!

 

O cool.The guy who's quote is under my comments is originally from there

I like how @Nick Delmacy dapped this but didn't respond lol

 

^^Nick dapped but nothing else cause he knows what he is doing lol.
@DreG Everything I have read about Jackson they mention Fondren. "If you want to live in Jackson city itself(and not Madison, etc) then make it FONDREN."
@SB3 Never been to Rochester, but have been to Buffalo and best friend from High School went to Syracuse. Interesting that Buffalo is considered a rustbelt city but Rochester, like Columbus, is not. I guess from having Kodak, etc. it was just never old school manufacturing enough?
@Dante I never knew until fairly recently that with those soft shell crabs, you eat the whole thing. uhh...how do you do that? lol.
@Fanon That sucks about the Power and Light district...that 'gentrified' as to be about that crap. Kansas City was big enough early enough to be one of those 'legacy' cities and have those great old institutions(and pro sports teams). Columbus did not get big enough soon enough.
@BlackguyExecutive When I think of Tampa I can't help but think about hurricanes and how vulnerable Tampa is..especially since the city has not been hit hard in 100 years and with Hermine out there right now.

 

Well to be fair you start these things and then you do tend to eventually add your own comments-you just don't do it right away sometimes. Ocky seems to almost always put his opinion right out there immediately. Either way is cool.

 

@Nick Delmacy is an aries. He has built in adult a.d.d. like every aries I've ever known. But their long term memories (mental rolodex) are extremely strong (regarding things that they want to remember).

 

ADD. Lol. A therapist friend of mine insinuated I might have undiagnosed ADHD from childhood. I countered that I don't have anything but an intolerance for boring-assed, slow mofos lol