Good Architecture. Not-So-Good Memories.

This is the Peter B Lewis Building at Case Western Reserve University, by Frank Gehry, a hometown point of pride- one of many. Funny that it only occurs to me to show pictures of my homeTOWN at the end of NaBloPoMo's June 'Home' theme.

Anyway. I didn't go to CWRU, I went to the Cleveland Instute of Art, whose campus is in the middle of Case's. So I shouldn't have any connection to the Lewis Bldg. other than aesthethic admiration, right? Not so!

A few days before graduation in May, 2003 I was cleaning out my studio at school. I'd just gotten done and was leaving the parking lot when many loud sirens started heading toward the area. Some of the emergency vehicles passed me. Not all of them were ambulances.

There are 2 HUGE hospitals in the area, and if you spend any time in University Circle, you learn to block sirens out. Unless you're driving and have to merge right for emergency vehicles to pass.

This was the police & SWAT, fire, and EMS response to the dreadful shooting that held the local community paralyzed for hours.

I got out of the area just in time. Not everyone was so fortunate.

I was never in danger. All that would have happened to me was inconvenience: I would have been immobilized for several hours in the parking lot by the multi-street roadblock that kept many cars, bikes, and pedestrians in place while the showdown ran its course. The people in the Lewis Building were held at automatic weapon-point. It was a very sad day.