Browse Interviews

Lifelong Clevelander Chuck E. Hoven recollects his early life growing up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and attending St. Ignatius High School. Hoven attended John Carroll University as an undergraduate and later attended Cleveland State University for graduate school. Hoven shares his involvement as managing editor for Cleveland's Plain Press, which is a vehicle for many people to raise awareness on community issues like affordable housing. Hoven highlights the imbalances of community…

Near West Side resident Jim Schlecht recollects his arrival to the Near West Side in the summer of 1972. Schlecht highlights how his faith has shaped who he is today. This interview focuses on Schlecht’s involvement in the Thomas Merton Community along with Cleveland’s Catholic Worker Community. Schlecht recollects his experience working with children and adults with special needs. He later shares how he provided transitional housing while raising a family in the community. Schlecht for many…

Gail Long recalls her early education which eventually led her to Cleveland’s Near West Side. Long worked as a community organizer at the West Side Community House, where she helped organize community block clubs that dealt with various issues in the neighborhood. She focuses on the affordability and gentrification of the Near West Side along with her involvement in Tremont’s Merrick House. Long recollects various initiatives she was a part of like the efforts to stop the privatization of Metro…

Near West Side resident Mark Pestak shares what it was like living on the Near West Side in the early 1990s. Pestak highlights his involvement in the Catholic Worker Community along with some of the goals of the Catholic Worker movement. Pestak discusses his involvement in housing justice in the neighborhood. Pestak also recollects the community's efforts to close down a hazardous waste recycling facility on Monroe and Fulton in the 1990s.

Near West Side resident Mike Fiala recollects how his early life experiences shaped his role in Cleveland's Catholic Worker movement. He shares his involvement in activism on behalf of affordable housing and providing services for unhoused people on the Near West Side. Fiala highlights the rise of gentrification in the Near West Side, along with the expansion of St. Ignatius High School. He also recollects his involvement in the 2015 March for Tamir Rice.

Kristina Walter, an art educator, recollects her early life and how her faith has shaped her experience living in the greater Cleveland area. Walter notes the importance of religion and social justice throughout her education, which led her to join Cleveland's Catholic Worker Movement.

Megan Wilson-Reitz recollects her early life growing up in a diverse community which steered her towards a life of faith and social justice. Wilson-Reitz shares her involvement with community organizing in the Cleveland Nonviolence Network, the Cleveland Catholic Worker, and then her role as a board member for the Ohio City Near West Development Corporation.

25-year-old Gillian Prater-Lee (they/them) shares their experience growing up in Poughkeepsie, New York, and attending Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. They discuss how social justice has played a key role in shaping their understanding of the city. Prater-Lee recollects their time living at the Catholic Worker House while interning at the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH). After finishing their MA program at Penn State, Prater-Lee joined Bike and Build, and…

Twenty-five-year-old former German Action Reconciliation Service for Peace volunteer Line-Marie Eichhorst shares what it was like coming to Cleveland for a year in 2018 for ASRP while living at the Catholic Worker House. Eichhorst recollects her involvement with the Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America and the Witness Against Torture to protest the US military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. She returned from Germany to Cleveland and the Catholic Worker House in 2024 to undertake a…

Duane Drotar shares his experience growing up in the Buckeye-Woodland neighborhood, then living on the Near West Side for many years. Drotar highlights how the Near West Side was an example of "richness" in terms of offering a setting for being in community with people of diverse backgrounds. Drotar's background in psychology and theology has shaped his role as an outreach worker in various agencies and community non-profits throughout the years in the Cleveland area. He discusses his choice to…

John Nosek (b. 1949) and Leon Stevens (b. 1948) are native Clevelanders who grew up on the east side. They discuss the Cleveland gay community in the 1970s and '80s, including managing the Gay Educational and Awareness Resource (GEAR) Foundation's High Gear newspaper in its early years and their gay activism in the mid- to late 1970s. Nosek and Stevens detail the early history of GEAR, its Gay Hotline, and its long struggle to establish what eventually became the LGBT Community Center of Greater…

Marilyn Anthony was born in Cleveland and describes growing up in Ohio City. She remembers the various European enclaves that were present in the area, specifically mentioning Hungarians and Gypsies. She shares her experiences of walking to the West Side Market, bakeries, butchers, and other local shops. Anthony also mentions her relationship to the multitude of ethnic Catholic churches in the area. Finally, Anthony discusses the changes in the neighborhood and how it impacted residents.

Mary Rose Oakar, the first Democratic female to be elected into Congress from Ohio, details her family and life events. She discusses her upbringing growing up in Ohio City and her work in Congress. She also details her work with the ADC (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) and stories of discrimination she witnessed against Arab Americans.

In this 2006 interview, 58 year old Cleveland native Buck Harris, a prominent member of Cleveland's gay community for decades, talks about his life in Cleveland as a gay man and his residency near West 52nd Street and Bridge Avenue in an area of the west side of Cleveland known as Ohio City Heights. Mr. Harris discusses his experience of "coming out" in the late 1970s; some of the prominent gay bars in Cleveland in the 1970s, including, Twiggy's; and his development and activities as an activist…

Margaret Hostelley shares her memories growing up in Cleveland, including trips to the West Side Market and other near west side businesses, family ties to Saint Wendelin Parish, visits downtown and to Euclid Beach Park, and changes in the Ohio City and West Park neighborhoods.