Downtown Cleveland ... Is It For You? Promotional Video Hypes Organic Energy

Gotta take all Promotional videos with a grain of salt, but I like the focus on small business, creative energy and convenience in this video. The Food Trucks, Pop up stores, non chain gourmet dining scene and landscape make Cleveland's downtown actually look like a unique and special place- which it is.

I also like the open ended sales pitch which in many ways is similar to Pittsburgh's "Imagine what you can do here", campaign.

Mobile App Unveiled Highlighting Cleveland History

The story on Cleveland.Com

"It also includes "tours" of the city's neighborhoods, industrial areas and historical sites.

"We're trying to curate the city as a living museum," said CSU history professor Mark Tebeau. "Cleveland has such a rich past and we're trying to expose that past layer by layer."

Available videos range from old newsreel footage of the National Air Races at Cleveland Hopkins Airport to a 1930s film clip of Herman Pirchner, owner of the Alpine Village restaurant downtown, setting a world record by carrying 50 steins of beer at one time."

Even more interesting is that this App which connects to videos and oral histories from more than 700 Clevelanders is not just the product of one college, library, museum or institution-though it looks like Cleveland State spearheaded it.

Building content for the new app has been a community-wide project, said Tebeau, noting that teachers across the region, along with students, nonprofits and historical societies have all contributed.

And that mass contribution, said Nancy Proctor, head of mobile strategy and initiatives at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is what makes the Cleveland Historical app unique.

Check out the free app on clevelandhistorical.org