Slow Roll Week 12: La Villa Hispana (Clark-Fulton)

We've still got another ride to enjoy this week in Gunning Park (the one and only benefit of the awful smoke filling our lungs this week), but we'll get the jump on the next one as well.

Cleveland's Clark-Fulton neighborhood -- currently proudly claiming its identity as La Villa Hispana, and the heart of the Hispanic community in this city -- is on an upswing. Spurred by MetroHealth's billion-dollar Transformation Project, new developments are breaking ground almost every day in the area, which nestles between I-71 and I-90, running from Scranton Road on the east to W. 48th Street on the west. The neighborhood is set to become home to Centro Villa 25, an ambitious new adaptive reuse project that will turn an old warehouse complex into a center for Latino-oriented culture and retail businesses. The neighborhood has also become a vibrant center for mural art, with blank walls blossoming into living canvases everywhere you look, and more on the way. It's also always been a fun and welcoming place for us to ride, and a neighborhood where we probably get more residents joining in along the way as we ride down the block than anywhere else in the city.

On Monday, we'll be set up at Roberto Clemente Park in the northern reaches of Clark-Fulton, just south of I-90 and just west of Fulton Road. The park, while not massive, serves an important community need that until recently was going completely unmet, prior to the revitalization of Clark Field in the nearby Industrial Valley.

We gather at 6 PM, as usual, and ride out at 7 PM. T-shirts and schedules will be available, and we'll have our booth set up for early arrivers.

Once again we remind you that gas-powered conveyances are NOT allowed in Slow Roll. Full electric, silent vehicles that can be responsibly operated are permitted, with a reminder that all riders are responsible at all times for looking out for each other and making sure they're not blocking, annoying or infringing on other participants.