The Neighborhood

Try looking up Westpark on a map, and chances are you'll never ever find it.  But ask any local native where he or she is from, and you'll undoubtedly here, "I'm from Westpark."

This 1939 house is located in the popular Kamm's Corners neighborhood in Cleveland (Westpark was incorporated into Cleveland in the early 1920's, but you will still hear that name often!).  For a time, even being able to buy a house in this neighborhood was quite the honor.  An elderly eighbor talks about the waiting she had to be put on in the 1950's just to buy a house here.  This neighborhood was considered "Cleveland's Suburb in the City."  For awhile in the middle of the 20th century, this neighborhood was on the edge of town, and city officials had to live "in the city," so Westpark was the location of choice for police and fire officials.

Of course, times have changed, but the love for this neighborhood has not.  A Kamm's Corners Development Corporation was developed to support local businesses in the area (www.kammscorners.com).  A magazine is mailed out every few months to encourage us to keep our money right where it helps the most...in the neighborhood.  The popular Westpark Hooley festival is thrown every year with an estimated 20,000-30,000 people attending.

Residents love the area so much that a full-blown website was created to remember the times gone by.  Just one mile to the west of this house was the popular Puritas Springs Park with one of the best roller coasters in the nation.  The popular bars and restaurants at the actual Kamm's Corners have histories themselves, too.  Panini's was a grocery store run by Oswald Kamm himself.  History is everywhere here, and the residents love it.  The website is www.westparkhistory.com.

But the best part about the neighborhood is by far the people.  The neighborhood is full of residents who LOVE this area and are devoted to seeing it flourish.  From the well-attended weekly farmer's market to the popular street festival to the many hours spent in dining rooms and bars, the people of Westpark are guilty of loving Westpark.

In today's day and age, it's a rare treat to find such a neighborhood as loved and supported by its residents.  With fuel-efficient cars, popular western suburbs, and easy access to mass transportation, Westpark continues to defy the rest of Cleveland and America.  The following picture shows how Kamm's Corners is one of the only Cleveland neighborhoods with excellent housing stability with a less than 10% vacancy rate:

Taken from www.kammscorners.com, "A feature article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer stated: “The traditional nuclear family – mom, dad, and the kids – dominates this middle-class neighborhood. With the number of single-parent families exploding in big cities and suburbs, Kamm’s Corners is an urban rarity, a place where the percentage of children living with two parents rivals suburban family havens such as Chagrin Falls, North Olmsted, and University Heights. There are more than 4,000 children here, and 80 percent of them live with mom and dad, by far the highest rate of children growing up in two-parent families in Cleveland, the 2000 census found.” Kamm’s Corners is Cleveland’s suburb in the City!"

Kamm's Corners really is a great place to call home.