President Obama will visit this Ohio community on Friday.
Hear more about what Lorain is -and was- on this in-depth radio piece from WKSU news.
When Obama visited during the 2008 campaign, he spoke quite a bit about jobs and trade.
I imagine jobs and the economy will be on everyone’s mind there now as well.
-KG

Rust Wire has previously highlighted the writing of Lorain native Nick Kowalczyk.
Check out his latest essay, on what it means to “be a man” growing up in Lorain:
“The tough times of the 1980s and 1990s unraveled an old Lorain sensibility: you were ‘a man’ if you knew how to build things and repair cars and earned money by working with your hands. Many of those men now were laid-off or tenuously employed, made vulnerable, and economically and psychologically castrated. (If a man can’t provide for his family, than what kind of man is he?) For the …

The Buffalo News’ “The ‘Burbs” blog posed a question yesterday that has been asked by many a municipality: should public employees be required to live where they work?

(Sorry for this lame picture. I couldn’t think of any other way to illustrate this story.)
Their post dealt with the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, but it’s a question that has been asked throughout our region.
Typically, municipal leaders - and oftentimes voters as well - favor such rules, which are often opposed by police and firefighters unions.
This has been a hot topic in Ohio …

Rust Wire has previously featured the work of Lorain, Ohio, native Nick Kowalczyk, a writer who is working on a book about his hometown.
Kowalczyk, an assistant professor of writing at Ithaca College, will be returning to the city to do some research this summer and is looking to speak to Lorainites. (Click on the above link for his contact information.)

I recently spent an afternoon in and around my old stomping grounds of Lorain, Ohio. While I was there, I took a few hours to explore a Lorain County Metroparks Trail that runs through the slag fields of the city’s steel mill, as well as along the banks of the Black River. Walkers, runners, and bikers on the trail get to see a juxtaposition of industry (or what’s left of it, anyhow) and nature.
I wanted to share a few photos:

I recently spent an afternoon in and around my old stomping grounds of Lorain, Ohio. While I was there, I took a few hours to explore a Lorain County Metroparks Trail that runs through the slag fields of the city’s steel mill, as well as along the banks of the Black River. Walkers, runners, and bikers on the trail get to see a juxtaposition of industry (or what’s left of it, anyhow) and nature.
I wanted to share a few photos:

St. Joseph Community Center, which occupies the former St. Joseph’s Hospital in the heart of downtown Lorain, will soon be closing its doors.
The old hospital is home to a number of non-profit and government offices. It’s not clear at this point what will happen to the building.
For most people in Lorain, this probably isn’t unexpected news; the center has been struggling for a number of years. When I worked in Lorain, the place was cutting jobs and services attempting to stay afloat. There were a number of proposals to revitalize …

St. Joseph Community Center, which occupies the former St. Joseph’s Hospital in the heart of downtown Lorain, will soon be closing its doors.
The old hospital is home to a number of non-profit and government offices. It’s not clear at this point what will happen to the building.
For most people in Lorain, this probably isn’t unexpected news; the center has been struggling for a number of years. When I worked in Lorain, the place was cutting jobs and services attempting to stay afloat. There were a number of proposals to revitalize …

I really enjoyed this essay by Lorain native Nicholas Kowalczyk.
http://www.ohioana.org/features/marvin/dearlorain.pdf
It’s a “conversation” between the author and the city.
“Lorain, are you listening? Can you speak? Please don’t be too tired or defeated after the last century,” he starts out.
“I want you to tell me your story. Tell me about life before the factories closed, tell me about the days when you believed you were important. When you mattered to America, to the world. When you made cars, ships, shovels, stoves, phones, clothes, cranes, and steel. When you built an excavator that …