I had been meaning to shoot the store for 30 years and I finally got a chance to shoot it over a period of time in 2019. While avoiding the local gangs, I couldn’t help but notice the path that had been worn through the field by neighborhood people walking to the store.
It’s the Hough neighborhood and it’s a kind of black capital in the city because it dates back to the infamous and large scale Hough riots in the 1960s. But unlike a place like Harlem, Hough has just deteriorated until there is very little left from the old days. That’s perfect for the Cleveland Clinic, the largest employer in the state of Ohio, just a few blocks south, It’s ever expanding and needs housing for so many of its workers who want to live close by to the employe-.
Hough was always a tough place and this corner here was known as the place in the city to purchase PCP, amongst many things.
I never got shots of the front of the market because, as it often has happened, the minute I begin to shoot something it disappears. It’s too bad because the front was a better shot with the house towering above the store.
The house was finally torn down the following year after this shot, having survied probably 120 years. It was one of thousands of what i call, the predictive moment. You know, here today, gone today.
