Keeping up with my summer fun theme, here's a vintage postcard of
Lakeview Park showing the park that many of us grew up, with the skimpy beach. This is the view west of the bathhouse.
And here is roughly the same view now.
As you can see, once Lakeview Park was leased to the county, extensive changes and improvements were made. In this case, many of the shade trees were removed, eliminating much of the cozy canopy of foliage. (I've tried to match up trees in both photos and it is pretty much impossible – but you can try!)
But park visitors still sit on benches and enjoy the view. While taking this photograph this past Sunday, the woman sitting on the nearest bench eyed me suspiciously all the while, wondering what I was up to. After dealing with this sort of thing for years, I decided to skip my usual tongue-tied explanation and just snapped away and then scrammed!
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To visit the Lakeview Park page of the
Lorain County Metro Parks website, which includes a nice history of the park with many archival photos, click
here.
I grew up at Lakeview, as well; I remember going there as a kid, then later, when the police chief and the LORAIN URINAL tried to demonize those of us who hung out there in the 70's, calling us "dope Fiends", and the place "Needle Park". We loved the park, and we respected the other people who came to enjoy it...in fact, we chased more than one real junkie out of the park.
ReplyDeleteHey Dan....maybe the lady on the bench got word from that guy who watched you when you were at Midway Mall taking some photos...interesting....verrrrrrry interesting indeed!!
ReplyDeleteYikes! Pretty soon I won't be able to snap a photo in a public place without being run in by Lorain's Finest! Oh well, then I can do a "then and now" shot of a Lorain jail cell! (Remember my old Lorain Police Station hoosegow photo?)
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