Better Block returns to downtown Lorain

LORAIN — Motorists on Lorain's main thoroughfare Saturday saw a new way to look at travel on Broadway. From West 10th to West 16th, Broadway was condensed from four to two lanes, one in each direction, and the leftover road space used to highlight alternate transportation like bicycle lanes and host vendors ranging from Solidarity Urban Farms to several local community schools as part of the Lorain Better Block event. After a six-year hiatus, the event returned Saturday afternoon, hoping to allow residents to reimagine a portion of one of the city's main roadways ahead of upgrades slated next year. Lorain received $1.5 million in carbon reduction funds from the Northeast Ohio Area Coordinating Agency to improve cyclist connectivity to the lakefront, and $2 million from the Ohio Department of Transportation to pilot safety improvements on Broadway from East 28th Street to West 10th Street — with the culmination of the two funding sources coined the Broadway Corridor project. Saturday's event allowed attendees to give the city's Engineering Department and Lorain County Public Health feedback on the corridor and improvements they wanted. It was also a chance for local vendors and safety forces — including Lorain fire and police — to reach out to residents and provide resources. FireFish Arts In the midst of Saturday's Better Block event, Lorain's FireFish Arts debuted its interns' book cataloguing the stories highlighted at last year's FireFish Festival. For the 2024 festival, SPARKS! interns painted cardboard scales for the burning of the fish. Those scales told a story of Lorain residents interviewed ahead of the festival. Ultimately, those scales smoldered and burned as part of the annual FireFish tradition, but that did not mean they were lost to the wind. Autumn Robinson, 17, and her fellow SPARKS! interns took two dozen of those stories and collected them into a book published this year, "Lorain: One City, Many Stories." The book's public debut was at Saturday's Better Block event. Robinson, a senior at Firelands High School, was contacted by FireFish's youth coordinator about the intern program. As a creative writer she first felt out of her depth surrounded by the visual artists she encountered, but soon found her place in the group. The interns interviewed more than 75 Lorain residents about the city and their experiences, narrowing the list down to 24 for the book, Robinson said. "It was definitely intimidating writing it, at first," Robinson said. 'Being a creative writer there's no limits really. But this, it's a challenge because I want to make sure I'm being as accurate as possible — I don't want to misrepresent anybody's story or add anything." FireFish Founder Joan Perch lauded the SPARKS! Program, now in its third year. Teens and young adults from the ACES youth mentoring program and others in Lorain County make up the annual slate of interns who help keep FireFish running year-round. Going into this year's festival, the group is helping community members create dragonflies and other paper crafts celebrating nature to accompany this year's fish. They have helped with the revived Rock for Water recycled fashion show in May and attended Parade the Circle in Cleveland to build up ideas for FireFish's 10th anniversary this year, Perch said. "We turned it over, and we support them and give them the resources to do (it)," she said. The books will be available at this year's FireFish Festival, Sept. 20, and online at firefishfestival.com. They are $15 each. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.