David Grohl Alley
Roadtrippers, The Greatest Road Trip Ever and a host of other apps aim to turn your travel into a more vital part of your vacation. And they've doing a pretty good job of it. I started using these type apps a couple years ago to break up a long drive to the ocean and we saw some interesting things along the way. OK so they tended to be along the lines of the worlds biggest pencil or the largest muffler man. But if you have to stop anyhow why stop at just a generic gas station?
Which leads me back to a cold morning in January when I got the weekly email from Roadtrippers and they had a feature about David Grohl Alley. Their focus was the worlds largest drum sticks of course, they love the big things. David Grohl is from Warren which I never knew, you learn something new every day.
But the fact that it was close to my home town and a musician I admired there was no way I was missing this on my next trip home.
So fast forward to mid February and I finally made it up north.
I rolled up to David Grohl Alley mid day fighting some harsh sun light to get pictures and while I was walking around the alley a gentleman struck up a conversation asking if I was from around Warren. Kind of and not really and as we talked I got excited because I really couldn't have planned this any better. Who I was talking to was a local activist Shawn Carvin the Land Bank Program Manager for the Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership. It was like a tiny slice of my Cincinnati world transported to NE Ohio. I love talking to energetic people elbow deep trying to make their city a better place. And walking around downtown Warren, wow, Shawn and his co-workers have their work cut out for them.
But back to David Grohl Alley, I learned from Shawn that it is an ever growing collection of art. Most of the paintings were done by local artists. With varying degrees of skill I must add. But fan art is fan art. Its a shame the best and most awesome mural had trash piled up against it. Would David Grohl Alley be a worthwhile destination to plan a trip around? Depends on how big of a fan you are. But if you are passing near Warren, Oh it would be worth a couple hours of your time to visit the alley and walk around Warren's downtown. There is some amazing architecture and a couple cool parks along the Mahoning River including Monument Park and Veterans Park and about a mile down the road is the Packard Museum.
Jim Fogarty of 2ticksandthedog whose business backs up to the alley sent me this short video.
I love this quote,
"if you are considering doing something with the arts, you don't even have to know anything about art, here is what I suggest you do, take one chance, just one shot. Go find artists go find a project just do it, the worst thing that could happen, the worst thing that could happen is you'll make a new friend out of it and get a little better appreciation for what the art community does."
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