Edward Wrobel’s earliest memories are of flowers, fruit, hard work - and more flowers.
He grew up in a small apartment above Orban’s Fruit and Flowers, the business his parents owned near the corner of E. 115th Street and Buckeye. It’s still here, and Edward still owns it - one of the last remaining white-ethnic businesses from a time a couple generations ago when Buckeye Road was reputedly home to the largest population of Hungarians outside Budapest.
It’s just a few days after my last visit to Landon at Club L&M when I hear that the shop has been burglarized. Nine motorbikes worth a total of about $5,000 were stolen during a torrential rain storm the night before.
I’m shopping for salad dressing in the Giant Eagle on Buckeye and E. 115th Street, just around the corner from our house, when I bump into a woman behind me who’s studying canned vegetables. We both laugh and apologize.
When I walk into the Rice Branch Library’s community room saddled with camera bags, Eleanor Bergholz looks concerned. “Did you reserve the room for something?”
Today I meet resident and community activist D’Angelo Knuckles in an office at the St. Luke’s Foundation. We’d been planning to talk there for a while, but it’s a sunny day and we’ve both gotten an invitation to help plant sunflowers at the local library, so instead we head outside.
Sanders Henderson, the multi-talented owner of Nikki's Music - rightfully calls himself a workaholic. But as Justin asked in a recent post, does he think of himself as an artist? Does he see his many creative skills - in music events, store displays and balloon creations - as a way to contribute to community change? It's an important question.
John Hopkins is executive director of the Buckeye Shaker Square Development Corporation, the neighborhood’s nonprofit development organization. He’s been helping me and Seth since before we moved in, assisting us in our search for space and providing invaluable information about Buckeye’s past and present.
Sanders Henderson calls himself a workaholic. In his case, the term seems inadequate. In addition to Nikki’s Music, a Buckeye Road music store that he owns and where he works six days a week, he also owns Carnegie Auto Wash & Detail on Carnegie Avenue downtown.
Under the Tree Fragrances is one of the more intriguing storefronts on Buckeye Road. Inside the front window you see row upon row of bottles, each filled with a different-colored liquid. It looks not unlike the science lab you wish you had as a kid.
