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Ashtabula Information
Ashtabula is a city in Ashtabula County, Ohio, and the center of the Ashtabula
Micropolitan Statistical Area (as defined by the United States Census Bureau in
2003). A major location on the Underground Railroad in the middle 19th century,
the city today is a major coal port on Lake Erie at the mouth of the Ashtabula
River northeast of Cleveland. The name Ashtabula means "river of many fish" in
the Iroquois language. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of
20,962.
Trivially, the city was mentioned by Bob Dylan in his 1975 song "You're Going to
Make Me Lonesome When You Go" in the line I'll look for you in old Honolulu, San
Francisco, Ashtabula. The poet Carl Sandburg wrote a poem titled "Crossing Ohio
when Poppies Bloom in Ashtabula." There is also a fictional novel called "The
King from Ashtabula" by Vern Sneider, published in 1960.
Ashtabula hosts an annual Blessing of the Fleet Celebration, usually in late
May or early June. As part of the celebration, a procession and prayer service
is held at Ashtabula Harbor.
The Ashtabula Harbor is a mysterious beauty; it contains The Dry Dock and
Brenner's, which are polular drinking establishments for alienated intellectuals
and artists, unemployed steelworkers, coal shippers, fishermen out on their
luck, and grateful people just having another day in a place most would never
dare enter for fear of getting lost and forgotten forever. But we like it most
of the time.
Ashtabula was founded in 1803, later incorporated in 1891. The city contains
several former stops on the Underground Railroad which was used to convey
African-American slaves to freedom in Canada in the years before the American
Civil War. Among the stops is Hubbard House, one of the handful of termination
points. Ex-slaves would reside in a basement of the house adjacent to the lake
and then leave on the next safe boat to Canada, gaining their freedom once they
arrived in Ontario. Its harbor has been a large ore and coal port since the end
of the 19th century and continues to be to some extent with a long coal ramp
draping across the horizon in the current harbor and the ore shipments unloaded
from lakers that is sent down to the steel mills of Pennsylvania.
Many newcomers to Ashtabula in the late 19th century and early 20th century were
immigrants from Finland, Sweden, and Italy. Ethnic rivalries among these groups
were once a major influence on daily life in Ashtabula. A substantial percentage
of the current residents are descended from those immigrants. The population in
the City of Ashtabula grew steadily until 1970, since when it has been declining
just as steadily.
The 1900s saw great changes in Ashtabula. Its access to Lake Erie and nearly 30
miles of shoreline helped position Ashtabula as a major shipping and commercial
center.
During the 1950s, the area experienced growth with its expanding chemical
industry and increasing harbor activity, making Ashtabula one of the most
important port cities of the Great Lakes. Interesting historical industries in
the area included a Rockwell International plant on Route 20 on the western side
of Ashtabula that manufactured brakes for the Space Shuttle program as well as
the extrusion of depleted and enriched uranium at the Reactive Metals Extrusion
plant on East 21st street, prompting FEMA to, as recently as 1990 (the year the
plant ceased operations), place Ashtabula on its list of expected primary
nuclear targets for the Soviet Union.
Ashtabula Harbor hosts an annual Blessing of the Fleet community festival. The
origin of the Blessing of the Fleet can be traced to Portuguese and Irish
fisherman and tugmen who settled in Ashtabula. Sometime in the 1930's, the
Blessing of the Fleet was a small, almost private affair in early April
conducted by a few tugmen, their parish priest, and an acolyte. By 1950, it had
become a public ceremony under the auspices of Mother of Sorrows parish. In
1974, the Blessing of the Fleet became a community affair involving all of
Ashtabula's religious and harbor community. Today the Blessing is held annually,
usually in late May. The Coast Guard Station and the Harbor Museum and other
sites have been established to preserve Ashtabula's maritime heritage.
Some Things to Consider When Looking for an Apartment...
When searching for a new apartment make sure to take your time to think
through what are the most important things to you in an apartment and plan your
search based on those priorities. Here are some things to consider when planning
your move:
1. Consider the areas where you would like to live
* What is the crime rate?
* If you have children - what rating does the local school system have?
* Is there area convenient shopping, health and recreation services in the area?
2. Make a list of your housing priorities
* Do you have pets?
* Do you need parking?
* Do you need to be on the ground floor?
* What amenities are important to you - swimming pool, fitness room, in unit
laundry?
3. Evaluate the building
* What is the condition of the unit and building?
* Are the grounds maintained?
* Are windows, steps, and railings in good condition?
* View the property at night. Is it safe and well lit?
4. The security of the property
* Are there security service? When is the guard on duty?
* Does the building have controlled access?
* Does each unit have secure door and window locks?
5. Talk to the neighbors
* Ask other residents whether they are satisfied with the building.
6. Amenities
* Who is allowed to use the amenities?
* When are they open?
* Are the fees charged to use those facilities included in rent?
7. Ask about Utilities
* Does the owner or tenant pay the utility bills?
* Are any utilities included with monthly rent?
* Do units have separate thermostats to control heat and air conditioning?
8. Review the lease
* How much notice must you give before moving out?
* Can the rent be increased? If so, by how much and how often?
* Are pets allowed?
* What is the security deposit and cleaning costs upon move out?
* What is the responsibility of tenants for damage to property?
* Is there a penalty for breaking a lease?
9. Information too bring to a lease signing
* Credit Report
* Pay stubs/tax returns
* Reference
* Application
More Apartment Information
An apartment (or flat in Britain and most other Commonwealth countries) is a
self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Apartments
may be owned (by an owner-occupier) or rented (by tenants).
Some apartment-dwellers own their apartments, either as co-ops, in which the
residents own shares of a corporation that owns the building or development; or
in condominiums, whose residents own their apartments and share ownership of the
public spaces. Most apartments are in buildings designed for the purpose, but
large older houses are sometimes divided into apartments. The word apartment
connotes a residential unit or section in a building. Apartment building owners,
lessors, or managers often use the more general word units to refer to
apartments. Units can be used to refer to rental business suites as well as
residential apartments. When there is no tenant occupying an apartment, the
lessor is said to have a vacancy. For apartment lessors, each vacancy represents
a loss of income from rent-paying tenants for the time the apartment is vacant
(i.e., unoccupied). Lessors' objectives are often to minimize the vacancy rate
for their units. The owner of the apartment typically transfers possession to
the occupant by giving him/her the key to the apartment entrance door and any
other keys need to live there, such as a common key to the building or any other
common areas, and an individual unit mailbox key. When the occupant move out,
these keys should typically be returned to the owner.
Apartments can be classified into several types. Studio, efficiency, bed-sit, or
bachelor apartments tend to be the smallest apartments with the cheapest rents
in a given area. These kinds of apartment usually consist mainly of a large room
which is the living, dining, and bedroom combined. There are usually kitchen
facilities as part of this central room, but the bathroom is its own smaller
separate room. Moving up from the efficiencies are one-bedroom apartments where
one bedroom is a separate room from the rest of the apartment. Then there are
two-bedroom, three-bedroom, etc. apartments. Small apartments often have only
one entrance/exit. Large apartments often have two entrances/exits, perhaps a
door in the front and another in the back. Depending on the building design, the
entrance/exit doors may be directly to the outside or to a common area inside,
such as a hallway. Depending on location, apartments may be available for rent
furnished with furniture or unfurnished into which a tenant usually moves in
with his/her own furniture. Permanent carpeting is often included in an
apartment.
Laundry facilities are usually kept in a separate area accessible to all the
tenants in the building. Depending on when the building was built and the design
of the building, utilities such as water, heating, and electric may be common
for all the apartments in the building or separate for each apartment and billed
separately to each tenant (however, many areas in the US have ruled it illegal
to split a water bill among all the tenants, especially if a pool is on the
premises). Outlets for connection to telephones are typically included in
apartments. Telephone service is optional and is practically always billed
separately from the rent payments. Cable television and similar amenities are
extra also. Parking space, air conditioner, and extra storage space may or may
not be included with an apartment. Rental leases often limit the maximum number
of people who can reside in each apartment. On or around the ground floor of the
apartment building, a series of mailboxes are typically kept in a location
accessible to the public and, thus, to the letter-carrier too. Every unit
typically gets its own mailbox with individual keys to it. Some very large
apartment buildings with a full-time staff may take mail from the mailman and
provide mail-sorting service. Near the mailboxes or some other location
accessible by outsiders, there may be a buzzer (equivalent to a doorbell) for
each individual unit. In smaller apartment buildings such as two- or
three-flats, or even four-flats, garbage is often disposed of in trash
containers similar to those used at houses. In larger buildings, garbage is
often collected in a common trash bin or dumpster. For cleanliness or minimizing
noise, many lessors will place restrictions on tenants regarding keeping pets in
an apartment.
In some parts of the world, the word apartment is used generally to refer to a
new purpose-built self-contained residential unit in a building, whereas the
word flat means a converted self-contained unit in an older building. An
industrial, warehouse, or commercial space converted to an apartment is commonly
called a loft.
When part of a house is converted for the ostensible use of a landlord's family
member, the unit may be known as an in-law apartment or granny flat, though
these (sometimes illegally) created units are often occupied by ordinary renters
rather than family members. In Canada these suites are commonly located in the
basements of houses and are therefore normally called basement suites.
Staying in privately owned apartments rather than in a hotel is quickly becoming
popular with travelers.