Ektar All Around Town

Sunny and mild on a January Sunday, and a roll of Ektar 100 loaded in an old Canon Rebel. University Circle, East Cleveland, Glenville and then back to U.C., at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Greatest of All Time

Rear of Larkin's Lounge on Superior Avenue and Russell Road, just west of East 71st. Larkin's beautiful blade sign is now gone, blown away in a wind storm a couple of years ago. 01-06-17.

The Winged Ox

Detail of the statue in front of the former St. Luke's Hospital on Shaker Blvd. in Cleveland. The winged ox is the symbol of Saint Luke, and sculptor Walter Sinz saw fit to include it in his 1929 grouping, though it rests behind the three main figures.

Sinz, a graduate of the Cleveland School of Art (now the Cleveland Institute of Art), is better known as the sculptor of the Thompson Trophy, awarded for many years at the National Air Races.

Ewa's

One of just three Polish restaurants in the Cleveland area, Ewa's Family Restaurant closed after Ewa retired, noting that the large industrial cooking pots were getting too heavy for her to lift as she got older. Rather than sell the business, she just closed its doors.

Ewa's was a fun place to eat, with Polish music in the house, a portrait of Pope John Paul II on the wall, and in one corner a cardboard fireplace with a rotating lamp to give the effect of a flickering fire. The young bilingual waitresses were lively and often sarcastic with each other, which made for a good show.

The food was memorable — golden, glistening chicken noodle soup, rich paprikash with guilt-inducing dumplings, brisket swimming in gravy and of course pierogi with onions sauteed in butter. I had my first (and last) taste of czarnina there, and while this soup made from duck's blood wasn't quite as awful as I thought it might be, it was not something I wanted to revisit.

Now the restaurant stands empty on East 71st Street, but the prim lace curtains are still in every window.