I was living and working in Tremont - when the development corporation seriously launched the campaign to re-brand the neighborhood from the "Southside" to Tremont. At that point, the most ambitious restaurant in the neighborhood was Bohemia , run by Lynda Khoury and Gerry Groh. The hipster scene left the Warehouse District, when Khory and Groh migrated their operation (and drug habits) to Tremont.
The Treehouse did not exist, it was a burnt out and shuttered former butcher shop. Civilization was there, but it was called Cravings run by the Holcepls, who were among first investors in the area. Initial, suburban bar hoppers hung out at Edison's.
It was already getting too pricey and weird for me in the nineties, so I migrated to "Old Brooklyn" - which the CDC world had rebranded to "Brooklyn Centre." Actually, the area south of "Brooklyn Centre" had been known as Brighton and South Brooklyn , not "Old Brooklyn" (Brighton Village, centered around todays Pearl-Broadview intersection, was incorporated for one year in 1838.) When I moved in the late 90s- Old Brooklyn had EVERYTHING within walking and RTA distance. We had a commuter bus line, we had Aldis, we had beautiful park access, a plaza with a bank, coffee shop, hair salon, CVS, laudromat and video store. We had a headstart daycare at Archwood UCC and Denison School (with staff who served over four generations of families). That has all been lost in the time that our representation went from the scheming of Rokakis, to Merle Gordon (rumored to be Frank Jackson's mistress at the time - now the head of City of Cleveland Health Department), to Emily Lipovan (headed TWDC when I briefly worked there), to Brian Cummins and Cimperman and Brancatelli representing parts of the neighborhood.
The sick powers that be (now mostly concentrated under mega CDC Detroit Shoreway and the Cuyahoga County Land Bank) believe they have a formula for the gentrification of CLE neighbrhoods. Slavic Village was too ethnic for their efforts and branding. They have systematically destroyed pockets of neighborhood civility throughout the city. It is very disheartening. Community identity is formed by folks who decide to STAY - but with the operation of neighborhood "planning" in Cleveland - most of our interesting people decide to leave.
NOTE: I have asked Cleveland Historical [2]to post information about "Old Brooklyn" - but there is an unspoken "blackout" of information about my part of town. Why is that?? It doesn't conform with the "master plan" ?
Sandy Rozhon, who was an amazing genius from Brooklyn Centre - died in 2016- I had to resurrect her documentation of the neighborhood at http://brooklyncentre.com [3]. Connie Eazen has also documented our history at http://oldbrooklynhistory.org/ [4] Please see all of the information archived there, before we all die off.