DEVIL STRIP DISPORT

High Tunnel Initiative aims to ‘bring people together’ to grow food

REPORTING AND WRITING BY DIANE PITZ KILIVRIS, PHOTOS BY ILENIA PEZZANITI

Upon learning that Akron has a “High Tunnel System Initiative,” one might envision high speed trains jetting through tubes from city to suburb. Nope. Not even close.

These high tunnels are structures designed to serve urban farmers in growing high-quality produce nearly year-round.

And the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is offering grants to Akron residents who have a bit of land and the desire to grow food. Those in urban food deserts — areas more than a mile away from grocery stores with fresh produce — are especially encouraged to apply. is a metal-framed arched structure covered with heavy polyethylene. They significantly extend the normal growing season by allowing for natural climate control and protection from harsh weather and pests. High tunnels are taller than greenhouses and significantly less expensive. Plus, they are moveable to allow for farming rotation. Fruits and vegetables in high tunnels are typically planted in the ground as opposed to structures such as raised beds.

Cleveland began a high tunnel initiative in 2012 as a pilot project introduced by Congresswoman Marcia Fudge to bring quality produce to food deserts in urban areas.

Let’s Grow Akron has been using high and low tunnels for the better part of a decade. In 2014 Trinity United Church of Christ in North Akron received the first hoop house funded by the USDA initiative. It was later donated to Akron Cooperative Farms, where it is currently in use.

In 2018 the Akron Urban League set up a high tunnel via the initiative, which is used for educational programs for youth. Let’s Grow Akron currently cares for it.

Presently, there are roughly 200 high tunnels in operation in the Akron area, including those funded by the High Tunnel Initiative.

In 2018, Kashava Holt took a job as an outreach specialist with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, also partnering with the NRCS, and began actively promoting the High Tunnel Initiative in Akron. Holt was a University of Akron student, founder of the school’s Urban Agriculture Program, a lifelong vegetarian and an impassioned advocate for bringing the Akron community together through growing healthy food. He developed online information sessions and actively helps applicants through the process. He has even helped physically set up the high tunnels once they arrive.

While Holt’s mission started at the University of Akron with the desire to improve the quality of healthy food options available on campus, his passion grew.

“I wanted to have a bigger impact throughout the city, beyond the university,” Holt says.

Last May, Holt started the nonprofit Akron Urban Agriculture. Its mission is to advocate and promote anything agriculture-related in the Akron area, including the high tunnel initiative. Now with an active presence on social media, the nonprofit is focused on reaching out to anyone who would like to become involved in Akron’s agriculture scene.

Far left: Kashava Holt, founder of the University of Akron’s Urban Agriculture Program, stands inside the second high tunnel at Akron Cooperative Farms on Feb. 23, 2021. Left: Dew forms on the polyethylene that locks in the heat at the Akron Cooperative Farm’s High Tunnel in North Hill. Top: The second high tunnel at Akron Cooperative Farms implemented by the Akron Urban Agriculture Program measures 30 feet wide by 72 feet long. (Photos: Ilenia Pezzaniti)

“We’re giving students the opportunity to volunteer with AHTI, learn more about the different existing gardeners and farmers promoting farming and new gardening techniques, and farm to table,” Holt says. They also plan to advocate for better-quality food in Akron’s public schools.

Holt is currently a senior in the fire protection technology program while also majoring in construction engineering. Although his interests seem broad, his focus is clear: to create new, healthier standards of living in Akron.

“We really need to have something that is going to bring people together. And think about it — food is the main thing that brings people Much of Akron Urban Agriculture’s startup initiatives have been put on hold by COVID-19, including getting a high tunnel for the university. But Holt says they’re working on making connections in the community, getting the word out, building capital, hiring more students and acquiring land. He would like to see the university claim a high tunnel of its own, but space is an issue. The group is encouraging landowners to donate space for farming, both for the University and for residents, especially those living in food deserts.

One area high tunnel obtained through the program belongs to Akron Cooperative Farms in North Hill. The farm consists of 4.5 acres of land in the area that was Patterson Park and Sammis Park, the baseball fields across from North High School. Founder Doug Wurtz obtained the land for community farming in 2019.

At Akron Cooperative Farms, local residents, mostly Nepali and Bhutanese immigrants, have access to 20-foot by 20-foot plots where they can plant whatever they wish.

“They grow food for their families and to sell at our farmers’ market in the spring,” Wurtz says. The farm’s new 30-foot by 72-foot hoop house will go into use this spring and Wurtz is preparing the soil inside.

Holt says that there are few limits on who can obtain a high tunnel, but they do come with a fiveyear contract and some growing restrictions. After the contract has ended, the grower owns the hoop house. Funding comes from the NRCS through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Akron residents can put them in their backyards given they meet certain soil test requirements and get a city permit. Rented or leased properties are eligible with permission of the owner.

And no one is left on their own to learn high tunnel farming. Once a hoop house is acquired, the High Tunnel Initiative also provides workshops to help new farmers learn how to use the structures, as they’re different from regular outdoor growing.

Lisa Nunn of Let’s Grow Akron, which currently uses three high tunnels and has been gardening in them for years, says they take some trial and error.

“It is its own little microclimate,” Nunn says. “I would encourage Once proficient, gardeners can dramatically extend the growing season. Nunn says they can get up to three rotations on certain crops, growing 10 months a year. Summer crops can be planted as early as late March and early April as opposed to May or June.

“It’s important we preserve our ecosystem and the people who depend on it,” Holt says. “The high tunnel practice gives cities and individuals an opportunity to regenerate the soil and air, and we can make our city a model city so other places can learn how it’s done.”

For information about the Akron High Tunnel Initiative or Akron Urban Agriculture, visit akronurbanagriculture.com or email akronurbanagriculture@ gmail.com.

// Diane Pitz Kilivris is a freelance writer and podcaster living in West Akron. When not working, she can be found on the tennis court or happily knitting in a comfy chair.

They proclaimed it ‘Akron’s Greatest Store’

WRITING AND PHOTOS BY JEFF DAVIS

...And they weren’t kidding. It had more floor space than Summit Mall. More than the John S. Knight Center, the downtown library, the West Market Target and the South Arlington Wal-Mart SuperCenter combined. It was the M. O’Neil Company — O’Neil’s — offering anything and everything a shopper ever wanted under one South Main Street roof. It had class, it had charm, and wonderful public transportation dropped you off right at the front door.

As the story goes, Michael M. O’Neil and Isaac J. Dyas, a couple of Irishborn 20-somethings, pooled their relatively short dry-goods business experience in 1877 and opened the O’Neil & Dyas store on East Market Street, in the general vicinity of Summit Art Space — this newspaper’s world headquarters. Audaciously, it was also several blocks from Howard Street, Akron’s retail district at the time. They figured people would find them if their merchandise was cool enough. partners to soon build a larger store at Main and Mill. After Dyas died, O’Neil carried on as the M. O’Neil Company, finally selling the business to the St. Louis-based May Company in 1912, because his son, William, didn’t want to take over.

While Michael was busy selling suits and hats, son William was busy founding the General Tire Corporation. Dad actually sold the store so he could become president of General Tire. May Company leaders knew that Grand Department Stores — emphasizing not only quality goods but quality, even luxurious shopping experiences — had become extremely successful in Paris. They brought the idea to Ohio in 1914, in the form of a giant May Co. store situated on Public Square in Cleveland. In 1928, they built an even larger store at the corner of Main and State streets in Akron for their O’Neil’s brand.

When shoppers entered the Akron store, they were in awe. It was bigger than any store they could have imagined. Those few who had been to Paris said it was like the real thing. It had 700,000 square feet of floor space, roughly equivalent to 16 football fields. Its white terra cotta exterior shone brilliantly in the sun. The expansive sales floor on the first floor absolutely glistened with art deco ornamentation. As one traveled higher in the six-story building (not including the two basement levels) the various departments were designed to be small and intimate, affording each customer a lesshurried experience.

And the store had almost anything you could want.

Fine jewelry and watches near the front door lured shoppers deep into the store where they would find separate departments for ladies’ lingerie, hosiery, shoes, ready-to-wear clothing, sportswear, formal wear and coats and hats.

There were departments for men’s suits, furnishings, shoes, and boys and girls clothing. There were fur coats, with summer storage available, a bridal shop, and dedicated areas for Boy Scout and Girl Scout uniforms and supplies and nurse’s uniforms.

There were huge toy and sporting goods departments. The store sold sheet music and records, with sound-proof listening rooms so shoppers could preview recordings before actually buying them. For the home, one could find furniture, major appliances, kitchen appliances, draperies (which could be installed for you), carpet, linen, fine china and glassware, cutlery, lighting and an interior decorating department.

Handy? Have a hobby? The store had a camera department, pianos and other musical instruments, with music lessons if you wanted them. It sold fabric and patterns, sewing machines. They could teach you to sew. There were art supplies, paint and wallpaper, a stationary shop, and automobile accessories. It even had plumbing and heating supplies.

Every department had a sales desk where a shopper could pay via the store’s revolving credit plan. If an item wasn’t available in a customer’s preferred size or color, the clerk would phone the customer at home when the item was back in stock. If a shopper didn’t care to carry his or her package, it would be delivered within a day or two at no charge by a fleet of the store’s trucks.

The store had a florist, a beauty salon, an optometry department, a bookstore, and a candy shop, as well as a children’s barbershop, shoe repair shop and photo studio.

Shoppers could extend their days with lunch in the white-tablecloth Georgian Room restaurant upstairs or the Oak Grill downstairs. The store’s auditorium was used for civic events. Elevators and wooden escalators transported shoppers between floors.

There was a parking deck in back and bus stops at both the Main Street and State Street doors. It is said that people often had to wait for the second or even third bus at busy times of the day because downtown had so many shoppers. Most didn’t mind the congestion because they had left their homes that morning with every intention of making a day of it. Perhaps an escape for a one-car family member left home alone every day.

Bob Parks of Stow, who retired from O’Neil’s as VP of merchandising for men’s clothing, remembers the inner workings of the store: a pneumatic tube system that allowed paperwork to travel between the selling floors and the back office, an employee cafeteria and quiet rooms where employees could relax or even take a nap on their lunch break.

oldest department store, Le Bon Marché in Paris, which had a dormitory on its uppermost floor so single ladies working as clerks could arrive at work promptly.

The lowest level of O’Neil’s housed one of the largest print shops in the city, creating everything from signs to mailers to newspaper advertising inserts, Parks remembers.

At one point, the store served as a receiving hub for eight other O’Neil’s stores in the area. Merchandise arrived via truck or the two rail sidings in the rear of the building.

“I had five buyers and many times I would take them down to the docks to unpack cartons of shirts and either send them up the freight elevator to the men’s department or send them out to the other stores in our area,” Parks says.

“For a while, downtown Akron was May Co.’s flagship store. The president worked in Akron because he didn’t want to move to St. Louis,” he says. “But then downtown changed.”

Indeed it did. In the mid-1950s, it was a 5-minute walk from O’Neil’s to two other large department stores, a dozen shoe stores, nine jewelers, eight banks, seven restaurants, six women’s wear stores, five bars, five men’s clothiers, four theaters, three furniture stores, three drug stores, two newsstands, Scott’s dime store, a butcher shop, Sears & Roebuck and more.

Many of these places, of course, eventually moved to the malls. Some gave up and went out of business. Two-thirds of the O’Neil’s building was demolished and replaced with a parking lot.

Cue Joni Mitchell.

Sadly, no one will remember the good times they had shopping online last month, or wax nostalgic about a trip to a big box store. But the memories of O’Neil’s and South Main Street shopping are still with us. And there are still big department stores in Paris.

// Jeff Davis is a lifelong resident of the Akron area and is a retired writer, editor, and teacher. Like most Akronites of a certain age, he remembers riding the wooden escalators at O’Neil’s.

Trumpeter Tommy Lehman expresses love for Akron through his jazz

REPORTING AND WRITING BY LAURA LAKINS

“What I create is a direct reflection of what I see and experience every day here in Akron. I hope to inspire anyone who hears my music to live with more love and on a higher vibration day-to-day,” jazz musician and trumpeter Tommy Lehman says.

Born and raised in Akron, Tommy has been surrounded by music for as long as he can remember. From his musically inclined family to his experiences in Akron’s finest visual performing arts programs, Tommy was destined to play.

He credits his teachers at Miller South School and Firestone High School for helping him cultivate a passion for creating. When asked if there were any musicians that made an impact on him, he paid homage to the album Oscar Peterson Trio + One by The Oscar Peterson Trio and Clark Terry, a 1964 jazz album he discovered his junior year of high school.

“This album sparked a deep curiosity within me. After I heard it, I focused all of my time on replicating the solos,” Tommy says.

Despite his newfound curiosity, Tommy had no plans to make a career out of music. During the spring of his senior year high school, he enrolled at The University of Akron as an accounting major. Only because of a field trip to Cuyahoga Community College shortly after did his path change entirely.

“Our high school jazz band had the chance to be adjudicated by Dominick Farinacci’s band from New York,” Tommy says. “During the trip, the director of the music program came up to me and asked what my plans were after high school. He offered me a scholarship to come here and study music,” Tommy says.

It didn’t take much to convince Tommy to make the switch, and that fall he went on to study music at Tri-C. After two years there, he finished his undergraduate degree at the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut. Both schools gave Tommy the opportunity to learn from professional jazz musicians, and they all left a lasting impression on him.

“Being around faculty members at Tri-C and the Hartt School who were so serious about music and carried themselves with integrity made me want to hold myself to the same standard,” Tommy says. “I had the best role models ever.”

After his time at Hartt, Tommy returned home to Akron and began settling into his professional music career as a trumpeter, vocalist and keys player. He is currently a member of the Tommy Lehman Squadtet, Acid Cats, Nathan Paul & the Admirables, Alla Boara, Alba Trio and Nine Lives Project.

In addition to his groups, he continually works on his solo work and contributes to a wide variety of projects with Northeast Ohio musicians. He has an upcoming collaboration with Akron’s Floco Torres and SmokeFace. He has worked with Cleveland’s Peachcurls and Theron Brown as well, to name a few.

“Northeast Ohio has some of the best musicians in the world,” Tommy says. “We say it all the time because we truly believe that about each other. Everyone is so humble here.”

Tommy made it clear that the local music scene is like a family. They help each other out on albums, perform together and constantly support one another.

“What can I say other than I am so thankful to even be in the conversation with these people. They are real life heroes,” Tommy says.

Though the past year made collaborations and performances more difficult, Tommy was able to put some music from the vaults into the world, as well as focus on who he is as a creator.

“The pandemic gave me the time and mental space to reset my creative process. When the world stopped, I had to ask myself ‘Why do I create?’ and ‘Why do I play?’” Tommy says.

Feeling creatively rejuvenated, Tommy took to working on his first full length studio album that he plans to release later this year. Tommy hopes this summer offers opportunities to perform on stage in his element once again.

“I can’t wait to get back to Musica. That venue always brings something special out of our performances. I also can’t wait to be back at Blu Jazz and the Bop Stop in Cleveland. Until then, I’m just looking forward to the new live opportunities that come about this summer outdoors and on patios,” Tommy says.

While we wait for Tommy to hit the stage again, you can find his music on Bandcamp and all other major streaming platforms. You can also keep up with him on Instagram, @TommyLehhman, as well as his website, www. tommylehmanmusic.com