Several people have messaged me asking why I publically, bluntly stated that Graham Veysey is a pompous piece of shit, and any lasting impact he's had on the Ohio City area is far more toxic than anything that was happening on w29th before he branded it "hingetown".

Every time I’ve talked to Graham Veysey face to face he’s been kind. He’s been enthusiastic. He’s seemed welcoming. The longer he occupies the buildings at the end of my block, the more it becomes abundantly clear that his kindness lacks any sincerity and is simply a mask. This becomes noticeable when he and/or his associates candidly say things such as “there are some people who like to live in their own shit and they can do that.” regarding anyone and everyone who has lived in the neighborhood before they branded it “hingetown”.

Graham is so self congratulatory about how he’s fixed the neighborhood… how he’s made it a better place. While there isn’t nearly as much crime happening in the wee hours of the night, he  has introduced much larger problems to the area, and with that, he hasn’t actually reduced crime in ohio city, if anything his efforts have made it worse… but not on his block… because he pushed it down the street. What a hero. If Graham had any real, thought-out intention of making the neighborhood safe, he could have, i dunno, put some of his money towards helping poverty stricken individuals reach a life space in which they don’t have to resort to selling their own bodies on the street to survive. Has he done that? No. No he hasn’t. He’s been too busy buying out the buildings on West 29th so he can evict the local businesses and replace them with overpriced tea and coffee and all other excess that fits the yuppie community.

The issue goes beyond Graham. There are people like him infecting the entire community; for example The Guernsey Building, which in recent years largely housed families of refugees fleeing war-torn countries after their villages were burned to the ground, was purchased by Red Door Living, who evicted everyone living there so they could turn the place into luxury condos. The problem reaches far beyond his hands, but he and Marika are major contributors.

In a recent Plain Dealer article, Marika is quoted saying “We knew when we went into it that it would be as much a community building project as a real-estate project” in regards to making “Hingetown” a thing. The Near West side of cleveland already had a remarkably strong sense of community. It’s a community of people who have devoted their lives to actually making the neighborhood a better place, as opposed to Graham and Marika’s ideals of making it richer and more segregated. People who have spent lifetimes buying properties that they rent out to low-income families as affordable housing, volunteering at soup kitchens and homeless shelters, helping former convicts establish lives for themselves so they don’t fall into the same patterns and routines that drove them to crime, ensuring (once again) that families fleeing war-torn countries have a place to live… these people; the people who work endlessly to make the world a better place (for no personal gain, I might add) are the people that are being displaced/kicked out of their homes as an effect of the gentrification that Graham continues to take hand in and support. So Graham Veysey, Marika Shiori-Clark, and company have no room to talk about building community and improving the neighborhood, when, in practice, they are burning it to the ground. I should also add that you’re hearing this from me instead of the good people of the Near West Side of Cleveland who actually are endlessly fighting to change the neighborhood in lasting, positive ways, is because the good people of the neighborhood… even as Graham pushes them out of their homes and spits in their faces, they still to this day welcome him with open arms. I want to make perfectly clear that these words reflect my opinions and not theirs. They are much better, much more selfless beings than I know how to be.

So, when, on top of all the damage that they’ve done and continue to do, Graham Veysey, Marika Shiori-Clark, and those they are associated with give interviews to local and national publications, slinging such insults towards the neighborhood as “desolate” “decrepit” and “a nowhere, toxic corner” in which “you could have tumbleweeds during the day and no one would want to walk here at night.”... when he insults my neighborhood and the people I love… all that I have left to do is stoop to his low; to sling insults. And while I understand that that insulting someone via facebook status is unquestionably juvenile, I will stick fully behind my statement that Graham Veysey is a pompous piece of shit, and any lasting impact he's had on the Ohio City area is far more toxic than anything that was happening on w29th before he branded it "hingetown". Because he is. Graham is so far up his own ass that he can’t even fathom the idea that maybe there was a thriving, inclusive community that has existed on the near west side of cleveland long before he was born and that his ideals help no one outside of his elitist posse. Graham, in action, is building barriers and lengthening the divide between classes in a city that is far too segregated as is, and is shutting down anyone and everyone working to ensure people of all different backgrounds can live peacefully together. He has absolutely no room to gloat about making the neighborhood a better place. He, in my eyes, is this neighborhood’s cancer.

Also, side note, Graham’s recently started Wine Business “ManCan” is quite explicitly founded on outdated sexist principles, and thus promotes misogynistic ideals (because apparently drinking wine out of a glass puts his fragile masculinity at question), which is not only offensive but also societally harmful.

So basically, Graham is a self-congratulatory, elitist, sexist trust-fund baby who works his ass off to turn ohio city into the proverbial stepford, whilst hindering any progress towards a less segregated, more inclusive world. He’s the kind of person who, while stabbing you, will tell you that he’s doing it for your benefit, hence me saying he’s a pompous piece of shit, and any lasting impact he's had on the Ohio City area is far more toxic than anything that was happening on w29th before he branded it "hingetown".