Spidey lives, and so does Cleveland

I went out to get some lunch at noon, and found myself inundated in sightseers. Grandmothers, dads with kids, moms with babies, couples, clusters of teens and college students, all wandering up and down Euclid Avenue.

For the most part, you can't really call them tourists. "Tourist" implies someone who has temporarily packed up enough belongings to carry on life away from home. Most of these people will spend the night in their own beds.

They are tourists in their own home town.

Now, it's not like people don't come into downtown Cleveland. All three of our sports arenas are located in the downtown area, and the Cleveland Orchestra's annual Independence Day concert and fireworks display drags in thousands.

But participants in those events don't linger. They don't stroll. They depart their vehicles and proceed apace to their destinations. Some might browse the mall shops at Tower Center, but the streets of Cleveland do not capitvate their attention.

Until now.

Now that Euclid Avenue is filled with artificial store fronts - places where window shopping it the only shopping you'll do - people are fascinated by their hometown. And discovering that there are real restaurants and real shops, right around the corner from the movie set. People are getting familiar with their own hometown. Even though the foot traffic reduced my usual quick pace to a stroll, it was kind of nice to see the street look undeserted, for once.

And dude, they are totally doing a huge car crash scene on Euclid tomorrow. Man, I wish I had time to come down here for it!