By Ian P.E.
We took some photos of the ever-evolving interior of the D.I.Y. pad on Cleveland’s Westside known as “Tower 2012”. They’re currently going through a changing of the guard over there, with the old crew moving on, and a group of younger co-op minded punks taking over the digs.
When I first moved back to Cleveland in 2007, I was pretty stoked to see a place like Tower existing (despite the efforts of Cleveland’s finest and the department of taxation). I grew up going to Speak in Tongues and The Mantis (in Kent)…they were places where underage kids could spend a night checking out great music, maybe play a set themselves, and hang out with friends.
Tower got its start back in the summer of 2004, when Mark and Crystin opened up a venue in the warehouse space they were living in, over at Madison and 85th. Nick moved into the downstairs later that year, and they turned the whole building into an anything goes show-space/collective.
Following some disagreements with the landlord in 2006, they moved down the street and renamed themselves “Tower 2012” after the Mayan calendar’s date for the end of the world. Nick explained the why they chose the name – “None of us were into 2012 at first, we were into the idea of future-punk and the name was better than Tower 2.0…then we started looking into the whole 2012 thing – I’m dead serious about it, but also skeptical at the same time”.
It was a good run, guess we’ll see if the “new kids on the block” (rumored to be skin-heads!!!) can keep up the fun times Crystin, Mark, Nick and the rest of the Tower crew put together the last 4 or so years.
- Ian P.E.
