People Watch: Hello, Erie

Sarah Graham

As a North East native, I grew up with a distorted geographical view. "Erie" meant the mall and Tinseltown. And that's that.

It seemed like State Street was nothing but office buildings and had little to offer for recreation. The one-way streets and parking garages of downtown were foreign and terrifying, and that was reason enough to stick to the Peach Street exit. However, once I got my license a couple years ago, I slowly but surely discovered the actual City of Erie.

My license meant freedom. Boredom was no longer acceptable. Under pressure to entertain myself and friends, I went to shows at the Warner, discovered new restaurants, and enjoyed the crowd at Celebrate Erie.

That's level one of building my connection with Erie. It was great to find things to do, but eventually even eating out can become redundant. Working with the Erie Reader came at a prime time. I am now aware of events like the FILM series at the Erie Art Museum and some of the amazing people that Erie is housing.

And it is the uncovering of those people that inspired this blog series. The more involved I am with Erie, the more I love it. Motivated by my excitement about the potential of Erie, I've decided that my contribution will be revealing one of the aspects that Erie has to offer—the people. Banking on the power of fate, subsequent blog posts will feature interviews with the people of Erie, chosen on a mainly random basis. Questions about current events, breaking news, or controversial subjects, will guide the conversations I have with the interviewees. Revealing some of the personalities that frequent Erie will be a way for me to channel my excitement about this budding city.

Sarah Graham will be blogging weekly. Check out People Watch at ErieReader.com, and feel free to share your thoughts with her at sgraham@eriereader.com.