Jean Paul Hernandez, also known as BarrioBoy, can still see Clark-Fulton through the eyes of his younger self.

I met him at his childhood home, where his parents still live, for a photowalk through the neighborhood. He remembers the cut-throughs he and his friends figured out to weave across the neighborhood. 

Cut down an alley to get a pizza from Joe De’s on Fulton. It has since burned down and moved to Bellaire-Puritas. Slip through a hole in the fence around a friend’s yard to get to the gym at the Boys & Girls Club. Sneak in a game of basketball before the older kids show up and take over the court.

As we walked down the street Jean Paul grew up on, he pointed to houses and recalled the families that used to live in them when he was growing up in the early ‘90s. 

“There was an old white guy that used to live here,” he said. “Rocco, he was like a council person. He lived here. He was Italian. Filipinos. Over here on Trowbridge, my friends still live there. They’re Vietnamese.” 

A handful of the homes where friends and neighbors once lived are gone, though. Jean Paul counted seven vacant lots on his block alone.

“I remember this house — beautiful ranch,” he said, pointing to an overgrown field. “Back in those days, when a house was abandoned for so long, they would just bury the house into the foundation.

Jean Paul lives in Old Brooklyn now, but he’s back in his old neighborhood all the time. He nurtures a sprawling butterfly garden in the vacant lot next to his parents’ house. He spent years and raised thousands of dollars to bring life back into this lot, but he doesn’t own it. For now, he leases it from the city. 

Throughout Clark-Fulton, there are lots of people like him who want nothing more than to buy and care for the empty lots next to their homes, he said. But most of those lots aren’t for sale. 

Whether the city says so explicitly or through bureaucracy, word on the street is that it’s holding onto empty lots as potential sites to build new affordable homes, he said.

Jean Paul is skeptical. “What’s affordable?” he said with a shrug. Would a family making an average income in Clark-Fulton, around $50,000 a year, be able to buy these homes? And how does the city decide who gets first dibs?

Before our photowalk, I met Jean Paul at his garden to take pictures for a different story. I followed him around as his plants’ needs pulled him from one plot to another. I thought back to the way he cared for his garden during our photowalk. 

We stopped to talk with one of his neighbors. She has a garden of her own in the open lot next to her house. She just decided to start mowing it and planting flowers a few years back.

Now, when the city comes by to mow the vacant lots on the street, they pass by this one because there’s no work for them to do, she said.

The landscape of Clark-Fulton may have changed since Jean Paul’s childhood, but some things have stayed the same. 

We did our photowalk on the Friday before this year’s Puerto Rican parade. Cars with Puerto Rican flags hanging out the windows rolled past vendors selling t-shirts out of gas station parking lots.

A couple blocks down Fulton, there’s St. Rocco, a church that hosts a festival every Labor Day. This year marked the church’s 110th consecutive celebration. 

The festival was still a few weeks out when we stopped by St. Rocco. Two friends were bringing their new puppy to play in a park area next to the church. They took a shortcut through a little break in the fence around the park rather than walk to the entrance.

We took the hole in the fence out of the park and onto a residential street. A few friends were hanging out on the concrete steps outside their home. Jean Paul stopped to take a picture of them and the basketball hoop they had set up on their street. 

He paused on those pictures as he flipped through a stack of prints I gave him a few weeks later. 

“Yesterday, I felt inspired to write, so I wrote this poem,” Jean Paul said. “It’s called ‘I Reminisce Over You,’ and it was about my block. It was about memories. The houses that used to be here. We would play spades on this porch. We would play catch. Basketball in the streets.

“Seeing this, it’s my childhood right here. And to see other kids doing the same thing, just shows you that we can make fun and beauty out of some cinder blocks and a basketball hoop.”

He sent me the full poem and a photo to go with it a few weeks later:

More information about the pictures

Jean Paul and I took all of these pictures on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.

You can see who took each picture, along with some more details about the places and people in them, down below.

Thanks to CatchLight and Report for America for supporting my work as Signal Cleveland’s visual journalist. A few years back, they partnered to create a program that places photojournalists in local newsrooms throughout the country. Signal Cleveland and I joined that program this year.

1. A car painted with a Puerto Rican flag drives down Fulton Road. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
2. A sign for a used car dealership features a miniature car. Credit: Michael Indriolo
3. A door on the second floor of a home under construction. Credit: Michael Indriolo
4. Madelyn Vega shows off her nails, painted with Puerto Rican flags to celebrate the upcoming Puerto Rican parade. Credit: Michael Indriolo
5. The gym inside the City Life Center, which used to be a Boys & Club. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
6. A sign for Joe De’s Pizza at the corner of Sackett Avenue and Fulton Road. The pizza shop used to be there before it burned down. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
7. Tony’s Market on Clark Avenue. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
8. A man rides his bike down a residential street. Credit: Michael Indriolo
9. Trees grow in an empty lot near the City Life Center. Credit: Michael Indriolo
10. An empty lot on the street where Jean Paul grew up. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
11. A garden next to the home of one of Jean Paul’s neighbors. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
12. Flowers in a garden next to the home of one of Jean Paul’s neighbors. Credit: Michael Indriolo
13. Vines grow around an old car. Credit: Michael Indriolo
14. A Cuyahoga County Sherrif’s deputy chases a dirt biker. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
15. A mural on a building along Fulton Road. Credit: Michael Indriolo
16. A mural on a building along Fulton Road. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
17. CentroVilla25, a market with local chefs and businesses, on West 25th Street. Credit: Michael Indriolo
18. Coney Isle Custard, an ice cream shop on Fulton Road. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
19. The building that used to hold Mazzone & Son’s Bakery on the corner of Clark Avenues and Fulton Road. The bakery closed in 2021 after running for more than 80 years. Credit: Michael Indriolo
20. Vendors sell clothing adorned with Puerto Rican flags to celebrate the upcoming Puerto Rican parade. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
21. A dog behind a clothing vendor’s tent. Credit: Michael Indriolo
22. The sign for a now-closed auto parts store on Fulton Road. Credit: Michael Indriolo
23. Jean Paul walks through a break in the fence around St. Rocco. Credit: Michael Indriolo
24. Xavier Alvarez holds his puppy Luna. He brought her to the park at St. Rocco’s to train and play with her. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
25. A statue of Mary in the garden at St. Rocco’s. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
26. Taz Hines, Monnie Hines and Joseline Cruz hang out on the porch of a home. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez
27. A basketball hoop set up on the street outside St. Rocco’s. Credit: Jean Paul Hernandez