Knight Foundation

A new temporary pop-up park in Akron is now open for visitors. It's part of an effort to get more people to the north side of Akron’s downtown. 

The Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University is getting $50,000 to help make poetry more interactive.

The center is using a grant from the Knight Foundation Art and Technology Prototype Fund to create what it calls the Traveling Stanzas Listening Wall.

Akron’s Summit Lake isn’t quite back to its glory days as the city’s “waterfront playground.” But a new report finds it is cleaning itself after years of industrial dumping and other abuse – at least to the point where it’s safe for boating, fishing and birdwatching. WKSU’s M.L. Schultze has more on the attempt to make the lake an attraction instead of a liability – and to reconnect an isolated part of the city.

Akron’s Summit Lake has officially been cleared for fishing, boating and birdwatching. WKSU’s M.L. Schultze spoke with Dan Rice of the Ohio & Erie Canalway Coalition about the attempt to make the lake and park a destination without the risks that come with gentrification.

Decades of heavy industry took its toll on Summit Lake and the area around it, reducing it from what had been Akron’s “waterfront playground” to a place locals called “Scummit Lake.”