As summer transitions into fall, we wanted to take a moment to look back on a season filled with family, friends and festive neighborhood gatherings. Throughout it all, Fresh Water photographer Bob Perkoski has been attending and shooting the best summer festivals. This slideshow features captured images from a dozen events.

Are you sustainable, Cleveland? That's the question environmentally conscious city officials are asking heading into the fifth annual Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit. The initiative to build "a green city on a blue lake" is at the halfway mark, and Cleveland's new chief of sustainability believes Northeast Ohio is meeting the metrics set out a half decade ago.

As the nation's first freshwater offshore wind project cranks up off the coast of Cleveland, thousands of people are pledging to pay a little more for a power source that supporters say will improve the environment, create local jobs and advance the nation's energy security.

Fresh Water will be taking a brief Labor Day break. We will NOT be publishing a new issue next week, September 5. We will return, however, on September 12 with a shiny new edition. Please enjoy the end of summer break, be safe, and know that we are extremely grateful for your support.

Your fresh pals at Fresh Water.

Jason Tilk, a Cleveland Institute of Art graduate, designs award-winning medical innovations for Nottingham Spirk, the Cleveland-based business innovation firm. By night, the wildly creative trailblazer performs Vaudeville-style shows with his wife that incorporate songs, jokes and "bad magic."

If all goes as planned, an ambitious new supper club with two stages for live music and outdoor dining will open on the west bank of the Flats next spring. Pursuing that dream are Mike and Colleen Miller, marketing and concert industry vets who lived in Chicago before moving back to Cleveland.

Len Gray, a young attorney and Memphis native, has relocated to Cleveland to launch his legal startup Inlaw.me, an online recruiting aid that connects legal employers with candidates. What attracted him was the local business community's spirit of collaboration and enthusiasm.

In a city with no shortage of vacant land on which to cultivate gardens, it might surprise some to learn of the growing trend of gardens in the sky. Not only do rooftop gardens offer a place to relax, they reduce a building's heating and cooling costs while shielding the roof from damaging UV rays.

“The cities of the Midwest are the undiscovered gems of America,” a friend said to me years ago. I've held that thought ever since and look for proof on a six-game, six-day, six-city baseball tour of Midwestern ballparks.

If Jon Stahl of LeanDog fulfills his ambitious dream -- as he so often does -- Cleveland could see a string of elevated skylifts along the lake shore. With a planned 11-stop system, the tramway would move passengers between places like the Municipal Lot, Burke Lakefront Airport, the Convention Center, Wendy Park, Edgewater Park, and both banks of the Flats.

All around us are beautiful sculptural elements, affixed to the very buildings we stroll right by on a daily basis. How many of us notice those angels, faces and gargoyles high up on the friezes of our historic structures? Photographer Bob Perkoski does, and he's assembled a few of his favorite images of them.

Recent grants awarded to the Collinwood and St. Clair Superior neighborhoods are allowing them to proceed with arts- and culture-based projects each hopes will revitalize their communities and boost their economies. The efforts are part of a larger national movement known as creative placemaking.

For 10 years, my husband and I have called Ohio City home, where we are now raising our three young children. This summer, Team Taseff created a “Cleveland Summer Bucket List,” which includes 10 places and activities to explore in Cleveland that are free, fun and close to home.

City of Cleveland officials and non-profit leaders are taking notice of how an improved cycling infrastructure can reshape the future of our city for the better. How the city proceeds with a handful or projects could make or break our momentum.

From Gordon Square to North Collinwood, a definite shift is occurring among young homebuyers, who increasingly are choosing to raise families in the city. Thanks to phenomenal amenities and a growing roster of good schools, Cleveland is becoming downright kid-friendly!

Cleveland has a proud and colorful comic book legacy, which begins with Superman and ends (for now) with Captain America. And that heroic heritage is taken seriously at local comic book shops, where geek is chic and comic book enthusiasts no longer are relegated to the shadowy corners of what's cool.

Over the next few months, a handful of next-gen businesses will begin to open in the Striebinger Block, a prominent building at the intersection of Detroit and W. 29th. Billed as the Hingetown development, the project will act as the hinge between existing Cleveland assets like Ohio City, Gordon Square, and downtown.

With medical marijuana becoming more mainstream every year, backers who favor legalizing it say the moment is ripe for Ohio to join the movement. To that aim, one group is collecting signatures to place the issue on the November 2014 ballot, allowing voters to decide whether or not medical marijuana should be allowed.

Each week, Fresh Fork Market delivers "grab bags" of locally grown ingredients to thousands of subscribers at various drop-off sites around town. From the customer's point of view, the process is a breeze. But ride along with owner Trevor Clatterbuck, as photographer Bob Perkoski did for this slideshow, and you'll see how much work goes into each bag.

Clevelanders are spoiled with an abundance of natural resources -- from water and parklands to wide-open spaces. But that doesn’t give us liberty to be careless about the way we use those assets. We chat with a pair of local "green gurus" to see what we all can be doing to live greener lives.