Stephanie Hernandez, right, gazes at the aftermath of a shooting at the corner of West 45th Street and Storer Avenue. On the porch, from left, are Humberto Hernandez, Stephanie's husband, Rowena Ventura and Reno Ventura.

CLEVELAND — It's a sunny spring afternoon, and the only people on the new playground at Kerruish Park near Cleveland's Lee-Miles neighborhood are city workers, scrubbing away graffiti.

Scrawled in the fuzzy script of black spray paint, obscenities and gang symbols tag everything —the slide, the benches, the ground. Workers scour the jungle gym, buffing away a symptom of a disease infecting Cleveland neighborhoods and the quality of life in the city.

Against a backdrop of violence, drug dealers, prostitutes and gangs, residents from east to west are united in desperation.

And some are fighting back.

Some are stories of people who cope with daily assaults on their senses. But others are stories of people who have decided, either alone or with their neighbors, to make a stand for their quality of life and restore order to their neighborhoods.

Clark-Fulton

Rowena Ventura wraps herself tightly in a cardigan, leans against her front porch and peers through the tangled rose bush at a scene unfolding across the street beneath a streetlight's glow.

A mob of rowdy club-goers has congregated outside of El Tropical Restaurant and Lounge on the corner of West 45th Street and Storer Avenue. Most weekend nights, the crowd outside the bar grows with the volume of Latin music, quaking Ventura's front porch each time the bar doors swing open and late night revelers stagger and spill onto the sidewalk.

Cars drag-race down the narrow street. Tires squeal as they peel around corners, narrowly missing pedestrians and barely navigating sharp turns. The bar parking lot fills quickly, and patrons leave cars on lawns of vacant houses along Storer. They cross the street to the bar in disruptive packs, sometimes lingering to snort lines of cocaine in the shadows of boarded-up houses.

On nights like these, Ventura is grateful for the fragrant rosebuds that cover the porch, obstructing her family's view of El Tropical and its patrons. Wind chimes and sun catchers dangle from the wood beams. And a comfy swing, straight from some bucolic country scene, sways on the porch — a thick wooden fortress the family built with a gate that opens only from the inside.

But there are subtle signs that even among th e roses, no one is safe. The Venturas keep baseball bats and iron rods in an old milk pail near the porch gate, ready to be used for self-defense.

Planks of dense wood stacked high against the house wait to be nailed to bedroom walls — reinforcement against stray bullets in Ventura's beleaguered West Side neighborhood.

"If noise and disruption were all I had to deal with, fine,'' Ventura says, peeking through a screened front door to check on her two young grandchildren, asleep in the living room.

"But what bothers me the most is not knowing what's going to happen tonight. Will there be a fight? Will there be gunshots? Will bullets come through my window? Will someone get killed?''

Ventura, 42, sighs as she sits on a swinging loveseat beside her husband, Reno, 48. A few family friends join them on the porch. The Venturas, who both grew up in the neighborhood, moved into their home on Storer in 1992. Four years later, El Tropical opened, bringing with it a deluge of crime. Police have been called to the bar, one of five in a half-mile stretch, more than 100 times in the last two years to deal with fights, drugs, gun violence and theft.

Vacant houses surround the Venturas' home, making them seem like the sole inhabitants of an inner-city island. Other residents feel equally isolated, they say, too afraid to join forces and reclaim the neighborhood.

"Sometimes, after someone gets shot, the rest of the night feels safer,'' Ventura says after a long silence. "Because at least you know the worst is over.''

West Boulevard

Like ants headed toward a sandy hill, they march to the Jasper Avenue party house: Girls decked in heeled sandals, miniskirts and tight tops, and boys in striped polo shirts and khaki shorts.

Some carry cases of Budweiser or parcel their stashes, leaving some beer in the trunks of cars, tossing a few cans in a plastic bag to carry in. Others grip bottles of liquor.

On their way, they walk past Robert Kiss, who sits on his wood-planked front porch, already shaking his head at what is to come.

It is just 9 p.m.

Kiss, with his short, graying hair and grandpa belly, gets up and walks into the tidy downstairs of a double home he has rented for six years. His wife and her sister sit at the dining room table, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.

"It always starts this way,'' says Kiss, 59. Sometimes the blaring parties in the small rental home near the corner of West 102nd Street and Jasper start Friday night, and the last of the hungover stragglers don't leave until Sunday.

During the day, West 102nd, just a few blocks from Thrush Park, is tranquil.

Kiss says it's the type of street where neighbors trim each other's lawns during vacations.

But the party house, a small bungalow inhabited by a few single men, has stolen the nighttime silence. And neighbors like Kiss don't feel that the police care.

As Kiss speaks, cars circle already crammed streets looking for parking spots. A shiny blue pickup truck stops in f ront of the party house and the door opens. A young man steps out of his idling truck and, using the driver-side door as a shield, urinates in the street.

"I guess our streets really are going down the toilet,'' Kiss quips.

Nearly 100 partiers, some who appear to be young teens, jam the yard four doors down. They whoop and holler and slam down shots of liquor. Partygoers in search of fast food climb behind the wheel and swerve out of the driveway, swiping other parked cars on their way out.

Two girls wobble down the street, arm-in-arm, clutching plastic glasses, when one girl leans over and heaves on a nearby lawn. They head back to the house, the puker wiping her face before sipping her drink.

West Boulevard

Raquel Vicario ambles down West 90th Street, navigating slabs of sidewalks that jut up like crooked teeth.

Her grandmotherly nature is deceptive.

The 74-year-old Puerto Rican woman with coarse black hair can be brash when speaking about the neighborhood's decline. She jabs her fingers toward the abandoned houses on her street, her staccato speech punctuating the story behind each failure. A man was stabbed last year in front of that home, she says.

A little girl was found strangled in the basement of that house the year before.

She highlights the symptoms of urban decay: Houses pocked with bullet holes, yards used as trash dumping grounds, and 12 vacant homes, some with the familiar plywood decor.

From her porch, where plastic window decorations declare, "I (Heart) Jesus,'' and a rainbow finds a pot of gold, Vicario describes the telltale signs of the drug trade.

Cars cruise down the road, doors open, music blaring, a sign that drugs are for sale from within. People are beaten in the street with baseball bats.

Drug transactions take place with children as the middlemen, shaking hands with adults in driveways for the exchanges.

"It's like they are driving through at McDonald's but for drugs, and all night long,'' Vicario says.

Her children beg her to leave the home she bought on her own after a divorce nearly 17 years ago. Move to the suburbs, they tell her.

"I have lived with all this,'' she says. "I am surprised I'm still here. But I cannot just run away.''

So, instead, Vicario attends block club meetings that she jokes are the equivalent of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for Cleveland residents. When it's her turn to speak at meetings, she states her name and airs her grievances. But at the end of the day, she shoulders the burden alone.

"It's like you have a big bleeding scar,'' Vicario said. "And only a little Band-Aid to put on it.''

Mount Pleasant

Sarah Roberts has lived in Mount Pleasant for 37 years, yet she sometimes feels as if she doesn't know a soul.

"Every day you sit on your front porch, you see strangers, faces that you've never seen before,'' the 67-year-old Ameritech retiree says.

Some of those strangers are drug addicts, scrap-metal thieves or young men shooting dice near the vacant lot next door. Roberts watches them all from her two-story house on Oakfield Avenue, a street with eight boarded-up houses in about a half-mile stretch.

Roberts hesitates to badmouth the neighborhood, even though one of the many vacant homes is directly across from her house.

"We've been pretty fortunate not to have too many board-ups,'' she says.

An afternoon drive through the area reveals other problems: drug dealers working on corners, trash and debris littering the streets, freshly broken glass near a car with busted-out windows, and a collection of ribbons and flowers, which usually signifies a memorial to a murder victim.

Many in the community are sick of the "dope boys'' ruling the streets, but they struggle to fight back.

Vera Moore, who has lived in the neighborhood for 28 years, said she has a solution. Responsible residents must fight back together and neighbors must look out for each other, said the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority retiree.

Moore, 56, tries to spread that message through her involvement in numerous community groups.

"The youth have gone crazy in Mount Pleasant,'' Moore says.

St. Clair-Superior

Albert Davis has a keen ear, able to identify guns used in his St. Clair-Superior neighborhood by the sound of the gunshots. The Uzi troubles him most.

"Once you hear that sound, you'll never forget it,'' Davis says. "I hear gunshots all the time. But when you hear it rattle off over around 79th Street, there is no mistaking it.''

But the 66-year-old Davis is determined to carry on with his daily life on Maud Avenue, where he dreams of a day when he might sit outside in warm weather and hear no gunshots, pit bulls or drug dealing.

He has lived on the street for 30 years. Where he once saw a thriving neighborhood, today he sees crack peddlers and their suburban clients doing busi ness.

But a "few bad apples'' won't force him to leave.

"I don't know when it's going to end,'' Davis says.

West Boulevard

The Jasper Avenue Party House is rocking so hard that, by just after midnight, Kiss can take no more and calls the police.

Nearly an hour later, a cruiser is yet to be dispatched. Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days'' turns into a sing-along — or shout-along — among the intoxicated crowd.

According to police records, officers arrive at 1:36 a.m., but no officers are to be seen on the street at that time.

What is on the street is a car, being driven in reverse. By then, another neighbor, who has a 2-month-old son, is calling police for help. Every scream by a partygoer jolts her baby awake.

Nobody actually sees a police car until after 2 a.m., and the officer driving that car stops to talk with one man, who is in the front yard. The officer, who does not get out of his car, tells the man to keep it down.

Kiss understands the police are busy.

He just finished the Citizen Police Academy program that the Cleveland police run. He is thinking about joining the police's auxiliary ranks.

But he wonders what the drunken mob will try to get away with next, if they know police won't bother stepping in when things get out of hand. He wants to know why the officers don't get out of their car and break up the party.

"They could pass out enough DUIs tonight for a whole month of work,'' he tells a dispatcher during his third call, at 3 a.m. "I don't know what to do anymore. ... They're destroying our property. This is our neighborhood. They are doing whatever they want in our neighborhood, and I feel that it's not right.''

Clark-Fulton

Back at El Tropical, just before the 2 a.m. closing time, dozens of people mill about outside, across the street from where the Venturas keep vigil. Ventura, her husband and family sit in silence, watching the aftermath of a short-lived but vicious fight. One young man, who had gotten pounded hard into the pavement before the club's bouncer stepped in, talks on his cell phone near the curb.

Without warning, another clubgoer rushes from the bar. The crowd shrieks and becomes a writhing mass of people throwing punches as it stampedes across the street, into the Venturas' rose bushes. The couple stands just feet from the melee.

Three gunshots pop like firecrackers, and chaos overtakes the crowd. Ventura and her family drop to the floor, crouching beneath the porch railing. "Oh, my God!'' Reno Ventura's voice booms, his eyes wide. "Oh, my God!'' " They `re going crazy!'' his wife screams, pressing her hands against her temples as two more gunshots shatter the air. ``Somebody, please help us!''

When the Venturas finally stand to face the bedlam, the gunshot victim, blasted in the head and chest, has been thrown into the back seat of a car and driven to MetroHealth Medical Center. But a half-dozen bar patrons still restrain a woman flailing on the sidewalk. The bystanders force her, kicking and screaming, into a car, which speeds off in the direction of the first.

People rush away, and the bar parking lot quickly empties. Fifteen minutes after the Venturas call 9-1-1 to report the shooting, police arrive and interview the family and the club's bouncer.

At 3 a.m., restless and dazed, the Venturas and friends gather around the dining room table, playing cards and keeping each other company while two of the Venturas' young grandchildren sleep soundly on an oversized arm chair, hardly disturbed by the gunshots.

"No one believes us when we tell them what it's like to live here, in the middle of all this,'' Reno said, watching his hands shuffle the deck of cards, worn at the edges.

"Now you've seen it with your own eyes,'' he tells a reporter. "You see that this community desperately needs help.

(This story was reported and written by Plain Dealer reporters Leila Atassi, Rachel Dissell, Stan Donaldson, Joe Guillen and Jesse Tinsley.)