Across the street from the beautifully renovated Detroit Opera House stood the Wurlitzer Building. The wonderful facade with terra cotta details had a presence despite the fact that the building remained open. When a barrier was required to be placed on the sidewalk to prevent pedestrians from being struck by falling building elements, a wonderful piece of positive graffiti was
The Detroit Public Zoo has this interesting chronology display. Highlights from different years are selected to give a sense of the development of the zoo over time. Space is left to add future items.
Marshall once aspired to be the state capital of Michigan. They were passed over in favor of another small agricultural town – Lansing. Owning to a central location on the Territorial Road (later paralleled largely by Interstate-94) the commercial activity and attendant quality of buildings is remarkable. Marshall has had a strong preservation ethic for a small town, repeatedly being
This positive graffiti was seen in Detroit, Michigan.
This pop-up park served as a space for performances, lectures, and public gatherings. Noted authors, artists, and innovators were invited to speak, give presentations, and occasionally to engage in debates. My colleague Mike Lydon invited me there. We connected a brief time and heard a debate between Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere, and another speaker.
Have you heard of Oyster Bay, Long Island? The place where Theodore Roosevelt spent his summers as a youth, built his home (today Sagamore Hill National Historic Site), and later operated the “Summer White House”? Oyster Bay hopes to add some community planning innovations to its claim to fame. Over the past decade, the local Main Street program and community
We started at the Starrett–Lehigh Building. This 19-story building at 601 West 26th Street, occupies the full block between Eleventh Avenue, 26th Street, Twelfth Avenue, and 27th Street, in the Chelsea neighborhood. Built between 1930 and 1931 by the Starrett Corporation and the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LV), who formed a joint venture to develop a freight terminal and warehouse to
The Oyster Bay Farmers’ Market began inconspicuously enough, on just a few weeks notice during the Better Block event in 2010. There was no time to seriously recruit vendors. What we ended up doing is buying wholesale from a big box grocer and then selling out of a parking lot during a two-day community planning event. The feedback and support
Started in Portland, Oregon, by Brent Wojohn, depave is a volunteer effort to remove hard surfaces and reestablish permeability to allow for absorption of ground water and to create more green space in communities.