The Great American Spice Company invites you to join us at the Third Annual Spice Fest on Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, June 26, 2005. We have a whole weekend packed with great activities for the entire family including contests, kids activities, crafts, cook-offs and live music! This year, proceeds will go to benefit the Hoosier Burn Camp.
Entry to the Event is Free. Parking is $3.00.
Hours: June 25th: 11:30 - 9:00
June 26th: 11:30 - 7:00
www.spicefest.com
contact: ModelTBicycles@aol.com, visit: www.ModelTBicycles.com
Model T Bicycle Rentals is a new attraction that will be opening on June 1st at Headwaters Park. The grand opening event, called Model T Grand Opening Jubilee, will begin at 10 am with a press conference, followed by free Horseless Carriage rides, free cake and lemonade, free drawings for free admission to several Downtown attractions, and a free scavenger hunt for kids.
Program is part of Green City Initiative
Fort Wayne, Ind. -- More than 300 City vehicles that previously ran on diesel fuel now run on biodiesel fuel.
The conversion to biodiesel fuel is part of Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard's Green City Initiative. In February, Mayor Richard announced a series of programs aimed at improving government services and making the City more environmentally friendly.
Biodiesel reduces nearly all forms of air pollution, petroleum consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and oil dependence.
Biodiesel is registered with the Environmental Protection Agency as a legal fuel and has completed rigorous health effects testing. The City also receives federal tax credits by using biodiesel and can apply for state grants.
Series of open houses for Preserve-it Allen!
May 24,25,26th
The City of Fort Wayne will host three Preserve-it Allen! open houses to celebrate National Historic Preservation Month.
Preserve-it Allen! is exploring ways to enhance the preservation of historic structures and other cultural resources in Allen County. The public is asked to attend one of the three open houses to learn more about the project and provide ideas and comments. The outcome will be a set of suggested policy recommendations for local legislative bodies to consider and strategies for stakeholders to use to promote and preserve Allen County's past.
Preserve-it Allen! is a partnership between the City of Fort Wayne Historic Preservation Review Board, ARCH, The History Center, IPFW Archaeological Survey, Williams Woodland Park Neighborhood Association, West Central Neighborhood Association, Fort Wayne Area Association of REALTORS, and elected officials from Fort Wayne, Allen County, Grabill, Huntertown, Leo-Cedarville, Monroeville, New Haven, and Woodburn.
Open house schedule:
Tuesday, May 24, 5-7 p.m.
Huntertown Elementary School, 15330 Lima Rd. in Huntertown
Wednesday, May 25, 5-7 p.m.
New Haven Library, 648 Green St. in New Haven
Thursday, May 26, 5-7 p.m.
The History Center, 302 E. Berry St. in Fort Wayne
For more information, visit www.cityoffortwayne.org or call 260-427-1140.
Every Tuesday & Thursday at 7:30PM
$4. General Admission $2 Students/Seniors
Downtown Fort Wayne
437 E. Berry Street
American Independent films of the '80's and '90's:
American Movie 5.17
Stranger Than Paradise 5.19
Blood Simple 5.24
She's Gotta Have It 5.26
Smithereens 5.31
Clerks 6.02
Swingers 6.07
In the Company of Men 6.9
Pi 6.14
Smoke Signals 6.16
Bottle Rocket 6.21
Thursday - May 19, 2005
5pm to 8pm
Free
Join us as we celebrate National Preservation Month (an annual event sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation) and promote some of the unique businesses that are in the West Central neighborhood.
Dreks' (220 Pearl St.)
Urban Chic Designs (614 Harrison St.)
Home Grown Bead & Candle Shoppe (125 W. Wayne St.)
Art Up (125 W. Wayne St.)
BeadRageous (1113 Broadway)
Antiques on Broadway (1115 Broadway)
Sage Traders (1126 Broadway)
All of the businesses participating in the Open House are in historic buildings. The event will be free! You may drop in at any and all sites during the hours of the Open House.
For more information call 385-WEST.
Tuesday, May 17th, 2005
6:30-9:00pm
At the Grand Wayne Center — Downtown's Newest Showcase.
120 W. Jefferson Blvd.
The City of Fort Wayne invites you to help shape the future of Downtown. Free parking at the Civic Center parking garage, Jefferson at Calhoun. >Link
People interested in further discussion about the posts on this website may be interested in this new tool:
Conversate lets you create instant online discussion spaces. It's simpler, faster, more polite, and less annoying than group emails.
Conversate gives you your own online discussion space for any topic, with anyone you want to invite. It's totally free and ideal for talking about articles or websites and for organizing projects and events. >Link
Public participation is encouraged
Fort Wayne, Ind. -- The future of downtown Fort Wayne is the focus of an upcoming community workshop and open house titled "BlueprintPlus." The goal is to build on the significant progress already achieved through the Downtown Blueprint for the Future and take downtown revitalization to the next level. Public participation is encouraged.
Nationally-recognized architect and planning visionary Gianni Longo will facilitate the meetings. He is a founding Principal of ACP Visioning & Planning, New York City and Columbus, Ohio.
Regarded as a leader in strategic public engagement processes, Longo directed Chattanooga's "Vision 2000" effort in the mid-1980s that led to the renaissance of its downtown. More recently, he has been at the forefront of projects in New York City for Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site, Washington, D.C., Houston and the Knoxville, Birmingham and Kansas City regions, among others.
The public work sessions will examine what specific projects, initiatives and developments will make downtown the centerpiece of the region. Where should projects be located? How will they create vibrant and prosperous streets and public places? When will implementation start and what goes first? Which incentives, partnerships and collaborations will make it happen?
Schedule for public participation. The events are free and open to the public.
Tuesday, May 17, 6:30-9 p.m.
BlueprintPlus Summit (Community Workshop)
Grand Wayne Center, 120 W. Jefferson Blvd.
At the workshop, participants will be divided into small groups to help identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities that exist today in downtown. The information will enable Longo's team to develop possible development alternatives that can be expanded and tested.
Wednesday, May 18, 5-6:30 p.m.
BlueprintPlus Open House
FourthWave Building, 300 E. Main St.
At the open house, the public will be able to look over the shoulders of the design team to see how the ideas developed at the community workshop are shaping the plan.
Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard has established a steering committee to help guide the process and spearhead community consensus building. The committee is chaired by Bob Taylor, President of Do-it Best. George Huber with the Downtown Improvement District serves as co-chair.
Since the Blueprint's unveiling late in 2002, the public sector has been a primary catalyst to implementation. The City has championed the creation of foundational elements to position downtown for private investment. These financial tools and resources include the downtown Community Revitalization Enhancement District, the 2005 CEDIT bond which dedicated $10 million to downtown projects, the 2002 CEDIT bond which dedicated $2.5 million to downtown projects, a $500,000 transportation enhancement grant focused on urban trails for downtown, and other urban tax incentives.
Another BlueprintPlus community workshop and open house will take place June 4-7.
Submitted by Jacqui Dowdell
The National Council of Negro Women is having a meeting and membership drive on May 21, 2005 at 2:00 p.m. at the Pontiac Library, 2215 South Hanna. Come meet with some progressive women in Fort Wayne. All ethnic groups are welcomed. Contact Clara Williams at 447-1117 for more information.
Submitted by Robbin Melton
If you crochet or want to learn how to crochet in a creative, fun atmospehere, join the Summit City Hookers, a pending affiliate chapter of the Crochet Guild of America (www.crochet.org). We are a new chapter seeking members. Our meetings are tentatively scheduled to be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., the second or fourth Mondays of the month at Cass Street Yarn Depot, 1004 Cass St. E-mail robbin12@aol.com for more information.
8th annual readers' choice poll lauds perennial favorites, boosts new localesBy the Staff of AmericanStyle Magazine
No doubt about it: the Big Apple is hard to beat.
For the fifth time in the eight years of AmericanStyle magazine’s Top 25 Arts Destinations readers poll, New York has rocketed to the top of the list. And why not? It’s classy, it’s cultured, it’s street-smart, and it’s got enough creative bling to entice traveling arts enthusiasts into its five boroughs over and over and over again.
Big, brawny Chicago maintains its No. 2 slot again this year, boosted in part by the excitement the Windy City has generated with the opening of Millennium Park, a $475 million extravaganza next to The Art Institute of Chicago and a hop, skip and street crossing away from the lakefront. >Link
More young urban professionals are forgoing square footage for eco-friendly homes. By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore | Correspondent of The Christian Science MonitorPORTLAND, ORE – Bryan and Chris Higgins didn't set out to save the world. But one look at their home, built on a tiny lot with tall windows and radiant floor heat that result in low utility bills, and it's obvious the young couple has a mission: to leave the lightest footprint possible on mother earth's soil.
Mr. Higgins, an architect, and Mrs. Higgins, a civil engineer, are proud to own just one car and walk to work every day, dropping their daughter Frances off at child care along the way. They love their energy-efficient kitchen appliances and feel fortunate to live in a place that cools so well they don't need an air conditioner, even on Portland's 90-degree days.
The Higgins are at the forefront of a boom in green building. >Link
In his research, Florida does not pay much attention to the environmental attitude of his creative class, other than lumping it into "lifestyle." But while reading an article in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor -- "In Portland, living the green American dream" -- it struck me that there seems to be significant overlap between the creative class professionals and the rapidly growing circle of people embracing green/sustainable design in their lives. People who seek out urban environments with a combination of diverse stimuli and dense connections increasingly also are the people looking for material surroundings with a combination of smart design and high efficiency. The creative class is taking on a distinctly Viridian shade of green. >Link
Mario Osava, Inter Press Service (IPS)RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 26 (IPS) - The Brazilian minister of culture, renowned singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil, has a new passion: the creative industries, which he believes can play a key role in boosting the economies of developing countries.
His enthusiasm for the economic potential of cultural and other intellectual property products is reflected in his determination for Brazil to serve as the headquarters for an International Centre for the Creative Industries (ICCI), to be established by the
United Nations in 2006. >Link
Creativity is the lifeblood of innovation and marketing, but where does it come from and how should a company nurture this elusive trait? How does one explore creativity on the job—and use it to one's advantage?by Julia Hanna
Inventive, imaginative people are fun, cool, and can be one of a company's most valued assets, agreed panelists at the HBS Marketing Conference on April 9. But first things first: Know the customer, take care of retailers, and cover the fundamentals. Philip Evans (HBS MBA '78), a senior vice president at the Boston Consulting Group, moderated the discussion, opening with a simple question: How do you create creativity? >Link
For St. Louis, Great Expectations but a Slow-Rolling Renaissance
By KIRK JOHNSON
April 8, 2005
ST. LOUIS JOURNAL
ST. LOUIS, April 5 - People here joke that the sidewalks get rolled up at night as workers flee to the suburbs, but through the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament that ended on Monday, the sidewalks got washed instead. St. Louis primped and spruced and papered its empty buildings with signs about the rosy days to come and got its television close-up in front of millions of viewers around the world.
But much of the city's upbeat message was intended for consumption at home, where urban pioneers like John and Mary Kelly have staked their fortunes on making the renaissance real. The couple opened Kelly's Deli four years ago on what was then a nearly abandoned block of downtown, and they still have great expectations because of the conversion of vacant buildings into loft-style apartments in their neighborhood and the escalating real-estate prices that are drawing investors.
But for St. Louis, which lost half its population in the decades after World War II, and for the Kellys, the good times still remain mostly unrealized. The basketball crowds gave a nice jolt to the cash register, they said. And the event put as much as $60 million into the local economy over four days of revelry, economic development officials said. But by Tuesday it was business as usual.
"I don't know how long we can hold on," Mr. Kelly said.
The calculus of rehabilitating any wounded city is partly about experimenting until something that works is found. St. Louis is pinning its hopes on architecture, specifically its stock of glorious old buildings that now stand like monuments to a vanished economy of manufacturing might. But selling the portrait of that recovery, city officials and development leaders say, is complicated by history and myth and the deep divisions in Missouri politics, and to a certain extent by the even trickier terrain of sexual orientation.
The city is an island of Democratic voters in a sea of increasingly conservative rural and suburban ones. It suffers from a reputation as a dangerous place, which tends to keep many outsiders from venturing in. And the recovery effort has partly been led by members of a group that is not popular in many parts of Missouri: gay men and lesbians who have renovated neighborhoods and opened new businesses in recent years.
In August, voters across the state overwhelming voted yes on an amendment to the State Constitution banning same-sex marriage. St. Louis, in a lonely dissent, voted no.
The ongoing pitch to the rest of Missouri is that St. Louis's diversity is exactly what makes the city exciting, said James A. Cloar, the president and chief executive of the Downtown St. Louis Partnership, a civic development group.
"People outside the city have got to buy in," Mr. Cloar said.
Many low-income residents outside downtown, meanwhile, will probably have to wait longer than the Kellys to see any benefit from the resurgence, advocates for the poor say.
Along Washington Avenue, where loft redevelopment is concentrated, the sounds of hammers and saws filled the air on a recent afternoon. Three new businesses have opened on one block in just the last few weeks, including Washington Avenue Post, which combines a coffee bar, an Internet café and an office supply operation.
A mile or two away in the city's mostly black North End, the scars of St. Louis's long fall seem unhealed, with block after block of sagging brick houses.
The city's population, which was more than 850,000 in 1950, had fallen to 348,000 people by 2000, with many of those who left now living in the city's ring of suburbs. Unemployment is about 6.5 percent for the metropolitan area, but far higher in the North End, residents say.
"If you truly create a new industry, there will be jobs," said the Rev. Bill Hutchison, a Jesuit priest and the founder of the Northside Community Center, a nonprofit group. "What's happening now is not designed to hit the low-income people. It's designed to hit the mobile, professional, upper-income class."
But optimism can be an unpredictable thing, with consequences of its own, other people say. And there are hints that St. Louis might be regaining some of its old swagger.
Asked whether the city might suffer if Missourians came to see St. Louis as too different in its politics or too accepting of diversity, one senior city official said the risk of opprobrium was really the other way around - that potential newcomers, drawn to a resurgent St. Louis, might not be so keen on the rest of the state.
"I'm not so worried that they won't tolerate us," said Jeff Rainford, the chief of staff to Mayor Francis G. Slay, referring to Missouri residents outside the city. "I am a little afraid that the folks we want to come won't tolerate them."
The Art Underfoot competition was launched in April 2004 and culminated in an exhibition at the Roundhouse Community Centre from July 18 to 24. The competition invited anyone who lives, works, or goes to school in Vancouver to submit design ideas for new manhole covers, the lids that mark the entrances to our underground network of sewers. The Public Art Program received more than 640 entries from Vancouverites of all walks of life and ages. >Link