QUOTE I think all great innovations are
built on rejections.
Louise
Nevelson, sculptor (1899-1988) http://womenshistory.about.com/library/qu/blquneve.htm
Robert Crais
is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. A native of Louisiana, he grew up on the banks
of the Mississippi River in a blue collar family of oil refinery workers and
police officers. He purchased a
secondhand paperback of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister when he was fifteen, which inspired his lifelong
love of writing, Los Angeles, and the literature of crime fiction. Other literary influences include Dashiell
Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck. Find his novels in order of publication and
link to biography at: http://www.robertcrais.com/novels_order.htm
Ross Chapin is re-envisioning the neighborhood. Chapin, an
architect from Washington’s Whidbey Island, wants to bring back a stronger
sense of community to the places where we live. He’s doing that by promoting what he calls
pocket neighborhoods, small clusters of homes that share a common green space
and are designed to promote interaction.
Chapin thinks a hunger exists for a better balance, a living situation
that promotes interaction but still respects privacy. “How do we live smaller,
live smarter and live together?” he asked rhetorically. He’s sought to achieve that by designing or
developing pocket neighborhoods around the country. Over about 10 years he
worked with Seattle developers Jim Soules and Linda Pruitt to build six pocket
neighborhoods in and around that city, and he’s designed dozens more
neighborhoods for areas around the country. Chapin has written a book on the subject, Pocket
Neighborhoods: Creating Small Scale
Community in a Large Scale World. He
also has a website, www.pocket-neighborhoods.net. The purpose of a pocket neighborhood is to
put a dozen or so households in close proximity and give the residents an
incentive to interact daily. Shared
space is another key element, such as joined yards, a garden courtyard or a
pedestrian street. It’s a place where
kids can play, where neighbors might share a community garden or picnic, and
where residents spend time or pass through regularly, Chapin said. Chapin’s pocket neighborhoods have some other
distinctive features. For one, he turns
the houses around, so their fronts face the shared space. For another, he incorporates front porches
that are big enough to be usable. He
builds smaller homes that encourage people to do move living outside, and he
advocates common gardens and buildings, such as a shed to house shared lawn and
garden tools or a multipurpose room for community potlucks and gatherings. Mary Beth Breckenridge http://www.ohio.com/lifestyle/breckenridge/pocket-neighborhoods-promote-sense-of-community-1.402496
T. Jefferson Parker (California Girl and Silent Joe), Dick
Francis (Come to Grief and Whip Hand), and James Lee Burke (Cimmaron Rose and Black Cherry Blues), are the
only two-time recipients of the Edgar
Award for Best Novel. Find list of
winners, 1954-2013 at: http://www.theedgars.com/edgarsDB/index.php
In principle, air rights go back to early English
common law, with its basis in the
Latin legal maxim: cujus est solum
ejus est usque ad coelum et ad inferos — to whomever the soil belongs, he
also owns to the sky and to the depths. This
traditional concept of land ownership described the parcel as an inverted
pyramid starting at the center of the earth and reaching to the periphery of
the universe. Recently, the requirements
of aviation have abrogated private property rights to the extent that the use
of the air as a public highway has pre-empted them. However, there is a definite downward limit
for this new highway that has become dedicated to public use: " . . . The landowner owns at least as much of the
space above ground as he can occupy or use in connection with the land." Air rights construction has obviously extended
the upward use of property beyond the limits once envisioned. Air rights, as usually defined, comprise the
rights vested in the ownership of all the property at and above a certain
horizontal plane as well as caisson and column lots essential to contain the
structural supports of the air rights improvement. This means in effect a horizontal division of
real property, with the parts under separate ownership and involving an
allocation of responsibilities and rights. The utilization of air rights consists of
construction "in space", above an existing surface use. Thus, it encompasses more than the usual
vertical arrangement of different uses, as may be found in an office building
with stores on the ground floor, an apartment hotel having a garage in the
basement, or a railway station on top of tracks. These typical building use arrangements
include three characteristics that are lacking in most air rights development: single ownership, a functional kinship among
the uses, and synchronized planning and construction. One of the largest and also most
controversial air rights developments is on Chicago's lakefront. The 48-acre peninsula occupied by the Illinois
Central Railroad yards has been called the most valuable undeveloped piece of
real estate in any downtown area, with available air space valued at $100
million. The development started in the
early 1950's with the construction of a 42-story office building by the
Prudential Life Insurance Company. At
present three developers hold options to the remaining air rights. One of these, the Interstate Development
Corporation, is completing a 940-unit apartment building. However, complications have arisen which go
beyond questions as to the proper use of the land and the obvious need for a
coordinated development plan for the total area. The very ownership of the
land, presumably vested in the Illinois Central Railroad, has been challenged
by the City. The most ambitious plan yet
advanced for the utilization of air rights was a proposal submitted in 1961 to
the State of New York by the Study Committee for Urban Middle-Income Housing. The Committee proposed the use of
under-developed land for middle-income housing over selected, tax-exempt,
public properties. Approximately 250,000
dwelling units in high-rise structures, housing approximately one million
people, would be built under New York's limited-profit housing program. The plan identified more than 200 suitable
sites over highways, public transit trackage, piers, schools, tunnel plazas,
and parking fields. See much
more including a table of selected air rights development in the United States
at: https://www.planning.org/pas/at60/report186.htm
On July 17, 1902, Willis Haviland
Carrier designed the first modern air-conditioning system. He was born November 26, 1876, in Angola,
New York, earned an engineering degree from
Cornell University in 1901, founded Carrier Engineering Corporation in 1915,
and died October 7, 1950, in New York City.
Carrier was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1985,
and named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of the
20th Century” in 1998. http://www.carrier.com/carrier/en/us/about/willis-carrier/
A TANK AWAY FROM TOLEDO trip to Carmel (pronounced CAR-mull), Indiana
July 25-26, 2013 We traveled to Carmel
to see Julia Goodwin, a Baldwinsville,
New York native chosen winner of the 2013
Great American Songbook High School Vocal Competition sponsored by the
Feinstein Initiative headquartered at the Center for
the Performing Arts in Carmel in Indiana.
The soon-to-be sophomore at CW Baker High School sang “Dream a Little
Dream of Me” and “Feeling Good” prior to being selected over nine other high
school singers in finals that capped a five-day academy of workshops and master
classes held at the Palladium. The
competition, which is dedicated solely to the music from Broadway and Hollywood
musicals and the Tin Pan Alley era, is the only one of its kind in the U.S. While there, we had two very nice meals: Woody's Library Restaurant is locally owned
by husband & wife team, Richelle & Kevin “Woody” Rider. The title of the restaurant, originated from
Kevin's nickname, Woody. The restaurant
serves lunch & dinner in the unique bi-level building with upstairs dining,
a downstairs neighborhood pub & outdoor patio seating. The building was constructed in 1913 &
dedicated in 1914 when it opened as Carmel's public library. The structure was built with a grant from the
Carnegie Corporation for a total of $11,000.
The building served as Carmel’s public library until 1970. In 1972, the library building was purchased by
the Town of Carmel & used for official offices & a courthouse until
1989. In May 1998, the library building
opened as Woodys Library Restaurant. http://www.woodyscarmel.com/ We ate another dinner at Petite Chou--see
reviews at: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g36990-d1454213-Reviews-Petite_Chou-Carmel_Hamilton_County_Indiana.html
July 31, 2013 Mine
Fire Exodus May Leave PA County Liable by Rose Bouboushian
Pennsylvanians can pursue
claims that a mining town exploited a harmless underground fire to drive out
residents and let a coal company make billions, a federal judge ruled. The Borough of Centralia in Columbia County,
Pa., implemented a voluntary relocation program after it failed for over two
decades to extinguish an underground mine fire discovered in 1962. As an agent of the Department of Community
Affairs, the Columbia County Redevelopment Authority (CCRA) carried out the
plan by initiating eminent domain proceedings against property owners who did
not take part in the relocation efforts.
The CCRA filed declarations of taking against these properties in 1993. Objecting families alleged the entities
lacked the power or right to acquire their homes. They sued the authorities in October 2010,
claiming that the fire never posed a threat to their health or safety, but was
instead meant to justify removing all residents from the land under which the
fire burned. They said Pennsylvania
intended to allow access to billions of dollars worth of coal that Blaschak
Coal Corp. could then mine. The amended
complaint alleges violations of the plaintiffs' due process, equal protection
and First Amendment rights. Read more
at: http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/31/59857.htm
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