City considers seeking state funds to upgrade courts at Beaty Field

Excerpt:  There will be new basketball hoops and backboards, new top coat and blacktop on the basketball court and three tennis courts, a concrete pad for bleachers, 130 linear feet of limestone pathway connecting the existing handicapped accessible path to the basketball and tennis facilities, as well as upgrades to fencing and lighting.

Workers on the project will also raise the elevation of the basketball courts to the level of the tennis courts and skate park.

"In this manner, we are anticipating that the flooding will not impact this area any longer," Nau said. "This year's flooding, due in part to the exceptionally high conditions of the Allegheny River, has never impacted the tennis courts over the 20 years of their existence."

Rehabilitation of the Beaty Park area began in 2008 with new restrooms and storage facility, handicapped parking, Americans with Disabilities Act-approved playground equipment, and the development of accessible pathways connecting the various park features. The second phase of the Beaty Improvement Project included the addition of the skate park last year.

Warren Mall sold to new owners: Work to revitalize mall will begin in ‘couple weeks’

 

Excerpt:    Between the Warren County Commissioners weighing a rezoning issue that was the first step in construction of the mall and the ribbon-cutting in 1979, seven years lapsed.

When John and Esther Berkebile first requested to have their 21-acre agriculturally zoned property along the Conewango Creek rezoned to business transitional in February 1972, many local retailers viewed the request as a possible threat to local business.

Attorney William M. Hill Jr., represented 50 retailers in downtown Warren and voiced several concerns they shared before the property had been sold to George Zamias of Johnstown.

During a county commissioners meeting Hill said rezoning the property would encourage "fragmentation of retailing," and did not see new job growth, "rather a reapportionment of retail jobs will take place."

"Nor is a healthy economic outlook seen for the retail stores of the area who are, and have been, taxpayers to the county. The downtown will still be the major source of retail sales and services, even though left in a weakened condition. It would only weaken the strength, so to speak, just as it has in almost every area where malls have been created."

The request to rezone the Berkebile property was granted by the commissioners in March of that year.

Ground was officially broken on November 16, 1977,. "Warren County has finally come of age," said Zamias. A completion date of late 1978 or early 1979 was anticipated.

Montgomery Ward was the first store to open at the mall on Sept. 13, 1979, and the Warren Mall officially opened for business when the opening ribbon was cut on Oct. 5, 1979.  (4/2/2011)

Colonel leaves town

Workers sealed up the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue East in Warren last Thursday. "The franchisee made the decision to close this restaurant," KFC Spokesman Rick Maynard said this week. "We hope our loyal customers will continue to visit our other nearby locations."  (4/6/2011)

10th Avenue South: One Street's Story

10th Avenue South: One street's story. (Great Falls Tribune, 1/23/2011)

Excerpt: Now I have almost 300 trees along my length — though many of them are but forked sticks. Be patient and I'll look more like a real forest than a forest of signs.

I'm 4 1/2 miles (79 football fields) from the Warden Bridge to 57th Street South, where I give way to prairie again.

That bridge made all the difference in taking me from a sleepy residential street to, at one time, the state's busiest commercial artery.

The 1951 bridge over the Missouri River — named for Tribune publisher and Montana Department of Transportation bigwig O.S. Warden — opened my lanes to traffic passing through town.

With the interstate system and postwar prosperity putting a car in every driveway, stores with big parking lots gained appeal.

In 1956, I was widened to four lanes. After decades of debate and millions of dollars, only in the last year did the widening efforts finish, stretching my six lanes clear to the hospital.

Where Retiring Guy Checked Out His First Book

At the Carnegie facility (1903-1967) shown in the small black-and-white photo.

The Great Falls (Montana) Public Library today

Link to February 19 Great Falls Tribune article, "More people flock to use library's free services during tighter times".

And the book I checked out some 55 years ago?

Uptown: Pittsburgh's next hot neighborhood?

LINK

Link to November 21 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article.

Excerpt: When Chris Spina went to Duquesne University in the 1970s, he didn't think the area was a neighborhood. Most students commuted and few ventured to Fifth Avenue.

The northern boundary of Uptown, Fifth Avenue now bustles with students, restaurant patrons, hockey fans, concert-goers, workers and potential investors.

It's a pivotal time for the roughly 905 households that nestle nearly invisibly into the industrial and institutional streetscape. Tens of thousands of drivers pass through every day without seeing the neighborhood. But it is starting to assert itself.

On a recent balmy day, do-it-yourselfers on ladders pounded and painted along Locust and Tustin streets. Ed D'Angelo popped out of his Forbes Auto Repair shop on Gist Street to hail sculptor James Simon. Children were walking home from school. A dog barked.

It was a village moment in a place that John Fleenor, a Gist Street resident and artist, calls "a work in progress."

Columbus Day highlights Springfield South End history

Link to October 11 Springfield Republican article.

Excerpt:   They watched one landmark after another get boarded up, burned down or bulldozed into rubble.

Not just bakeries, markets and hardware stores, but playgrounds and homes, too.

“We stayed in our house as long as we could - until the bulldozer was knocking on the front door,” said Richard “Skip” Rousseau, recalling his family’s collision with the Interstate 91 highway project in the South End.

When the six-lane interstate sliced through the heart of the South End in the 1960s, the tight-knit, largely Italian-American enclave was pulled apart, with hundreds of families forced to find new homes across Springfield or the suburbs.

Others left later, as the residential, working-class identity of the city’s Little Italy was eroded by vacant buildings, arson, and blight.