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Nice mention of a Grand Rapids business, Prestige Products, in the current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek: Business Profit from BP Spill I like this quote: "We're in Michigan. The economy has been horrible for everybody here," Rickel said in an interview. "But the expertise is here and we cashed in on it." Bravo to Prestige Products for stepping up. I would have preferred that the article was written a little differently. Personally I'm a little uncomfortable with its war profiteering tone.

I don't know if anyone reads the Detroit forum anymore, I'm still waiting for ZachariahDaMan to post the pictures from his UP trip last year. But if someone is out there I thought I'd mention this new plan to rehab the long empty old Free Press building: 321 Lafayette This is one of my favorite Albert Kahn buildings. It's not a favorite because it is his most important building but rather because I used to work in it. If you count up to the tenth floor and look at the middle window on the left, you'd be looking in the window that I would look out. Even if Detroit had any kind of robust downtown real estate market, this property would be problematic. The Fisher and old GM buildings not withstanding, Kahn was most known for building factories and the old Free Press building despite its appearance as an office building, is mostly designed to be a factory for printing newspapers. Once you get past the small lobby and elevators, the first floor and the basement and sub-basement were the home to the large rotary presses and Linotype machinery where the paper was printed. Other than as indoor parking, as they propose, this space isn't very practical unless you are going to publish a nineteen-thirties technology newspaper. Here's a story; when I worked there decades ago there were a few people who used to feed the pigeons by throwing scraps of food out the back windows. These weren't bird lovers, nobody much cared for the pigeons. The reason they fed them was because a handful of the most important executives had parking spaces behind the building and by feeding the pigeons, the pigeons would congregate and leave their calling cards on the cars below. Sort of the classic Detroit management/labor guerrilla war.

Other than looking cooler than a bus and costing more, I can't see any real advantage of either BRT, streetcars or light rail on the routes where it has been proposed (either on the route on this new video or the former Silverline proposal.) A bus system with frequent stops and a frequent schedule of say a bus every five minutes would be functionally superior and probably much cheaper than any of the proposals. A BRT that doesn't stop within a block of where you are going and comes relatively less frequently isn't an improvement over a bus even if the BRT is a few minutes faster once you're on it. Overstated perhaps but maybe here is the real reason we want something other than a good bus system: Stuff White People Like #147: Public Transportation That Is Not a Bus - “… White people all support the idea of public transportation and will be happy to tell you about how the subways and streetcars/trams have helped to energize cities like Chicago and Portland. They will tell you all about the energy and cost savigns of having people abandon their cars for public transportation and how they hope that one day they can live in a city where they will be car-free. At this point, you are probably thinking about the massive number of buses that serve your city and how you have never seen a white person riding them. To a white person a bus is essentially a giant minivan that continually stops to pick up progressively smellier people. You should never, ever point this out to a white person. It will make them recognize that they might not love public transportation as much as they thought, and then they will feel sad.” From the book - Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions by Christian Lander Here’s a link to a lot of the other stuff white people like: whitepeoplelink Being a white person though, I voted for the Silverline the last time. Before someone remarks that they see plenty of white people on buses, the "white persons" the book is referring is the subgroup of hip educated urban white people that kind of resembles most of the people that post here on urbanplanet.

Note the Sears store on right: SEARS There was a second downtown Sears store on Pearl across from the Amway. The Pearl Street store was for automotive parts and service. Both stores were closed about the time they opened the Sears in Woodland Mall, give or take a year about 1968. There was a winding alley built for another age back behind the store on Monroe that serviced that store and others. If someone else pulled in behind you, you were stuck until they finished their business too.

On my way to Brick Road today I noticed there's a sign in the window of the Uptown building where Wing Heaven used to be that says a Thai resturant is coming soon. Anyone else have any information on this?

For those of you unfamiliar with the history and demographics of I-696 and find Veloise’s post abstruse, this link explains what’s she’s talking about and how the landscape decks over I-696 came about: link I696

I agree strongly with your idea that a greater emphasis on rehab would be a very good idea. But for those people who are unwilling or unable to rehab, where is it that they are going to "ship out" to? It seems they've already shipped out from wherever it is they originally came from and that's why they are in Heartside now. Not many of them were born and grew up there I would guess. The article that GRDadof3 posted awhile ago about the elimination of all but one of the homeless from the Times Square area was interesting (probably should leave the last one as an historic landmark) but did they solve homelessness or were they just encouraged to move to some less visible area?

Besides the museum whether Allen was prone to new urbanism type design elements I do not know. Churches and school buildings, particularly college buildings, were his bread and butter. He did Grace Episcopal Church in Holland, and St. Thomas The Apostle Catholic Church in Grand Rapids. Years ago I can remember seeing the name of his firm on a sign for an addition to Blessed Sacrament Church School over on Diamond. He may have done the original Church and school too, I'm not sure. He also did the original planetarium building next to the old museum that has since been torn down. In order to find more answers I stopped over at the library today to see what his obituary said. He died May 30, 1971. They noted that he was the architect for all but one of the buildings at Ferris State University, and he designed, remodeled, or added to all but three buildings at Central Michigan University. At CMU that would have been eighty-five buildings in all. On the internet I found mention of at least one building at Michigan State. It would be reasonable to think there might have been more. Here's a link to a web site that shows pictures and a narratives of the buildings of CMU. Most every one is by Roger Allen. CMU BUILDINGD For the most part, they look like your generic orange brick post WW II college buildings. Was he an innovator or copier or just really good at pumping out buildings? Not sure. They also mentioned that until he was too old and frail, his column appeared daily in the paper and he also had a regular column in Architectural Forum magazine. What amazes me is that he could come up with a enough funny stuff every day for a column and do that as a hobby besides doing his regular work. The obit said that "his wit brought him hundreds of offers as toastmaster" and "it has been said of Mr. Allen that he probably talked to more meetings of architectural groups than anyone but Frank Lloyd Wright," and it mentions that yes they did know each other. But he wasn't the most interesting architect in the family, that would be his older brother. His father was a Grand Rapids architect. The father's firm was Frank Allen and Son. After WW I the son was Roger, but around 1900 it was Frank Jr. Frank Jr. left his father to go work for Daniel Burnham in Chicago and then headed for the west coast where he had an almost Burnham like career. Here's a link to a very good biography of Frank Jr. and accompaning images. Kind of unexplained he died in an accident in relative obscurity after having a renown career. Frank Jr Bio Frank Jr Images The link mentions Hoffman Apartments in Grand Rapids. I think that is the apartment building at 68 Ransom now called Park Place. The reason I said in the earlier post that Roger Allen was my favorite dead Grand Rapids architect wasn't because of the architecture. It was because of his humor column and his jokes in the Readers Digest and because I knew him (although barely.) He went to our church and one day when I was around ten years old, back in the late 50's, my grandmother introduced me to him. Unlike my parents, my grandmother seemed to know a lot of important people. It's hard to believe now but it used to be that even kids back then read newspapers so I already knew who he was because I read his columns and I read his jokes in the Readers Digest. He was the only celebrity I knew.

Here’s an mlive link: http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/04/groups_collaborate_to_re-inven.html This gives me an excuse to write a little about my favorite dead Grand Rapids architect, Roger Allen. Allen deliberately designed the exterior of this museum to have the features that we now consider to be new urbanism. Unlike most other museums of the day, the entrance was very approachable at street level with no set back from the sidewalk and no stairs. It featured display windows similar to a retail store with the idea of catching the eye of passing pedestrians (although I don't remember the museum staff ever being capable of creating a memorable window display.) Roger Allen besides being an architect was also a writer. During the depression when architectural commissions were pretty much non-existent he worked as a newspaper editor for George Welsh. Later he wrote a several times weekly humor column in the Grand Rapids Press called Fired at Random. In almost every issue of the Readers Digest some of his jokes were reprinted. This was back when the Readers Digest was a big deal being the largest circulation magazine in the world. And he collected antique cars, was an after dinner speaker, and was in general an all around bon vivant. Like his contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright, he'd winter in Scottsdale Arizona, although I have no idea if they knew each other.

I suppose it must have been cleaned a long time ago or else this wouldn't be proposed but I'm sure the northern part of this property, the part with the metal building that's being torn down, had a serious ground contamination problem. The source of the contamination was pesticides and/or herbicides from the business that used to be there in that corner for decades called Grand Rapids Growers. I have no opinion as to the appropriateness of the site logistically or from a marketing perspective. But even if it has been cleaned up, I think it would be an ironic location from which to buy your healthy organic fruits and vegetables.

I was just on the White Pine Trail last week and I swear I didn't see this: white pine monrail link I must have not been looking up. Anybody ridden on the monorail yet?

It's not just Denver either. The prices to cities that Frontier connects to out of Denver dropped by about $200 too. The day before the Frontier announcement I was checking round-trip prices to Salt Lake City in May. The lowest prices were at least $500 when taxes were included. By the day after the announcement most airlines had dropped to as low as $258 (about $300 with taxes.) I booked my tickets this past Monday. I would like to have rewarded Frontier with my business but I will be on a tight schedule so I went with Delta since their flights worked a lot better for me.

While trying to catch up on my reading this morning I noticed that in the March 1st issue of BusinessWeek that there is a story about the national "buy local" movement. It says a lot of nice things about what is going on in Grand Rapids: BUSINESSWEEK Here's an expanded version of the too small to read chart from the second page that shows all the money and jobs GR could gain from a ten percent shift to buying at local stores: page2chart

No it’s not a stunt, the new flight is real enough. It's not so much that Frontier is coming to Grand Rapids than that it is already here under an assumed name. Republic has apparently melded Frontier and Midwest together but can’t decide which name to use so they are using both names for now. My guess is they will eventually settle on Frontier. This is getting way off topic but if you are really interested here are some links that kind of explain what's going on: melding Midwest and Frontier dropping the Midwest name swapping planes in the middle of the day As for Republic flying the Denver United Express route, before Republic bought Midwest and Frontier last year their business consisted of flying commuter routes under contract to the major carriers. Now that they are in competition with United at their Denver hub, it will be interesting to see if United finds another carrier. Too far off-topic - I'm done

Republic Airways, which recently bought both Frontier and Midwest, also is the company that flies the two existing Denver flights to Grand Rapids under the United Express brand. Unless United changes express carriers or drops their flights, Republic will be competing against themselves. Look for Frontier to be flying from the Midwest gate. Republic for now is keeping both the Frontier and Midwest brands but they code share both airlines' flights and are combining frequent flyer programs and they even interchange planes and crews. Republic has combined the headquarters of both airlines in Indianapolis.

A lot of interesting interpretations of this phrase. I think it just means that they expect that most of their passengers on these flights will originate from Grand Rapids and environs and will fly to one of the vacation destinations. But not so many people in the resort areas, Orlando for example, will be making Grand Rapids their vacation destination. Allegiant's niche after all is vacations, and a good part of their revenue comes from selling vacation packages.

I was afraid that someone might take my story seriously even with the wimpy disclaimers I prefaced it with. It was meant as a joke. Suydam got it. What I've always found funny (in a good way) is that the one food that is most associated uniquely with Grand Rapids is something that is so far outside the culinary traditions of the historical white-bread Grand Rapids traditions. And in part the story was a perhaps a too subtle dig at the sometimes implied idea that most things around here have some Dutch origins. Even though my Welsh born Yooper grandfather enjoyed the pasties my French Canadian grandmother made, it was actually as I understand it the Cornish miners that brought over the pasty. Other than some vague tales decades ago about the Beltline Bar, I really don't know where the wet burrito came from. Exporer55, I agree completely with your statements about local Mexican cuisine.

I don't know if this is true and I may have this mixed up with another story but I've heard that it was the early Dutch immigrant miners who brought the recipe for wet burritos with them from the Netherlands. Instead of cold sandwiches, they'd take the still hot wet burritos down with them into the deep cold damp gypsum mines as hardy warm lunch time meals. The wet burritos were kind of messy but since the miners weren't allowed to sing or dance, cleaning up afterwards gave them something wholesome to do instead during their lunch breaks. Of course the last of the gypsum mines closed years ago but the wet burrito became an adopted favorite of all the other nationalities and ethnic groups in the Grand Rapids area. Today you can find this local favorite on the menus of not only Dutch restaurants and bakeries but also sushi bars and even locally owned Greek and Mexican restaurants.

The Grand Rapids Historical Society has a program next week Thursday, January 14, that many of you might find interesting. Donald Bratt will give a presentation featuring the photographs that his father took of virtually every building that was torn down that was within the borders of the great downtown urban renewal project of the nineteen sixties. His father, Hero D. Bratt, had a business on Ottawa NW roughly just south of where the Federal Building stands now. According to the historical society's newsletter, these photographs were the basis of a slide show and lecture that Hero Bratt used to present around town. Here's a link to the historical society's event calendar. Slide down to January 14 for a more eloquent description: link The program is at the Ford museum at 7 PM. There is no charge and parking is free.

As a general rule, it was this kind of thinking that lead to the sterile wide open plazas in the urban renewal projects of the sixties. Open gaps, such as this park , de-stabilizes the streetscape. In this regard this little park is no better than a surface parking lot (and maybe a little worse if you are looking for a place to park.) Remember John E. has already designated this park as a gathering place for the homeless. Whatever merits that may have, it is a use that certainly will not positively affect adjacent property values or development. If I were at home and my library was not in disarray, I’d find and throw in a pithy quote from Jane Jacobs on this topic.

wingbert, It looks like WOODTV is just quoting the link that I posted above a week ago. Wouldn't be surprised if this is where they read it.

Today Delta/Northwest and US Airways announced that they are swapping a large number of paired landing/take-off slots at LaGuardia and Washington National subject to government approval. US Airways will trade 125 paired slots at LaGuardia to Delta for 42 slots at Washington National. How this would affect Grand Rapids is that Delta/Northwest would no longer fly their pair of non-stop flights between Grand Rapids and Washington. US Airways as part of the announcement stated that it intends to return to Grand Rapids and fly the Grand Rapids / Washington route. Hopefully when they return they will return with more than the one flight pair that Delta is dropping. I'll have to dig out my US Air frequent flyer card. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...9081202558.html

Reminds me of this one: http://www.pasty.com/cam/2002/b1120.jpg

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/ind...uncement_b.html "It is expected to be part of ongoing efforts by local leaders to project a progressive, hip image of Grand Rapids that will make it a more attractive place for young, creative people to live and work." I suppose with enough money you can buy any image you want but I've never associated any of the Amway clan with progressive or hip. (Not that I am young or particularly progressive or hip either.) In fact I think that up till now at least they probably scare away from the area as many progressive hip "young creative people" as they might attract here with jobs.

Occasionally there are posts here on UP lamenting the destruction of the old city hall. Here's a chance to hear more about that building and its architect. At the February meeting of the Grand Rapids Historical Society, Valerie Marvin will be giving a talk entitled Resurrecting Elijah Myers - Gilded Age Architect of Grand Rapids Old City Hall and Michigan State Capital. Myers was a leading architect of government building in the late nineteenth century. Along with many city halls, his buildings include the state capitals of Michigan, Texas, and Colorado. In Grand Rapids, besides the city hall, he also was the architect of the old police court building. Ms. Marvin has been traveling around the country doing research for something called the Myers Archive Project - Michigan State Capital. According to the Society's newsletter, "after describing and giving an overview of Myer's life and work, Marvin will focus on how the Grand Rapids buildings fit into his illustrious career." The meeting is at the Gerald R Ford Museum at 7:00 pm, Thursday February 5. It's open to the public and admission is free and the parking is free too.