New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
Showing posts with label repairs and renovations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label repairs and renovations. Show all posts
You may have noticed the demolitions on Vincennes.
Photo credit: Bruce.
These five lots between Ekin and Shelby ...
... were purchased by SBG Development from the city of New Albany earlier in September. 802, 804, 806 and 808 Vincennes appear to be a unit, as reflected here; 802 Vincennes is to be considered an umbrella listing.
The lot at 810 was a separate transaction.
SBG is a familiar face: Chad Sprigler.
Although bizarrely, the Elevate site has SBG listed as a Kentucky company located at 1122 Rogers Street in Louisville. That's curious, because this address links with the Marian Group, also a collection of developers.
Back to the fate of those five lots on Vincennes. We turn to the Redevelopment Commission meeting of August 13.
Here's the pastel rendering.
Totally keeping in the character of the neighborhood, eh?
Meanwhile, at the September redevelopment meeting (minutes as yet not posted), a bid by Carter Management (Underground Station's developer) was approved to to rehab the building at 624 Vincennes.
Always a pleasure to link to the IU Southeast newspaper.
Here's a suggestion for Recbar 812. If they're intent on 20 draft lines, then become an unofficial "tied" house for an Indiana brewery (obviously contractual agreements are not legal) and devote half those lines to them.
Sun King? Three Floyds? 18th Street? Daredevil? Be different, guys.
Or, just be an Indiana-beer-only draft house; it would be easy enough to do, and the inevitable mass market swill could be served in cans.
Jeffersontown arcade-bar’s owner looks forward to expanding
New Albany’s Pearl Street will soon be home to an expansion of Louisville’s popular arcade-bar known as Recbar.
The New Albany Recbar location will occupy more than double the square footage of its Louisville location. Founder and owner Corey Sims plans on housing over 200 games at Recbar 812, including Centipede, Donkey Kong and several mini-bowling lanes.
In addition to Recbar 812’s myriad arcade games and pinball machines, Sims plans on having between 16-20 brews on tap, similar to the Louisville location’s 16 taps.
Recbar’s announcement to expand in mid-April was a pleasant surprise to its Facebook followers, but Sims said it had been decided from the beginning.
“We always believed Recbar would be a concept that we could expand beyond our current location,” Sims said. “New Albany was the perfect fit” ...
We have a Strong Towns article featuring Gill Holland in Portland (Louisville) and Jim Fraser in Rochester NY, both of whom sense a degree of push-back from their respective city halls, primarily because their grassroots plans don't lead directly to (a) mayors or council persons seizing a share of the credit, and (b) campaign finance fattening, like we perused yesterday:
Mayor Jeff Gahan's campaign donations for 2017 -- a non-municipal election year -- came to $56,175.
That's right: $56,175.
That's a buck and a half for every man, woman and child in New Albany -- and precious little of it actually coming from inside the city proper. This is in addition to what Gahan's campaign had left over from 2011-2016, and what's to come in 2018 and 2019.
You know, like Lancaster Lofts, being proposed by Progressive Land Development.
Where have I seen Paul Barber's name before? He popped up on the Gahan donor list back in 2014, when apparently he worked for Kemp Title Agency.
With $500 more from the boss man to re-elect the Serene Presence.
So far, we've only looked at Jeff Gahan's 2017 omnibus campaign finance report. Neither Barber nor Progressive Land Development are on it, but PLD tossed Jason Applegate a C-note for the primary.
Lancaster Lofts passed muster at the Redevelopment Commission in late April. I'm betting Gahan's 2018 donor statistics show some gritty greenback love passing from PLD to DL (Dear Leader). If not, it probably means that the same old shakedown hasn't yet been perfected by whichever bag man replaced David Duggins.
Meanwhile, back to the guys doing it the grassroots way.
Dan Reed is an urban planner and writer sharing today's guest article on strategic investment to uplift low-income neighborhoods. For more stories and resources on small scale development, visit this page.
"Most of Portland is shotgun house, shotgun house, shotgun house," Gill Holland says of his home base.
It’s a riverfront community on the far west side of Louisville, Kentucky that may have the nation's largest collection of these 19th century, one-room-wide houses outside of New Orleans. For over two centuries, the neighborhood — once its own city — was a port of call for Americans traveling west: Lewis and Clark stopped there, as did Abraham Lincoln, Aaron Burr, and Henry Clay. Holland’s office is in a converted Boys and Girls Club where Muhammad Ali used to play.
It was a working-class community, whose residents walked to work at warehouses along the water, but after two catastrophic floods in 1937 and 1945, people and investment sought higher ground. Today, the area has some 1,400 abandoned buildings, many of which are shotgun houses.
So far, Holland's Portland Investment Initiative (Pii) has renovated 80 abandoned shotgun houses, which he’s renting out as affordable housing. He's also working with locally renowned architects to build new shotgun houses nearby.
“I talk a lot about urban acupuncture,” Holland says. “The one strategic investment that takes away the negative effect and adds a positive ripple effect.”
The typical urban redevelopment story goes like this: the city decides it wants to "revitalize" a downtrodden neighborhood; assembles a massive piece of land, sometimes by displacing existing residents or businesses; and invites an equally large user to put something there like a sports stadium, a convention center, or a shopping mall.
But in cities and towns around the United States, investors big and small are taking a different path: one house, one block at a time, in neighborhoods where banks won't venture but residents are willing to put in time and effort to bring these places back. The stakes may seem lower, but the end result is a stronger, more resilient community and local economy.
Fraser couldn't convince the city's own bureaucrats to part with a vacant building.
But the city owned the building, and local representatives weren't receptive to Fraser's plans to bring it back to life. "We're still fighting a top-down mindset from City Hall today," he says. "The City keeps coming up with stuff it wants to come into our neighborhood and do, and it's not letting us drive it."
Holland sees wasted infrastructure.
Holland thinks that local governments are missing out on a huge opportunity to work with private sector individuals to leverage the huge public investments they've already made. "We own the water company, we own the sewer company, we've already invested tens of millions of dollars to service 8,000 vacant properties," he says.
Now for a new feature: Gahan's Greatest Hits (2015 edition, featuring the police chief and four public housing demolition appointees).
The final vote on a $75,000 appropriation to help restore the historic Second Baptist Church building is slated to be taken by the New Albany City Council Thursday.
It passed.
Councilman John Gonder is the sponsor of the $75,000 appropriation, and said due to the church’s role in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, the building should be maintained and treasured as a part of New Albany’s legacy.
He added more money will have to roll-in to support the rehabilitation of the structure, as the first phase of the project including replication of the original steeple and repair of architectural woodwork is estimated to cost $217,500.
“What we’re putting in is a significant amount, but it’s not enough to get the job done,” he said. “It’s a matter of getting out and talking to the citizens and getting them involved in seeing the value of this.”
The Horseshoe Foundation awarded a $25,000 grant to the project.
Councilman Scott Blair opposed the measure on initial ballots because he said he wanted more guarantees that the city’s money would be matched by other entities.
The $75,000 public grant should serve as a foundation for the project with an assurance that enough funds can be raised to see the rehabilitation finished as planned, Blair said.
Councilman Greg Phipps was the other member of the body to vote against the appropriation on initial ballots. Phipps said he has “strong feelings of separation of church and state” and that the project mixed a religious institution with public funding.
While annoying owing to the casual manner in which local elected officials stared at the ceiling and skirted the issue of church-state separation, the spire supporters' argument from history and historic preservation had at least some merit.
It's just that as a one-off exception, this decision to spend taxpayer funds on church building repairs did not establish a useful precedent for other non-religious instances. No pattern emerged, and it was back to the same old political back-scratching.
It's also worth noting that while opposed to the measure on principled, impeccable grounds, with which I concurred, Phipps expended not a dollop of political capital in opposition, and soon returned to doing as he was told, when he was told, by mayor and party.
And still they mock him behind his back. To the Gahans and Dickeys of the planet, Phipps is just a useful idiot. It's sad, but there we are.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, we've been given a glance at what church-state separation should look like.
---
NJ Supreme Court Says Taxpayer Money Cannot Be Used to Fund Church Renovations, by Hemant Mehta (Patheos) In a unanimous decision just announced by the New Jersey Supreme Court, taxpayer dollars cannot be used to help repair or maintain churches. It’s a major victory for church/state separation advocates and one that will save taxpayers in the state millions of dollars that would otherwise have gone to promoting religious dogma. The case involved more than $5.5 million in “historic preservation grants” that were given to a dozen churches in Morris County between 2012 and 2015. They were presumed legal because they didn’t directly promote faith. But giving churches money for general maintenance is promoting faith since it frees up funding that goes right back into worship. That’s why plaintiff David Steketee and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit in 2015 saying the grants were illegal. Unfortunately, a judge ruled against them in January of 2017. If the decision wasn’t appealed, there was a good chance other churches would’ve taken advantage of the loophole, taking whatever money was in their budgets for maintenance, repair, and other structural issues and putting them into programming, knowing that they could just replete their accounts courtesy of state taxpayers. FFRF appealed the decision and it eventually landed in front of the state’s supreme court. Today, thankfully, all seven of the justices overturned the earlier decision. Here, the County awarded $4.6 million to twelve churches to repair active houses of worship — from roofs to bell towers, from stained glass windows to ventilation systems. The use of public funds to pay for those repairs violated the plain language of the Religious Aid Clause. The judges noted that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trinity Lutheran — which allowed taxpayer funding for ostensibly secular projects like a playground even if it was on church property — didn’t apply here because this was clearly not a secular project. … the public funds awarded in this case actually went toward “religious uses.” It is clear from the stipulated facts in the record that the Churches all “have active congregations that regularly worship, or participate in other religious activities,” and all hold “regular worship services in one or more of the structures that they have used, or will use,” taxpayer-funded grants to repair. … a number of the applications expressly stated that churches sought funding for repairs to continue to conduct worship services. … This case does not involve the expenditure of taxpayer money for non-religious uses, such as the playground resurfacing in Trinity Lutheran. The judges said it would be virtually impossible to figure out how much of the grant money was used for religious or non-religious purposes at this point, so they are allowing the old grants to remain in place. The ruling isn’t retroactive. The churches can have the money already given to them, but the good news is that they won’t be able to receive the grants in the future. FFRF is obviously thrilled with the victory but also relieved that these justices understood their argument. “It’s shocking that it took a trip to the New Jersey Supreme Court to enforce such a plain constitutional command,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “New Jersey taxpayers can breathe a sigh of relief that their constitutional religious liberty rights have been protected.” “This is not just a win for secular citizens, but for every New Jersey taxpayer,” explains FFRF constitutional attorney Andrew L. Seidel. “Governments in New Jersey cannot force Muslims to bankroll temples and yeshivas, compel Jews to subsidize Christian churches and Catholic schools, force Christians to fund mosques and madrassas or nonbelievers to support any religion. It’s a win for all.” The Religious Right won’t see it that way. They’ll inevitably twist this ruling into some tale of Christian persecution. But when all the justices speak in unison like this, anyone looking for the facts will find them easily. They just have to read the ruling instead of the spin.
Dude. That's got to be intentional, but it's nothing to do with me, and the good news is that Taco Steve debuts at BSB this Saturday.
Hello New Albanians!
NABC Bank Street Brewhouse has been undergoing some renovations this week. We will REOPEN on Saturday March 3rd from 12p-10p with TACO STEVE!!! Hope to see you all then!!!
In the meantime you can always visit our Pizzeria and Public House located at 3312 Plaza Dr. New Albany, IN 47150 OR one of Downtown New Albany's other fine restaurants!!
Meanwhile, the News and Tribune's Danielle Grady provides insight into the new Main Street eatery concept from the former BSB kitchen crew.
NEW ALBANY — Just over a month ago, Stacie Bale and Sarah Hastings were working at Bank Street Brewhouse in downtown New Albany in the evenings — making the hamburgers and “bar bites” that customers would snack on while enjoying beer from New Albanian Brewing Company’s wide selection.
Bale and Hastings got along with NABC’s owners, but, recently, they had lost interest in the job.
“The beer is the focus there, not the food,” Bale said.
New lighting, new wood floors to replace the old terrazzo, greenery, and new paint will all serve to make for a warmer, more inviting space. He hasn't settled on paint colors yet, but color there will be, Morris says.
The zinc bar and tables in the bar will remain but in the dining room the tables will be topped with black cloth (serving a dual purpose of complementing the softer new look and dampening sound, which is severely needed, Morris says).
But this makeover is about more than cosmetics. The very approach of Gospel Bird is changing, inspired by Morris' passion for an ever-evolving menu ...
A couple years ago, I bought a $15,000 uninhabitable house in Cincinnati, Ohio. The copper had been stripped out and no one had lived there for years. This was on a street where a third of the homes were in similar condition. When I told my friends back home in California, there were a few raised eyebrows. I shrugged. Buying a $1,200,000 one bedroom condo in a trendy coastal city seems far more terrifying to me. The little seven hundred square foot shotgun shack in Ohio was so inexpensive that if it turned out to be the worst financial decision of my life I’d only lose $15,000. It was like buying a used Volkswagen.
Well… Last month I sold the place for slightly more than I paid for it. The resale price covered my initial cost, the real estate agent’s fee, and a year of taxes and insurance. If you squint, I broke even. But if you add in other expenses associated with my attempt to renovate the place, I lost about $3,000. That’s not enough to care about in the big scheme of things, but not great either. Like I said… it was basically a used Volkswagen. So what happened?
What happened was a bureaucratic nightmare. If only the author had been eligible for sewer tap-in waivers; alas, his name is Sanphillippo, not Flaherty Collins.
I hasten to point out that in the year my designer struggled to get multiple unresponsive city bureaucracies to give us the green light on our little shack addition, a 131-unit apartment complex went up three blocks away. All the high mucky mucks were at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the cameras. The new building was “transformational.” It was “catalytic.” It was proof that a progressive developer and enlightened city authorities could work together to turn the neighborhood around.
One vital piece of Prague is missing from the 1987 narrative. It's Staroměstské náměstí, or with fewer diacritical marks, the Old Town Square.
On many subsequent trips to the Czech capital (most recently in 2005) I've invariably found myself drawn to this square in spite of its recent gentrification after the fall of communism.
This bird's eye view of Staroměstské náměstí today helps explain why.
Very few European capitals survived the 20th century with such an urban vista intact. In the case of Prague, Old Town Square isn't the only one -- and it may not even be the most impressive.
Probably my infatuation with this vicinity stems from this basic question:
"Roger, if Staroměstské náměstít is so special to you, why didn't you photograph it during your first visit to Prague in 1987?"
The short answer:
There wasn't anything to photograph.
This requires a lengthier explanation, and so following is an extract from a much longer essay* I wrote about a deceased rock music performer roughly my own age, with the key passage underlined, only lightly edited and updated for clarity.
And, note also that there'll be more to say about the fascinating Automat Koruna in a separate posting on THE BEER BEAT.
---
In 1989, during my third Europhile’s pilgrimage, I was in Prague. It was my second visit to the Czech capital, which to all appearances at the time was irrevocably Communist.
To have suggested to anyone that a largely bloodless revolution would occur by the end of the year, as part of monolithic Soviet Bloc dominoes crashing to earth all along the non-Cuban international landscape, would have marked the speaker as an enemy of the state – both in Czechoslovakia, and also in America, where the military/industrial complex hummed merrily along at the behest of the Cold War mentality that I so desperately sought to at least balance by visiting places precisely like Prague.
I’d been to Prague before, but only briefly. My friend Barrie and I spent three days in Prague in 1987, fresh from the Soviet Union and Poland, and these hours were a whirlwind of beer consumption and subsequent forced marches to our assigned beds in an unfinished sports club seemingly halfway to Olomouc, leaving us little time to explore the city's subtleties.
However, it was a joyous introduction to the Czech capital, where vast tracts of the urban landscape still had the appearance of the 18th and 19th centuries, and where small, winding streets led to dank basement pubs populated by working men conducting conversations in low voices, their remarks spices by clinking half-liter mugs of traditional draft pilsner-style lagers.
Prague in 1987: A formerly grand storefront on Wenceslas Square, which almost anywhere else in the world would have been occupied by a trendy designer shop – and indeed again was after the Velvet Revolution – instead hosted the Automat Koruna, a stand-up eatery, dirty and dirt cheap, where half-liter mugs of local beer went four to a dollar, unless the money had been changed on the black market, which was dutifully manned by virtually every restaurant waiter in the city.
Then you got five, maybe even six.
Among my vague, alcohol-soaked recollections of 1987 is one in which Barrie and I were walking through a vast square with a large statue in the middle. Virtually every building in the square was cloaked entirely by impenetrable scaffolding, including at least two churches and the town hall.
Old Town Square was a reconstruction zone in 1987.
According to remarks on our tourist map, it was considered one of the most beautiful in Czechoslovakia, and perhaps in all of Europe, but it was impossible to make a sensible judgment of its merits given the area’s bandaged and mummified appearance.
Besides, owing to the sloth of Communism, the square probably had been under repair for decades, and would continue to be for decades to come. We forgot about it, and went off in search of another pub – perhaps the most beautiful in all Europe; who would know until it was visited?
More than once we came to the venerable Charles Bridge across the Vltava River, and all I could think about was the majestic "Vltava" section of Ma Vlast, the Czech national tone poem written by the beloved 19th-century composer Smetana, who is buried in the cemetery on the nearby Vyšehrad hilltop overlooking the river.
Barrie and I soon left town and resumed our journey westward. Time passed, and eventually I found myself in Europe for the third time.
Very little about Prague had changed when I returned in 1989; the city still seemed to be a time capsule in a myriad of senses, both good and bad, but when I returned to the Charles Bridge first thing and set my sights on the incomparable skyline of spires along the river, and the looming presence of the Prague Castle perched atop the opposite bank, the familiar soundtrack recording of Smetana’s "Vltava" refused to cue in my brain.
Instead of the expected soft rippling of orchestral strings imitating the flow of the river itself, I heard the slow tempo of a synthesized cadence, and the words and music of a slight pop ballad that might not have attracted my attention at all if not for the visual content of the accompanying video, which had played on MTV for months prior to my trip, compelling me to lecture innocent bystanders about the beauty of Prague.
“There, look!” I would drunkenly scream, pointing at the television while everyone else in the room melted away in search of phone books to read.
“It’s Prague!”
The song was “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS, the band’s only #1 hit in the United States.
The video had been filmed in Prague some time during 1988, and it featured the late vocalist Michael Hutchence and his band mates in dark and serious poses that were meant to convey at least part of the city’s very real, cloaked and nervous Cold War feeling, beginning on the Charles Bridge, then down the street from the Jewish Cemetery, and finally ending with the camera at the corner of the glockenspiel on the Old Town Hall for an incredible closing pan of the fully renovated and stunningly beautiful Old Town Square, with nary a scaffold in sight.
They'd finished the renovation, after all.
Viewing the video today, it strikes me in much the same way as my first passport photo: Youthful, pretentious, and innocent (at least in relative terms) in roughly equal measure.
There was no deeply philosophical significance to any of it, and yet I could not extricate the sound and the sight of INXS’s creation from my mind as I walked the streets of Prague in the summer of 1989 – and I haven’t been able to avoid thinking about it since, although now Smetana’s tone poem has returned to its rightful place in the canon, and can again be summoned on demand.
This was the first New Albany location of retail giant F.W. Woolworth Company. Woolworth's arrived in New Albany around 1913, and located its ever-popular 5 & 10 Cent store in the south side of this building. By 1919, Woolworth's had expanded into the north half of the building, and was setting sales records for Indiana stores. The first Woolworth's Cafeteria in the nation was started on the second floor of 220 Pearl around 1923, by Miss Mildred Sinex. In 1931, Woolworth's moved its store and cafeteria to the northwest corner of Pearl and Market streets. Karl Fenger Hardware, Steiden Grocery Store, and Winn-Dixie Supermarket all occupied the building for a period of time over the next 20 years. From the late 1950s through the early 1970s, the building became home to the popular Walter Kahn Department Store, home of the latest women's fashions.
More recently, it has been occupied on the ground floor by an interior designer doing business as MESH (home decor).
As a footnote, bricks with a tendency to fall from the building's rear alley side (and occasionally from the front) were first mentioned at NAC in 2009 and 2010, during England III.
Here's the alley scaffolding view from June, 2017.
In an effort to grasp why this, and why now, recall a fond and favored quality-of-life project of the dearly departed redevelopment commission's Commandante Duggins, who now has been moved out of harm's way to Future Gahan Luxury Housing.
Dugout's alley coolification is currently under way.
Of course, dozens of city streets remain inadequately illuminated on a daily basis, which does nothing to enhance public safety, but I digress. It would be useful if either David Duggins or the newspaper explained what is meant by "more of a place" in the context of gentrifying an alley, and because neither has done so, this week's word is placemaking.
In conjunction with decorative dumpsters, in March our City Hall announced a bold new facade grant program cheerfully funded (partially, at least) from Horseshoe's coffers. The 75-25 public/private facade improvement description reads as if to precisely describe the flagship Schmitt Furniture and Classic Furniture buildings, which no doubt are the program's targets, though the largess might be spread elsewhere, too.
New Albany has a plethora of beautiful, historic buildings in its downtown. Unfortunately, over the years, some of these buildings have had windows shuttered and closed off, original brick walls painted over, and historic character lost. Some buildings have even been painted together to appear as one structure. This project will seek to revitalize, refurbish, and redevelop buildings and facades in the downtown area, reinvigorating these historic structures to their original historic look, including improved windows and uncovered original brickwork.
Finally, the White House has been renovated on the north side of 218 Pearl, and MESA on the south. Across the street, two separate building rehabs are under way. The Merchants Bank on the corner of Pearl and Main seems to be next for an upgrade.
In some combination, elements of the preceding probably explain the alley scaffolding. If the city had a communications director, I'd ask him, but it's doubtful he'd return the phone call, so ...
Recently there have been signs of construction activity at 129 W. Market Street, which old-timers know as the former Wolf Supermarket (closed circa 1993; Gary Wolf died in 2011).
I checked on Elevate, and the building's owner is Cielito Lindo Properties LLC.
Digressing only briefly, I'll turn this over to Wikipedia.
"Cielito lindo" is a popular Mexican song from a Spanish copla, popularized in 1882 by Mexican author Quirino Mendoza y Cortés (c. 1862–1957). It is roughly translated as "Lovely Sweet One". Although the word cielo means "sky" or "heaven", it is also a term of endearment comparable to sweetheart or honey. Cielito, the diminutive, can be translated as "sweetie"; lindo means "cute", "lovely" or "pretty". Sometimes the song is known by words from the refrain, "Canta y no llores" or simply the "Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay song".
My first search for Cielto Lindo LC brought me to house flippers in Frisco, Texas. However, searching the company name with the street address brought this.
And more intriguingly, this.
Now, where have I heard the name Toki Masubuchi before? Finally, LinkedIn is helpful.
The possibilities are endless. Tell me what you know, and thanks to the Lads of the Village for spurring the discussion.
The problem with relying on the Floyd County Democratic Party's largely fictional "leadership" cadre to assist in the rebirth of the Left is that they are capable neither of waging nor winning a "battle" for the party's soul.
Our Gahans and Dickeys are influence peddlers, displaying far less soul than conditioned responses for self-preservation, and they're currently leaning over backwards to appease Dan Coffey, a snarling Trumpian and the polar opposite of what's really needed. They're engaged in this demeaning somersault because the local party presently has no stated purpose apart from enhancing Jeff Gahan's cult of personality.
If all this disgusts you, you'll be delighted to know that alternative models exist. Let the principled refurbishment begin ... and if the local protectors of rapidly failing orthodoxy are unable to adapt, seeing them swept away would be a highly soulful development, wouldn't it?
Clintonian-centrism was defeated in November, but attempts to repeal Obamacare show the Republicans are weak and divided. Now is the time for the left to craft a populist alternative
Donald Trump is now the most powerful man on Earth. You would expect the American left to be despondent; it’s not. The left is stronger than it has been for decades. They are up against a president who lost the popular vote, who assumes office with the lowest approval rating on record, and whose party is riven by divisions. In November, Clintonian-centrism – whose compelling selling point was the ability to win – was defeated, plunging the American republic into its gravest crisis since the war ...
... A battle for the soul of the Democratic party now beckons. There are siren voices who claim that the Democrats were too radical, too vociferous in their support of women and minorities. But a powerful new movement is determined to transform the Democrats into a party that unapologetically challenges vested interests.
... then, some strategies for those still embracing the Party.
How one group is trying to channel the Trump resistance into political gains.
... Run for Something's mission is not to stop Trump in 2020, at least not directly. Its focus is on local races, where Democrats have been creamed over the last eight years, losing some 935 state legislative seats during the Obama era. In 2017, it is focusing its efforts on Virginia and North Carolina, two places where Democratic gains at the state level (the party controls the governor's mansion in both states) are undercut by conservative legislatures. In Virginia, a blue state in the last three presidential elections, Democrats have failed even to show up in some races: 44 of the state's 67 Republican delegates ran unopposed in 2015, including three Republicans in districts carried by Hillary Clinton. Democrats have a long way to go to recoup what they lost, but they've also left a lot of low-hanging fruit on the vine.
The awnings are the most recent addition. Judging from what can be viewed from the street, there'll be at least three commercial suites on the ground level, and (I'm told) four or five apartments upstairs.
By the way, if anyone sees a city official, this pedestrian crossing push-button across the street from Matt Chalfan't latest work-in-progress is kaput.
Conner Block
141 East Main Street
New Albany, IN 47150
This was originally a four-story structure, which has housed numerous businesses since its construction in 1855. The earliest tenant was John R. Nunemacher, who had his City Bookstore and publishing company here. In the 20th century, the following companies occupied the building: Rhodes-Burford Co., furniture and carpet; The Tribune Co., New Albany Tribune, New Albany Ledger and Tribune; and Karl Fenger & Son Hardware. Later, Reisz Furniture Company's 'Pilgrim Shop' sold Early American-style furniture and reproductions of Colonial pieces out of this storefront.
The drawing below shows the building circa 1890, at its original height. The building likely took on its current configuration following the 1937 flood; at that time, two other four-story buildings along Main Street were damaged and subsequently reduced to two stories.
Building Style: Greek Revival
Year Built: 1855
The second structure set for an overdue return to usefulness is the Jacob Goodbub Building at 213 Pearl Street.
Once again, the NAHPC fills in the blanks and pulls away the aluminum foil.
This Italianate was constructed in 1888 and was originally two storefronts. 213 was occupied by Mrs. A. Heleringer, milliner, for almost forty years. The boot and shoe business of C. Schan & Son and later Charles Hassenmiller dry goods occupied 215. By 1919, the Sample Shoe House had taken in both storefronts, and in the 1925 New Albany City Directory Louis Berlin was listed as having his general merchandise business here through the mid 1940s. Mr. Clarence Benjamin’s Fashion Shop began its long tenure here immediately following Mr. Berlin. During this time, the building was updated with a modern aluminum slipcover, which was removed in 2008 to reveal the ornate limestone detailing below.
Building Style: Italianate
Year Built: 1888
That's all we know for now. Main photos courtesy of Mike Kopp; inset photos are from the NAHPC.
NA Confidential's mask-free policy on reader comments.
NA Confidential believes in a higher bar than is customary in the blogosphere, and follows a disclosure policy with respect to reader comments.
First, you must be registered with blogger.com according to the procedures specified. This is required not as a means of directing traffic to blogger.com, but to reduce the lamentable instances of flaming and personal attacks on the part of the anonymous.
Second, although pen names are perfectly acceptable, senior editor Roger A. Baylor must be informed of your identity, and according to your preference, it will be kept confidential.
To reiterate, I insist upon this solely to lessen the frequency of malicious anonymity, which unfortunately plagues certain other blogs hereabouts.
You may e-mail Roger at the address given within his profile and explain who you are. Failure to comply means that your comments probably will be deleted -- although the final decision remains ours.
Thanks for reading, and please consider becoming a part of the community here, one that is respectful of the prerequisites of civilized discourse, and that seeks to engage visitors in substantive dialogue.
