12/4/14 - 12/10/14 Arts and Urbanism Roundup

Cleveland

Cleveland officer who shot 14 year old considered unfit for duty by another police department (PBS Newshour)

National questions about police hit home in Cleveland (New York Times)

Cleveland Police evade Ohio's mandatory DNA collection law (Jurist)

Major expansion of The Cleveland Institute of Art nears completion (Cleveland.com)

Pittsburgh

Port Authority drivers ordered to stand trial for Pittsburgh bus crash (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Pittsburgh mayor stars on reality TV show, "Undercover Boss" (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

LBPC to unveil plans for a more walkable, bikeable Lawrenceville (Bike Pittsburgh)

US Steel keeps headquarters in Pittsburgh for a price (Pennsylvania Independent)

State liquor laws hurt young musicians (Pittsburgh City Paper)

Pennsylvania

Why 2015 could be the year for medical marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Independent)

Climbing employee pension costs squeeze state budget (Pennsylvania Independent)

No escape from pension math in Pennsylvania (Bloomberg News)

Harvard study ranks Pennsylvania among top 5 most corrupt states (CBS Philly)

Philadelphia regional transit system, SEPTA finally ditching tokens and paper tickets (NBC 4)
 
Other Urbanism and Architecture News

Can different training make police officers guardians, not warriors?

Do federal stats undercount police killings? (PBS Newshour)

More than 1000 people have been killed by police in 2014 (Reason)

Houston police chief calls drug war a "miserable failure", says Feds need to lead reform (Huffington Post)

Walkability vs. affordability (Washington Post)

More Americans are behind on car payments (CNN Money)

How a train station offering no new service cost $4 Billion in NYC (New York Times)

"Latino Urbanism" influences a Los Angeles in flux (Los Angeles Times)

Why the Da Vinci fire has L.A. urbanists rethinking downtown's future (Los Angeles Times)

Tech Culture and rising inequality: A complex relationship (CityLab)

Why Nashville is still America's music city (Next City)

Detroit artist: Actually Detroit isn't so cheap (Next City)

Copenhagen plans to expand by building artificial islands (CityLab)

Late-night transit service to expand from San Francisco to East Bay (San Francisco Examiner)

Other Arts and Archeology News

Pioneering Brooklyn Art space, Galapagos moves to Detroit (Detroit Free Press)

How Mosaics are shaping Haiti's future (Hyperallergic)

Miami graffiti artist in critical condition after cop runs him over (Hyperallergic)

Photographers irked as Flickr profits from creative commons images (Hyperallergic)

Museums and market finally warming to works on paper (The Art Newspaper)

A documentary traces the history of video game graphics (Hyperallegic)

Can satellite fairs give artists their first big break? (The Art Newspaper)

10/7/14 - 10/14/14 Weekly Arts and Urbanism Roundup

Pittsburgh 

Greensburg's Westmoreland Museum of Art receives Nieland Sculpture Collection 
(Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Five artist, live/work spaces planned in Braddock (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

How Kickstarter's most funded restaurant is transforming a town (Braddock) (AOL)

From Pittsburgh Winery to Brillo Box: Your guide to Pittsburgh's smaller music venues (Next Pittsburgh)

CMU professor, Mary Shaw earns highest honor in the nation for technological progress (Next Pittsburgh)

Pittsburgh's first urban gardening shop opens in Lawrenceville (Pop City)

At 10 years, City of Asylum Pittsburgh honors five exiled writers  (Pop City)


Cleveland

Brian Hoyer and the Cleveland Browns humiliate The Pittsburgh Steelers (WKYC)

Look who's living car lite in Cleveland (Green City Blue Lake)

A Weekend in Cleveland   (Essential Pittsburgh)

Waterloo Arts District celebrates new streetcape with gallery openings, concerts, new pubs (Cleveland.com)

ARTneo celebrates 30th anniversary at 78th Street Studios next Friday (Cleveland Scene(

Nine Inch Nails, Green Day, Joan Jett, Stevie Ray Vaughan, NWA top nominees for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015  (Cleveland.com)

Cleveland State University buys naming rights to new RTA bus-rapid line (Cleveland.com)

Cleaning of Allen Art Museum's ceiling at Oberlin reveals gold leaf, paintings and poetry  (WCHS TV)

Akron

Trio inspires Akron middle-schoolers to follow music (Ohio.com)

Youngstown 

A look at last week's Lawn-Con comics festival  (Digging Pitt)

Columbus

Ohio Stadium to host Buckeye Country Superfest Music Festival

Stone Brewing shuns Columbus for Richmond expansion

Other Ohio Arts and Urbanism News

Ohio casino September revenues down from August (Fox 45)

Ohio prisons will use drones as a security measure (Cleveland Scene)

West Virginia and Appalachia

Musicians explore connections between Romanian and Appalachian Folk Music  (WV Public Radio)

Ginseng Reality TV: Cultivating conservation or encouraging extinction?  (WV Public Radio)

Detroit

Adroit Detroit and the re-branding of the Rust Belt (Pop City)

A peek at Beth Olem Cemetary and the Neighborhood destroyed by a GM plant (Model D)

Winners of the 2014 Knight Arts Challenge (Model D)

Other Transit and Urbanism News

Battle of the upstarts: Houston Vs. San Francisco Bay (Joel Kotkin- Daily Beast)

Playable Cities: The city that plays together, stays together. (The Guardian - Sept, 9th)

Where the transit-accessible jobs are in Atlanta (ATL Urbanist)

The driver behind public transit's transformation in Atlanta (Government Technology)

Despite complaints, Houston is the best Texas city for transit access (Houston Chronicle)

Chamber report highlights challenges to Nashville's future growth (Nashville Biz Blog)

Madison poised for next steps to bus rapid transit system (Wisconsin State Journal)

Quote of the week: The neglected American Bus (Human Transit)

Transit-oriented development dominating in major metros (Transit Talk)

Tactical urbanism gaining momentum in San-Diego (KPBS)

Houston: Opportunity urbanism and walkability (Urbanophile)

Why big tech can't save the city (Corner Side Yard)

Diverging fortunes in Portland (New Geography)

Homebuilders offer freebies as booming U.S. markets cool (Ooops!) (Bloomberg News)

Mercedes is making a self-driving semi to change the future of shipping (Wired)

Indianapolis Airport debuts customer service robot

Stats show Indianapolis's violent trend likely to continue (WISHTV)

Ebola epidemic spreads- in pictures (The Guardian) (-warning: upsetting)

Aggressive police seize hundreds of millions of dollars from people not charged with crimes (Washington Post)

Comedy club charges per laugh with facial recognition  (BBC News)

113 year old time capsule in Boston opened (Christian Science Monitor)

Other Arts and Media News

Norway's currency goes abstract (Hyperallergic)

YouTube unveils huge new NYC video production studio (New York Times)

These Indonesian cave paintings may overturn Eurocentric art history  (Hyperallergic)

Cave Art older and more widespread than thought (National Geographic)

Treasure hunter uncovers one of the most significant Viking hoards ever found in Scotland  (Ancient Origins)

How Bureaucrats tried and failed to make TV suck (Reason)

Orlando Arts Scene: It's an urban bus trip (New Geography)

What makes art racist? (Hyperallergic)

Bonhams sets eight new records for modern and contemporary Middle Eastern artists (Art Daily)

Document dump reveals new details in Knoedler Gallery forgery case (The Art Newspaper)

Antiquities collections destroyed in Gaza conflict (The Art Newspaper)

Queens Museum calls for manual labor in the name of art. (Art News)

Reviewing the New York Film Festival (People Magazine)

Must see museum exhibitions during Frieze London  (Art Net)

What are America's top private contemporary art museums? (Art Net)

French museums loan 300 masterworks to Louvre Abu Dhabi  (Art Newspaper)

Nashville's new downtown zoning code puts human interaction and walkability above cars

The stereotype is that the high growth, "new south" is all about highways and sprawl. Actually, a lot of cities in the region are building out light rail systems and opening up to more sustainable urban design.

Nashville might be taking the lead with it's new zoning code.

From The Switchboard Blog

“The Plan calls for a ‘thoughtful mixture of uses including residential, retail and office, to ensure that Downtown doesn’t close at 5 p.m. or even after the concert ends or the restaurants close, but is instead a welcoming home for a diverse residential population.’ Multiple stories encourage multiple uses within each building, increasing the likelihood that one of the uses will be active at any given hour. Compare this to one story buildings which lack activity during the off-hours of the single use.

“To be viable, Downtown must accommodate numerous services and functions. By promoting form over use, the DTC allows for a mixture of uses. Because various functions occur at different times of the day – working, shopping and recreating during the day, entertainment and home-life at night – mixed-use, 24/7 neighborhoods use existing infrastructure more efficiently and function in a more sustainable way . . .

“As stated in the Plan, ‘While residential development has flourished in recent years, the creation and enhancement of urban neighborhoods is still a goal. Residential living will thrive in Downtown when residents feel that they are part of a neighborhood, supported by shared public spaces and the services and amenities needed for daily life.’”

WOW! SOMEBODY, ACTUALLY APPLYING JANE JACOBS'S IDEAS INSTEAD OF JUST PAYING THEM LIP SERVICE.

One very important thing is that the code is not just aimed at a small area of dowtown, but is aimed at creating cohesive organic connections between a number of core districts.

My experience from NY, is that by real dynamic places can't live alone. To save a downtown, you must create a base of connected core neighborhoods.

One big thing is they are scrapping minimum parking requirements--something Brooklyn still hasn't done!

From Streetsblog

Two years ago, Nashville scrapped parking minimums completely for its downtown, a fact called to our attention by blogger Charlie Gardner. The elimination of parking mandates in the area seems to have proceeded without controversy, based on contemporary news articles.

New York City, in contrast, is moving toward reducing parking minimums in certain “inner ring” neighborhoods, but it remains to be seen whether they will be eliminated or merely reduced. Here, parking minimums are seen as politically necessary.

Cleveland's Amazing and Moving Civil War Memorial

I will be doing a few posts on some of the major public art and architecture in Cleveland. We spent a lot of time in museums and also needed to tour neighborhoods, so I didn't take that many shots. Also, I'm really bad with a camera.

This monument in the heart of the city, was something I had in the back of my mind--low on the list of things to see. As we drove by- Jean and me both were like--Wow, this is something else.

Huge scale, formal Civil War memorials and statuary are a pretty common Victorian era response to this ghastly social drama. Ohio, played a central role in the war, contributing many of it's central figures like Sherman and tens of thousands of men.

Even so, this central tomb like vault surrounded by depictions of both soldiers and sailors--carries a huge dignified punch.

The back lit shots don't really do this justice.

"The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument commemorates the American Civil War; it consists of a 125' column surrounded at its base by a Memorial Room and esplanade. The column, topped with a statue of the Goddess of Freedom, defended by the Shield of Liberty, signifies the essence of the Nation for which Cuyahoga County veterans were willing to and did give their lives. Four bronze groupings on the esplanade depict, in battle scenes, the Navy, Artillery, Infantry and Cavalry. Inside the Memorial Room are four bronze relief sculptures: Women's Soldiers' and Sailors' Aid Society, Beginning of the War in Ohio, Emancipation of the Slaves and End of the War at City Point, Va. , as well as busts of Gen. James Barnett and Architect/ Sculptor Levi T. Scofield, together with 6 officers, who were either killed in action, or died of disease or their wounds.

The column is made of polished black, Quincy stone with 6 foliated bronze bands listing the names of 30 battles in which soldiers from this County fought. The Memorial Room is constructed of rough finished, light gray granite and light brown Amherst sandstone; the esplanade and steps of Medina red sandstone."

"The Monument, managed by a bi-partisan Commission of 11 Trustees, is open daily, Monday through Saturday -9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years' Day."

Cleveland Soldiers and Sailors Monument website

Read more about the monument and recent restoration.