AUDIO ART
To anyone under 30, the idea of using a phone booth may seem
foreign. But Writers & Books could change that with its inspired conversion
of an old British booth, rigged to offer passersby a free poetry reading.
W&B held a contest that drew 350 submissions, and the 15
winning poets — ranging from teenagers to experienced writers in their 70’s
— recorded a reading of their work. A CD of the collection is transmitted to
the booth, and plays continuously.
From Joseph Sotille: I
am a shiny, cream-colored ’57 Plymouth with two dazzling fins in the back/ I am
a child shaking in his sneakers afraid of the wild dog across the street/ I am
a maple tree in the distance waiting to catch home runs hit over the cyclone
fence.
Offers Gloria Lara: Be
my go-go, my disco, my ballroom/ Be my thoughts, my dreams, my interval/ Be my
lunk-head, my genius, my math problem/Be my mate, my love, my star-crossed
babe.
The bright red booth, weighing 1200 pounds, was salvaged
from PittsfordPlaza
during last summer’s renovations and now stands in front of W&B’s building,
at 740 University Avenue.
“We wanted to place things on the outside of the building
that reflect what is going on inside,” says W&B director Joe Flaherty. “We
also wanted ARTWalk to have a literary presence. It’s gone over so well that we
may try to change it with the seasons — about four times a year. There’s a
lot we can do with it. We get a kick out of watching people walk up to it, step
inside, and have a listen.”
Even if this world
were no more than a stale, old gumball stuck in some broke-down machine, I’d
praise you. — Alicia Hoffman
Tim Louis Macaluso
MORE
WATER?
It
may seem hard to imagine how expanding the county’s water system could be
controversial.
Hugh
Mitchell hopes to change that. Mitchell is the co-chair of the Rochester
Regional Group of the Sierra Club and chairs the state Sierra Club’s
conservation committee. His group is protesting the Monroe County Water
Authority’s plans to build a new water treatment facility in Webster. The new
plant would include a new intake a mile out into LakeOntario (currently
all of the county’s water comes from an intake at its Shoremont plant in Greece), and it
would have a capacity of 50 million gallons a day, nearly as much as the system
now uses.
In
a Tuesday press conference, the Sierra Club released a paper titled “Watering
Sprawl,” meant to supplement the group’s study of several years ago called
“Sprawl Follows the Pipes.”
The
Sierra Club objects to the new plant mainly on the grounds that it will cause
— or rather jumpstart — new sprawl in the eastside burbs and the western
portion of WayneCounty. The group
has long contended that the availability of water and sewer utilities is the
main force that drives sprawl.
“The
real reason they want it is because they’re ambitious to expand,” says
Mitchell.
He
also contends that building the new plant will indirectly contribute to sprawl
in the western portion of MonroeCounty and into
neighboring Orleans, because it
will “free more capacity from Shoremont.”
The
Sierra Club also worries that this is a ploy to pressure the city into selling
its own water system to the county. Sound like a conspiracy theory? Consider
the situation: the city now makes a tidy profit of about $5 to 6 million
dollars per year from its water system. It shares water with the county under
an agreement that expires in 2008.
The
county tried — and failed — to purchase the city’s water works in the spring
of 2002. That’s mainly because the amount it was offering — a lump sum of
just over $50 million — was laughable when compared to the continuous sum the
city receives each year.
Mitchell
worries that with the extra capacity, the county’s water authority “will be
able to dispense with buying water from the city.” Or at least it’ll be a in a
far stronger position to bargain for a better water-sharing agreement after the
current deal expires in 2008.
Either
way, Mitchell reasons, the county will be able to leverage that position into
the purchase of the city’s system at a lower price. That’s an outcome that the
Sierra Club wants to avoid for two reasons. First is the ecological fate of the
city’s water sources.
“Sierra
Club worries about the upland watershed and open space around Hemlock and CanadiceLakes,” says
Mitchell. “We want to see it preserved.”
The
second is the same reason the group is opposed to the Webster plant in the
first place: sprawl.
“We
don’t think the city should sell out its water plant to the county, since the
county’s record on sprawl is so bad,” he says. “They’ll make a short-term
profit, but in the long term the city will lose. You’ve got to look at the long
term.”
—
Krestia DeGeorge
PORT PLANS PUSH AHEAD
The fast ferry may be dead, but interest in the Charlotte
harbor area isn’t. After decades of hope and frustration, plans for new
development at the port seem to be picking up speed. Sasaki Associates, the Boston-based
firm charged with developing those plans, presented several concepts last
month, and city Community Development Commissioner Julio Vazquez says the city
expects to get the final plan in June.
Following last month’s Sasaki presentation, city officials
and Sasaki representatives met with four potential developers for the port
area.
Also at that meeting: SUNY Brockport representatives hoping
to create a Lake Ontario Natural Resource Center at the port.
The 30,000 square-foot center — which would include
classrooms, a conference room, and a small aquarium — would likely cost at
least $7 million. The city hasn’t formally committed to the project or to its
proposed location, a few hundred yards from the port’s terminal building.
That’s within the area being studied by Sasaki, and the research center wasn’t
included in any of the Sasaki options.
The research center “sounds like an excellent idea,” says
Vazquez. “I like the idea, but obviously the mayor has to make the decision.”
The city, he adds, is also considering housing the center inside the terminal
building.
City Councilmember Bob Stevenson, whose district includes Charlotte,
suggests yet another option: nearby city-owned properties in Charlotte.
“We do have another site south of this port site along River
Street, where we’ve taken two full blocks of
buildings down there, and it’s been declared an urban renewal site,” he says.
Joe Makarewicz, a professor of
environmental science and biology at Brockport and the research center’s main
proponent, says he had not heard about the possibility of locating the center
on River Street. But he
says he believes the city is committed to the project. “We’ve just changed
administrations,” he says, “and you’ve got to give the new administration some
time to get its feet on the ground.”
And Julio Vazquez stresses that the Sasaki plans are still
conceptual. “There’s room for everything,” he says.
— Sujata Gupta
LOOKING TOWARD CUTBACKS
Many of the region’s non-profit agencies depend heavily on
the United Way to help fund
everything from children’s health care to neighborhood revitalization. This
year’s fund-raising begins in mid-March, but officials already know there won’t
be enough to go around. And that probably means some agencies the United
Way has supported for years won’t get any money
this year.
Last year the United Way
of Greater Rochester (which serves seven counties) raised $35.5 million. Some
of that went to the Red Cross. Some went to specific organizations designated
by United Way donors. Only
$19.5 million was left to be distributed among organizations such as Baden
Street Settlement, the YMCA, and the Hillside Children’s Center.
The number of applications for money is outpacing what the United
Way can raise, a trend that began in the mid-90’s.
In 1995, for example, the United Way
funded 219 programs. In 2005, that number had dropped to 138. This year,
there’ve been 156 requests to fund $28.1 million in programs. But like last
year, United Way officials
expect to have only $19.5 million available.
The change in Rochester’s
economy has influenced donors, says William McCullough, United
Way’s vice president of corporate affairs. While
individual donors are giving more money, fewer people are giving at all. That
trend “poses serious problems,” says McCullough. “It means the overall number
of programs we can sustain will continue to decrease.”
In the 60’s, when Rochester was a powerhouse of
manufacturing and white-collar jobs, United Way could rely on big employers to
help not only with their own donations but by providing administrative support
for the fund drive. Today’s leaner companies can’t do that, says McCullough.
The funding reduction has forced consolidation among some
service providers and has caused many of them to step up their own fundraising
efforts. “We’ve been encouraging a re-engineering of programs and pooling of
resources to discourage overlap,” says McCullough, “but frankly, we’ve reached
a point where there are no more inefficiencies.” United Way will need to
reevaluate who it funds, and that includes looking hard at some agencies it has
helped for years.
The United Way
has focused on programs that drive long-term community improvements, says
McCullough, especially those that enhance health and education for the city’s
children. Thirty-nine percent of those under 5 live in poverty, the United
Way says, and that percentage is increasing.
“There are many areas of need, so many that it is hard to
single out one that is greater than another,” says McCullough. “But I think
most people would agree that the needs of children in this city are severe.
There are not only the health issues, but we’ve got to help our children stay
in school and graduate. Let’s be honest: a high-school diploma means almost
nothing today. So when these kids drop out and don’t go on to college, they
create a life-long problem for themselves and the community.”
— Tim Louis Macaluso
Left rail
Some go to India for the samosas, others for a dose of
extreme culture, others for a peek at Bollywood. But for politicians, the coolest
thing to do in the land of sacred cows and math geniuses, is to eschew
violence. Joining the ranks of Ariel Sharon and Burmese dictator Than Shwe,
President George W. Bush made a trip to Rajghat,
India, last week to pay
tribute to the Father of India: Mahatma Gandhi, the civil rights activist
renowned for his commitment to non-violence.
Then, just hours later — shielded from thousands of
anti-war protesters — Bush ironed out a landmark nuclear cooperation deal
between America
and India. Thus
was ushered in the age of nonviolent nuclearization. Whatever that is.
And you thought Phil
Hoffman was our only claim to fame:Channel
13 has localized ABC’s weirdly popular reality show “Dancing with the Stars”
this winter, wrapping it into its morning news program. On the national show,
celebrities like Tatum O’Neal, Drew Lachey, Tia Carrere, and George Hamilton
tried to learn how to samba, tango, and foxtrot, paired with professional
ballroom dancers, with judges and viewers voting off the worst of them, one by
one. And what “stars” did Channel 13 pick to pair with local ballroom experts?
The news staff of Channel 13 (some of them obviously pained by the experience)
and community celebrities like the Eastman House’s PR manager, Dresden Engle.
(Our vote? Bring back Darren.)
This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2006.
