INSIDE, KIDS!
City officials are in the final stages of writing a curfew
law to get minors off the streets late at night, and they hope to put it into
effect as early as August 15. This summer’s curfew — which would last about
90 days — is being considered a pilot.
Under the draft plan presented early this week, it would be
a “violation” for anyone under the age of 18 to be in public places between 11
p.m. and 5 a.m. (Violations are a lower level of infraction than a misdemeanor,
and are not a crime.)
The law would include a list of exceptions — for children
accompanied by a parent, for example, or on their way to or from school
activities or work.
The law gives police the authority to detain and question
youths on the streets and in other public places during prohibited hours. And
if they determine that the youths are violating the curfew, police can take
them to “a location designated by the Chief of Police” — during the pilot
program, Hillside Family of Agencies — where parents will be called. The
goal: to reduce crimes committed by and against minors, and to identify
children and families who need help.
On Monday, City Council’s Public Safety Committee met with
area social-service providers, some of whom were concerned that the program did
not have a clear way to measure its success and that it did not have greater
involvement with the school district. They were also concerned about police
officer training and how the city would handle multiple offenders. ACLU
Executive Director Barbara deLeeuw raised questions about youths’ rights.
The committee will hold a second meeting on the curfew at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 27, to get public
comments, and City Council is expected to vote on the legislation the following
week.
— Tim Louis Macaluso
SELLING THE SAINTS
In the 1960’s, Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic Church held three
masses every Sunday, attracting about 900 people to each one. Lately, there has
been only one Sunday mass, with fewer than 80 parishioners attending. And the church
is up for sale, with its final Sunday mass scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Sunday, July 30.
Ss. Peter and Paul will be the third southwest city Catholic
church to close its doors this year due to high operating costs and dwindling population.
St. Augustine and Our Lady of Good Counsel
closed earlier this year. Parishioners from all three churches are consolidating
with St. Monica’s in the 19th Ward and will be worshipping there.
There are more than 350,000 Catholic parishioners in the 12-county
area of the Rochester diocese, but most
attend churches in the suburbs. The decline in membership at urban Catholic churches
has left the diocese with large, underutilized buildings to maintain.
Ss. Peter and Paul, a Romanesque-style structure built in
1911, is an architecturally significant building. Much of its stained glass was
relocated from its predecessor, St. Peter the Apostle, built in 1835. The organ
was built in 1903. A huge painting of The Last Supper looms above the altar,
and near the ceiling, half-moon-shaped paintings depict Old Testament prophets.
All of this has raised concern about what will happen to the
building and its art.
“The sacred art definitely would not go to the auction block
or be part of the sale,” says diocesan spokesperson Doug Mandelaro. “A
committee will asses its value and recommend where it should be transferred.
Some of it may go to St. Monica’s. Some of it may go to other parishes in the
area, and there has even been discussion of sending it to some of the parishes
in New Orleans, where a lot of
their artwork was destroyed in Katrina.”
But some parishioners and area residents have hoped for a
different outcome for the church.
“It’s a shame,” says Paul Jones, president of Neighborhood
United, the area’s neighborhood association. “People really don’t want to see
it close. A lot of people have very important memories of this church, and
whenever you have a church close, a big structure like that leaves a void in a
neighborhood like ours.”
In addition to holding worship services, the church and its
buildings have served as an important community center, operating a soup
kitchen and providing temporary housing for mothers with small children.
Neighborhood United hasn’t organized to try to save the church,
but a University of Rochester
student has started a grassroots effort, hoping to encourage the UR
and the city to buy it.
“I’ve heard Mayor Duffy and [UR]
President Seligman both say that they are looking for ways to work together for
the benefit of the city,” says Andrew Slominski, a fifth-year economics and
art-history student. “This is the perfect joint project.”
Slominski pictures a mixed-use complex with professional
offices, classrooms, and performance space similar to HochsteinMusicSchool.
While Renaissance Square is seen as a solution to the city’s shortage of
performance space, Slominski says the project puts too much emphasis on the
east side of the river and ignores West
Main Street.
Slominski has met with Deputy Mayor Patty Malgieri and UR
Vice President Paul Burgett, but so far his idea hasn’t developed much
traction.
“I think it’s a fair statement to say that downtown is in
need of more arts performance space,” says Burgett. “But moving this from an
idea to a reality is extremely complex. This requires six-figure resources.”
The asking price for the property is $900,000, and there are
repairs to consider, including a new roof. But Mandelaro says he doesn’t expect
the church to sit vacant for long. St. Augustine
and Our Lady of Good Counsel sold were sold within a few months, and continue
to be used as churches.
“The money from the sale of those properties stayed in the
diocese, and most of it went back to St. Monica’s,” says Mendelaro. “The same
thing will happen in this case with Ss. Peter and Paul.”
The church will have a formal closing ceremony, which
Mandelaro says will be announced later in the summer.
— Tim Louis Macaluso
COOL SHELTERS
As a rule, bus shelters aren’t exciting. But on display at
the South East Area Coalition office, 1045 South
Clinton Avenue, are 46 models, part of a contest
to select designs for new ARTWalk shelters. One
resembles a pagoda, another an umbrella. The three
winning designers will walk away with $44,000 each to create the real thing.
Similar initiatives for ARTWalk
— an urban art trail along University Avenue
— have resulted in artistic benches and lampposts. Doug Rice, the executive
director of ARTWalk, says the shelters will replace
the sagging plastic and metal structures at three
University Avenue bus stops: at the Memorial Art
Gallery, the Elton-University intersection, and Gleason Works. Nine finalists
have been selected, and the final three will be announced September 17 at the
annual ARTWalk Alive festival.
More good stuff is in the works, says Rice. Among them: an
expansion of ARTWalk within the next few years to
include part of North Goodman Street
between Village Gate and East Avenue.
The University Avenue
portion will also be lengthened. For his next project, Rice hopes to create a
rotating sculpture exhibit. Ten sculptures, he says, would be in place for a
year at a time.
You can see the bus shelter models at the SEAC office
between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday through Friday through September
8. Info about ARTWalk or the contest: www.rochesterartwalk.org.
— Sujata Gupta
LATE NIGHT AT THE LITTLE
It was originally designed as an accompaniment to the East
End Festival, but the Little Theatre’s 11:30
p.m. showing of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction on July 14 seems to have sparked something more
permanent.
The turnout of 76 people — ranging in age from teens to
people in their 50’s — is prompting the Little to plan an ongoing late-night
movie program, says Executive Director Bob Russell. A number of the Pulp Fiction attendees told Russell that
people who aren’t into the bar scene don’t have many options for late-night
entertainment, so the Little will seek films it might not normally screen —
horror, sci-fi, anime — and give them a late-night slot once a week, most
likely beginning in September.
Russell says the Little staff hasn’t yet decided whether the
films will be shown on Friday or Saturday nights, but he does hope to have
theme months and bring in guest speakers.
— Dayna Papaleo
REMEMBERING BILL LEE
After he received his degree from Harvard, he began his
career the old-fashioned way, as a stock boy. But by the time he was hired to
head Sibley’s in 1966, he was already an impressive retailer. And until his
retirement 13 years later, he and his staff made such a splash that
Rochesterians still long for the return of that big, beautiful department
store.
Bill Lee, a giant among retailers and a dynamic community
leader during his years in Rochester,
died July 7 at his home in Vero Beach, Florida,
at the age of 91. He had served on a wide variety of Rochester
civic boards — HighlandHospital,
the George Eastman House, the RochesterMuseum
and ScienceCenter,
the Landmark Society, the Red Cross, St. John Fisher College, the Center for
Governmental Research — and he was a leader in the successful efforts to
establish WXXI.
Intensely devoted to downtown, he fought back when the University
of Rochester considered moving its
Eastman School of Music to the River Campus. He led the efforts to create a
park when St. Joseph’s Church
burned. Soon after his arrival in Rochester,
he agreed to have Sibley’s host an experimental satellite school established by
the Rochester school district, and
for years the store was the site of the annual Scholastic Art Exhibit.
And he loved retailing. He embraced the concept of a
department store as an old-fashioned marketplace, says his daughter, Margaret
Lee Braun: a hub, a town square. And in those days when retailers recognized
the importance of presenting shopping as theater, he made Sibley’s an
experience. He wanted to create “a buzz,” says Braun, “a sense of glamour.”
“His favorite thing,” says Braun,
“was the fall festival,” an annual event celebrating the arts that turned the
mammoth store into a glittering showplace and brought in such celebrities as
Pearl Bailey, Alistair Cook, Cab Calloway, and, as he was just beginning to get
public recognition for “Roots,” Alex Haley.
Family members and friends remember Lee as a man deeply
committed both to Sibley’s employees and to its customers. “He just believed in
people,” says Braun. Son Richard Lee remembers his father speaking of “our
precious customers” — which, says Lee, “I think speaks volumes.”
Daughter Alyson Lee, who worked summers at her father’s
store, says Bill Lee insisted that his staff “never, ever, ever forget to thank
the customer for shopping at your store.”
“You can give them beautiful merchandise, incredible
promotions, terrific prices, dazzling displays,” Alyson Lee recalls her father
saying. “None of those matter if they don’t make the final decision to buy at
your store.”
A funeral mass for Bill Lee was held earlier this week in Boston.
And a memorial celebration will be held in Rochester
at 10:30 a.m. on September 16, at
St. Mary’s Church.
— Mary Anna Towler
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2006.
