The beat goes strong

The beat goes strong

 “I can’t say I was interested before. I’d
never really experienced it before,” says Aaron Taylor. “But once I got to actually
hear it, like close-to-close, one-on-one, I was very interested.”

            The
recently graduated Taylor took to the drums when he joined John Marshall High
School’s pan-drum band. In his four years with Urban Steel, the band traveled
to Antigua twice, hosted students from Antigua’s St. Joseph’s Academy twice,
completed almost two albums, and played more gigs than you’d ever expect a
group of teens to commit to.

            Much
more creativity goes into Urban Steel’s music than you’ll find at a traditional
school-band practice. Songs aren’t completely improvised but they’re not all
pre-written either. “We just like start playing and add parts to it,” says
Urban Steel member Rob Tobey. “We come up with our own songs and other parts of
other songs that’s actual written music and we just practice that.”

            The
band got started in October 1999, when Hell’s Gate Steel Orchestra came from
Antigua to perform and to teach John Marshall students how to make steel pans
for the drums. A group of enthusiastic students created Urban Steel with their
newly made instruments.

            Through
Marshall High’s musical exchange program, Taylor, Tobey, and other members of
Urban Steel went to Antigua during their last spring break, where they played
with Hell’s Gate and St. Joseph’s Academy Rhythm Masters in Antigua.

            “How
can I explain it?” says Taylor. “You learn about a total different culture and
how they deal with life, you know. Everybody’s just like family, like on the
whole island, everybody.” Next year, students that Urban Steel members met in
Antigua will make a trip to Rochester.

            For more information on Urban Steel, visit
www.urbansteelband.com. Hear the band on Thursday, July 21, at the Fairport
Gazebo at 7 p.m. or on Saturday, July 23, at the Madagascar Fete at Seneca Park
Zoo.

— Katie Sauer

In or Out

A Rochester School Board committee is trying to
find a more direct way for the district to tell parents about their right to
withhold students’ personal information from military and other recruiters.

            Last week,
the board’s policy committee agreed to draft a letter with a multiple
choice-style list of recruiting agencies, including the military, colleges, and
employers. Beside each category, parents could indicate whether they wanted the
district to release their students’ information.

            The letter
would be mailed out to parents during the first two weeks of the school year.
Currently, parents are informed of their right to protect students’ information
only in the district’s annual Calendar and Directory of Information, and the
word “military” is not mentioned. Critics have said that the district’s wording
is too vague and that the information gets lost in the expansive document.

            Although a
letter would be a more assertive approach, policy committee members were also
worried that some parents may not respond. “We can’t assume that just because
parents don’t respond to the letters that we send out that it means that they
are automatically ‘opting out,'” said Commissioner Willa Powell. “We send out a
lot of mail to parents that they don’t respond to, but we don’t make any
assumptions about that except that they didn’t respond. If parents do not
respond, then I think we show it as a ‘no response,’ meaning we don’t know what
they expected.”

            District
legal counsel Michael Looby cautioned the committee that a “no response” policy
would have to be the same for military and non-military recruiters. If it just
applied to the military, it could violate the federal No Child Left Behind Act
and jeopardize federal funding.

            The full
School Board is expected to review a draft of the letter at its August 25
meeting.

Safety
on their minds

Two
recent shootings served as all-too-fresh reminders of Rochester’s violence
problem. First 12-year-old Fred Lewis was gunned down for no apparent reason
near his home. Two days later, a police officer seriously wounded 13-year-old
Lashedica Mason after she allegedly charged at the officer and a family member
with a kitchen knife.

            It was in that emotionally-charged
atmosphere that last week’s community policing meeting, hosted by City
Councilmember Adam McFadden, took place. The meeting was the latest in a series
McFadden has held to give residents a chance to comment on the city’s approach
to public safety. And the event drew a large crowd.

            But the meeting, which had been
scheduled before the youths were shot, was not an angry session focusing on
those shootings. Like previous other McFadden meetings, speakers touched on a
wide range of concerns, from their own safety their children’s safety to police
behavior. There were complaints that the schools are at fault, that society is
at fault, that in high-crime neighborhoods residents themselves must assume
more responsibility.

            McFadden asked participants to talk
about three specific proposals: a surveillance-camera pilot program, day and
night curfews, and anti-gang legislation. All three drew passionate responses
both pro and con, but in the end, a straw vote of those in the room signaled
solid support for exploring them further.

Tunnel
dreaming

Like
many grassroots groups, the folks from the Subway Erie Canal Revitalization
group have an abundance of great ideas.

            They’re fervently trying to preserve
Rochester’s abandoned subway tunnel, parts of which were once the Erie Canal.
But city officials want to spend about $21 million (almost all of it state and
federal funds) to fill in part of the tunnel with dirt. The targeted section
runs from near Brown and Broad Streets to Exchange Street.

            The preservationists are active, and
they’re persistent. They’ve hosted tours of the tunnel, attracting hundreds of
people. They’ve had “Chill the Fill” T-shirts printed. And they’ve been
attending City Council meetings, pleading for the tunnel’s preservation.

            Save it for a future light rail
project, they’ve suggested. Or flood it, recreating a portion of the Erie Canal
downtown. Or create a transit museum. Or a bike trail. Or leave it as it is.
Anything but fill it in.

            But how much would those things cost?
And where would the money come from? “I don’t know,” one of the group’s
leaders, Pepsy Kettavong, told Ink last
week. “It’s premature at this point.”

            Eventually the group wants to “have
a professional look into the solution,” at least for the top three ideas: light
rail, a canal, or a combination bike trail and museum.

            The group has adopted at least one
pragmatic position from watching their elected leaders at work: combine all
their projects.

            “If you combine these three ideas,
the chance of getting funding is much better,” says Kettavong, “just like
Renaissance Square.”

            The city’s response: That section of
the tunnel has deteriorated so severely that it’s dangerous. It could collapse,
city officials say, causing Broad Street to cave in. City Council asked that
options for the tunnel be explored, City Engineer George Stam told Ink earlier this summer, and city staff
did so. Some of those options, he said, are “technically feasible but hugely
expensive.”

            City Council is expected to vote on
the fill-in in the fall. Meantime, one portion of historic canal bed — the
Broad Street Aqueduct — is scheduled for preservation and reuse. It’s to
become a pedestrian walkway, and adjacent space could become a museum or retail
space.

This article appears in Jul 20-26, 2005.