Still Changing Hats
You can see my byline in the Courier News this week while I continue to fill in on the Plainfield beat.
So far I have been able to file all my stories without using a car. Yesterday my travels on foot took me to the basement of the former Mirons building for a press conference. The foyer of the building offers a forbidding view of the hulk that was once the Mirons warehouse. Its boarded-up windows and general state of disrepair make it a good reminder of the need for redevelopment.
Plaintalker got a glimpse of the future in a document that was included in a recent City Council packet. Between where I was standing last night and the ugly warehouse, a 500-car parking garage may arise. The structure would give future North Avenue transit village people a place to park their vehicles while they explore the neighborhood on foot.
The Mirons building is an example of a concept that was a favorite of planners before the term “transit village” inflamed their minds. It was called “adaptive re-use” when the former furniture store was turned into 19 condos many years ago. Turning the former Tepper’s department store into 75 apartments is another example. Now will somebody please make those downtown second stories into artists’ lofts?
I read somewhere that Plainfield’s famous author, Adele deLeeuw, used to leave her home to write in a nearby location where the quotidian demands of the household (such as deciding what to have for dinner) would not interfere with the creative process. Wouldn’t a little writer’s studio be a downtown treat!
For now, with the computer just steps from the stove, blogging is still interspersed with steaming the asparagus and cooking the gemelli. An added benefit in this building is channeling the ghost of Joseph Yates, one of the city’s first councilmen. It was his home in the late 1800s before it was carved up into six apartments. I wonder what he would make of current council doings and the present state of the Queen City, not to mention someone blogging about it.
--Bernice Paglia
So far I have been able to file all my stories without using a car. Yesterday my travels on foot took me to the basement of the former Mirons building for a press conference. The foyer of the building offers a forbidding view of the hulk that was once the Mirons warehouse. Its boarded-up windows and general state of disrepair make it a good reminder of the need for redevelopment.
Plaintalker got a glimpse of the future in a document that was included in a recent City Council packet. Between where I was standing last night and the ugly warehouse, a 500-car parking garage may arise. The structure would give future North Avenue transit village people a place to park their vehicles while they explore the neighborhood on foot.
The Mirons building is an example of a concept that was a favorite of planners before the term “transit village” inflamed their minds. It was called “adaptive re-use” when the former furniture store was turned into 19 condos many years ago. Turning the former Tepper’s department store into 75 apartments is another example. Now will somebody please make those downtown second stories into artists’ lofts?
I read somewhere that Plainfield’s famous author, Adele deLeeuw, used to leave her home to write in a nearby location where the quotidian demands of the household (such as deciding what to have for dinner) would not interfere with the creative process. Wouldn’t a little writer’s studio be a downtown treat!
For now, with the computer just steps from the stove, blogging is still interspersed with steaming the asparagus and cooking the gemelli. An added benefit in this building is channeling the ghost of Joseph Yates, one of the city’s first councilmen. It was his home in the late 1800s before it was carved up into six apartments. I wonder what he would make of current council doings and the present state of the Queen City, not to mention someone blogging about it.
--Bernice Paglia
posted by Bernice at 7:01 AM
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