Theater review: "Respect"

Image source

Cedar Rapids's marvelous arts venue, CSPS, hosted the premiere Saturday night of the University of Iowa's Summer Rep production of "Respect: A Musical Journey of Women". It was written by Dorothy Marcic of Vanderbilt University, based on her book Respect: Women and Popular Music (Texere, 2002). It contains 63 songs, nearly all of which were 20th century top 40 hits by female artists. A tour is planned, with other ensembles performing around the country, and I heartily encourage anyone within range to see it.

The cast is four female characters, one of whom plays the author and provides commentary and narration. (At first I thought she was the author, then realized there was no way she was old enough to have attended high school in the 1960s.) The other three sing and dance throughout the roughly 100-minute show. Some songs are sung on their own, some in simple medleys, and some in medleys that weave back and forth between the different songs. The harmonies and choreography were impressive, as was their energy level. I ran into a couple of the actresses after the show and asked them how they were even walking after all that dancing about. "Adrenaline is a wonderful thing," they said.

The music is presented more or less linearly from 1901 into the 1980s. (The most recent song performed is "Hero," a hit for Mariah Carey in 1993.) The overall gist is that women sang popular songs with more powerful and independent voices as the century wore on. As the author asks early in the play, "Why didn't Fanny Brice [1891-1951] sing 'I am woman, hear me roar?'"

I'll buy that thesis, up to a point: The "I am strong, I am invincible" of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" (1972) was preceded by the "I'm tough" of "Piece of My Heart," sung by Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1968. Before that you weren't hearing anything in that vein, from white female singers anyway.

However, well after that time frame, the older themes continue prominently in pop. Vulnerability and yearning have always been staples of popular music, sung by singers of either sex. At least one of the songs featured in the show intended to illustrate pathetic dependence was actually sung on the charts by a male group: "Bend Me Shape Me" (American Breed, 1968). This is more than a picky detail, because if men were and are also waxing needily in song ("The Worst That Could Happen," anyone? Or "All By Myself"? Or "Living Next Door to Alice"?)  it weakens the gender argument.

With regard to female neediness, is there a substantive difference between the lyrical messages of Betty Boop in the 1930s and "Love to Love You Baby" (Donna Summer, 1976) or "Teenage Dream" (Katy Perry, 2010), neither of which the show referenced? "Bobby's Girl" by Marci Blane (1962) is one of the most awful combinations of words in the English language, and Joanie Summers's "Johnny Get Angry" from the same year is just about as bad, but you can also get world class cringes listening to the lyrics of "Jesse" by Carly Simon or "Upside Down" by Diana Ross, both of which were released in 1980. The gender evolution of pop is much less linear than the show implies: Lesley Gore sang "You Don't Own Me" two years before the Chiffons sang "Sweet-Talkin' Guy;" a year earlier she'd sung the cringe-worthy "Judy's Turn to Cry." I wonder if the later songs might seem less needy/dependent, if only because the social context in which the words are sung had changed?

Bottom line: the top 40 is not a church, nor is it a legal or ethical system. It's a commercial marketplace, and as such will always be attentive to the neediness of the vulnerable and yearning. If dependence can be sold, it will be sold. If "I Am Woman" or "Hero" can be sold, they will be sold.

All the above text shows is that I did really attend the show, and that I remember way too many details of 1960s-80s pop charts (verified along the way with The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits by Joel Whitburn [Billboard Books, 7th ed, 2000]). But it's not what I really wanted to blog about.

After the show two or three women in the audience thought it remarkable that I had stuck it out through all of what one called "the musical version of a chick flick." One said her husband had pointedly refused to attend. I had not been thinking of the show that way, and still don't, although it's true that when men are mentioned at all in Respect it's almost never positively. I think I still felt at the end like I was on the winning side, i.e. the liberation of women did not come at the expense of men, but was a victory for all humanity. We can only get to true community when all members are free and equal.

Surely whites will affirm that we are better off for the civil rights movement having happened. Even though I am middle class, the diminishment of the working class has left me poorer because society's fabric is torn. We are getting close to the day when straight people will recognize they are in a better place and the institution of marriage is strengthened because the rights of gays and lesbians are recognized. Maybe, someday, Christians will acknowledge that "religious freedom" consists, not in dominating the dialogue in a nostalgic Christian America, but in a community-wide conversation in which people of all faiths, and no faith, are full partners.

That is what I wanted to say, but now I've strayed from the show. Because the author didn't take us to a community of gender equality, but stopped with women having achieved independence.  It's her play, and bad form to demand a different play than the one the author intended, so I won't. Her story ends with her following her grandmother and mother into single parenthood, albeit her status is due to her husband's death rather than the perfidy of her father and grandfather. She ends the play with two capstone songs, pairing the title song with Gloria Gaynor's 1978 hit "I Will Survive." Gaynor sings about refusing to return to a terrible relationship, and that sounds like a good call. But once women (or men) have survived, have attained equality and independence, there needs to be a next step. Survival for what? Independence for what? Freedom for what? I think the answer to the question Dorothy Mancic doesn't ask is the same as the reason men can and should enjoy this production as much as women: community. "No man is an island," wrote John Donne, and no woman can be, either.

Proposed Cedar Rapids Greenway

The Cedar Rapids Department of Parks and Recreation, along with consultants from the Iowa City design firm Confluence, met with members of the public last night to roll out the almost-final draft of plans for park development along the west side of the Cedar River known collectively as the Greenway. The ideas are elaborate and ambitious, and would take about 10-15 years to come to fruition. Any implementation will need to take into account developing plans for flood protection, which are happening along a parallel track.


The Greenway consists of three chunks, including two large swaths of residential neighborhoods (Time-Check and Czech Village) that were heavily damaged in the 2008 flood. These two portions are connected by a narrow stretch of riverfront across from downtown that already houses the McGrath Amphitheatre.


The meeting was held at the Flamingo Events Center, which has evolved from a long-established restaurant on Ellis Boulevard, and which itself was hard-hit by that flood.

Jane and the flamingo pose by the sign marking the crest of the flood)

The first step of the Greenway projects will be to remove the infrastructure that's there now, particularly streets and sewer lines. The few houses in the area that have been rebuilt will be accommodated, mostly by turning their current through streets into cul-de-sacs, but some streets will be maintained in order to provide multiple access points to the parks.

The immediate result will be a large green space.

As I mentioned, there are big plans for what happens next. A large part of the Time-Check neighborhood may see widening of the current bike trail, a boat launch, basketball courts, and a disc golf "putting green" (which seems to be less than the full course now offered at Shaver Park as well as Thomas Park in Marion). Beaches had been previously discussed, but were scrapped because of their vulnerability to the river.

The Czech Village chunk would extend for several square blocks south of the business district along 16th Avenue, which unlike the residential area has in large part been rebuilt post-flood. This map of the area shows what the city has purchased, what remains in private ownership, and what would need to be done...

...to turn it into a lot of park...

...which could accommodate a boat launch, ice rink and ropes course, among other possibilities.

The most ambitious idea proposed for the downtown area is a kayak run utilizing some things that are already in the river north of downtown across from Quaker Oats.

I like the ambitious nature of the plans, and the intention to make better public use of the river than Cedar Rapids historically has done. In a city that has few true neighborhoods, it's sad to close the book on two with extra character, though connection to the parks may help surrounding areas emerge (or re-emerge, as the case may be).

One woman at last night's meeting expressed concern about the Time-Check section's impact on traffic patterns. She argued that 1st Street west is a convenient bypass, with better traffic flow than Ellis Boulevard currently has. It looks from the map like 1st Street has become a park road, which would indeed divert traffic to Ellis. This is probably good for park development, though Chicago has developed its lakefront parks with frequent underpasses under high-speed Lake Shore Drive. Still her point is well-taken. Park development will need to coordinate with planned development along Ellis Boulevard to allow for the flow of through traffic. (This is not a problem with the Czech Village park, where 12th Avenue and C Street serve as thoroughfares outside of the proposed park.)

Bicyclists at the meeting were pleased by the wider trail in Time-Check, but connections across the river are an open question. There are currently two ways to get from downtown to the trail--A Avenue East (which becomes E Avenue West) or 1st Street West--neither of which is really comfortable, but I've done 2nd Avenue to 1st Street and it's not too bad as long as it's not rush hour. The trail connection to the Czech Village, by contrast, goes across the Bridge of Lions and is pretty smooth at any hour of the day.

More generally, Jane Jacobs's pathbreaking chapter on neighborhood parks cites many ways park projects have gone wrong or right, making the success of any given project seem uncertain and random. A key factor for her clearly is connection to vibrant surrounding. Here's how she describes the neighborhood of a successful Philadelphia park (which I won't name because I don't know Philadelphia well, and a lot can happen in 53 years):

Immediately on its edges it has in sequence, as this is written, an art club with restaurant and galleries, a music school, an Army office building, an apartment house, a club, an old apothecary shop, a Navy office building which used to be a hotel, apartments, a church, a parochial school, apartments, a public-library branch, apartments, a vacant site where town houses have been torn down for prospective apartments, a cultural society, apartments, a vacant site where a town house is planned, another town house, apartments. Immediately beyond the rim, in the streets leading off at right angles and in the next streets parallel to the park sides, is an abundance of shops and services of all sorts with old houses or newer apartments above, mingled with a variety of offices [p. 96]

In short [it] is busy fairly continuously for the same basic reasons that a lively sidewalk is used continuously: because of functional physical diversity among adjacent uses, and hence diversity among users and their schedules. [p. 97]

Neighborhood parks fail to substitute in any way for plentiful city diversity. Those that are successful never serve as barriers or as interruptions to the intricate functioning of the city around them. Rather, they help to knit together diverse surrounding functions by giving them a pleasant joint facility; in the process they add another appreciated element to the diversity and give something back to their surroundings... [p. 101]

The special elements of each park I listed earlier will serve as "demand goods" [pp. 107-110], drawing people from all parts of the city and beyond. But the ongoing success of these projects depend on the ability of planners to coordinate effectively with neighborhood and commercial development.

[Jacobs's repeated reference to apartments in the first paragraph I quoted reminds me that a fellow last night told one of the consultants he doesn't like apartments. That may be because a lot of apartment buildings in Cedar Rapids are miniature slums. Or it may be a reminder that however this develops is not going to leave everyone happy.]

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Greenway plans: see comment below

Forrest Saunders, "Cedar Rapids Reveals Greenway Concepts," KCRG, 7 May 2014, http://www.kcrg.com/city-reveals-greenway-concepts-20140507 [coverage of a previous open house]

"Flood Protection: Both Sides of the River," City of Cedar Rapids, http://cedar-rapids.org/city-news/flood-recovery-progress/floodmanagementsystem/pages/default.aspx

Ellis Boulevard Area Plan site... More elaboration is in these slides from last fall's presentation

Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association site

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Vintage, [1961] 1992), ch. 5. See also ch. 14 for cautionary tales of parks creating boundaries to neighborhoods rather than connections with them.

Rachel Kaplan, Stephen Kaplan and Robert L. Ryan, With People in Mind: Design and Management of Everyday Nature (Island, 1998).

Cities and economic opportunity

Actual vs. simulated poverty rate, 1960-2010
(Source: Economic Policy Institute)

Last month Meeting of the Minds and Living Cities organized a one-day blogfest on the question "How Could Cities Better Connect All Their Residents to Economic Opportunity?" They drew a lot of responses, featuring a variety of ways of thinking about the issue.

I've come to think of economic opportunity as the corest of core issues related to how all of us are going to live together in the 21st century. If we are going to live sustainably, instead of poisoning the water and destroying the climate, we have to have confidence that we can constrain our behavior without suffering. If we are going to accommodate diversity in all its wondrous dimensions, we need to see other people as part of a supportive community instead of threats to our well-being and/or safety.

So, economic opportunity, rah. But easier stated than achieved: our global economy seems to need fewer workers, new jobs either require skills a lot of people don't have or pay badly, many poor people are physically isolated in urban ghettos and rural backwaters. The economy grows but opportunity doesn't (Irwin 2014):

• 1959-1973: GDP per capita up 82 percent, poverty rate dropped from 22% to 11%
• 1973-2007: GDP per capita up 147 percent, poverty rate rose from 11% to 12.5%
• 2007-now: GDP per capita up 6 percent, poverty rate rose from 12.5% to 15%

Some themes that emerge among the numerous posts in response to the group blogging event:

1. What is 'opportunity,' anyway? Several bloggers pointed out the lack of common definition, much less reliable metrics. We usually measure things like income inequality, mobility and unemployment, but those are outcomes, of course. It's easier to sense the absence of opportunity than to measure it, which limits our ability to address it with confidence. Ben Hecht, following Stephanie Pollock, identifies the components of opportunity as physical proximity to jobs, mobility within the city, and virtual connectivity. That works for me, at least for starters.
2. Transit. If the verb is 'connect,' or the noun is 'mobility,' you're going to get transit-related answers. Clearly, though, just having buses and trains is not enough. Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council notes that transit ridership in that city has dropped by 40 percent in three decades, and that only 21 percent of jobs and 8 percent of metro residents are within a quarter-mile of a bus or train stop (Barrett 2014). That means encouraging development around transit, but also innovations in getting transit to the people who can benefit from it.
3. Education. Beyond the usual appeals for better schools and teachers (what does that mean, anyway?), there are specific recommendations for (a) workforce training that is better coordinated with market demand, (b) better support systems for low-income and other first-generation college students, and (c) teaching people to recognize existing opportunities. Sounds like long-term concentrated missionary work.
4. Businesses. Job creation comes from local businesses of a certain size, who might benefit from assistance with, for example, finding investment opportunities. This might best come from a public-private partnership. Business-government collaboration can also help governments better target their scarce resources.
5. Virtual Connectivity. The 'digital divide' that persists is about more than who does or doesn't have access to the Internet at home. It's about digital literacy, and how you spend your time online.

Cedar Rapids is smaller than a lot of the cities discussed in these numerous posts, but we're not exempt from problems of job creation, concentrated poverty, connection to opportunities, and such. Our development post-2008 is going gangbusters, but as a work in progress it's too early to tell whether it will connect or further isolate the least-advantaged (probably some of each). Transit is a mix of flexible (365Ride) and rigid (bus routes and schedules seem more oriented to the clock than to potential riders). I don't know enough to address the local angle on topics 3, 4 and 5.

SOURCES

Mary Sue Barrett, "The Long and Short of Economic Opportunity for All," The Connector, Metropolitan Planning Council, 12 May 2014, http://www.metroplanning.org/news/blog-post/6929

Kim Davis, “Cities and Poverty: Connecting the Dots,” UBM's Future Cities, 12 May 2014,

http://www.ubmfuturecities.com/author.asp?section_id=391&doc_id=526709

Ben Hecht, "From Transit to Access: Three Essentials for Rethinking How Cities Connect Their Residents to Opportunity," Living Cities, 12 May 2014, http://www.livingcities.org/blog/?id=292

"How Could Cities Better Connect All Their Residents to Economic Opportunity?" Meeting of the Minds, 12 May 2014, http://cityminded.org/cal/group-blogging-event

Neil Irwin, "Solid Growth for Decades. Why Hasn't Poverty Fallen?" New York Times, 5 June 2014, A3, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/05/upshot/growth-has-been-good-for-decades-so-why-hasnt-poverty-declined.html?rref=upshot

John Wihbey, “Computer Usage and Access in Low-Income Urban Communities,” Journalist’s Resource, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, 19 August 2013, http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/internet/computer-usage-access-low-income-urban-communities#

My own post on the subject, from last November: "The 'New Normal' Economy and Place"

When federalism works, or not

Highway 100 groundbreaking (Source: youtube.com)

For those who care about the future of Cedar Rapids, this has been either a pretty good week or a pretty bad week. The same day that city leaders and the Chamber of Commerce celebrated the beginning of the Highway 100 extension (above), word came that United Fire Group was exploring options for the American Building downtown.

This is a victory for historic preservation--it's a lovely building, over 100 years old--but its rebirth will likely come at the cost of demolishing the building next door (119 1st Av SE) that formerly housed the Convention and Visitors Bureau (Ford "United"). That building is neither old nor lovely, but the coming parking lot will hardly rank as an improvement.

"Urban areas need expressways," said Iowa Department of Transportation director Paul Trombino on Tuesday (Smith). Highways! Parking lots!! What century is this, anyway?

This has got me thinking about the role of the federal government in all this. In the 1980s I was profoundly affected by a book called When Federalism Works--partly because I happened to be at the Brookings Institution when they threw a party to celebrate its release, but also because of the strength and originality of its argument. The authors argued the U.S. federal government should act when states and local governments lack economic incentives to act. They specifically cite programs "that benefit low-income or otherwise especially needy groups in the community" (p. 15), because cities that act unilaterally risk attracting needy people--and their accompanying program costs--from surrounding, less-generous cities. I consider disaster assistance to be on the same plane, because disasters can easily overwhelm local resources.

On the other hand, argue the authors, cities ought to be in charge of their own economic development. "A high-quality infrastructure includes good roads, adequate utility and sanitation services, effective police and fire protection, quality schools, and pleasant parks and recreation activities" (pp. 12-13). The local incentives for creating "a potentially attractive home for productive employees and the firms that hire them" (p. 12), as well as deciding the appropriate mix of taxation and services, are obvious, and the national government can and should leave cities on their own to handle this.

Peterson et al. are nonetheless hesitant to apply this logic to transportation, arguing that the country as a whole has an interest in facilitating a nationwide network of trade and communication. Hence...

Central government support of developmental goals is warranted because, if left to itself, a community would spend for such purposes only an amount equivalent to what it expected to gain from the resultant increase in its economic activity. It would not spend funds for any portion of a project that only benefited people living outside the community. Without central government support, localities would thus underspend for development. (p. 13)

I'm OK applying this logic to interstate highways, airports and rail, but when the national government funds local highway construction, it creates a moral hazard. That's what's happening with Highway 100: Without passing judgment on the specific project, the vaster portion of the financing is coming from the Iowa Department of Transportation, and as has become apparent as this year's transportation bill has stalled in Congress, about half of IDOT's money comes from the national government (Petroski). Cities thus have an incentive to act inefficiently, because someone else is bearing the cost while any economic activity that results benefits the local area. (For an extended riff on this theme, see Chuck Marohn's Strong Towns Podcast of May 22, cited below).

What would Cedar Rapids do about Highway 100 if it were on its own to finance its construction and ongoing maintenance? It's hard to say. Removing the federal government from the equation won't necessarily make it balance. Localities certainly have, in the absence of metropolitan regional government, incentives to act in ways that are individually rational (sprawling subdivisions, strip malls, tax incentives to poach each other's businesses) but collectively irrational. Despite accumulating evidence that people are moving to urban centers (Frey, Gallagher, Warlick), and that suburban sprawl is unsustainable, localities are slow to adapt to these changes. Downtown Cedar Rapids hopes for job creation, but their way to accommodate that is more parking craters, as opposed to, say, overhauling our ridiculous transit system. None of the local candidates in next week's primary election is saying anything to upset the apple cart. And the federal government, through competitive grants, can encourage states and localities to think outside the (big) box.

But despite a harrowing economic recession and the extreme fiscal stress that lingers at all levels of government, I'm seeing a great deal of same-old, same-old. We seriously need some new approaches that reflect serious thinking about what governments can and can't do to contribute to prosperous, sustainable, diverse communities.

EARLIER POSTS ON THIS SUBJECT

"What is a 'Stroad?'," 3 April 2014
"Envision CR Open House," 26 March 2014

SOURCES

George C. Ford, "Highway 100 Extension Funding Approved in 5-Year Plan," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 11 June 2013, http://thegazette.com/2013/06/11/highway-100-extension-funding-approved-in-5-year-road-plan/

George C. Ford, "United Fire Group Making Plans," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 28 May 2014, 5B

William H. Frey, "Will This Be the Decade of Big City Growth?," Brookings, 23 May 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/05/23-decade-of-big-city-growth-frey

Leigh Gallagher, "The Suburbs are Dying, So Let's Create a New American Dream," TED Talks, 22 April 2014, http://youtu.be/FyhCyB4oXXQ

Chuck Marohn, "Podcast Show 175: Chuck on Transit," Strong Towns, 22 May 2014, http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/5/22/podcast-show-175-chuck-on-transit.html#.U4dauXamUSN

Paul E. Peterson, Barry G. Rabe and Kenneth K. Wong, When Federalism Works (Brookings Institution, 1986)

William Petroski, "Road Construction Projects Face 'Fiscal Cliff,'" Des Moines Register, 30 April 2014, http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2014/04/30/road-construction-projects-face-federal-fiscal-cliff/8499339/

Rick Smith, "Local Leaders Celebrate Start of Highway 100 Project After Long Haul," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 28 May 2014, 1A, 12A, http://thegazette.com/local-leaders-celebrate-start-of-highway-100-project-after-long-haul-20140528?utm_source=thegazette&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=discovery

Sam Warlick, "America's Cities are Still Booming, Says New Census Data," Smart Growth America, 23 May 2014, http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/2014/05/23/americas-cities-are-still-booming-says-new-census-data/

What's happening to the bike lanes

Barely a year old, the bike lane markers in Cedar Rapids are fading, in some places to illegibility. This is particularly worrisome on streets like H Avenue NE, which not only bears a lot of on-off traffic from I-380, but is the designated connector between the Cedar Lake Trail and the CeMar trail.

 

The street is the same width it always has been, but was re-striped last year to accommodate bike lanes in each direction. The lanes now look like this:

How has this happened? Cedar Rapids mayor Ron Corbett told Coe's Political Science Club in April that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently changed its regulation concerning road paint. The oil-based paint cities and states have always used is no longer permitted; water-based paint is safer for the environment. However, as the above pictures show, it's not notably durable.

Bike to Work Week diary

Monday, May 12. Under lowering skies, Cedar Rapids residents began their observation of National Bike to Work early this morning, meeting at Red's Public House (112 2nd St SE) to hear Mayor Ron Corbett's official proclamation.

We had a good crowd, considering the weather and the hour:

Red's had a special for those who got there in time. I'll have to remember this next year.

After Mayor Corbett read the proclamation...

...we went on a group ride up 3rd Avenue as far as 19th Street, then back on 4th Avenue. Here we are, occupying the rightmost of the three lanes on 3rd.

The ride was fine: the rain held off, and I trust we all got to work (or in the case of one girl who came with her parents, school).

We in Cedar Rapids obviously still have a lot to learn about mixing car, bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Riding down 19th Street, which is narrow but heavily-trafficked, was awkward. Even on 4th Avenue, which has two lanes heading downtown, one driver was clearly flummoxed when we all occupied one. She hovered anxiously as she moved slowly alongside and slightly behind us in the left lane, while cars lined up behind her. Eventually she passed, and all was well. (But if she'd wanted to turn right, that might have been tricky.)

Later, when I was downtown searching--in vain--for the "City's first bicycle pit stop" advertised to exist at 1st Avenue and 4th Street, I heard a squeal of brakes as a taxi stopped--just!--for a pedestrian in the crosswalk.

There also is the matter of road conditions. As the town builds ever outward, some of our older streets resemble the lunar surface, particularly on the side where you'll find bicycles. (It would take a much larger crush of bicycles to produce these craters in the bike lane on 4th Avenue.)

Tuesday, May 13. Today riders were to meet at Cedar Lake at 7:10 to hear from, and ride with, Nikki Northrop Davidson, President of Bike2Work Consultants. This was billed as teaching people how to commute to work, and was specifically aimed at those "nervous about biking to work." But, as if auto traffic and one's own cycling confidence weren't daunting enough, the weather was unseasonably cold and windy.

To make a long story short, I live some distance from Cedar Lake, and moreover was running late, so I went downtown first and then towards the lake. The largest group I met coming the other way was three in number, led by an exuberant woman who greeted me as I passed. I'm thinking that was Ms. Davidson. I took a quick picture of the lake, then tried to catch up with them, but they had melted into the madding downtown crowd. If you live in Chicago or Boston, this is easy to imagine... in Cedar Rapids, not so much. I hope they found their way indoors to a hot breakfast. I rode around downtown until my ears could stand the wind no longer. I did see some individual riders, most of them probably biking to work, in spite of the weather.

I would like to ask Ms. Davidson's advice about this crosswalk, where the trail crosses 1st Avenue:

When a rider or pedestrian passes between the posts, the censors cause lights in the pavement to flash, alerting drivers to stop. The lights aren't very attention-getting, though, even on a dark day, and even when drivers are paying attention as the cabdriver referenced yesterday probably wasn't. The setup terrifies me, and I avoid it either (a) by walking a block to cross at a regular intersection, or (b) waiting until all traffic on 1st Av. has cleared. If you live in Chicago or Boston, that is probably difficult to imagine.

Wednesday, May 14. No events today, but I biked to work, as I have most clement days for the last 25 years. I live less than a mile from my office, which is of course unusual even in a small city. It's a pretty uncomplicated ride through tree-lined streets.

This is my street, Blake Boulevard SE. Along the side are mounds of wet sand leftover from last winter. Today I could ride blithely around them, but when there's car traffic it gets awkward.

Wherever you're going in Cedar Rapids, getting across 1st Avenue is a challenge. The intersection at 13th Street offers these options:

The right side of the road is a right-turn-only lane, but I don't want to turn right. I used to go straight in the center lane (after waiting for the right-turning traffic), but the entry point onto campus has been closed off during a remodeling. That leaves turning left, which has become more difficult here since traffic was diverted this direction when 2nd Avenue was closed by the PCI building.

My current favored solution is to ride through the parking lots and cross mid-block here...

 ...between EnCompass and Tallgrass Business Resources. It's not ideal, but neither firm has yet insisted that the price of using their parking lot as a trail is a contribution to their office NCAA tournament pool. Once I get to 1st Ave this way, there's almost always a complete break in traffic every light cycle, making it easier to cross than at the actual intersection (and certainly less nerve-wracking than the lighted crosswalk downtown, described yesterday).

So here I am at work!

Thursday, May 15. Still chilly. About two dozen undaunted souls arrived in Greene Square Park to bike with the mayor. There was a booth, and I finally caught up with some swag, a neon green t-shirt commemorating Bike to Work Week and a slate gray water bottle. There were also bananas, granola bars and water.

Mayor Corbett in his brief greeting highlighted two reasons why the ride was important: to remind seasonal riders of the rules of bike safety, and to remind drivers to be aware of cyclists. [Most of us are "seasonal riders," and this is about the temperature floor of my season. But we did hear as the ride progressed that one of our number rides year-round.]

We rode across the river on 2nd Avenue as far as 11th Street West, then back downtown, then down 3rd Street to the new Geonetric building on 12th Avenue in New Bohemia...

where apples and water awaited us. (The developments in New Bohemia are quite a story, and should fill a future post.) CEO Eric Engelmann had ridden with us, not quite as well-wrapped as the weather might have warranted. He complimented my gloves.

Nikki Northrop Davidson of Bike2Work praised Geonetric's green design, which includes indoor bike racks and showers for bicycle commuters.

A preservation protest

The Hach Building, built in 1901 for a beer bottling operation, is almost certain to come down Monday, a sad event for the local historic preservation group, Save CR Heritage, which had fought to save it. Members of the group gathered in front of the building late this afternoon to protest (and will be back tomorrow afternoon at 5).

Maura wields signs while Beth and Chris manage the Save CR Heritage heart

The guy on the door is paper but has withstood the elements

Janet managed three signs in high winds, an athletic feat

Beth becomes a caped crusader for preservation

The Hach Building is located, for the moment anyway, at 1326 2nd St SE, in Cedar Rapids's New Bohemia neighborhood. It has been a number of things in its 100-year history, and is currently a vacant eyesore. This area got about 11 feet of water in the June 2008 flood, and has never been repaired. With each year of weather and no maintenance, the building has become more and more of a mess. The owner has resisted pleas to restore it, and according to group members turned down an above-market price offer to buy it. Speculation as to his motives ranged from vindictiveness to fear that a new owner would open a bar to compete with Little Bo's down the street, which rents a building he also owns. (Side note: Little Bo's was referenced in an earlier post, "Third Places in the City of Five Seasons," posted July 14.)

The building from the rear

Steps lead down to the basement

Preservation is valuable in and of itself (see my post "Why Historic Preservation," posted July 22). But sometimes it doesn't happen, often because people see old buildings as standing in the way of economic progress. (Examples in Cedar Rapids range from the Union Station in the 1960s to First Christian Church a couple years ago.) Sometimes buildings get to the point where restoration is prohibitive, such as the old People's Church.

In this case the only argument against preservation is that the owner doesn't want to preserve it, and it's his damn building. We talk about rights a lot these days, often as a means of shutting off further discussion. If we're going to live together, we need to get out of our rights bubbles and find some ways to discuss how to balance individual autonomy with participation in the community.

Sidewalk commemoration of the brewery on 3rd St SE

The buildings across 2nd Street from the Hach Building were all cleared after the flood. You can pretty well see the river, next to which is a small memorial to the founder of Czechoslovakia. Damn it, Tomas Masaryk would have wanted this building saved.

Save CR Heritage's May 5 post on attempts to save the building at http://savecrheritage.org/razing-of-new-bohemia-building-to-leave-hole-in-historic-district-demolition-comes-as-developer-interest-increases/

P.S.--The Hach Building came down early, early Monday morning, May 12. This photo is from the SaveCRHeritage Facebook page:

Photo by Beth DeBoom for Save CR Heritage