Tag Archives | Downtown

Read ‘The Three Rules,’ and tell the author what you think

By on November 28, 2007 in Architecture, City culture, Downtown, Neighborhoods, Urbanism

To those who love our city, here’s your assignment:

First: Understand The Three Rules.

David Sucher loves cities. He hopes to foster what he calls “urban villages,” cities that are vibrantly urban but yet also in some way cozy and neighborly. Kinda like what many of us want in Fort Wayne.

His Three Rules are his attempt to help urban planners consider site plans as the key to urban vs. suburban:

If the problem is to create a walkable, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood, much of the answer is architectural. Actually, it is not so much “architectural” in the usual sense of the word, for it ignores style. Site plan trumps architecture.

The Three Rules, in brief, are:

  1. Build to the sidewalk (i.e., property line).
  2. Make the building front “permeable” (i.e., no blank walls).
  3. Prohibit parking lots in front of the building.

Second: Download and read Chapter 3 of “City Comforts.”

In this 11-page chapter of his book, he expands on the rules and gives examples, photos and sub-rules.

Download the chapter here (PDF).

If you love cities, you’ll find this chapter all too short. You’ll probably want to buy the whole book sometime, but for now, stay on topic.

Third: Tell the author he’s full of it.

Really. Sucher has the crazy idea in his head to expand the chapter on The Three Rules into an entire book. But he wants your advice:

Praise it if you like but I am even more interested in hearing the reasons why I am full of it, why the “Three Rules” is naive, incomplete, simple-minded and overall just plain wrong and/or misleading. Let me have it. Bring it on, in the words of our bumbling leader. Tell me in as much detail as you are able why I should drop this project immediately and not embarrass myself any further by my clueless rantings.

So be sure to leave some comments at his blog (feel free to jot them here, too) when you’re done reading his chapter.

The prizes

If he really, really likes your critique, he’ll give you a book. If you convince him that he’s out of his mind and he drops the project completely, he’ll buy you dinner at a restaurant of your choice — in Seattle, naturally.

Now, if you win dinner with Sucher, I’ll want to see the photos. And you’ll have to take a ride on the Bainbridge Island ferry for me. But in the meantime, read, consider, discuss and distribute his short chapter. I believe Sucher has a lot to say to Fort Wayne at this juncture in our urban history.

– Jon Swerens 

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Harrison Square news

By on November 28, 2007 in Downtown, Harrison Square

I don’t know what reader of The Good City wouldn’t also be a reader of the Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball blog, but just in case …

The guys at DFWB are all over the developments surrounding Harrison Square. I’m just going to point you to their blog and say, read up about

  • the Harrison Square groundbreaking
  • the condos going on sale Friday
  • the bridge across Harrison Street getting approved
  • the construction webcam going live

and lots of other news.

And although I previously stated a strong opinion against the sky bridge, I at least appreciate some of the steps the planners are taking to not damage the Indiana Hotel beyond repair.

– Jon Swerens

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A call for entries: How you can help

By on October 6, 2007 in Etc.

Now that I’m 41, it’s time for be to admit I have aged out of Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana.

It’s a self-described “happenin’ organization of 20- and 30- somethings who do care,” so my oldest son may be closer to the median age of YLNI than I am.

But many of YLNI’s goals match my own, which is why I stayed past my expiration date.

I’m not from around here, so I need some advice: What do I do instead? Where do I and other like-minded citizens find ways to make Fort Wayne a good city?

Here’s what I’m looking for:

An organization that ministers to the health and well-being of the city and its citizens.

And I mean “minister” in the broadest definition, not just in the religious sense — although obviously the religious sense is included, too. Answers can be

  • neighborhood associations
  • think tanks
  • churches
  • governmental committees
  • business groups

any kind of group that has as one of its reasons for existence helping the city of Fort Wayne as a city. (Yes, New Haven groups are welcome to be listed.)

So leave a comment or send an email that includes the name of the group, a web site link or contact, and the reason you think it should be included in such a list. I hope to make this “How you can help” page a comprehensive resource for the city.

– Jon Swerens 

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Restaurants, bars build “smoke-easies”

By on October 4, 2007 in City culture, Downtown

Did the city of Fort Wayne even consider the effects of its ban on smoking in restaurants and bars? Here’s Kevin Leininger on local restaurants’ efforts to aid and comfort its smoking customers:

(The law) bans smoking in certain “enclosed areas,” which it defines as “space between a floor and ceiling which is enclosed on all sides by solid walls or windows … which extend from floor to ceiling.”

Club Soda has hired Fort Wayne Awning to produce clear temporary panels for the second-floor deck attached to the business’ 19th-century brick building, covering two or even all three open sides. With the effects of wind and cold minimized, three gas heaters able to heat a 20-foot radius should keep the space bearable in all but the coldest weather, owners hope.

And he continues:

But if restaurants and bars could turn the outdoors into the indoors, what (except for costing businesses lots of money) has the ordinance accomplished? Customers will still be smoking, and employees will still be serving them — in an area separated from the non-smoking section.

Sounds a lot like the city’s old smoking ordinance to me.

Read his whole column and wonder: What was the point of the ordinance again? Did the city really think people were just going to stop smoking — or were smokers just supposed to stop eating out?

Shoving people outside to smoke when other solutions are possible is just not hospitable.

Photo by hamiso on Flickr

– Jon Swerens

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Restaurants, bars build “smoke-easies”

By on October 4, 2007 in City culture, Downtown

Did the city of Fort Wayne even consider the effects of its ban on smoking in restaurants and bars? Here’s Kevin Leininger on local restaurants’ efforts to aid and comfort its smoking customers:

(The law) bans smoking in certain “enclosed areas,” which it defines as “space between a floor and ceiling which is enclosed on all sides by solid walls or windows … which extend from floor to ceiling.”

Club Soda has hired Fort Wayne Awning to produce clear temporary panels for the second-floor deck attached to the business’ 19th-century brick building, covering two or even all three open sides. With the effects of wind and cold minimized, three gas heaters able to heat a 20-foot radius should keep the space bearable in all but the coldest weather, owners hope.

And he continues:

But if restaurants and bars could turn the outdoors into the indoors, what (except for costing businesses lots of money) has the ordinance accomplished? Customers will still be smoking, and employees will still be serving them — in an area separated from the non-smoking section.

Sounds a lot like the city’s old smoking ordinance to me.

Read his whole column and wonder: What was the point of the ordinance again? Did the city really think people were just going to stop smoking — or were smokers just supposed to stop eating out?

Shoving people outside to smoke when other solutions are possible is just not hospitable.

Photo by hamiso on Flickr

– Jon Swerens

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4 reasons to not bust a gaping hole into a historic theater

By on September 20, 2007 in Downtown, Harrison Square

Embassy TheatreForget about building a downtown aquarium. Fort Wayne wants to build a suspended, over-the-street, glass-boxed, out-of-town-visitorium.

In an effort to prevent convention goers from ever having to walk on an actual sidewalk, the folks building Harrison Square downtown want to carve a hole into the west side of the historic Embassy Theatre (actually, that side of the building contains the old Indiana Hotel) and build a pedestrian walkway across a two-lane street.

In today’s News-Sentinel, columnist Kevin Leininger applauds the plan:

… the city is considering several incentives in exchange for the Embassy’s willingness to give up most of its third floor for a walkway that would allow visitors to travel indoors from the new hotel at Harrison Street and Jefferson Boulevard, across Harrison though the Indiana Hotel, to the Grand Wayne Convention Center — which is linked to the Embassy by another walkway over Jefferson.

Before we rent the reciprocating saws, let’s consider some possible drawbacks to busting a hole in the side of the Embassy:

  • You’d be busting a hole in the side of the Embassy. You can’t undo this kind of destruction. Will future generations wonder what kinds of dopes we were for saving such a beautiful structure from destruction, only to ram a makeshift shiv into its side? While we’re at it, should we build a walkway from the Lincoln Tower to the courthouse so the lawyers won’t get wet in the rain?
  • You wouldn’t really be helping visitors that much. As visitors walk over two-lane Harrison Street, they’ll be kicking themselves as they realize it would have been faster for them just to use the crosswalk.
  • You’d be using the proximity of the historic Embassy for your own downtown goals. The Embassy doesn’t get any real boost for becoming a conventioneers’ bypass — except for some cash, of course.
  • You’d be telling visitors that there’s nothing interesting about a Fort Wayne sidewalk. Aren’t there going to be shops along Jefferson Boulevard as a part of Harrison Square? Wouldn’t we like visitors to actually walk past them?

The pressure on the Embassy board is tremendous. Kevin again:

If (Embassy) board members zealously protect every last inch of the historic building’s interior and brick-and-terra cotta facade, they risk jeopardizing a project that could bring hundreds of thousands of people downtown every year — potentially benefiting both the theater and prospects for the Indiana Hotel’s redevelopment.

Putting the weight of Harrison Square on a walkway through a historic building is suspicious and unfair. People won’t come to Fort Wayne if they have to cross a street? Don’t people have to cross streets in other, more successful downtowns? Doesn’t the success of our own outdoor Jefferson Pointe prove that people enjoy walking and shopping outside?

Once the concrete cutters touch the side of the Embassy, we can never go back. We must consider some alternatives before we mar the face of downtown’s most precious jewel.

– Jon Swerens

NOTE: Photo credit: The News-Sentinel, crudely Photoshopped by Jon. (Apologies for forgetting this before.)

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