This image doesn't show it all that well, but it was pretty neat to see in person. This is the fire escape on the back of the Portabella's in Moline. (Next door to Bent River Brewery) Each and every opening in the grate had an icicle hanging from it. It made me glad to have my camera along, even if the shot didn't turn out great.Anyway... here are a few things that I either forgot or didn't make the post yesterday.
Tonight a police call came out as a suicidal woman, armed with a knife, saying that she wants to kill herself. I could almost hear the cops go "uh oh," and it seemed that they did things a little different this time. Not only did they get Fire and Medic standing by ahead of time, but one of the officers stopped by the station to get a ballistic shield. I believe 1 or 2 cars per shift have these with them, but they're basically SWAT team-style shields. Fortunately things went ok this time, and the woman was taken into custody safely. They don't give a play-by-play over the radio, so I'm not sure if they used a less-lethal weapon on her or just talked her into putting the knife down. Either way, good job DPD.
For some reason, the QCBloggers page hasn't been updated for a while. There are old blogs on there that are never updated, while Pioneer98's (relatively) new blog, Information Swimming, doesn't make the cut. He had a good article about the tourism presentation and recommendations, located here.
Why didn't I end up making the meeting? Unfortunately I got busy and forgot to sign up for this meeting, and also forgot to attend the Leonard Pitts even at Palmer that I had looked forward to. Fortunately it sounds like most of the recommendations will be made public.
One meeting I did attend was the Downtown Residents' meeting last Friday at the Redstone Room. Unfortunately there was a fairly small crowd, but fortunately everyone there came ready to speak and full of ideas. There were probably 10 or 12 of us downtown residents, and at least that many city and D1 staff. No huge news was presented or anything, despite my hope that a new 30 story condo tower or something would be announced. Apparently D1 is continuing to try and get a Walgreen's or Walgreen's-substitute downtown, which everyone at the meeting seemed to agree with. A couple people and myself asked if there's a way that people can be taught that downtown Davenport isn't all that dangerous, especially the eastern side of it. My slogan, "stay east of Ripley and don't get shot," probably won't be adopted by the Downtown Partnership.
Tara Barney said that she hopes we can have more of these meetings in the future, and I definitely agree. It was a good thing to meet people from some other the other apartment buildings around downtown, and hear their hopes and complaints about the area. When those of us that live down here treat it more like a neighborhood, it can only benefit downtown. I don't know if any of you blog readers out there live downtown, but I'll publicize the next meeting anyway. Maybe we can even start our own neighborhood group.
That's all for today, and let's all hope for good weather this week.
7 comments:
To be perfectly honest, the reason I have a hard time with downtown is that it has very limited parking. It's not the crime that puts me off, its the fact that I have to walk too far.
What downtown is a farther walk from your car than most stores at the mall?
I have bad knees and a "Handicapped" permit. I would love to visit but its just too uncertain of a walk.
Downtown Davenport has more parking than any mid or large city I've ever been to.
The problem isn't with the lack of parking spots, it's with the bizarre Quad-Citian notion that one should ALWAYS be able to park within 15 feet of the front door of wherever they're going.
Seriously, I've lived in Milwaukee, Iowa City, Minneapolis and Cedar Rapids and I've never, ever, seen a populace more ignorant about using parking ramps.
Hell, I've seen people park on the street in the Floreciente neighborhood in Moline and walk six blocks to the Mark rather than park in the perfectly servicable ramp ACROSS THE STREET and accessbile to the arena by a skywalk! It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
9:11, Why arte you be hostile about my opinion? You seem to be very frustrated, why? I am merely stating why I have a problem with down town, handicap parking. Think about it.
I don't think he/she was necessarily referring to your comment.
People around here are pretty weird about parking. Every year I've been able to park in that same Moline garage for Taste of the QC, even though others are walking from blocks away.
I think its quite possible that some of this goes back to the signage recommendation from that tourism consultant. While some people might be too cheap to pay to park, others might just not know where they can park.
Put me in the "too cheap" column.
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