Downtown Davenport Project List and AbsoluteDSM's new QC forum

Over on the AbsoluteDSM forums, they recently rearranged their "Iowa Cities and Development" forum, which is used by people across the state to discuss development news in cities outside of Des Moines. Now instead of having all development news mixed together, it is organized by area, with separate forums for Ames, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Dubuque, Iowa City, the Quad Cities, Sioux City, and Waterloo-Cedar Falls. This means that instead of wading through pages of recent development news from across the state, folks can go directly to the city they're interested in. It also means that smaller news that may not be noteworthy statewide now has more of a place for each of these areas. So those of you that are into that kind of thing, feel free to check it out, or even register.

Over in the Dubuque forum, they've got a handy list of all the current projects going on in their downtown, which was put together by a forum member from Dubuque. Its quite a list, for a city of only 57,000 or so people. It seems like some of the success of the new construction in the Port of Dubuque area is spreading back into their original downtown area, and their warehouse district.

Anyway, I figured that I'd put together a Downtown Davenport Project List, for the new QC-area forum section. Obviously its going to be a work in progress, but here is what I have got so far. Feel free to let me know things that I'm missing, or any errors that I have made in what I have thus far. I'm planning to get out and take some more pictures for some of the buildings that I didn't have great images of in my 10 gigabytes of QCImages. One of things I hope to add are the other planned parks, such as Centennial Park and Crescent Park, and possibly Bechtel/Lincoln Park at 2nd and Iowa. As I said, let me know what else is going on downtown that I may have left off the list. I'm trying to limit the projects to things in the last 5 years, so since 2003.

Weed and Seed, Walking, Parks

Community members share ideas for "Weed and Seed" program -QCTimes

Tuesday night I was able to attend the 2nd Weed and Seed meeting. Unfortunately there were only a 15 or 20 people there, but it was still a very worthwhile meeting. It was interesting to see the differences in ambition of attacking some of the problems of the target area. If I remember correctly, the targeted area stretches from Division to Farnam, and from Locust to the river. Some want to address the culture of disrespect and hopelessness that is at the core of these problems, while others addressed the practical, like having more city garbage cans. Some emphasized that we need to get kids into small group situations to have an impact, while others argued that at least with group activities you've got the kids off the streets. I pointed out that one-on-one interaction is great, but I'd still rather have kids playing basketball at the friendly house than breaking into garages. One thing was certain, and that was that everyone there wanted better things for SoLo, and was willing to work for them.


Davenport: 4th-worst walking city -QCTimes

I pretty much found this ranking to be a bunch of garbage. Should Davenport be in the upper half on walkability? Probably not. Everything north of Kimberly was built for cars and people who have them. We're still catching up on simply having sidewalks along major streets like Welcome Way. However, I don't think we deserve the near-bottom ranking we got. According to the article, one of the factors was parks per square mile.

Davenport (ranked 496th) has around 2200 acres of parkland, a population of 99,514, and total city area of 64.9 square miles.
Des Moines (ranked 44th) has around 3221 acres of parkland, a population of 193,886, and total city area of 77.2 square miles.
Chicago (ranked 77th) has around 7300 acres of parkland, a population of
2,833,321, and total city area of 237 square miles.

This comes out to:

1 acre of park for every 45 citizens in Davenport.
1 acre of park for every 60 citizens in Des Moines.
1 acre of park for every 388 citizens in Chicago.

33.89 acres of park per square mile in Davenport.
41.72 acres of park per square mile in Des Moines.
30.80 acres of park per square mile in Chicago.

I consider Des Moines a very walkable city. Davenport's trail system is great, but DSM's is greater. So I'm impressed that we hold our own against them in parks per square mile, and actually have more parks per capita than both them and Chicago. Obviously this is only one component of the "walkability ranking" but I would say our large amount of parkland per person should at least move us out of the bottom 20 cities by itself. As someone commented on one of the news articles, its possible every year this magazine changes their rankings around to sell a few more magazines.


...and finally
Davenport City Council: Park's price tag debated -QCTimes

Its the skatepark pavilion all over again, and actually I believe that same pavilion is part of the $2.9 million that was bid. The city has already budgeted $3.81 million for this, for Pete's sake. Not only was the River Vision plan for Centennial Park created at public meetings which many of the negative people chose not to attend, but this money has already been approved in the budget by the city council. One of the problems is that to some of the people on the council, in their minds we're still living in the time of 33 cent gas and roller skates for a quarter. Finishing Centennial Park even ranked highly on their "goal setting" sessions or whatever they're called. If this is too much money, why did they budget even more for the project? Lets get moving on this, like we all said at the River Vision meetings.

Back from Dodgertown Open Thread

I've returned from vacation, saddened by the loss of a great tradition in the Dodgers' spring training camp at Vero Beach, Florida, but ready to get back to the business of blogging.

I hope to put up another post tonight covering a variety of topics. Until then, feel free to think negative thoughts about Glendale, Arizona. And comment on whatever.

Weed and Seed Meetings

I got this email, and thought I'd pass it along.

Stakeholder Input Sought for Needs Assessment

March 11, 2008

A group of community leaders, neighborhood representatives and organizations in Davenport has gathered together in an effort to prepare an application for a “Weed & Seed” grant program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Community Capacity Development Office. If selected as a Weed & Seed Community the funds will be used initially to address community issues in the area of central Davenport from Division Street to Farnam Street and from Locust Street to the Mississippi River.

The Community Input Committee for this effort will be holding two public meetings to gather information from stakeholders in the area. The first will be Saturday, March 15th, 10am-Noon and the second will be Tuesday, March 18th, 6:00-8:00pm. Both meetings will take place in the Cafeteria at Palmer Chiropractic College. The college is located at 1000 Brady Street, Davenport, IA 52803. The cafeteria is located in the lower level of the Campus Center building which connects to the skywalk on the east side of Brady St. Parking is available east of the building.

Attendees of these meetings will be asked to identify the needs of the area as well as what current programs are already working to improve the quality of life in Davenport which could be expanded. Although these meetings are open to the public, stakeholders located within the area of central Davenport outlined above are especially welcome. The quality of this needs assessment will be determined by the participation level of stakeholders.

The local Weed & Seed mission is “To improve the overall quality of life in targeted Davenport Weed & Seed neighborhoods by applying crime prevention and community development strategies in concert with law enforcement professionals, community residents, government and private organizations, educators, and other community stakeholders.” Additional information about the Weed & Seed program can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ccdo/ws

Danielle L. Stone
Weed & Seed Community Input Committee Chair
(563) 508-4356
daniellelstone@gmail.com

Roy D. DeWitt
Neighborhood Services Specialist
Economic Development
(563)888-3440
rdewitt@ci.davenport.ia.us

Jennifer A. Nahra
Communications Director
(563) 326-6151

STS-123 Space Shuttle Launch

We were lucky enough to be able to watch a nighttime space shuttle launch, although from 15 or 20 miles away on Cocoa Beach. Due to the low cloud cover, the shuttle was only visible for a few seconds before disappearing into the clouds. It was still quite an experience though, and I'm glad I was able to see one before the shuttles are retired in 2010.

I'm out of here!

Just in time for the warm-up, I'm taking a quick vacation. We'll call this an open thread. Keep it civil around here, and hopefully I'll put up a couple posts this week.

Nuts to the Isle

Land casino coming to Bettendorf; riverboat will remain in Davenport -QCTimes

We need, as citizens, to absolutely demand that IOC is either sued, or removed as the operator of the Davenport gaming license. I thought I remembered Mary Ellen saying that they are legally required to make efforts towards a maximum profit or something legalese, which clearly they aren't doing for the Davenport operation. Bring in a real casino company that has nothing to do with Bernie and his constant screwing of Davenport. Maybe they'd take me up on my casino-hotel-indoor waterpark plan.

Open Thread

Haven't had one of these for a little while. I've just got a couple conversation-starters.

I rarely venture into Bettendorf. Not counting the routes to get to I-74, I probably average less than one trip a month. There's just no need for me to go over there. I'd read news stories about them filling their potholes with cement, and seen all the Davenport-bashing comments wondering why Davenport's too stupid to do that. I was surprised to discover that their streets are just as crappy as ours.


Over on Cruiser's blog I commented that the site at 15th and Main where those 2 garage-shaped houses were built would have been an excellent site to move the Henry Deutsch House to. Just a quick trip down the street from its former location at 2101 to the 1500 block.


I miss Dairy Queen. I miss waiting for the Locust Street DQ to open for the summer. I have a lot of memories of standing around those concrete planters, peering through the screens at the ice cream machines and dip cones, and watching out for various bees, insects and spiders that seemed to hang out in the area. I also miss going down to the Bettendorf State Street location if we wanted a meal instead of just ice cream. Driving all the way out to 53rd isn't the same; maybe I should try the Middle Road one... Now I sound like Bill Wundram.

Winter Freight House Market: Great Success

Today is this month's Freight House Farmer's Market, and the first one I've bee able to make it to. If you're reading this before 3pm today, hop on down there. I watched the QCTimes video of the last one, but I didn't expect nearly so many people. We arrived within 10 minutes of the official opening, and as you can see in the image to the right, the lot was already packed.

It turned out that the whole place was packed. It was great to see so many people downtown for this, and I think the monthly winter markets could be made into weekly winter markets. I definitely look forward to summer, when hopefully both farmer's markets can come together and share the space both in and around the Freight House. With the new playground, the potential for bands, and a lot of good things to eat, it should be a heck of a bi-weekly event for downtown. I also am looking forward to the repainting of the space formerly occupied by Banana Joes!

Friday Assortment

First of all, the Design Center is out of Davenport Architecture book, but still may have a few copies of "Davenport: where the Mississippi runs west" left. I'm glad to see the interest that people had for these books. It makes me think there are more than a few of us out there who are interested in that kind of thing.


Don't forget: Tomorrow morning is March's Winter Farmer's Market at the Freight House. It starts at 10am and lasts until 3pm, and is located at the west end of the building, near the new playground.


Here's a somewhat long article from The Atlantic called The Next Slum? about the potential for the fall of suburbs. It covers a wide variety of subjects, from increasing gas prices to the fact that when people think of "hip" or "trendy" places nobody thinks of the suburbs. Ask someone my age whether a downtown loft condo or a house in "Eastern Avenue Farms" is the cooler place to live. The name "Eastern Avenue Farms" reminds me of the saying that most suburbs are named after the geographic landmark they destroy.


A preservation-minded reader sent me a link to this page
about the renovation of 822 Gaines by the Gateway Redevelopment Group. If Reverend Marty thinks 2101 Main is bad, his head would explode if had walked through this home before the GRG got ahold of it. Oh yeah... with volunteer labor (not that a church would have access to something like that) it cost less than $100k to renovate.


Over on Cruiser's blog, former-Alderman Nikolas commented his feelings in defense of Fejervary Zoo. I don't always agree with Mr. Nikolas, and I possibly don't on this topic either, but I do think people are rushing into closing the zoo a little excessively. They already got rid of the truly exotic animals like snakes and monkeys, which was supposed to solve some of the problems. Apparently now they have to ditch "exotic" stuff like wolves. Growing up I always heard stories of my parents panning for gold, riding the donkeys, and other fun stuff at Mother Goose Land, and I think a lot of people would love to see those days return. It will never be Niabi, and I don't think it has ever tried to be. Maybe kids these days wouldn't be into that stuff anymore, but I know that 15 years ago or so I sure would have been. I'd at least like to see some future plans for that park before the city permanently closes it.


Finally, D1 has a list of construction projects going on downtown right now. It can be found at this link. To their list I'd also like to add the continuing work on the Freight House complex, the slow destruction of the cement plant at 4th and Iowa, and the fact that construction is starting on the former Salvation Army building's conversion into loft apartments. Edit: It turns out an even better D1 link, with some of the projects I mentioned, can be found here.

Free books!

(Books don't look as bad as my low-quality scanning portrays them; they didn't want to lay flat on the scanner)

From the city of Davenport's website:

The City of Davenport has recently found a number of books that document Davenport’s rich architectural history and is offering them free to the public. Davenport – where the Mississippi runs west was produced in 1982 by then Davenport City Historian Marlys Svendsen, among others. Davenport Architecture – Tradition and Transition, a supplement to the first document, was written in 1984. Both these publications contain numerous photographs as well as extensive text and descriptions of the buildings, styles, architects and builders that helped shape our community.

The books were located in storage in the former ice house at the Annie Wittenmyer Complex. If you would like copies, visit the City of Davenport Design Center at 102 E. Second Street, across from the Radisson Hotel or call 563-326-7743.

If you're at all into Davenport history and architecture, you've probably run across these two books at a local library over the years. Now you can get them for free by stopping down at the Design Center, which is a good place to stop into once in a while anyway. I think its pretty cool that these were discovered after probably a decade in storage.

Also, check out Page 34 of "Davenport Architecture: Tradition and Transition" for a picture and a small blurb about a certain 2101 Main Street, also known as the Henry Deutsch House.

QC Flames 2008 Jersey Auction

Friday night was the annual Genesis Jersey Auction after the Flames game.
Here's the QCTimes article about both the game and the auction.

Carsen Germyn got a hat trick on his birthday, it was the second highest attendance this season, and the Flames won 6-2. The game was great, and the auction was even better than I expected. Over $30,000 was raised for charity. In between the auctioning, seen above in the video, were various skits and contests. Dodgeball on the ice, a home run derby on the ice, sumo wrestling on the ice, figure skating, and stripping, all done by AHL hockey players. It's definitely something you can't see anywhere else. Pretty much all of those things can be found on YouTube already.


The QC Flames logo at center ice, and the game's First Star, Carsen Germyn.

Dumb comments of the year, so far

Church says it can't rehab historic home -QCTimes

Here are the two quotes I found humorous.

“The issue here is whether government can tell you to take your dollars and put them into a building,” he said. “The city would be forcing the church to take money from its congregation to preserve the property. This is an issue of basic private property rights.” -Alderman Hamerlinck

“It’s easy for us to sit here and tell people what they can and can’t do,” he said. “But unless we are willing to cough up the bucks, this is really a form of condemnation.” -Alderman Lynn

O.... K.....

So now the city can't tell private property owners what they can and can't do with their property? Well, I guess that means that residents can build an addition that goes right to their property line, stop shoveling their walks or mowing their yard, start storing rusty cars in their backyards, build a 10 story building with bare 22 gauge wiring for all electrical outlets, have unmarked doors that open into 50 foot chasms, and of course tear anything down that they own, no matter how historic. They also can't be forced to maintain property they have bought, because that would be "forcing them to spend money." Strange, but I think Shawn just insisted that we do that to Menards.

Wait a second, none of that's true, because we very much DO tell people what they can and can't do. Its called codes, zoning, laws, etc. Historic properties are just one more of the many ways that communities do indeed control what people do with their private property. I guess neither of these Alderman teach that class.

As far as Shawn's comment, I don't see where the city is forcing the church to spend any money. If their plan to renovate the house has failed, they should sell it. If I bought 20 acres in a residential area to build homes, but it turned out I didn't have the money, I couldn't just build a factory instead. I would have to bite the bullet and sell the land. It seems clear that the church either made a mistake by buying this home, or planned all along to use it for much-needed parking for their large new sanctuary. I really don't want to accuse a church of lying, so I'll assume they just made an unfortunate mistake. I don't see why this historic home should suffer for it.

Taco Bell, Nice Restaurants, Libraries

What do those 3 things have in common? Nothing really, but I have something to say about each of them.

As a third shifter, I frequently find myself awake at odd hours on weekends. If you have to go to Wal Mart, 3AM on a Sunday night is definitely the least bad time to go. I've found that Davenport has a decent amount of places to get some fast food late at night, at least for a non-college town. Actually more stuff is open here than where I went to college... But anyway, one of my frequent favorites late at night is the Taco Bell on West Locust (Open until 5am every day). It seems to be a favorite of nearly everyone awake at those hours, and I'd imagine that they get a lot of the post-bar crowds. This past Saturday around 3am there were around a dozen cars in the drive-through, and I saw at least another dozen turn away when they saw the line of cars. It definitely seems to me that either A. one of our existing Taco Bells should stay open this late, or B. We could use another Taco Bell. The closing of the Duck Creek Plaza location probably didn't help that.

Everyone will jump on me for advocating a national fast food chain, but so be it. I think we're ready for a Taco Bell (or a similar mom & pop local rendition) in downtown Davenport. Chipotle would work too. It could serve the downtown workers for lunch, the new downtown residents for supper, and the bar crowds of both Davenport and Rock Island for late night (4th Meal, as they call it). Downtown Davenport has no Mexican or TexMex food options that I know of, and while there obviously couldn't be a drive-through, its probably better for the post-bar crowd not to be driving anyway. My suggestion is for the under-renovation One Putnam Centre's Parker Building.


I was looking for a nice place to go out to eat Sunday night, and even resorted to flipping through the phone book. Now, my definition of nice is somewhere that I don't feel comfortable in jeans. Centro fit that definition, despite their claims to the contrary. I realized that Davenport has very few "nice" places to eat. Duck City is too nice for me, by the way. I came up with this QC list: Steventons, Farraddays, Red Crow Grille, the Faithful Pilot, Bass Street Chop House, Le Figaro, and MAYBE Biaggi's, The Lodge, Johnny's Italian Steakhouse (haven't been) and The Brown Bottle. We ended up going to The Brown Bottle, which was the first time for me. I was pleased with the experience, although as we were walking in a young woman came out wearing jeans! I'm sure I'm forgetting some places around the QC, as this isn't my usual dinner category. I'd say I'm more the jeans type than the fancy type, but apparently so are most of us. Centro, 225 at the Figge, High Notes, Savitri's, and others make up the beginning of an unfortunately long list of "nice places" that have closed in the last 8 years or so. I didn't make it to Portabella's before it closed to even find out how nice it was. It seems like we enjoy having nice options, but don't patronize them enough for many to survive.

And finally, the library story.
Despite being accused of going along with everything, which I don't, I'm not in favor of this "fast-tracking" of the new library before the money is even pledged by donors. I would at least expect the developers out there, including Mr. Schalk, (who is involved in the sprawl neighborhood across Eastern from Prairie Heights) to come to the table with hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to ante up for the library. After all, they apparently need it as an amenity for their subdivision. I would that think their declining the city's suggestion to build their development as a traditional neighborhood should NOT make the city want to jump at spending money to enable their success.

As for the Prairie Heights subdivision itself, I think that rather than hoping the city builds a library sooner, a good way for Ruhl & Ruhl to market the project is for them to try marketing the project. Every Sunday I read the real estate section and look for any mention of the first attempts at a New Urbanist neighborhood in the Quad Cities. Every Sunday I see ads for dozens of sprawling, bland, typical subdivisions full of new construction, with no mention of the upcoming Prairie Heights neighborhood. What are they waiting for? In their defense, they do have a tiny page for it on their website, and I have heard that model homes are planned for the Spring. I'm no Realtor or marketing specialist, but it sure seems like they'd want to build some hype for this potentially trend-setting project. Instead the top 3 results for a Google search for Prairie Heights Davenport are the QCTimes, the City of Davenport, and this blog. Where's the website bragging of the benefits of a traditional neighborhood?


Considering the wide-ranging topics of my 3 sections, feel free to use this post as an open thread.

Morning in SW Davenport

As seen from RiverView Terrace.

My thoughts on the Da Vinci exhibit

Tuesday I had an opportunity to see the "Leonardo Da Vinci: Man | Inventor | Genius" exhibit at the Putnam. I'm a pretty nerdy guy, so seeing some of his assorted inventions created in the modern world, and being able to use (play with) them was pretty appealing to me.

Personally, I enjoyed it plenty, which I'll get into later. But... I had free tickets. The exhibit is $12, which to my surprise does not include admission into the rest of the museum. I didn't even realize that the Putnam had the capability to do this, but they do, and I think it actually worked quite well. You go in a separate door into the theater area, and then through there into the exhibit area. I could definitely see them doing something like this again in the future. Extra special exhibits, with an extra fee, have become pretty common at museums around the country. I paid probably around $12 extra beyond regular admission at the Phoenix Science Center to see a traveling James Bond exhibit. So was it a good deal for people paying $12?

If you're a Da Vinci fan, I would definitely say it is worth it. There are literally dozens of wooden models of some of the many things he sketched and invented. There are also a number of computer screens scattered around the exhibit with 3D animations of how those inventions, and others, would work in the real world. One of my few complaints with the exhibit itself was that the computer program didn't seem that polished, but it was pretty easy to understand, and all the screens were working. One of the complaints I had heard about the exhibit was that some of the things weren't working, which wasn't the case on my visit. All of the pieces that you could operate seemed to be working fine. There was indeed a bucket under a leak in the roof, but hey, "you go to exhibits with the museum you have." I hate when museums have broken exhibits, so I was glad that ours didn't. There were several school groups there at the time, and the kids seemed to be enjoying all the hands-on activity just fine.

The verdict? If this exhibit had been in the regular museum, it would have probably been the best exhibit they've ever had. Even doubling the museum admission price to $12 during the exhibit would have been fine by me. As a stand-alone exhibit for $12, I felt it was a bit steep. I was also disappointed that they don't offer discounts for museum members, which my sister is. Don't start chalking me up as a negative guy now, I did like the exhibit. I just hope that if the Putnam gets traveling world-renowned exhibits again, they include regular museum admission with the special ehxibit price.

Blogger's Block Open Thread

I've been meaning to post something the last few days, but I've got nothin. Since my car show picture thread failed to gather any comments whatsoever, here's an Open Thread.

I should be visiting the Da Vinci exhibit today, so although I doubt they allow cameras, I may at least have my take on the exhibit.

I wonder if not having council members in and out of jail, in the news for various issues, or suing anyone is making for more boring blogging? Or maybe its just this dang weather.

2008 Iowa-Illinois Regional Auto Show

The car show is runs through Sunday, at the River Center in Davenport. You can print out a coupon for $1 off at the show website.


The Corvette engine, and the Chevy SS concept car.

The Mustang Shelby Cobra GT500, and one of my new choices in cars, the Dodge Nitro. Either would make an acceptable gift to your favorite (or least favorite) blogger.

Snow Day

Believe it or not, this is a color picture

After watching people struggle to make it up Brady Street hill, and listening to the police try to close the Division Street hill, I would definitely recommend that everyone stay home today if at all possible. I'm not sure why the streets are so bad, since we haven't gotten more than 6" of snow at this point, but they are rough. I suppose its due to the thick slushy snow, or the fact that we had alternating rain, snow, freezing rain, and sleet all night. Its nasty.

Stay inside and participate in rousing and educated blog discussions about topics of your choosing.

Added Thursday: I don't think that we ever got TWO snow days in a row when I was in school.

Impending Storm #45 Assortment

I'm a self-proclaimed winter person, but this year is getting a bit ridiculous! I still prefer shoveling to mowing though.

Anyway, here are a few local news articles that caught my eye:

Wild Wednesdays on tap for Flames -QCOnline
The Flames are starting a new promotion for typically low-attendance Wednesday games. You can get upper bowl tickets for 5 bucks, and 12oz beers for 2 bucks. We'll see if the attendance increases, and if so, whether problem fans increase as well.

R.I. council chooses Armory Park design -QCOnline
Its hard to tell from the image on QCOnline (Note to them, enough with the watermarking already) but so far the plan seems alright. Here's the page with the final two options they had to choose from, although it sounds like they went with somewhat of a mixture of the two. The only thing I'm not big on is the ripping off of Millennium Park. Are the Quad Cities not good enough to come up with our own look?

Production director expects job cuts at KWQC -QCTimes
KWQC continues their depressing quest to lose their longtime #1 position for local news. I would definitely like to see the station be locally owned rather than watch them be screwed over because of Young Broadcasting's continued ineptitude. I'm no media expert, but I know that if I were Paula Sands, Marcia Lense, Sharon DeRycke, Mike Mickle or even Gary Metivier I'd be getting nervous. It seems like Young is ditching people who have been with their stations long enough to be paid well. This would be where I link to isupportswails.blogspot.com, where you can join the 3 dozen others showing their support on this little-known website.

Don't forget to consult this list of Ward Meetings, including tonight's in the 1st Ward with Alderman Brown.

The Skatepark in Winter

Davenport's skatepark, newly covered with snow. Kraft/Oscar Mayer is in the background.

Quad City Photo Thread Update

I've posted my Quad City photo collection that I posted about last week to a few more forums and message boards. I'm done now, as I don't want to just spam the internet with QC images. Well... I'd like to, but I won't.

Here's the final list of places I've posted it. Each of these links goes directly to the thread I posted. Scroll past the images for the differing reactions, which are what I find interesting.

SkyscraperCity.com Forums -just posted this one this morning

SkyscraperPage.com Forums

City-Data.com's Iowa Forums -City-Data used to be a site of frequent QC-bashing

City-Data.com's Illinois Forums

CalgaryPuck.com's Forums -Letting the Calgary Flames fans know where their farm team is

AbsoluteDSM's Forums -not as much interest here as I'd have expected

Blackhawk Open Thread

IOC to turn over Blackhawk;
City, IOC still negotiating casino site -QCTimes

Good news! Those of you who attended the meeting at the River Center where Restoration St. Louis presented their portfolio and some of their plans for the Blackhawk know how big of a deal this could be for downtown Davenport. I'm happy that IOC is at least moving out of the way of this potential progress.

Who knows, maybe my indoor waterpark/casino/hotel idea is still on the table?

Other than that, discuss whatever's happening in your neck of the QC.

5th Street: 99 Years Later

This first image is from a 1908 postcard, showing the corner of 5th and Iowa. The building on the left is still there today. Even though its labeled Sieg Iron Company, the buildings in the foreground almost look like a lumber yard. This image was taken in 2007 from the roof of the Crescent Lofts. The building that remains from the 1908 image is now part of Crescent Electric. The house at 5th and Pershing is easily seen in the newer image, but also barely visible in the postcard.
Also, I'd like to welcome any new visitors to the blog today, and thank Barb Ickes and the QCTimes for their coverage.

Market at the Freight House

Holy cow, its cold out there! But, in other news...

So, to recap: The first Saturday of February, March, and April the Davenport Levee Improvement Commission will host local vendors at the west end of the Freight House from 10AM to 3PM. Sounds like a great event.

Sugar: Some fears confirmed

Sundance 'Sugar' High -LA Times blog

"Soto plays the title character, a 20-year-old athlete raised in relative poverty to be a pro ball player. His family's entire future rests on his success. He's recruited to play for a Kansas City farm team, but his overwhelming excitement is soon muted when he finds himself far from home in all-white Bridgetown, Iowa, with no English skills and a naivete about U.S. culture."

It sounds like it won't portray Iowa in a very good manner. However, at least Davenport has been changed to "Bridgetown," the world's least original name.


To be fair, maybe it turns out that the "all-white" town isn't so bad (or so white?) after all. If not, however, I think its kind of screwed up for the filmmakers to accept Iowa tax incentives and then turn around a make a film that confirms false stereotypes about Iowans being racist hicks. Its bad enough that the mainstream media acted shocked that "white" Iowa could choose a black presidential nominee; the last thing we need is a movie showing is in a negative light.

Selling the Quad Cities

Q-C Visitors Bureau earns state grant -QCTimes
The State of Iowa gave the QC CVB 5 grand towards a $10k advertising campaign in Chicago. I doubt $10,000 buys all that much time on WGN radio, but at least its something.

Lately I've been in the mood to do something proactive to showcase the area. That was one of my reasons for yesterday's post. In light of the CVB's out-of-state (kind of) advertising, I decided to engage in a bit of free advertising for the Quad Cities on the internet.

SkyScraperPage.com is a website for "skyscraper and urbanism enthusiasts." One of the main features of their site is the forum section, which has thousands of posts per day. They have a section devoted entirely to photo threads of various cities around the world, so I posted this thread of Quad Cities images. As you can see, so far people seem impressed.

The CalgaryPuck Forum is a message board website for Calgary Flames fans. I started reading them when the QC Flames were first announced because it was interesting to see Canadians reaction to their farm team moving from Omaha to a place many of them had never heard of. Quite a few QC fans participate on the forum, providing Calgary fans a look into their prospects. The site also has an Off Topic section, so I posted the same thing there that I posted on SkyscraperPage. It also got good reactions from the Calgary folks. Here's that thread.

As of 7:40AM, 200 people have read the post on SkyScraperPage, and 214 have read the post on CalgaryPuck. Keep in mind that these have barely been up for 12 hours at this point. If even 1 or 2 of these people decide to stop in and check out the QCs as they drive by on I-80 sometime, I figure it was worth the time I spent choosing images from my collection and uploading them. There are a couple of other sites I'm considering posting this to; I'll mention them if I do. I know I'm not the only one who enjoys seeing out-of-towners' impressions of the Quad Cities.

QC things we should be proud to have

According to this map on Forbes.com, the Quad City Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is the 131st largest metro area in the United States. This is as of 2005. I couldn't find our world ranking, but the 400th largest metro area in the world was still over 1 million, so its safe to say we're probably not in the top 500.

So we're the 131st biggest community in the US. Pretty lowly, eh? Logically, we should only have amenities and events that over 100 other cities also have.

Lets look at some things that we have in the Quad Cities.

Bix7. An annual 7 mile road race through the streets of Davenport. According to this website, in 2006 it was the 77th largest timed race in the world, and the 25th largest timed race in America. Both of those figures are (unfortunately for our ranking) only counting people who finish the 7 mile course.
25th largest in the US, 77th largest in the world.

AHL Hockey. There are 30 NHL teams in the only league higher than the AHL. The AHL has 29 teams, with cities such as Milwaukee, Portland, and San Antonio having franchises in the same league as the Quad City Flames.
1 of 59 hockey teams in the top 2 leagues in North America

Gilda's Club. "A community meeting place for people living with cancer, their families and friends," founded by a few people including Gene Wilder, in memory of Gilda Radner.
1 of 22 in the world.

TPC at Deere Run. Tournament Players Club is a chain of American public and private golf clubs operated by the PGA Tour.
1 of 28 in the world.

John Deere Classic. A PGA Tour event held every year in July at the previously mentioned TPC at Deere Run.
1 of 49 tournaments in 2008.

Quad City Airshow -Each year, the show is capped by a performance by either the USAF Thunderbirds or the USN Blue Angels, and once, both. In 2008, the Blue Angels are scheduled to appear 37 times, including simple Fly-Bys. The Thunderbirds are scheduled to appear 39 times.
1 of 76 total Flight Demonstration Team events

Other impressive things:

Da Vinci Exhibit currently at the Putnam. Chicago and Seattle are the only US cities to have this exhibit before us; Houston's next on the tour.

Coexistence exhibit that was here this past Fall. Another exhibit where we were one of very few US stops during a world tour. Looking at list of hosts shows the QCs alongside cities such as Berlin, San Paulo, St. Petersburg, and Jerusalem.

WiMax. An up-and-coming wireless internet technology. QCOnline's ongoing project will make us one of the first areas in the US with WiMax coverage.

Wilco and other tours. Davenport was one of only a dozen or so stops during the US leg of Wilco's world tour. Reading the tour lists of many shows that come to the Adler and iWireless Center show the QC stop being one of the rare communities under a million people to host the show or concert.

And many more! Feel free to suggest your own additions to this list, because I know there are others out there. When people say there's nothing to do in the Quad Cities, they aren't looking hard enough. When our events and amenities put us in a class with metros several times our size, I suggest that's a sure sign of a community with a good quality of life.

QCI's 2008 Wishlist

I finally got around to putting together my Top 5 Wishes for the Quad Cities in 2008. Some of these are similar to my "12 Headlines" post from last July.

#1. Illinois comes through for us
This refers to both the QC-Chicago rail connection funding, and the years-overdue WIU-QC campus. They are both no-brainers, but as I've said before, that is about the number of brains that seem to be in Springfield lately. The WIU campus has the land, has Federal grants for improving the area, and already has private businesses lining up to build projects in the area. The Amtrak project looks to be equally logical, at least according to the feasibility study. Illinois, lets get your act together!

#2. Land a large downtown project
Our downtown progress has shifted to smaller projects like the Skatepark, Capitol renovation, and the former tailor shop being renovated on Ripley. We need something big to really send a message about downtown's increasing vibrancy. My top two choices would be a mixed-use building with office, condo, and apartment components, or the Gameworks/InPlay/Dave & Busters idea that I've been hoping for for years now.

#3 Figure out the Casino
Speaking of large downtown projects, it would be nice to get the amazing Blackhawk renovation plans in motion. It would also be nice to put the LeClaire Park revitalization into action. What are these waiting on? Of course, they're waiting for IOC to stop screwing Davenport for a few minutes and allow some progress. At this point I've given up on them actually doing a useful project of their own, but it'd sure be nice if they'd at least get our of our way.

#4. Redevelop the former hotel and cinema sites on North Brady
I'm glad the new Davenport welcome sign wasn't put farther north, because at least this way we can pretend these eyesores aren't actually part of our city.

#5. Learn to market the Quad Cities better
I believe we have a great community here, and a lot of people feel the same way. The question is why we sometimes seem to be aiming for the "best kept secret in the Midwest" title. We should be advertising in Des Moines, Peoria, Chicago, etc. Show off our low cost of living, many recreational opportunities, history, culture, and multiple downtowns all making progress. Show people that we're not the Quad Cities of the 1980's anymore.

Slow Demolition

May 31st, 2007
January 15, 2008

Article Assortment + Image

Here are some QCTimes stories that interested me over the last few days:

Freight House offers four fun venues in one -QCTimes
Nothing but good news here. I can't wait to check it out, and hopefully we'll see the north side fixed up as well so the future residents of the RiverWalk Lofts will have a better view across the street.

Bettendorf: Joevan site will become new retail center -QCTimes
I don't know if this is the final plan, but if this PDF that a QCT commenter posted is accurate, there's entirely too much parking in this plan. Nothing walkable or non-strip mall about this. Hopefully we'll at least get a PF Changs out of it. See my previous post about lifestyle centers.

Alderman Ambrose IS online; Just 1 alderman remains off e-mail -QCT
Way to research QCTimes. Guess they didn't notice that Barnhill has both a website and email.

Rhythm City diner replaced with 'grab-and-go' food shop -QCT
More screwing of Davenport by IOC. The Rock Around the Click Diner used to be a great little place downtown to get a cheap diner-style meal. Then they ditched the wait staff and made you go get your food from the cook. Now they've just ditched the diner entirely. Who cares, thinks IOC, its just Davenport...

Also, don't forget to check out the Quad Cities promotional video here, at the Bi-State Regional Commission website.

Another new Alderman blog

Sixth Ward Alderman Jeff Justin has opened his new blog, which can be found at davenportsixthward.blogspot.com. Aside from his opening post, he has also posted his viewpoints on the recent schedule changes. A big welcome to the blog world for another Alderman interested in interacting with his constituents in a new way. I've added the link over on the right.

This makes 4 Aldermen from the current crop (Hamerlinck, Frink, Brown, Justin) who have blogs so far. Alderman Lynn has a website and a newsletter, and I know most of the other Aldermen are computer-literate. Imagine a time when we have 11 blogs to correspond to our 11 elected officials. Each of them could explain their stances on various issues without anyone making 10 minute speeches at meetings justifying their vote. Folks, if your Alderman doesn't have a web presence at this time, please encourage them to start a blog. Even if they just post once a month or so, it would be a place that allows input and conceivably a back-and-forth discourse about the issues.

Cutting public involvement or common sense?

First act of Davenport aldermen does away with Monday, Thursday committee meetings -QCTimes

I'm sure many of you believe that this, and the proposal to not televise public comment, are all part of the usual vast conspiracy to screw Davenport. Personally, I'm in favor of making changes to cause Davenport city council meetings to not be difficult to watch, as I believe they are now. If you're addressing the council, why do you need to be on TV? Get on Channel 19 and tell the world your issues with the council, water fluoridation, or Native American burial lands. Save council meetings for doing the business of the city.

New Alderman Nathan Brown opens his blog

Alderman Brown emailed me to pass along a link to his new blog, which is located at davenportfirstward.blogspot.com. Weird how the previous Alderman never needed that, eh? Anyway, this makes at least 3 of the 11 city elected officials who have blogs. More ways to get in touch and be gotten in touch with can't be a bad thing. I've added a link over with the others.

Nathan also announced that his first First Ward meeting will be Saturday Jan. 12th, at 10:00 am in the Roosevelt Community Center. Apparently there will also be a presentation on various programs available at the public libraries. The 1st Ward definitely looks like its off to a good start.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the meeting/open house last night, so any of you who were there, feel free to post your review of the evening.

First 08 Open Thread

I know I've been lax on posts lately, but as the holidays wind down I hope to get back in the blogging spirit. For today though, just an open discussion thread.

Tonight, don't forget the swearing in of the new council, and open house at City Hall. Go meet these new folks before you begin bashing them online. The meeting starts at 7pm.

I will probably try to make it to the meeting/open house, but it might not happen.

And finally, only 357 days until Christmas!

Obama at the RiverCenter

Not a huge crowd, but I suspect the weather had something to do with it. I'll post or link to additional images/movies in the morning sometime Saturday.

Again, I remind folks that I'm registered Independent, and am not endorsing any kind of national candidate.

I'm always just glad to see politicians in Davenport that don't pose with cornstalks or hay bales.

Updated: None of my pictures turned out well, but fortunately Pioneer98 was there as well and took some much better ones. They can be found here.

One thing that I have to hand to the Obama supporters, is that they're the only folks to come to my door trying to get me to caucus for their candidate. They also came around during the three worst storms we've had this winter, including Friday's snowstorm. Of course, I had to explain to them that while caucusing does sound interesting, I'm not willing to register a party affiliation. The last guy was really insistent, making me wish I'd just told him I was a hardcore Republican to be rid of him.

Coming soon: 2008 QC New Year's wishes

Here is a link to my 2005 wishes. (I didn't do it in 2006)

To summarize, they were:

5. Reduce Crime (possible success?)
4. Help Prairie Heights Succeed (houses coming this Spring)
3. Continue the downtown "momentum" (slowed, but continuing)
2. Redevelop the former cinema/hotel property on North Brady (FAIL)
1. Follow Fly's Rule #3 (FAIL)

I could pretty much use the same 5 again, but I'm going to come up with a revised list sometime in the next few days.

What would you folks put on a list of New Year's wishes?

Also, I hope all of you had as busy and enjoyable of Christmas as I did.

Christmastime Assortment

R.I. gets down to six choices for Armory Park -QCOnline
(Make sure you check out the PDF of the plans linked to in the article)

Rock Island is moving forward with their post-casino plan, and it would sure be nice to say Davenport was able to do the same. Personally, as I've said before, I don't think RI's riverfront needs an amphitheater or bandshell, since Davenport's already has one, with an amphitheater planned for Crescent Park as part of River Vision. Rock Island needs to do their own thing instead of going after the same stuff that we already have. Out of the 6 options, I definitely prefer the no-Armory plan with the Arc Concept. Fortunately, it appears to be one of the 2 options moving forward with the RI council. Its great to imaging Davenport and Rock Island each having a beautiful redeveloped, casino-free riverfront, both connected via water taxi. Unfortunately, America's-most-screwed-up-state-candidate, Illinois, has found a way to possibly screw RI out of their hard fought casino money. If people thought Davenport's council needed a clean slate, I think Springfield needs to throw away the whole slate and get a new one.


Group musters support for Chicago-to-Quad-Cities passenger rail route -QCTimes
I just can't say enough about how important rail service is, but once again we're relying on the State of Illinois. A little over 3 hours, non-stop, into downtown Chicago sounds like a pretty big amenity for potential residents or companies looking at our area, not to mention those of us already here. If you haven't already, join the QC Passenger Rail Coalition to show your support.


River City dealership shut down -QCTimes
The New River City Ford wanted to redevelop the old Montgomery Wards Auto building at Northpark, but someone tattled to the city that an obscure law prevents it. I suspect the law, which bans cars from being sold from property not owned by the vehicle owner, was meant to stop impromptu car lots from sprouting up around the city. Something tells me the folks responsible for reporting this violation may be the very same folks who have been displaying cars in the mall without "selling them" for years. Hopefully something can be worked out to renovate that long-vacant building.


Eddie Bauer to close its doors in the Quad Cities -QCTimes
This isn't really anything of importance, but I just wanted to point out the other piece of information revealed in the article. Famous seller of overpriced pre-ruined clothes, Hollister, is replacing Eddie Bauer at Northpark. This officially kills my dream of them coming downtown to lure teenyboppers and their money to what could be a new "cool" shopping area. On the other hand, it speaks well of how healthy Northpark is (unlike Southpark) that a new store is basically waiting to take the spot of an exiting one.

And if you can't find something to comment on out of all that, you're not trying very hard.

A long read, but a good one

Robert Brownell's 5 days at the YMCA -Des Moines Register

This article is the story of a Polk County Supervisor, Robert Brownell, and his experience staying at their downtown YMCA residence hall for 5 days. Its long, (over 12,000 words), but in my opinion, very much worth reading. He's an excellent writer, and doesn't worrying about being PC or not offending anyone. At least in this article, he appears to tell it like it is, discussing both sides of the issue. He doesn't only talk about this specific problem, but also relates his experiences in discussing this with people out in Denver who are attempting to eliminate homelessness in their city.

For background, the downtown Des Moines YMCA has an 8-story residence hall attached to it. Because of its prime location along the up-and-coming Riverwalk, developers have shown interest in the property, and others have shown an interest in removing the "type" of men that hang out around the YMCA from their booming downtown. The first attempt was to move it to a residential neighborhood, which was met with a response that can be best compared to an 8 story Cobblestone. Here's a quote from the article regarding this:

"They set out to put their residence hall into a traditional neighborhood. There, they encountered modern government’s Maginot Line…someone else’s backyard. The place where nothing is permitted. Really, the only difference between this figurative Maginot Line and France’s famed Line is that the Germans figured out how to breach France’s. The one I speak of, cannot be breached. Oh, that the French had had our neighborhood associations and their line of defenses. Rommel would’ve been last seen in northern Germany sitting atop a Panzer scratching his head."

Now, before anyone jumps on me for posting this anti-NIMBY statement, the author eventually comes around and realizes that this kind of project in fact, doesn't belong in a traditional neighborhood. Like I said, read the article.

The only things I'm not comfortable with are his statements about how posing as a homeless person doesn't cost anyone anything, as long as he follows his rules. For example, he wouldn't stay at the YMCA if it was full, wouldn't interfere with anyone else's recovery, etc. However, we all learn that you can't observe something without affecting it, and even the few minutes of time he took with case managers and employees could have been spent with people who didn't have a nice home waiting for them. On the other hand, I've often thought of encouraging something like this in Davenport, for someone to see what the homeless/non-profit situation really is from the inside, instead of from an outside perspective, or based on what the agencies involved want to tell us.

So make up your own mind on whether this is the right way to look into something, and whether the Housing First policy is remotely realistic, but definitely read the article. Also, ask yourself if any of our local elected officials could write something this good.

JOD to become Modern Woodmen Park

Modern Woodmen Park Unveiled -Swingbaseball.com

So the new owners managed to sell naming rights in less than a month, whereas Krause could never find anyone to pay what he apparently wanted. It could definitely have been a worse name (Lunchable Stadium?), and its nice that its a QC-based company as well.

The better news is that the new owners are planning to lower ticket prices for the upcoming season. Between dumping the unpopular name and decreasing ticket prices, hopefully they can generate enough community goodwill to start packing the stands again.

Overreaction Open Thread

Now, I'm not saying the streets are dry and you can drive normal speed, but at least as of 6:15 this morning they weren't as bad as they've been several times already this year. This time though, half the town and all the schools seem to be shutting down. Maybe they're still predicting all of this to freeze later, but right now its more slush than ice. I did a lot more stepping in 3 inches of slush or water than I did slipping on ice. The forecast shows the temperature going up slightly, so I can't image its going to get less slushy. I didn't hear many weather-related problems on the police radio last night either. I wish they canceled school this easily a decade ago.

But, since all of you teachers, students, etc have the day off today, I figured I'd post an open thread. I'm working on a post about my feelings on the Promise thing, so feel free to discuss that, or anything else.

More Menards Stuff

From the first time I heard that Menards wanted to move to the Alta-Vista site, I wondered how that could possibly be enough room, especially considering their reason was "to expand." The weather tonight is not ideal for walking the site as Alderman Meyer suggested in the previous thread, though that sounds like a good idea if the property owners consent. Tonight though, I decided to compare the sites from space, using Google Maps. I was definitely shocked to see how much bigger the new site is than their current location, although I'm not sure how much of this area is actually owned by the nursery, where the moved frontage road will be, building orientation, etc. Here are the raw pictures, with my estimate of the areas involved highlighted in red.

Current Menards area (with clouds, unfortunately)

Proposed new Menards area

Make sure to note from the slider on the left that these are the exact same scale, and I'm not trying to fool with anyone. I don't have a lot of opinion on either side of this issue. Businesses wanting to expand is generally good, but I personally also like Menards' current store and don't know what more they need. I'm just trying to get information out there, especially if other people have the same misconceptions about the 65th Street area that I did.

My biggest concern is what happens with the current store, as I can't image that building being useful for anything besides a Menards. How many other uses need a lumberyard and a glass elevator?

The Great Wall of Menards

Davenport Council: Menards rezoning clears first hurdle -QCTimes

A few interesting quotes from this article:

After the vote, neighbors said they were disappointed but not surprised. Several said they think the deal has been in the works since the city’s comprehensive plan was updated more than a year ago to designate the land along Brady Street for future commercial zoning.

I've been hearing rumblings about Menards on that property for quite a while, so I could easily see this part being true. Personally I think it makes more sense to locate on the southeast corner of that intersection, but I don't think the neighbors have much of a case here either. I don't see how anyone would move in there with the expectation that a plant nursery will continue to be the use for that busy intersection property for all time.

Since it first proposed the rezoning, the company has agreed to build a 50-foot “green space” barrier between its property and the neighbors in addition to an 8-foot-high earthen berm, a row of trees and a 14-foot fence, all designed to limit noise and create a visual barrier between the store and residences. Rohlfs said his family has offered to plant mature conifer trees from the nursery along the berm.

Hey, can we get a minefield and some coils of razor wire thrown in as well? I find that this is pretty funny in relation to yesterday's conversation of the previous post about connecting retail and residential. Now, I know you're probably not going to walk to Menards and walk back carrying 10 sheets of plywood and an air compressor or something, but I guess the Muscatine store does have a grocery section. Maybe they'll leave a gate or checkpoint in the 14-foot fence. It just seems a little excessive. Instead of living next to a home improvement store, it'll be more like living next to a prison.

The concerned neighbors got some legal advice from Meyer. He recommended that they continue to do their homework and make note of city staff errors in case they decide to challenge the pending rezoning in court.
“We do a lot of things wrong in the city, especially from a legal standpoint,” he said.
When Meyer asked interim corporate counsel Tom Warner if he could give the neighbors advice, Warner told Meyer it is typically not city policy to assist potential litigants looking to sue the city.

This one pretty much speaks for itself. Is it January yet?

Prairie Heights Progress Picture Post

Why, what is that skinny strip of blacktop in the image to the right? I do believe that would be the very first alley North of Kimberly. Garages face the rear alley? This means that the residents of this neighborhood will look across the street and see houses facing them instead of 3 car garages. It must be Prairie Heights, Davenport's first attempt at New Urbanism. I've got a map of the neighborhood at the bottom of this post if you're curious how its supposed to work. It wasn't exactly a nice sunny photo-friendly day yesterday, but I still went out to check out the progress.


If you click on the above image I took facing south towards 53rd, you can see the baseball diamonds shown on the map to the right. The road connecting the neighborhood to the park (possibly called Country Lane) ends in the foreground of this image. I assume it is to be completed sometime in the spring. The plan to the right is outdated, as you can see from the map below, but it kind of shows the relationship between 53rd, the park area, and the neighborhood. I may try to acquire a more up-to-date plan for the whole project, and post it later.

The plan, last time I saw it. It may have changed since then, although after driving these streets I feel its still fairly accurate. Yes, those are 30' wide lots, and again, yes, those are alleys.

Over on the other side of the railroad tracks, I took this shot looking East from 65th behind the old cinemas. The controversial 65th/67th Street connection looks to be graded and ready for paving in the spring. This should really make the 65th and Brady intersection (where Menard's is going) look a lot better to potential developers. Hopefully one will come along who's interested in redeveloping the old cinema and hotel properties.

The Storm Approaches: Open Thread

It sounds like we may actually get something out of today's storm, unlike the Thanksgiving Eve false alarm. Seems like a great to stay inside and blog, or in my case, sleep. Here are a couple of headlines from this week that caught my eye.
(EDIT: Obviously the storm is pretty much past, so I'll try and have a new post this afternoon evening Whenever)


New York firm proposes hydroelectric stations in Davenport, Muscatine -QCTimes
This one has got to be one of the strangest articles I've ever read relating to Davenport. Some random company is hoping to build a hydro plant that "would measure 245 feet long by 160 feet wide by 60 feet high" somewhere near the Lock and Dam in Davenport, but doesn't bother contacting the city? I don't know how far away from the source of water this could be built, but I don't think anything like this belongs south of River Drive. If they could build it underground, it could be turned into some kind of green energy tourism attraction under the riverfront, but that doesn't seem possible with the floods. Who knows!

Davenport-made 'Sugar' to premiere at Sundance -QCTimes
A movie that may be about a minority struggling to play minor league baseball in the evil, racist, oppressive city of Davenport? Is this even a good thing? Hopefully that's not the theme of the movie at all, but its what I'm hearing. This is Davenport, people, a city with a fairly diverse population, not some hick town where we've never seen non-whites. I wonder if this is related to the hurry to change the Swing's name.

And to finish things off, an assortment of random images. (Note: I found a fix for the images, which requires me to edit html code. Not doing that is one of the things I like about blogs vs a website)


Here we have Black Friday madness. On the left, the moon hides behind Barnes and Noble before dawn. On the right, Menard's enthusiasts park everywhere but in lanes of traffic. Good times!

Here are a couple of shots from the jail tour, which was overtaken by Holiday Balloon Parade images a couple Saturday's ago. The image on the left is the new way visits are conducted, which is through a closed circuit TV system, and the image on the right is one of the "day rooms" where most inmates will spend their days. It may look nice, but try spending a month there. Its no hotel.