Reliable sources tell me that Holliday Hardware on Spring Garden Street is closing after 50 some-odd years of providing more service than you could stand. If they didn’t have it, you didn’t need it. Definitely an ‘old school’ store that will be missed.
Holliday Hardware is the family namesake business of former Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday.
From a City email regarding a proposed change at the Curb Market:
“The Greensboro Parks & Recreation Commission has received a citizen request and requests your input on the following:
Given the growing wine industry in North Carolina, and the fact that some of these wines are sold at Farmers Markets throughout the state, and having met with staff of the City of Greensboro’s Legal Department, City staff is exploring the possibility of allowing North Carolina-produced wine to be sold and sampled at the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market.
The Parks & Recreation Commission will review and discuss this issue at its next meeting, Wednesday, July 8, 2009, 6:00 p.m. at the Central Library.”
From what I hear, the sale of NC wines at the market has wide support from most everyone. The sticking point seems to be the additional step of allowing on-site wine tastings by ABC-licensed vendors.
Don’t know about you, but I’m fer it. I think it will make Saturday mornings at the Market even more appealing than it already is - if that is possible.
There is nothing ‘green’ about, nor is it in any way ‘energy efficient’, to rip out a building’s original windows that have been in service for 50+ years (with 100 more to go) and replace them with petroleum based replacements that have an expected service life of 15 - 20 years. However, the window replacement industry seems to have grabbed the Obama administration by the short and curlies when it comes to how best to dole out Federal stimulus money earmarked for “Weatherization“.
There is an oft quoted, fact-based mantra among the small chorus of companies, like mine, who are trying to turn the tide on the wholesale practice of replacing windows for replacent’s sake:
“They call them replacement windows because you just have to keep replacing them”.
It doesn’t take much research to discover that most of the claims about vinyl replacements , including “they will pay for themselves”, are misleading at best. Some would call them lies.
I have been in contact with the Asheboro based company who is being charged with the dissemination of much these weatherization funds and recently met with State Senator Don Vaughan (who sits on the committee that makes such decisions) regarding the inclusion of thermal upgrades to existing windows as being preferable to replacement.
If there is not some change in policy, this Federal ‘weatherization’ money could become the the biggest threat to historic preservation since the advent of replacement windows by Anderson in 1980.
I will consider it a major step forward for race relations in Greensboro the day Nelson Johnson calls a news conference and nobody showed?
Got a call this morning that Jinni & I ought to come and stay for all three hours of Grimsley High School’s Senior Awards Day. So we did. If you are looking for the good in public education, Grimsley’s auditorium this morning would be a fine place to start. It is a pretty amazing event.
Some of the academic and athletic awards date back nearly 100 years and are named in honor of teachers and administrators who served the school and its student for years and years.
After sitting through it all, it came down to the the last and most coveted award the school has to offer two of its graduating students. The P.T.S.A/ A.P. Routh Best All Around Student Award is voted on by the senior class and faculty and presented to one senior girl and one senior boy in the school of over 1600 students.
Josie Hoggard’s name will be inscribed on the ancient silver platter that graces the school’s trophy case and be added to the list of the award’s winners’ hallway plaque that dates back to 1914.
We are proud of our little girl.
Rick and Margaret Luebke are dedicated preservationists and they put their money where their mouth is when it came time to restore and modernize their own home. My company, Double Hung, LLC was fortunate to have played a role in their endeavors; not only for the opportunity to work on such an important property, but also because of the extraordinary amount of publicity their project has generated.
Featured last month is Preservation Greensboro’s most excellent “Landmarks” publication (not posted) and the month before that in “99 Blocks” magazine (also not available online) the project appeared in this morning’s N&R as a feature in their Triad Homes section. (Photos here)
Not exactly sure what all is driving it, but despite the state of the economy, we’ve been busy… real busy… as you can probably tell from my lack of posting over the last months. Perhaps I’ll get time to return to regular blogging once the recession has eased a bit.
Nothing like starting the New Year off with a public call for your resignation.
A woefully misinformed Mr. Steve Parker writes in today’s N&R: “I find it sad indeed that the people of Greensboro are not asking for the resignations of those members of the Parks and Recreation Commission who scammed residents out of $12 million…”
Nobody “scammed” anyone out of anything, Mr. Parker.
If what you are talking about is the fact that the $12M swim center was nested within the larger P&R bond in November, then you need to get your facts straight. (Didn’t that used to be the job of an editor?)
It was your City Council who did the deed to which you are referring. And by placing it on the ballot, they went AGAINST the recommendations of the Commission.
It was only after the bond’s contents where set by the Council that this Commissioner - and this Commissioner only - recommended that the swim center folks lay low lest the issue, which had failed twice before, torpedo the funding for some very real needs that the balance of the bond was to provide.
As a Parks & Rec Commissioner, I was cc’d with this letter (Troublemaker) to Mayor Johnson and the City Council a couple of weeks ago. Submitted by several obviously disgruntled P&R Department employees, the letter is aimed directly at P&R Director Bonnie Kuester’s back.
The letter is chock full of hyperbole (e.g.”…this case could further divide the citizens of Greensboro and solidify our City’s reputation where civil rights are frowned upon.”) and as bitter and mean spirited (e.g. “..the City of Greensboro must atone for its actions.“) as any I’ve ever read.
Let me be clear that I have no knowledge of any “personnel matters” that may or may not involve the authors except for this, involving signatory Delores Scott, which is a matter of public record. But what I do know is that an anonymous commenter over at The Troublemaker, who sounds like he/she could be a signatory to the letter, has been in an ivory tower for too long as he/she obviously revels in Director Kuester’s recently announced retirement after 42 years of service…
“… She should have never gotten the Job. …she did not have the educational background for the job..now the Parks & Rec Department has the opportunity to hire someone with the proper degree.”
Give me a friggin’ break.
The letter’s authors make great efforts to point out the virtues of equal opportunity in matters of employment. What could be more ‘equal’ than promoting people on the weight of their natural abilities to lead rather than their levels of education attained? I know plenty of highly sheep-skinned folks who wouldn’t have a clue as to which end of a horse to lead to water, much less the interpersonal skills to convince the animal to partake after arriving at the stream.
They, and the commenter, seem to say that high education, resulting in the right to follow one’s name with several capitalized letters as several of the letter’s signers exhibit, somehow guarantees advancement in the workplace. It does not.
Education certainly helps one gain knowledge, but there are no classes offered in wisdom or common sense, which are requirements for real leadership. I know first hand that Bonnie Kuester is brimming with both and she will be missed at the helm of Greensboro’s finest department.
Over at Cone’s, an obvious insider provides a plausible back story to the all-head-chopping-all-the-time stories coming daily from Guilford County government. The lead chopper is my district Commish, Skip Alston.
I asked a knowledgeable local reporter (not the N&R’s G. Witt) about what was up with Skip and his “new direction” mantra.
This journo has it on good authority that Skip is a different man since Obama was elected and has developed a bad case of ‘Obama-envy’. Seems that he FINALLY has figured out that there is a way to govern by playing all the cards he’s been dealt… butleaving his old standby race card in the hole.
Because of Obama’s election, the scuttle is that Skip now understands and believes that a black man can hold any elected office in the land, that is if the public doesn’t perceive the candidate as just another “angry black man”. (Which has been my Commissioner’s shtick for decades.) He has his sights set high, but knows he must prove his newly-discovered populist mettle during this term a Chairman.
The question of how easy it is for a tiger’s stripes to change so quickly hangs heavy on my mind, however.
If Obama-envy is at the root of this, then Skip would do well to lay out the details of his “new direction” (read, CHANGE) before Guilford County develops the audacity to hope that he will cease and desist with the head chopping sooner rather than later.
The Inside Scoop wants Mr. Alston to know that he is, quite possibly, breaking a law or two. Not very Obama-like, I’d say.
N&R:”Opening Windows to History”
Although today’s N&R story about my company, Double Hung, LLC, makes it sound like I still get to do some of the actual work of restoring historic windows - I really don’t. I’ve got people - good people - that get to have all of the fun. With the business growing as it is, my duties now mainly revolve around the more mundane aspects of running a company: sales/bids, customer service, payroll, taxes, collections… etc.
But reporter Eddie Huffman did a good job of capturing the essence of what we do.
We’ll begin a high profile and complicated project within the next few weeks. The Greensboro Historical Museum’s windows are to be completely restored through the good graces of Greensboro citizens who voted for the bond money to take care of the museum back in 2006.