Wednesday, June 20,2012

New in town

Meat Southern BBQ & Carnivore Cuisine

by ALLAN I. ROSS

For years, the Old Town commercial scene has been, in a word, quaint (we’re casting a blind eye, Fish Ladder Tattoo and Golden Harvest). The charming boutique district, largely composed of art galleries and specialty retail and antique shops, is a mecca of tasteful décor but has thus-far been an antithetical hangout for red-blooded ‘merican males.

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Wednesday, June 20,2012

BALLE-hooing local businesses

by Terry Link

Rapids of locally owned businesses. It was a whirlwind of entrepreneurs from all regions of the country, sharing their energy, successes and pitfalls freely with one another in an atmosphere of”can-do-ness.” Young and old (Grace Lee Boggs, 93-year-old matriarch for social justice from Detroit, gave a sterling keynote from her wheelchair); black, brown, white and all colors in between; bankers and bakers, bookstore and film theater owners, restaurateurs and farmers, architects and manufacturers were all represented.

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Wednesday, June 20,2012

Pubic debate

With eyes on the November election cycle, thousands of women gather at the Capitol to protest censorship and heavy-handed abortion legislation; female politicians read from "The Vagina Monologues"

by Sam Inglot

Vagina. Signs and chants echoed the word across the front lawn of the Capitol in downtown Lansing on Monday night. Several thousand people showed up to support Rep. Lisa Brown, D-West Bloomfield, and Rep.

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Wednesday, June 20,2012

Checking in on Washington Sq.

Quieter at quitting time, police say. A visit supports them.

by Sam Inglot

A bolstered, on-foot police presence was one remedy, in the opinion of several shop owners, and the tactic seemed to work. Three officers stood on the southwest corner of the block next to one of their cruisers parked near Club X-Cel, with another cop car parked across the street near The Firm. The officers walked both sides of the strip and didn’t appear to deal with any problematic bar patrons.

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Wednesday, June 20,2012

A hoop house rises

A new urban agriculture project hopes to support both farmers markets and the surrounding neighborhood

by Sam Inglot

The construction of the new Urbandale Farm hoop house on Friday on the 700 block of South Hayford Avenue was a “modern-day counterpart” to the old-time barn raising, Linda Anderson said.

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Wednesday, June 13,2012

Karp finds a bigger pond

Lansing developer picked for $85 million project in Detroit

by Lawrence Cosentino

Detroit’s Capitol Park is a quiet triangle of benches and planters surrounded by grand old buildings that are better described as sky-ticklers than skyscrapers. They shelter, rather than loom, as people chat and feed pigeons in the modest-sized park.

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Wednesday, June 13,2012

Down-they-go Abbey?

College puts three century-old houses up for auction; preservationist says it's an 'empty gesture'

by Lawrence Cosentino

Despite a flurry of objections from local preservationists, Lansing Community College is sticking to its plans to replace three century-old downtown houses at the southwest corner of North Capitol Avenue and Saginaw Street with a welcome area welcome sign.

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Wednesday, June 13,2012

Seven proposals possible

by Kyle Melinn

1. The New Emergency Manager Repeal Law The public employee union, AFSCME, teamed up with Michigan Forward and others to repeal the state’s new emergency manager (EM) law, P.A. 4, which gives gubernatorial-appointed EMs the power to revoke a negotiated public employee union contract.

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Wednesday, June 13,2012

Eye candy of the week

by Amanda Harrell-Seyburn

Gateways are points of entry and departure from the community. Much like the New Cross Road in Georgian London, Lansing’s South Capitol Avenue is a gateway to the mid-Michigan region via Interstate 496.

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Wednesday, June 13,2012

'Civil obedience'

Is Occupy Lansing losing sight of what it means to protest? “Get a damn office!” the mayor says.

by Sam Inglot

On Saturday, five members of Occupy Lansing attempted to “reoccupy” Reutter Park past what they called the “unconstitutional” 10 p.m. curfew. One person was ticketed for taking down the sole tent in the park too slowly. The group disbanded by 11.

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