Wednesday, July 18,2012

Fivesome on the fairway

Big talk boils down to a handful of options for the Red Cedar project

by Lawrence Cosentino

Last week, Lansing received five proposals to develop 12.5 acres of the former Red Cedar Golf Course on the city’s eastern fringe. With sky-high hopes for regional transformation riding on the project, the proposals plopped on the porch with a lighter thunk than expected.

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Wednesday, July 18,2012

Keri Litwiller swims with the big fish

by Lawrence Cosentino

There's no financing and no developer, but there is a lot of passion. Litwiller has been thinking about the idea for two years. She proposed it to the Lansing City Council earlier this summer, but got no reply to her letter.

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Wednesday, July 11,2012

Where are they bound?

The Black Child and Family Institute moves out of the old Genesee School; the Lansing School District hasn't yet decided what to do with the building

by Lawrence Cosentino

The movers sifted the traces of hundreds of childhood and adult education classes, recreational and cultural programs, town hall meetings and summer camps. There were ribbons from holiday food baskets, blank forms from Ingham County health programs and photos of smiling kids raking leaves around the old building.

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Thursday, July 5,2012

Urban Revelation

Lynn Orta creates a garden universe in a west side parking lot

by Lawrence Cosentino

Every morning, Griffith reads her Bible and watches Lynn from her window. "We thought it was a job she had, but we found out it was just something she likes to do. Everybody around here, they know it’s Lynn’s garden."

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Wednesday, June 27,2012

Drowning in stories

Greater Lansing Business Monthly marks 25 years of small business cheerleading

by Lawrence Cosentino

Thursday, the Greater Lansing Business Monthly celebrates its silver anniversary with a party on the riverfront from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Lansing Center with live music, food and boat rides and guest speakers.

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Wednesday, June 20,2012

Jazz up your weekend

Meet the East Lansing Summer Solstice headliners

by Lawrence Cosentino

Staff sergeant, song stylist Light doesn’t always travel at the speed of light, no matter what Einstein said. Follow a shadow at dusk in mid-June.

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Wednesday, June 20,2012

Mill Supplies' mad makeover

Artist Tiffany Klein launches a gallery and workshop in a 102-year-old downtown Lansing building

by Lawrence Cosentino

Klein, a Lansing-based artist and interior designer, needs a laboratory more than she needs a gallery. In her hands, plaster becomes velvet, fiberboard turns into wood and PVC pipes aspire to the glory of Roman columns. Her wall-sized, multimedia art glimmers with gemstones and mirror shards, with frames made of textured cement.

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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

Two for the Books

Gay Okemos couple shares a lifetime of collecting with MSU and the community

by Lawrence Cosentino

Mark Ritzenhein and Stephen Wilensky love to recall the afternoon in the early 1990s when they crossed the Yarlung River in a wooden boat, heading into Tibet, listening to the clicking of unsoftened yak cheese.

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