I went to the Silver Bells celebration downtown for the first time last night. I was very impressed with the whole event, and enjoyed seeing all the folks and kids having so much fun downtown. The shops and restaurants were packed as was the little market they set up. My only slight comment would be to find that guy who imports "fan tape" through the airport and buy some Holiday tape for crowd control. Everything was very festive except for yellow police cation tape and big traffic barrels everywhere. I could really see a Ice skating pond set up in Adado Park and maybe a Holiday/Christmas market there to keep people coming downtown all season.
I think that if you give the people a little something fun they will show up as witnessed at Silver Bells, so if the new bar which sounds huge, is going to be successful the live music plan is a good one, it will attract people who might not otherwise go to a bar in a mall.
When I was a kid in the 60's the city would flood the ball fields at at least four parks in the winter for ice skating. We went to Quentin Park. There was a warming house that the neighborhood called the hot house, with no frills like a snack bar, just a window to check your boots, and benches full of really load kids.The warming house is still there at Sycamore Park. I guess winters were more reliably cold back then but a worker would come out in the middle of the night and spray the rink to resurface the ice. There were thaws then as well sometimes it meant the end of skating that year sometimes if it got cold soon enough they would open up again. There would be hundreds of people there most nights and on weekends, we skated to The Supremes and The Four Season it was really fun. I never skated on an indoor rink until a few years ago, during some winters out east you can skate on the ponds that freeze over.
My idea of what I would do downtown is have a really big rink filling the whole flat of Adado Park, maybe a huge oval or an wide oval track with a bonfire in the middle. They can put down almost any shape of ice rink these days. Maybe charge a small fee to help pay for it that plus some corporate sponsors and maybe it would not cost the city too much. Build an ice rink and people will come.
I knew that they closed indoor rink some time ago, but I think when I was through there last winter the outdoor rink wasn't even open. It's sad because everything was fairly nice that last time I was there, not long before they closed the indoor rink. Hopefully they'll consider reopening it if the city's finances improve.
The Lansing State Journal is going to move in to the Knapps Centre, taking a 20,000 sq ft lease on the third floor. The Eydes bought their current building (87,000 sq ft) a couple weeks ago and are planning on converting it to a mixed-use building with apartments on the third floor and office space on the rest.
It will be good to get more workers on Washington Ave and fill out more of the Knapps Centre. Maybe a small sandwich shop could open on the ground floor of the LSJ building to provide another food option for those waiting for a bus across the street.
My last ice rink comment is when I googled Washington Park Ice rink I got a few pages that seem to say that there is a rink in operation there. It could be old pages I am going to drive by there and have a look.
The brew pub sounds really great. Looks like we are going to be a local brewery capital, and in 2016 when they vote in legal marijuana Lansing will be the capital of all good times. I think that Lansing is turning into a really cool place to be.
I have never been inside the LJS building, I do remember being able to see the presses running through the windows. While it is very good that we still have a daily newspaper, since I have returned to Lansing I have found the paper easy to bypass with it's tiny format and USA Today insert. I honestly think if the USA insert was not there I would buy the paper for the local news and sports. I hope the redevelopment of the old building will includes more windows and some nice landscaping. I never knew they cut down a 187 year old tree to build that building.
I think it would be interesting to find and chronicle the largest and oldest trees in Lansing. I am a kind of a tree nut after living in a place where most trees are short little pine trees I find the huge trees of Lansing so amazing. I know that tourist will look at pretty much anything if it is the largest or oldest and find it interesting. I know there are people who would love to go on a big old tree tour of Lansing to see the biggest and oldest of each kind of tree we have here.
I would still love to see some retail on the first floor of Knapp's. Particularly clothing stores; I imagine a Gap or Banana Republic, or something similar. It's a bummer having to go to the Eastwood area everytime. It would definitely give people a reason to stay downtown after work or even better, move downtown.
The bars are nice but it kind of sucks living in the city when you have to go somewhere else to get the necessities/niceties. I admit I was a bit jaded when they announced another bar/brewery coming to Michigan Ave. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely excited by the developments but we definitely could use a little bit more diversification in them.
@MichMatters As far as I knew the outdoor rink remained open for at least some time after the indoor rink closed. As I remember, the original discussions were to just close the indoor rink and leave the outdoor rink open. I can't seem to find any of the news stories about it closing at all though.
@gbinlansing Off the top of my head I know of two noteworthy trees: There's an old catalpa on the Capitol grounds, from Wikipedia: "The oldest tree on the grounds is a catalpa on the southeast lawn present when the Capitol was dedicated in 1873. The American Forestry Association has certified that this catalpa is the largest living tree of its kind in the United States". There's a tree in front of the frat house in the 100 block of Spartan Ave, there's something important about it as the new development there will be built around the tree per concerns the neighborhood brought up.
Thanks for the tree information, now I already have two stops on the Lansing Big Old Tree Tour! I guess nearly every tree that the 19th century settlers could get to, they cut down. The photos of that time in all of Lower Michigan show a treeless landscape due to lumber cutting for fire wood and building, Michigan wood build all those big three decker houses you see in New England because their woods were long gone by the 19th century. My family has pictures of Long Lake [the one by Hale] where except right next to the lake there were no trees at all, it looked like somewhere else to me. The reforestation of Michigan has been happening since about the 1880's so that would make some trees that were planted by man or nature nearly 140 years old. I think in Lansing you could find a few trees that old, maybe in Scott Woods and along the Sycamore Creek/Red Cedar. I see huge oaks maples, poplars out there. There is a huge black walnut tree right next to the river trail near the bridge over the Red Cedar by Elm Street along with some really big "cottonwood" trees I think they are called, a bit farther up the trail by S Washington Ave that could be quite old. Some of the oaks in Moores Park could have been planted in the teens and 20's could be 100 years old. There are some really big ones there that stand out now that the leafs have dropped. I like to think of us kids in the 60's and even my dad in the 1920's sitting under those same trees waiting in line to go the the pool.
So it would seem that Fenner Arboretum as we called it was pretty new when I went there as a child in the 60's. It was all reforested by then, many trees were identified with little signs. There was a prairie area with Bison and a Prairie Dog colony. I use to wonder how they kept the Prairie dogs from escaping by digging under the fence. The park center building had a cool honey bee exhibit were you could see into the hive through a window, I was always impressed with that as a kid. There is a huge oak tree on one trail that could be quite old it sure is big at any rate!
Does anyone know of an original or "virgin" stand of trees in the southern lower peninsula? I know about Hartwick Pines up north.
Comments
I hope it works out, it'd be great for the mall and for the region to have another live music venue.
I think that if you give the people a little something fun they will show up as witnessed at Silver Bells, so if the new bar which sounds huge, is going to be successful the live music plan is a good one, it will attract people who might not otherwise go to a bar in a mall.
My idea of what I would do downtown is have a really big rink filling the whole flat of Adado Park, maybe a huge oval or an wide oval track with a bonfire in the middle. They can put down almost any shape of ice rink these days. Maybe charge a small fee to help pay for it that plus some corporate sponsors and maybe it would not cost the city too much. Build an ice rink and people will come.
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2015/11/24/lsj-moving-knapps-centre/76263544/
It will be good to get more workers on Washington Ave and fill out more of the Knapps Centre. Maybe a small sandwich shop could open on the ground floor of the LSJ building to provide another food option for those waiting for a bus across the street.
The brew pub sounds really great. Looks like we are going to be a local brewery capital, and in 2016 when they vote in legal marijuana Lansing will be the capital of all good times. I think that Lansing is turning into a really cool place to be.
I have never been inside the LJS building, I do remember being able to see the presses running through the windows. While it is very good that we still have a daily newspaper, since I have returned to Lansing I have found the paper easy to bypass with it's tiny format and USA Today insert. I honestly think if the USA insert was not there I would buy the paper for the local news and sports. I hope the redevelopment of the old building will includes more windows and some nice landscaping. I never knew they cut down a 187 year old tree to build that building.
I think it would be interesting to find and chronicle the largest and oldest trees in Lansing. I am a kind of a tree nut after living in a place where most trees are short little pine trees I find the huge trees of Lansing so amazing. I know that tourist will look at pretty much anything if it is the largest or oldest and find it interesting. I know there are people who would love to go on a big old tree tour of Lansing to see the biggest and oldest of each kind of tree we have here.
The bars are nice but it kind of sucks living in the city when you have to go somewhere else to get the necessities/niceties. I admit I was a bit jaded when they announced another bar/brewery coming to Michigan Ave. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely excited by the developments but we definitely could use a little bit more diversification in them.
@gbinlansing Off the top of my head I know of two noteworthy trees: There's an old catalpa on the Capitol grounds, from Wikipedia: "The oldest tree on the grounds is a catalpa on the southeast lawn present when the Capitol was dedicated in 1873. The American Forestry Association has certified that this catalpa is the largest living tree of its kind in the United States". There's a tree in front of the frat house in the 100 block of Spartan Ave, there's something important about it as the new development there will be built around the tree per concerns the neighborhood brought up.
So it would seem that Fenner Arboretum as we called it was pretty new when I went there as a child in the 60's. It was all reforested by then, many trees were identified with little signs. There was a prairie area with Bison and a Prairie Dog colony. I use to wonder how they kept the Prairie dogs from escaping by digging under the fence. The park center building had a cool honey bee exhibit were you could see into the hive through a window, I was always impressed with that as a kid. There is a huge oak tree on one trail that could be quite old it sure is big at any rate!
Does anyone know of an original or "virgin" stand of trees in the southern lower peninsula? I know about Hartwick Pines up north.
Hartwick Pines State Park - DNR
Hartwick Pines - Wikipedia