When you are talking to someone unfamiliar with Stamford, and you are trying to put it in context, do you:
A: Shave the travel distance to NYC? I think I told someone 30 minutes last night. That's practically a stop on the 6 train.
B: Exaggerate how often you go down into the city for fun?
The mother of the Stamford blog-world is now actually a mama! Go congratulate StamfordTalk!
He's already rocking a fresh pair of kicks too it seems.
No one better articulates the tragedy of suburban sprawl & the abandonment of traditional notions civic design and architecture than author James Howard Kunstler.
If you enjoy any of his talk below I can't recomend enough his books Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere. His weekly Kunstler Casts are hilarous, rage inducing, and depressing all at once.
Kunstler is a big fan of the small city and believes they will be best positioned to thrive in an economy where the end of cheap oil will drastically shift the way we live and society functions.
Stamford would do well to consider his ideas on "creating a sense of place" as it seeks to reinvent itself.
Is Duo gone & replaced/ rebranded as Thai Chi - asian bistro? My junk mail tells me so...
Forget Springer down the road, Stamford is getting Willy Nelson!
Anyone else notice bankruptcy has helped nudge The Palace Theatre into booking more mainstream acts? Not that Queensryche is mainstream in the American Idol sense, but the Theatre does seem to be mixing more modern music and comedy in with the Opera and Symphony. Willie Nelson (4/14), comedian Stephen Lynch (4/16), Foreigner (5/3), & Third Eye Blind (5/12) are all upcoming.
But BlogStamford, what if I demand the rock tonight? Well then, you have Prabir and the Substitutes tonight at the Rack N Roll as part of The RLP Indie Rock Series. Be there.
This is wild. These are pics from the I-5 Colonnade Mountain Bike Skills Park in Seattle. The park, largely funded and built by local volunteers is a 7.5 acre urban mountain bike course carved into the dead space under the raised freeway. 
Raised urban freeways are often an open wound on a city, cutting a dark, unattractive swath that creates a sometimes real, sometimes perceived barrier between neighborhoods and acts as a magnet for undesirably behavior like drugs and prostitution. The Bike Skills Park drove out that element and set a standard for remaking unused urban space into a unique recreational environment.
I want one.
Our space under I95 is probably too small, although I suppose theirs no rule it has to be under a bridge. Maybe the ball field next to the Skate Park at Scalzi?
Despite the brief reprieve of nice weather over the weekend we are straight back to the rain and drizzle which marks the ass end of winter. With any luck you had a chance to enjoy sometime outside before it subsided.
Sunday I followed half of Stamford to Cove Island Park. As we weaved between walkers, bike riders, soccer players, kite fliers, dog walkers, rollerbladers (or “fruitbooters” a less than endearing term I picked up trolling on StamfordSkatePark.com), and some tiny big wheel badasses I couldn’t help but laugh the chorus of complaints against projects like Mill River Park that even if you build it, no one will come. Its far more of a stretch to think people will not take advantage a well designed & maintained outdoor space, especially one near a good deal of residential housing without the benefit of yards.
A fair question though in tough economic times is to consider the priority of such projects. The Project for Public Spaces blog recently posted a piece making the case that especially in light of the tough economy this is the time to “strengthen the public realm, not eviscerate it”.
Places that serve everyone in the community—parks, libraries, public buildings, markets, plazas, playgrounds, sidewalks and other hang outs—are more important than ever, especially for those who are struggling to get by on shrinking or low incomes. Less money to spend on entertainment and restaurants should not mean that many folks have no place to go, leaving them confined to their houses and apartments.
Looking for something to do in Stamford tonight? The Next
Charity Concert Series rolls on tonight at the Rack N Roll with KaiserCartel. Check it out, I promised CBro I would deliver him 500 heads!
The Rack N Roll has been stepping up efforts to build a live music scene in town. In addition to the monthly Next Concert Series the first Friday of every month at the Rack, there is the The RLP Indie Rock Series running the third Friday every month there as well. Prabir & The Substitutes will come through two weeks on Friday the 20th.
A couple of years ago I was eating in the diner that is now Twenty when a slightly uneasy feeling came over me. I leaned over to my girlfriend and asked her “Is it me or is there an inordinate number of nerds in this diner?” She was quick to scold, but I knew I was right. When we took to the street again I noticed an disproportionate distribution of nerds about town. Determined to find answers I discovered a flyer directing me to their hive, The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament at the Stamford Marriot. I was vaguely familiar from the documentary about the tournament called Wordplay, and curious enough to walk over and wander the floor. That night I rented Wordplay and returned the next day to watch the finals, now fully up to speed on the players and ready to root on poor Al Sanders who has never taken home the gold. The was the last year the tournament was held in Stamford, moving to a larger venue in Brooklyn after the movie increased interest beyond capacity. The event has been nicknamed by the participants since as “Stamford at Brooklyn”.
I was reminded of the event weeks ago in Grand Central when the girl inquired why there was a vampire walking the platform. Before I could even answer another dude behind exclaimed “Hey, it’s Mr. Sinister!” Right away I knew this fat Mexican guy turned X-Men foe was on his way to the Comic Con. I had attended a few days previous for work and debated the merits of the Javits Center hot dogs vs. cheese steaks with several homemade Watchmen. Whether it’s a young lady in crossword pajamas and a crown or a middle aged guy in a leather corset and white face paint, convention space brings some enjoyable color to town, not to mention a giant injection of money into the local economy. Stamford is apparently approved to build a 100,000 convention center by the state but has never moved forward. If only we had a centralized location downtown, unused and partially excavated ready to take such a project…
In the meantime we’ll have to settle for trannies, hillbillies, baby mama drama as Jerry Springer, Maury, and some other hack I’ve never heard of are poised to move their filming to the Rich Forum. My first reaction - “Jerry Springer is still on?” Where do we stand on this, excited to be part of the studio audience or embarrassed that we’re trying to pack as much lowest common denominator TV into city limits as possible?
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