Monday, March 21, 2011

A site (visit) to behold

Frat Row: A wide expanse of flat open space in the perfect location, shovel ready

The Amherst Redevelopment Authority met principal vision consultants from American Communities Partnership both formerly at the Planning Department in Town Hall and informally at Judie's--my favorite downtown restaurant--and and then ambled along a site tour (both driving and on foot) of the general area that will someday--hopefully soon--transform the Gateway Corridor leading to UMass.Perhaps Friday was not the perfect day to get an idea of the true nature of the neighborhood as UMass is on Spring break so things were a lot quieter than normal, still the pros from ACP consulting were certainly able to get the physical lay of the land.

The main corridor easiest to define is North Pleasant street running along Frat Row with bookend churches, Mercy House on the southern end close to town center and the First Baptist Church at the northern end just before entering the main campus.

Mercy House Church

First Baptist Church

Stakeholder meetings with all the major players--immediate neighbors, UMass and Town officials, local business leaders, Town Meeting Coordinating Committee, League of Women Voters, etc--will start April 12 and conclude on April 14, setting the agenda for the wide-open interactive public event known as a charrette, now scheduled for April 28,29 and 30.

And since the two churches are well within the Gateway Corridor, one will probably be drafted as a convenient host site.


The Daily Collegian reports
at

22 comments:

  1. everyday's a holidayMarch 21, 2011 at 11:22 AM

    cool now i know which roberts properties to take a dump on

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  2. Larry KelleyMarch 21, 2011 at 2:31 PM

    Yeah, Barry is indeed a visionary (like his dad before him).

    He purchased that piece of property in 1978.

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  3. AnonymousMarch 21, 2011 at 2:32 PM

    what's wrong with wanting to "cash in"?

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  4. bachMarch 21, 2011 at 5:51 PM

    cashing in when you already have substantial holdings is what is wrong with the planet. the global corporations aggregate the wealth and resources and leave pollution starvation and debt slavery in their wake. Roberts is a microcosm of this paradigm. why is it rich people just need more and more?

    ReplyDelete
  5. meMarch 21, 2011 at 6:17 PM

    yeah i can already feel it, here come the "you are jealous of success" comments

    ReplyDelete
  6. Larry KelleyMarch 21, 2011 at 8:55 PM

    You are jealous of success (and a hell of a lot of hard work).

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousMarch 21, 2011 at 9:52 PM

    apparently I am psychic too ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousMarch 22, 2011 at 9:02 AM

    Amherst is a college bedroom community. only a handfull of the population that lives in Amherst actually work for privately owned businesses. As with all other bedroom communities the taxes are higher and there is usually no vision for growth, other than personal growth. We have but a small number of people that have the personal commitment, and financial backing to make any type of development happen. So unless someone has a grand plan on how the town is going to develop anything that will generate cash, then we will need to rely on Mr. Roberts to make it happen. He works hard and aligns himself with opportunities to succeed. If you want anything different to happen then you will need to financially back it and follow it through to the end.

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  9. art connoisseurMarch 22, 2011 at 4:47 PM

    well said, 9:02.

    also worth a mention, the properties Mr. Roberts develops add beauty and function to the community (houses he is refurbishing off main st., amherst cinema building, list goes on) as compared to, and i'm just randomly choosing an example here, some half-assed, ill-conceived rip-off of robert smithson's "spiral jetty", like the one i've seen in cushman village as i drive by (as fast as i can.)

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  10. AnonymousMarch 22, 2011 at 4:53 PM

    Mr. Roberts does not know who I am, but each time I see him around town I say to him as I'm walking by:

    "Thank You Mr. Roberts."

    ReplyDelete
  11. rip off artistMarch 22, 2011 at 8:49 PM

    "rip-off of robert smithson's "spiral jetty"

    like i haven't heard that one before, it was so ill-conceived the damages were happily repeated in mill river rec area and as the class of 56 50th anniversary gift, which is now the centerpiece of the umass flagship.

    i guess if i added some pink plexiglass columns and poison wood that would have appeased you

    zohnnybach.com/files/zzzminuteman_martin.JPG

    i guess the professor emeritus was wrong

    sure throbhurts has done some good in town, but he missed the boat when he forgot about conflict of interest, quantum meruit and unjust enrichment when it came to my case.

    he bold faced lied to me, plain and simple, and cost me 7000 bucks

    ReplyDelete
  12. click hereMarch 22, 2011 at 9:22 PM

    and as far as your art expertise, are your saying that no one in the history of the planet can do another spiral? spirals in stone have been around since before recorded history...so i guess smithson ripped them off ehh? i did mine 30 years after the fact, and not in the middle of a lake where it caused an environmental disaster. his spiral is not even close to mathematically correct, whereas my spirals are. (except the one at umass, since i did not build it. i drew it perfectly, but the contractor botched it royally, just go to the 24th floor to see...they obviously had no clue how to do such a complex layout and failed miserably. the flatwork there is equally dismal...that's what happened when they decided to put the job out to bid instead of hiring me and my crew)

    i have gotten similar bogus critique on my geodesic work, being accused of copying fuller. it is true he developed geodesy, but that is a form of mathematics that expounds on the sacred geometries of the platonic solids. fuller did the math and the constructions. to say someone else can't use the math for new creations is ridiculous...it is pure universal knowledge. i have yet to see any other example of a solid copper 3 frequency icosahedron on a solid brass gimbel axis frame.

    zohnnybach.com/files/paradise_2.JPG

    rejecting art that is inspired by earlier talents is the highest form of ignorance in my view. nothing is really original, it is all derivative.

    i guess i better stop using straight lines, circles and squares now, for fear of being a copycat.

    zohnnybach.com/structures.html

    ReplyDelete
  13. a REAL artistMarch 22, 2011 at 10:28 PM

    slo-o-o-o-w down there buddy.

    i wonder if professor martin thought you would be constantly waving that recommendation around in public, saying "see, see, my professor says i'm good!"

    when did he write that, like 10 years ago? sorta pathetic.

    an artist ought not need a letter from a university professor to convince us that his work is meaningful. know what i mean?

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  14. AnonymousMarch 23, 2011 at 3:40 AM

    let's see....5.5 yrs ago, 7 yrs after said project was installed

    ok, how about dozens of press articles? does that work for you?

    http://zohnnybach.com/pressjfs.html

    have sold over a thousand pieces and been sought after, including by the town (for three years I was hounded by the public arts commission for my ideas before the 250th fraud fiasco) All without a graduate degree from Yale or any rich family connections. guess that still doesn't qualify me as a real artist in your eyes

    hey when some anon calls me a ripoff artist in public I reserve the right to defend myself

    condemnation such as yours is success of the highest order. thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousMarch 23, 2011 at 4:05 AM

    here is a piece I did last year

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFiRw5_T-y0&sns=em

    and an excerpt from an email. the patron is assistant to viacom CEO on times square who discovered me on YouTube after months of searching...in her words:

    "...Nothing has made me happier, besides meeting Gerard (a supreme element of synchronicity and the law of attraction!), as finding you and the beautiful piece of art that resulted from my love for him and my excitement over seeing the expression come alive so perfectly in your work! It was truly divinely inspired, and it's amazing how it all came through us. I feel really blessed!..."

    that piece now resides in Belfast Ireland.

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousMarch 23, 2011 at 4:08 AM

    howzatt work 4 ya?

    ReplyDelete
  17. AnonymousMarch 23, 2011 at 8:09 AM

    I'm no artist or art critic, but I do work for many artists at college level.
    How long have you been doing your sculpture work professionally, and how long did it take to create the New York piece? Just curious as I am thinking on presenting the video to my students. For quality and quantitive value feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  18. johnnybachs blog click hereMarch 23, 2011 at 8:51 AM

    thank you. the crossroads salamander was the first piece I did professionally, it won first place in Amherst public art commission's call for outdoor art. it was supposed to be a year long installation. however, without my prompting the community rallied around it and submitted letters of delight and petition to the select board, who then accepted it as my donation to the town to remain in perpetuity.

    two years later in 2000 I sold my half of my design build firm to my partner, who still operates it today, to the delight of many valley residents. at that time I applied to the paradise city arts festival and other shows, where I began selling my sculpture in earnest.

    the NYC skyline (one of 2 NYC skyline commisions I had last year) took about 60 hrs plus another day creating a crate to ship it to Ireland.

    ReplyDelete
  19. AnonymousMarch 23, 2011 at 11:18 AM

    why is it that the conversation never stays on topic on this blog? it always seems to turn into a forum for sendelbach to try to convince us he has self-worth.

    ReplyDelete
  20. bach's luge had 1000 runsMarch 23, 2011 at 12:22 PM

    any publicity is good publicity

    at least i have the balls to sign my posts

    ReplyDelete
  21. AnonymousMarch 23, 2011 at 8:40 PM

    bach has his own blog but nobody goes there.

    ReplyDelete
  22. AnonymousMarch 23, 2011 at 9:06 PM

    I haven't publicized it and only made one entry. I have a web designer advising me and my blog and website will soon have a new look and functionality

    when it does get out of the gates the Amherst 250th and cardasis and co. will rue the day

    maniacally lol

    Bach

    ReplyDelete