Headlines
GE sign spiffed up
Landmark on Broadway draped in scaffolding during work
Link (NS)
“The iconic GE sign atop the huge General Electric complex on Broadway near Taylor Street is covered by scaffolding. But it’s only temporary.
GE is giving the lighted sign a little help. The sign has brightened the nighttime sky since the late 1920s, and the company will weatherproof and strengthen it over the next six weeks, said Matthew Conkrite, communications manager for GE Energy Industrial.
The complex once employed more than 10,000 people in the 1940s. The company has about 200 employees working at the facility today, according to Conkrite.”
HAVE THE TINCAPS HELPED DOWNTOWN BUSINESS?
Link (INC)
“Across town at 816 Pint and Slice, business is booming at the corner eatery. Just ask operating partner Angie Twiss.
“Before the games we get a much bigger dinner crowd then we were getting pre-season. A lot of people have never seen or heard of us before and they’ll come through anyhow,” said Twiss.
Pint and Slice management made the decision to open on Sunday during game season to bring in customers. It’s a trend that many restaurant owners are trying this season.
“People come in here for dinner, have a couple of drinks, go over to the game then come back for a little more,” said Jeff Salamone, owner of the Thirsty Camel.
Salamone says he doesn’t normally open on Monday’s. but fires up the grill during Monday games.”
Downtown Improvement District weighs both sides of closing street for bakery
Link (NS)
“Members of the Downtown Improvement District’s board found themselves in unfamiliar territory Tuesday, questioning the expansion of a business in the area they are supposed to promote.
Although the board neither opposed nor supported Aunt Millie’s Bakeries’ proposed closure of Pearl Street to provide more room for delivery trucks, members did create a committee to study whether a plan to benefit one downtown business might create a problem for others.”
[...]
“City Deputy of Development Greg Leatherman questioned whether the company had explored all other options before asking City Council to close Pearl Street, which handles about 1,000 vehicles per day, and whether a trained traffic engineer had been used to develop its plan, which would install 10 bays along Pearl, converting part of the street and adjacent parking lot into a loading dock.”
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church obtains grant, mulls property purchase
Link (NS)
“St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 1126 Barr St., received approval Monday for a Brownfield Grant from the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission to investigate potential uses and remediation for property at 302 E. Jefferson Blvd.
The building on the downtown land was the former site of U.S. Health Works and includes an adjacent parking lot, all just north of the church. The grant is for 80 percent of the investigative costs or a maximum of $20,000, said Greg Leatherman, director of the Redevelopment Commission.
“The parking lot is the main thing we’re interested in,” said David Rish, property trustee for St. Paul’s, which has an agreement to buy the property based on 10 to 12 contingencies.”
Council OKs deal for Rivergreenway extension
Link (NS)
“The council gave the OK for approval of a $615,000 contract with the Indiana Department of Transportation for work on extension of the Rivergreenway from Johnny Appleseed Park to Shoaff Park. The first phase, at a cost of $375,000, will take pedestrians and bicyclists from Johnny Appleseed to IPFW, said Dawn Ritchie, greenway manager.
Councilman Tim Pape asked if sufficient evidence exists that the Rivergreenway is used. Ritchie said five trail counter systems will be placed soon along stretches of existing paths to collect just such data. Plans also call for increased marketing of the greenway in the near future, she said.
Among the advantages of this new stretch of the greenway is that for the first time, IPFW students, on foot or bicycle, can get into the central city easily, said Councilman John Shoaff.”
I hope this is not the case, but am I reading that the city gave a grant to a Church to investigate whether it wants to obtain a parking lot ?
The photo of the GE sign is beautiful. The sign is one of my longest-standing memories of the city from when I was about seven years old, maybe even younger, and my dad worked there. I worked at GE 1958-1962 and again 1967-1988, and the last five years were in an office on the top floor of that building.
A little exploration led me to a stairway that was never locked and that led to one of the rooftop monitors. Whenever I needed to take a break to avoid committing violence on the job, I’d go up on the roof and take in the view; it served to remind me that there was a world outside the office, where some semblance of rationality existed.
The structure directly beneath the monitor, in addition to housing the lift machinery for one of the giant freight elevators, contains the control mechanism for the sign. In the original setup a small gear motor drove a shaft with cams for each of the letters and for segments of the GE “meatball.” The cams operated switches that in turn activated relays to light the letters and segments, and the connections could be configured in various ways to turn letters and segments on and off sequentially or simultaneously, or to make them flash.
The sign is lit with marquee bulbs, and every year at Christmastime GE would exchange all the bulbs for red ones and green ones. To work up on that scaffold in winter winds must have been challenging. The red-and-green GE sign had equal standing with the W&D Santa and carols from the Lincoln Tower as a cherished Fort Wayne tradition, and could be seen over a very large part of what then constituted the city.