The deck of the Wickenden Street overpass is disappearing and it feels much lighter now. (Um, is this guy using a camera or . . . looking through binoculars?) More views after the jump.

more »

I laundered some materials through GCPVD earlier this week, which Jef has kindly posted in a comprehensible format. The bridge will be built in a couple of years, on the piers on which the old 195 crosses the river. Jef’s posted some official proposals here. And has a second thread on various pedestrian bridge designs from around the universe.

Demolition of the Wickenden Street overpass starts tonight at 6:30pm. RIDOT has indicated that the noisy jackhammer portion of the program will cease at a reasonable time in the evening so nearby residents can go nawny. A profile of artist Brent Bachelder, who began the now famous murals in 1997, appears in the Sunday ProJo. How many hours have I spent contemplating these images waiting for the light to change? Bachelder remains philosophical about the impending demise of his works.

“My friends and I always joked, even years ago, that we’re going to sit there with champagne and make toasts,” then gather pieces of rubble for souvenirs, the way people collected pieces of the Berlin Wall.

“It would be pretty cool to get a piece of rubble that had, like, an eye or something on it,” Bachelder said.

The East Side Creamery on Ives Street has several things going for it; a neon sign, Allie’s donuts fresh daily, a weiner machine. But this vintage fountain cabinet is the showpiece. The item comes from the old Woonsocket Woolworth’s which had purchased it in 1952. When Creamery proprietor, Joe Sousa, set up shop five months ago he just couldn’t resist the gleaming, stainless surfaces with its subtle deco detailing. He is so in love with this piece that he removed one of the heavy porcelain inserts for me to heft. It was substantial, and a testament to the way things used to be crafted even when they didn’t show. Smooth pump action on the syrup dispenser as well.

East Side Creamery, 170 Ives Street

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Lisa Perez’s current exhibit, still even now, at the 5 Traverse Gallery is a meditative study in being and nothingness. The exhibit consists of small sculptural installations made of paper and wood. Her designs are poetic. They simplify the physical world without belittling it. Her best pieces are simultaneously microscopic and macroscopic. Organic grids and delicate squares cast shadows onto the gallery walls. These shadows define the physicality of each piece and in doing so aestheticize them. Yes, defined and aestheticized by shadows, which is to say defined and aestheticized by death and/or nothingness. Death is indeed the mother of all beauty, and thus the exhibit poses Heidegger’s famous question (paraphrased by Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane over the Sea”): Why is there something rather than nothing? How strange it is.

Perez responds to the question with an elegant boldness. Her perspective is multifarious, but she does not reduce the physical world to chicken-shit relativism. Her answer is this — there is neither nothing nor something (triple negative?). There is everything and it happens all at once, from every angle, from every standpoint. (More after jump.)

5 Traverse Gallery, exhibit runs through November 22, 5 Traverse Street

more »

This Thursday evening, the Fox Point Community Garden - which we started 4(!) years ago now - will hold its annual fundraiser and potluck and auction and concert and hoe-down. It’s at the Portuguese Social Club, 32 Sheldon St, from 6-9. Bring some food and/or a small (or generous) donation.

Some of the auction items are after the jump: more »

Only a few hours left today, and then tomorrow is the final day of the excellent exhibitions at 5 Traverse Gallery. Artist David Barnes (this work is oil on aluminum) takes images familiar to us from the world news and renders them unfamiliar and gloomy with livid, acidy tones.  In the next room is Cypheromantic, an installation by Michael Bizon who used found objects from the Olneyville area, including a wall of sound (picture after the jump) he constructed using speakers from an abandoned school. Talk about the shock of the familiar. (The show was reviewed here when it opened.)

Come meet David Barnes on Sunday between 2pm and 4pm.

Sunday last day of show, noon to 6pm, 5 Traverse Street more »

Per an incredibly enthusiastic email from Friends of India Point Park:

Dear Friends of India Point Park, come join in fun community events in and around the Park this weekend!

• SATURDAY MORNING, May 9: Cape Verdean Parade!

Carnival, capoeira, & drummers! All are welcome, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the St. Antonio Association, RI’s first Cape Verdean beneficient organization.

Assemble at 10am. Parade starts behind Vartan Gregarian School, East & Wickenden Streets & will proceed to the War Memorial on South Main St.

EXHIBIT: Remembering the Old Days: Cape Verdean Community in Fox Point, Brown student exhibition opens 1pm, Saturday, at John Nicholas Brown Center, 357 Benefit St.. Free & open to the public Monday-Friday, 1-4pm

• SATURDAY AFTERNOON, May 9: Community Boating Center Open House!

Food, fun & free sailing! All are welcome! CBC invites sailors and non-sailors to help kick off the 2009 season. $5 suggested donation to benefit CBC youth sailing.

1-4pm, Community Boating Center, India Point Park, 109 India Street

more »

Thanks to the ProJo for sending a real food writer — Gail Ciampa, not Michael Janusonis — over to United BBQ on Ives Street and reminding me that it is right there… within walking distance… maybe even in the snow.  Everything sounds real good — from the pulled pork (Matthew, that’s pork butt)  to the homemade desserts. You could eat pretty cheap there and it’s BYOB. Some vegetarian items are available and their waste oils are recycled by Newport Bio-Diesel for home heating fuel. (Will it make your house smell like butt?)

United BBQ, 146 Ives Street, 11am to 11pm, 751-9000, no highchairs (awesome!)

The board of the library will be meeting at noon today to discuss the fact that they have less than two weeks to decide how they’re going to keep themselves afloat.  By contract, they only have until the 31st to approve a plan for a “sustainable system.”

Since the economy is collapsing around us, it might not be that surprising that lots of people are rediscovering public libraries as a free means of entertainment, but if the PPL gets their way many city residents will be out of luck.  The sustainability plan includes closing four neighborhood libraries (in Smith Hill, Olneyville, Fox Point and Wanskuck) as well as keeping Washington Park from ever reopening, even though the city just renovated it and people in the neighborhood regularly protest about it.  So if you’re one of the many, many transportation-deprived kids or elderly people in those neighborhoods, you might be out of luck come the next fiscal year.

The board meetings are open to the public and take place on the third floor of the central library (on Empire Street).  Hopefully some people will show up to let the library know that closing branches is lame and that they could, I don’t know, maybe try fundraising at some point.

Stacey and Louis invite everyone over to The Knight Gallery in Fox Point for a holiday party. You might even be able to get some gift shopping done.

6pm to whenever, Friday, Knight Gallery, 170 Ives Street, 654.4747

The Ives St renaissance continues with the opening United BBQ — 3 years in the making, and I don’t think proprietor Claude Goldstein will take offense at the admission that some of us weren’t sure this day would ever come. Best BBQ seitan I’ve ever had, among the many vegetarian options. (Properly filing us veggies away in the ‘weirdo’ corner of the menu.)

Here at United BBQ we are making our own history, starting now. Our goal is to bring you authentic, pit-smoked barbecue using the freshest, quality ingredients available. We want to unite your taste buds with some great barbecue!

We use green packaging options and local produce whenever we can. We offer a selection of vegetarian meat alternatives and sides. All of our waste oils are recycled by Newport Bio-Diesel for use as home heating fuel.

It all gets me jazzed up for Claude’s next venture, the re-opening of Babe’s on Wickenden, as Abe’s, I believe.

Fox Point Community Garden Harvest Party & Fundraiser:

Thursday, November 13, 6-9pm

At the Portuguese Social Club (2nd Fl)
32 Sheldon Street (at Traverse St)

Plenty of parking on the street or in the Holy Rosary Church parking lots behind Adler’s.

• Music by the K.C. Moaners (It’s National Jug Band Month!)
• Delicious Food and Cash Bar (Dinner will be provided by our gardeners!)
• Raffle (unusual items from our eclectic group)
• New Foxpoint Community Garden T-shirts available ~ while they last ~ come early

Suggested Donation $10 ~ Children $5

All proceeds help to support our garden ~ come help us raise funds for next season! For more information, contact foxpoint.garden@gmail.com

No sooner had Nikola Tesla invented the oscillator than Mrs. T. had an idea of her own.  This 1890 vibrator can be seen on display in the window of a new store (Mister Sister) on Wickenden Street (where the old Miko used to be).

Today’s July 1st, which marks the beginning of a new fiscal year at the library.  What that means exactly is sort of up for debate; last year library administrators said they wanted a written contract with the city about what services they’d be providing, but then they spent the whole year refusing to agree to anything.

If they don’t sign an agreement soon, the backup plan is to close five branches, in Smith Hill and Olneyville and Wanskuck and Elmwood and Fox Point.  And that’s not counting the Washington Park library, the closed branch that the city just spent Lord knows how much money on, adding a new roof and cleaning out ten years’ worth of mold and dead pigeons; the library administration, for whatever crazy reason, is refusing to reopen the branch, preferring to keep limited services in half of the old Benny’s down the street.

Also very vulnerable is the Fox Point branch, which is the only one of the (open) libraries currently operating on a lease.  The building, on the corner of Wickenden and Ives, isn’t in the best shape–it’s dark and unattractive and not accessible to the handicapped and if anybody tested the air they’d probably find something unsafe about it–but it’s a vital part of the neighborhood, staffed by knowledgeable and friendly people, and it would be a shame if the library decided not to renew their lease without making alternate plans for all the kids, families and senior citizens that use the branch every day.

Projo pro Mike Stanton brings us some pretty cool news in the Journal today about the Community Boating Center at India Point Park, a “non-profit public access sailing program…held together by volunteers and charitable donations, elbow grease and heart.” Elbow grease you can get at Lowes, heart, not sure where to find that. (Projo)