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- From: "Steve Wright" <swright AT townofchapelhill.org>
- To: <chpac-staff AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: [Chpac-staff] CHPAC in the news : 9-11-07
- Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:04:12 -0400
Dear
CHPAC, Linked
and printed below are three articles from today' paper about the TOC opening. -Steve -
Center combines class, conservation By
Beth Velliquette : The Herald-Sun CHAPEL
HILL -- As transit worker Annie Edwards scurried past a long marble bench
outside the new Chapel Hill Transit center, she admitted she had never stopped
to sit and relax there. But
she loves the interior of the building, where bus drivers and others have a
place to relax, eat and exercise between driving assignments. http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-879922.cfm -
Sculpture puzzles bus drivers it honors One
calls the price tag 'a lot excessive' Jesse
James DeConto, Staff Writer CHAPEL
HILL - Bus driver David Demming and his friend John O'Leary stood in front of a
bench Monday, pondering its meaning. Forty
feet long, carved from http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/699912.html -
Opening celebrates transit By:
Alex Kowalski, Staff Writer The
dedication and grand opening of the new Though
employees have worked there since July, the ceremony officially marked the
opening of the $52 million facility that houses the town's transit system and
public works department. Herald Sun: Center combines class,
conservation By Beth Velliquette, The Herald-Sun September 10, 2007 10:30 pm CHAPEL HILL -- As transit worker Annie
Edwards scurried past a long marble bench outside the new Chapel Hill Transit
center, she admitted she had never stopped to sit and relax there. But she loves the interior of the
building, where bus drivers and others have a place to relax, eat and exercise
between driving assignments. On Monday, the Town of The complex located on Edwards said the transit center was a lot
roomier than their old facility off of Martin Luther King Jr., Blvd., where
everyone was jammed in together. "It's a very nice facility, very
nice. We all love the exercise facility," she said. "That's the best
thing ever, and we're taking advantage of it because on the bus you just sit and
sit and sit and you don't have a chance to do much." The lounge area has a bank of windows that
overlooks a covered patio and the woods beyond. During the dedication ceremony, Town
Manager Roger Stancil said some features in the building were meant to show
respect for the more than 300 employees who work in the transit and public
works areas. Down the hallway are a couple of mid-sized
rooms that can be used for training sessions, as well as for community
meetings, and beyond that is the cavernous bus maintenance area, which has
natural light from windows in the roof and garage doors. The building is designed to take advantage
of natural light to conserve energy and to save and reuse water, said Ken
Redfoot, of Corley Redfoot Zack, the architectural firm that designed the
buildings. Windows in the bay doors and windows in
the ceiling allow natural light to flood the area, and the gray floor is also
covered with a special glaze that reflects light, Redfoot said. "I think you can feel it's a lot different
than most maintenance garages," he said. The slope of the roof is designed to catch
and collect rain water, which flows through gutters into underground storage
tanks, Redfoot said. That water then can be used for flushing toilets, washing
buses and for landscaping. Congressman David Price attended the
dedication and commended Price joked about the water saving
features of the buildings. "This assumes that one day we'll have rain
again," he said. The complex construction includes four
large buildings on 54 acres in a 96-acre area. A "sustainablity trail," more
commonly known as a sidewalk, links the transit building to the public works
buildings. At the transit center, artist Larry
Kirkland created a 14-piece sculpture with 12 pieces of white marble from the
same quarry where Michelangelo obtained the marble for his statues, and two
pieces of black African marble. The sculpture, which doubles as a bench,
is entitled "Around the Town." From a distance, the white marble
bench looks a bit like a model of a long submarine. Up close it features black
engravings of various symbols of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the
transit center, including a cardinal, a dogwood flower, a brake pad, (yes, a
brake pad because good brakes are the most important feature of the buses,
according to Kirkland), a big dipper, a church steeple, an ice cream cone and a
coffee cup. The other piece of public art, called
"In our Hands," is located behind one of the public works building.
It also was designed by The bronze items include a garbage can
lid, a paint bucket, a penny, a broom, a hard hat, a gas pump, a cone (as in
the orange cones that line streets when they're under construction), a light
bulb, a water cooler with paper cups, a clipboard with statistics from
Hurricane Fran and a pair of rubber boots, among others. Sections of polished basalt provide
seating. The marble sculpture cost $180,300, and
the rock wall with the bronze images cost $240,300. Sculpture
puzzles bus drivers it honors
One
calls the price tag 'a lot excessive'
CHAPEL HILL - Bus driver David Demming and his friend John O'Leary
stood in front of a bench Monday, pondering its meaning. Forty
feet long, carved from The bench
was meant to honor the bus system's employees, most of whom make between
$25,000 and $40,000 a year. "Well,
I've never sat on a half-million-dollar chair before," said O'Leary, who
serves on an advisory board for the bus system. "Try
it out," O'Leary told driver Jessie Cameron as he passed. "Get your
money's worth." Cameron
kept walking. The bench
and wall by sculptor Larry Kirkland were paid for with 1 percent of the
projected cost of the new $52 million home of the public works and transit
departments, which the town dedicated Monday. The town allots 1 percent of new
projects' budgets to public art. Overall,
the bus system employees like their new 50,000-square-foot operations and
maintenance building, complete with a kitchen, dining room, sleeping area and
exercise room. "We
came from a hog pen to the White House," said Akalema Pherribo, a driver
of three years. "All
that's missing is the swimming pool," driver Lionel Utley added. The
marble bench, though, had just about everyone puzzled. "Along
the length of the bench, the back shifts sides, suggesting that a participant,
like a bus passenger, can look out into nature when facing one direction, or to
the populated community from the other," according to the city's
description of the work. "The top of the seat back is a sculpted
undulating elevation that references the rolling topography of the Piedmont and
the communities of There are
pieces of black granite on the ends meant to recall big bus tires, and images
of "objects that confirm the work of Chapel Hill Transit such as
mechanical parts of a bus." Employees
said that at the least it needs a shade to protect people from the sun. "That's
art?" veteran bus driver Barbara Doakes asked, shaking her head. "I
wouldn't have imagined somebody spending that much money for something like
that. That's a little excessive. No, that's a lot excessive." Demming,
a bus driver of 28 years, said most employees feel the same way, but not he. "It's
neat that you can put modern art down in the midst of blue collar
workers," he said. "It's not always done." Mechanic
Keith Bowden likes the artwork, but he said he could have thought of a better
tribute. "I would've put more into the employees' pockets," he said. Town
employees got a 4 percent raise this year. Dick
Robinson, the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission chairman, said the money
wouldn't have gone very far in raising pay for more than 600 town employees. "We're
not talking about grand sums, usually," he said. "This is the
exception." Opening
celebrates transit
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- [Chpac-staff] CHPAC in the news : 9-11-07, Steve Wright, 09/11/2007
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