City adopts new motto, Don’t Look Up, upon completing Second Street beautification
What do you do if you’re the City of Charlottesville and there’s a hulking, haunting, skeletal symbol of economic doom smack in the center of your pride and joy (and tourist engine), the Downtown Mall?
You put in some planters.
Planters make things nice; planters show that things are under control. Right to the very edge of the unfinished, windswept Landmark Hotel you will go, with your bricks, your low walls, your Grade-A design. There will be flowers and there will be order. George and Wilma from Oklahoma City will be so charmed by this evidence of civic energy that they will not even notice what looms overhead—a massive failure of private capital to accomplish what it had promised, manifested in what is indeed a landmark but is not remotely, unless you are a pigeon, a hotel.
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Al Groh makes more money losing a job than most of us can make in a century of working
Need $4.3 million? You have two choices if you live in Charlottesville: Work for 100 years at the median income of $42,948 or suck so bad at your job that the boss will pay you that much just to get rid of you. UVA’s former head football coach, Al Groh, took the second option last fall. And while his team’s 3-9 performance drove attendance to an embarrassing low, the onetime NFL coach pulled a fast one that would make even David Blaine pause: He turned a steaming pile of dung into a miles-high stack of gold.
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Robert Redd’s pocket square, the nationally recognized must-have accessory for amateur conjurers
Working on a few illusions of your own? May we suggest waving this little number over your magic hat? The stylish swath of double-ply imported cotton that comes in 23 distinctive styles from Robert Redd, a Charlottesville-based menswear purveyor, has already aided in a few neat tricks in the pages of the national media. To wit, the 12.25"x12.25" pocket square earned a spot in the February issue of GQ as an essential for spring. Magic? We leave that judgment up to you.
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Tim Kaine pulls off a smoking ban in a political high-wire act that pleases Virginia lungs
How did he do it? In a state that’s been exporting tobacco since 1614, former Governor Tim Kaine somehow managed to instate a ban on smoking in restaurants. The Guv signed the legislation in March 2009 and it went into effect that December, making for the first smoke-free New Year’s Eve in Virginia in almost four centuries.
Now, there are loopholes for those who simply must light up (and the restaurants who’d like their business). But most of the state’s restaurant tables are now sans ashtrays—starting with Hamiltons’ at First & Main, right here in Charlottesville. That’s where Kaine kicked off his “Breathe Easy” tour December 1 to promote the new law.
Of course there were critics. Richmond-based Philip Morris professed to worry about the costs to small businesses, and small-government groups cried “nanny state.” But Kaine said Virginians were ready for the change, wrangled bipartisan backing for his ban, and got it passed fair and square. Take a nice deep breath, and color us impressed.