Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

OAKLAND -- Protesters tore down fencing Saturday at two plazas that had been scheduled for renovation, calling the action a "liberation" of public space.

The group used bolt cutters to remove the chain-link fences around St. Andrews Plaza on San Pablo Avenue at 32nd Street, and Bishop Floyd L. Begin Plaza at San Pablo and 22nd Street, where someone spray-painted "no fences, no walls, no borders."

The plazas, located in West Oakland, have been longtime haunts for local residents and the homeless and the subject of complaints by residents upset over drug use and public intoxication.

Fence torn down at plaza at 22nd at MLK and San Pablo Ave. (David DeBolt)

Fences were put up as recently as Thursday at St. Andrews Plaza to prepare for grant-funded renovation projects, city leaders said. By noon Saturday, locals were back at the San Pablo Avenue plaza, where a man who identified himself as David cut hair with clippers for $5 a cut, using a toothbrush as a comb, while members of New Hope Baptist Church handed out spaghetti and salad meals as they do every Saturday.

"I never seen anyone (from the city) come out here and talk to the community," said David, who refused to give his last name. "To me, this is my park. 'Bout time someone stood up."

Oakland Public Works Agency spokeswoman Kristine Shaff said the fences will be replaced.

"We are constantly trying to balance all these needs and wishes and wants and styles, and it's really tricky," said Shaff, referencing Oakland's diverse community. "We have our fair share of conflict or where we come up against one another, differences of opinion.

"We don't always get it right the first time. We keep trying."

David DeBolt covers breaking news. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt.

Read the original post:
Oakland: Protesters tear down fences at plazas slated for renovation

By Rick Snider December 22 at 8:00 AM

Robert Griffin III was probably looking for a second chance over this upcoming offseason. Instead, he found it on Saturday.

The Redskins quarterback won his first game in which he started and finished in 13 months a last-second 27-24 victory over the Eagles. He silenced the large contingent of Eagles fans at FedEx Field and won over the remaining Redskins die-hards that made up maybe half of the small crowd.

After throwing two 50-yard strikes to receiver DeSean Jackson and leading a late rally, Griffin isnt going anywhere after the season finale against Dallas on Sunday.

Coach Jay Gruden, who criticized Griffin often in recent weeks and seemingly wanted Colt McCoy as his 2015 starter, finally praised Griffin for completing 16 of 23 passes for 220 yards and an 81.8 quarterback rating. Gruden termed the passers play as outstanding, excellent and great during the postgame news conference. Thats high praise from Gruden, whose earlier frank criticism drew national attention.

Its a great opportunity for Robert to re-establish himself as leader of this team, said Gruden of Griffin finishing strong.

Meanwhile, Griffin did his own posturing after the win, twice saying he didnt want to play anywhere else.

I wouldnt want to play with any other players, he said. These guys mean a lot to me. A lot of guys in the locker room told me that everything I have personally been through this year, it was big for me to go out there and play like I did and help lead this team to a victory. I would say to them, without them I wouldnt be able to do it.

Certainly, it has been a tough season for Griffin. He missed six weeks after dislocating his ankle in the second game of the year and was later benched after two poor outings. If a neck injury hadnt forced McCoy to leave against the Giants on Dec. 14, Griffin might not have played again this season.

But Griffin now looks like the 2015 starter even if Gruden makes him earn it next summer. With the front office backing Griffin, it seemed a showdown between the coach and passer would come after seasons end. Instead, a victory eases pressure on their suburban street where Gruden and Griffin live a goalpost apart.

Go here to see the original:
Redskins win goes a long way in mending fences

Demolition of Course Ore Stockpile Gantry Structures
The demolition took place on the 24/05/12 with teams working 24 hours a day for 10 days. This structure was located in Western Australia and used for iron or stockpiling.

By: Precision Demolition

Read the original post:
Demolition of Course Ore Stockpile Gantry Structures - Video

BlueStar Ferry docking in Port Rhodos in stormy weather with rope demolition
Difficult docking procedure 08.11.2014 in Port of Rhodos in rough sea of the Blue Star 2 Ferry coming from Pireas. Die Fhre aus Pirus versucht im Hafen von Rhodos bei hohen Wellen anzulegen....

By: Schwarz Schartel Bioland-Produkte Naturkost

Continued here:
BlueStar Ferry docking in Port Rhodos in stormy weather with rope demolition - Video

Council starts to show interest in citizens group proposals

The City Council got a lesson in effective community organizing last Thursday.

That was when a grassroots group, which came together this past summer, presented a powerful case that Portlanders across the city are angry about the increasing number of residential demolitions and infill projects.

The hearing is tentatively set to continue on Jan. 20, when it could become the second big controversy of 2015 after the street fee.

The group calls itself United Neighborhoods for Reform. It includes activists, members of dozens of official neighborhood organizations, and members of preservation organizations. They want the council to appoint a task force to study such controversies as the replacement of small, older homes with one or more larger ones.

This whole issue was off the radar just a couple of years ago, said UNR co-founder Alan Ellis, a former president of the Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Association. Then all of a sudden, we started getting phone calls and emails, and people started coming to our meetings saying we need to do something about this.

The discussions resulted in three demolition summits held over the summer where the UNR was formed and its members agreed to ask the council to appoint the task force. The request was made in a way that could serve as a model for groups wanting to get the councils attention in the future, even during the hectic holiday season.

Planning ahead, the UNR maximized its use of the standard council procedure that allows three people to come up to a table and testify on an issue for no more than three minutes each. This frequently produces conflicting and completely random back-to-back remarks. But the UNR testimony was organized into panels that spoke on specific problems within the larger issue. Some focused on hazardous materials in the homes being demolished, while others talked about the loss of affordable housing, the need to identify and preserve historic structures, and the environmental benefits of encouraging the deconstruction of houses instead of demolition.

The witnesses didnt just talk. One panel pooled its time to present a video slide show titled Demolishing Portland: A Gallery of Lost History. It featured before and after pictures of mostly small, old homes and the much larger new ones that replace them. The contrast was frequently jarring, even though some of the new homes seemed well designed and built. It was accompanied by an acoustic protest song written by Bill Deene when 23 people were arrested trying to stop the replacement of older houses on Northwest Overton and Pettygrove streets with row houses.

The presentation all but hijacked the original purpose of the hearing, consideration of a series of recommendations to provide more public notice and delay on pending demolitions. It was prepared by the Development Review Advisory Committee, an appointed body that consults with the Bureau of Development Services, which issues demolition, remodeling and construction permits. Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who oversees BDS, had asked DRAC to study the issue and recommend any changes by the end of the year.

More:
Demolition, infill foes gather steam

Tin Ceiling Installation | Brooklyn, NY Abingdon Construction
If you need tin ceiling installation in Brooklyn, rely on Abingdon Construction. Call us at 718-819-9972 or visit our website at http://www.abingdonconstruct...

By: abingdonconstruction

Read more:
Tin Ceiling Installation | Brooklyn, NY Abingdon Construction - Video

So much music is implied by the visual artsthat it's no wonder cutting-edge installations include an essential musical element composed or compiled from preexisting pieces for the occasion.

Audiences are galvanized by the special-event status. Museums and musicians find audiences that don't typically come their way. Is this a brave new niche in the performance world?

We're not talking about the Philadelphia Museum of Art's "Art After 5" concert series. Or music that's a last-minute accompaniment to something that's pretty much finished. Conceptually, this recent wrinkle crosses a few extra bridges: The three near-daily performances of David Lang's Lifespan at the Philadelphia's Fabric Workshop and Museum through April 4 have three singers from the Crossing choir breathing and whistling to a four billion-year-old rock that's said to predate life of any sort.

More expansive in scope is New York City's forward-looking Park Avenue Armory, where pianist Helene Grimaud, typically a concerto soloist at the Kimmel and Mann centers, played near-daily hour-long solo recitals amid water in a flooded drill hall, with all manner of meditative lighting effects. Conceived by visual artist Douglas Gordon and Grimaud over two years, tears become . . . streams become . . . is on display at the Armory through Jan. 4 (sans Grimaud, who has been replaced by a player piano with moving keys but no sound).

If nothing else, installations address the challenge of translating serious music events to the visual age. The San Francisco Symphony's recently opened SoundBox venue is equipped with atmospheric effects that can accommodate installation artists in a high-concept nightclubbish atmosphere. The Kimmel Center's SEI Innovation Studio, which just hosted an immersive performance of Terry Riley's In C with artwork projected onto the walls, is headed in similar, medium-fusing directions.

The biggest barrier is going down the rabbit hole with the conceptual artist.

Classical-music audiences are used to having everything spelled out for them, often while renewing their acquaintance with Beethoven symphonies or hearing new works with roots in the past. But if gallery-goers are asked to apprehend something so obvious, the artist is laughed out of the room. Installations are environments where individual components don't add up - in an experience that may be too personal to articulate. This is an inner journey without a designated destination.

It's a hugely different playing field. At the Fabric Workshop and Museum (where an audience of 20 is considered large), are those who giggle at the singers missing the point? Or seeing the situation in the cold light of day? At the Armory, those who paid $90 a ticket only to hear an extremely attractive but one-hour Grimaud recital - taking place in a very large puddle - may leave disappointed.

At the Grimaud performance I caught recently, I had to give up any sense of what comes next. The first half-hour at the Park Avenue Armory was spent watching water bubble up from holes in the floor in various evocative shapes, but at such a gradual pace that I felt under-stimulated. Grimaud, who made her way to the piano wearing Doc Martens, performed a preset program, but with unfamiliar works such as Luciano Berio's Wasser Klavier and Toru Takemitsu's Rain Tree Sketch II, you didn't always know whether she was playing the music in its preestablished order, or when one piece stopped and another began. I loved that.

Read more:
The new sound of art brings music to cutting-edge installations

Air Duct Cleaning Salt Lake City Utah - Utah Duct Cleaning
http://www.utahductcleaning.com/ Duct cleaning is often overlooked. If you don #39;t see it, it is hard to remember they need cleaning. Think of air ducts as the...

By: Utah Duct Cleaning

Read more here:
Air Duct Cleaning Salt Lake City Utah - Utah Duct Cleaning - Video

Air Duct Cleaning Salt Lake City Utah
http://www.utahairductcleaning.com/ Air ducts are the lungs for your home. Ignoring the air duct cleaning process can be bad for your home and your health. D...

By: Utah Air Duct Cleaning

View post:
Air Duct Cleaning Salt Lake City Utah - Video

Wild Ridge Golf Course Landscape Project
Design installation of large modular block retaining wall system, sprinkler system, planting beds, plantings, sod installation, lawn installation, and pati...

By: Green Oasis

See the original post here:
Wild Ridge Golf Course Landscape Project - Video