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Any farm, really any farmright up to the most iconic Bluegrass nurserieswould have been proud to have two juveniles as accomplished as Rattle N Roll (Connect) and Electric Ride (Daredevil) heading towards the Breeders' Cup. And for both to have meanwhile dropped out, in wildly contrasting circumstances, would only have reiterated the odds to be overcome by even the most lavishly resourced operations. Rattle N Roll, winner of the GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity, can regroup next year after a minor foot issue ruled him out of the GI TVG Breeders' Cup Juvenile; tragically there is no such comfort regarding Electric Ride, the GII Chandelier S. runner-up, following her freak loss (reportedly to an anaphylactic shock) a couple of weeks ago.

Incredibly, however, the farm that bred both still retains, not one, but two unbeaten contenders for Friday's 2-year-old card at Del Mar. Hidden Connection (Connect), nine-length winner of the GIII Pocahontas S., looks formidable in the GI Netjets Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, while One Timer (Trappe Shot) heads for the GII Juvenile Turf Sprint off a 12-length maiden win and two stakes scores. A banner achievement for any breeder. Impossible, then, to give adequate credit to St. Simon Place, whose scale of operation can be judged from the aggregate cost of the mares responsible for these four youngsters.

Tommy Wente, the man responsible, quickly does the math.

Out of the four mares, you know, I think it's less than $34,000 I got tied up in them altogether, he says.

Actually, it's $32,400.

Wente telephoned his friend Tommy Eastham of Legacy Bloodstock after One Timer won at Santa Anita and Electric Ride ran second in the Chandelier on the same card.

I just want to know, Tommy, Wente said to his namesake. Is this luck, or am I doing something right?

Well, when Hidden Connection won the other day, I guess I might have said a little luck, replied Eastham. But after these two here? You've got be doing something right.

Then, when Rattle N Roll won his Grade I a few days later, Eastham called again. Man, whatever you're doingjust keep doing it!

So what's the secret? When you think about the fortunes being spent by others, it feels like a pretty big question.

Everybody asks me that! says Wente, who runs the breeding division of St. Simon while partners Calvin and Shane Crain concentrate on a parallel sod-growing business. I'm known for going in there and buying cheap horses. But they're not really cheap horses, in my eyes. For me, they're very well-bred horses that come from very good farms. Okay, so they've been culled: this one's got a bad knee, this one's a little sore, this one needs more leg. But that's what I look for, because I can't buy mares that are perfect.

So I look for the kind I can breed to something that can fix them. I see whether I can breed [any issues] out of them, and can get me something on the ground that I can sell. But that's what makes it even more amazing to us, everything that's been happening. Because often you can get by with those kinds of mares if you're racing their babies. But we sell [nearly] everything.

One observable trait, consistent with accepting perceived flaws to meet the budget, is that all four of these mares were very lightly raced. But the real key is to find a filly out of a young mare who has been given a chance with good covers and, ideally, has already achieved prices suggestive of good physicals.

That way I can just sit back on them, Wente reasons. I can let the family grow for a few years.

A perfect example of the modus operandi is One Timer's dam Spanish Star (Blame), picked up for just $1,500 at Keeneland November four years ago.

I knew where she was raised, I knew the owner Tracy Farmer, I knew they did it right, Wente recalls. Okay, she didn't work out on the racetrack, but she was the first foal of a mare that had some stuff going, she had a son by Awesome Again in work. And that turned out to be Sir Winston. A year later he wins the Belmont and, bam, I can sell the half-sister [privately] for $150,000.

Now Wente is hoping to close out the exploding value of a couple of other diamonds found in the rough, with the dams of Hidden Connection and Rattle N Roll both scheduled to enter the ring next week.

C J's Gal (Awesome Again) was discovered at the Keeneland January Sale of 2016, having derailed after a single start. Wente knew that the big spenders would literally overlook her, being on the small side, and landed her for $9,500. Her first foal, a Tourist filly, made $70,000.

So from there, Wente says, we're free-riding.

Okay, so her second foal was a $49,000 RNA weanling who was ultimately let go for $40,000 the following September. But at least that meant Hidden Connection could benefit from the farm regime for another few monthsand that, to be fair, could be as important as any other ingredient in St. Simon's success.

I try to raise a great product, Wente says. I love my feeding program, I love how we wean them. And I don't put horses in a barn. Our horses are outside 24/7, raised in herds of, like, 10. And if they get kicked, they get kicked. If they get snotty noses, they get snotty noses. You know, to me, that's what makes them tough. You have to let them go through all that stuff. In my opinion, we give them too much medicine; we baby them too much. I think we get caught up, with so much money tied up in them, wanting to protect them. 'He's limping today, he doesn't feel too good, better get him inside.' No. Let that horse be a horse, let him figure it out.

C J's Gal is offered as hip 148 (with a Frosted cover) at Fasig-Tipton; while Jazz Tune (Johannesburg) is catalogued as hip 222, in foal to Liam's Map, at Keeneland. Wente picked her up, a $20,000 apple from the tree cultivated by the late Edward P. Evans, at the same sale five years ago. She had won a Parx maiden (though in another light career) in the silks of William S. Farish. Jazz Tune has some wonderful old-school seeding to her family, out of a Pleasant Tap half-sister to two Grade I winners (plus another at Grade II level) out of the Northern Dancer blue hen Dance Review.

Mind you, no matter how much you get right, you always need a bit of luck. How fortunate, for instance, that Jazz Tune did not meet her reserve at $55,000 when Wente returned her to Keeneland, with Rattle N Roll in utero, in 2018. But sometimes it just takes a little time to develop value. One Timer, for instance, made no more than $21,000 as a yearling, his sire having meanwhile been exiled to Turkey. While we've already noted how Hidden Connection struggled for traction.

But the yearling Electric Ride brought $130,000 from Quarter Pole Enterprises at Fasig-Tipton October, some yield for an Indiana-bred daughter of a mare, Why Oh You (Yes It's True), bought for $1,400 deep in the same Keeneland November Sale that produced Jazz Tune. Electric Ride advanced her value to $250,000 through Eddie Woods at OBS the following April, while Rattle N Roll proved a still more profitable exercise for his pinhookers. A $55,000 Keeneland November weanling for Rexy Bloodstock, he made $210,000 from Kenny McPeek in the same ring the following September.

No doubt about it, then, a grounding at St. Simon Place is becoming ever more trusted; and its graduates are punching ever more above weight. Wente has now expanded its broodmare band past 40, some owned with another partner in Scott Stevens, and raised around $750,000 from eight yearlings at Keeneland in September, selling as usual through Machmer Hall.

You've got to surround yourself with good people, people willing to help, Wente stresses. Because I have to reach out every day. I couldn't do what I'm doing without Carrie Brogden. She's opened a lot of doors for me, and she's always No 1 about the horses. People like her and [husband] Craig have been there and done it all. If she's says, 'Tommy, you want to pull that horse from the sale,' I'm pulling the horse from the sale. I'm going to take criticism and use it.

That said, the driving principle remains the sweat of his own brow.

At the end of the day, I truly believe that it's the time you put in raising them, he says. It's the cutting the grass, fixing the fenceboards, fixing the water. It's everything together. If you want to be the person who just sits in the house watching TV, letting everybody else do your work, fine. But I do my books, I do my matings, I do my contracts, I do my registrations. I'm as hands-on as I can be.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention and maybe those big farms that find themselves mere bystanders at the Breeders' Cup can learn something from the strategies Wente has adapted to work his budget. Maybe insisting on perfection, on the very best that money can buy, invites its own fragilities. Maybe it's more important to concentrate on connecting with horses, and connecting them with their environment. Nothing, that way, gets in the way of the passion.

Wente first had his imagination captured when visiting the barn of his stepfather, former Hoosier Park trainer Tom Hickman, some 20 years ago. He was captivated. He simply had to have one of these beautiful animals. The one he bought, an Indiana-bred, ran once and showed nothing. Then one night the phone rang.

We had them boarded over there at the old Quarter Horse track, Riverside Downs, in Henderson, Kentucky, Wente recalls. About two o'clock in the morning I had a call from the trainer. They'd had a barn fire, lost all these horses. Of course, my stepdad's horses were in there, my horse was in there. It was the low of the low. My very first horse, lost in a barn fire. But I knew I was hookedbecause the very next day I was looking for another one to buy. And I've been hooked ever since. The highs are high, the lows are low, and there's no in-between. It's the guys that can take those lows, and keep on going, that are going to make it.

So here's one such, who boards the plane for California on Thursday not just flying the flag for a 400-acre parcel of Kentucky, but for every small breeder striving against the perceived odds.

I'm for the little guy, Wente says. I am a little guy. I started out in Indiana, okay. I raised so much crap over there that nobody wanted. And then I've come over here to Kentucky, but I kept the same mindset. I never changed what I did. I just started buying Kentucky stuff, and dealing with Kentucky stuff, the way I did the Indiana stuff. You don't need to have Justify or Tapit. The highest stallion we've used would be $30,000, tops.

So I want the little breeder to know, keep your head down, keep doing what you're doing. People know me as that crazy guy going in there buying horses for $1,000, $2,000. But you know what, there is some kind of method in my madness. I haven't figured it out yet. But there's something going on, right? I've proved you can do it. You can do it, man. If I can do it, anybody can do it.

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Method in the 'Madness' Connecting Star Juveniles - Thoroughbred Daily News

Fair or not, Coras punishment struck Johnson as further evidence of his former shortstops resilience. Life comes with indelible loss: lost innocence, lost loved ones, broken bonds, broken hearts, faulty choices, fractured dreams.

In Coras case, he is a former Boy Scout turned baseball journeyman who carries the lessons of his troubles as a traveling companion, as if they were his means of finding true north in the wilderness without a compass.

People close to Cora say the lessons he learned in his darkest hours, from losing his father as a boy to the humiliation of losing his livelihood in the sign-stealing scandal, helped him emerge from the woods this year and advance to within two wins of the American League pennant and a World Series berth.

His longtime friends as well as major league managers and executives who opened doors for him as a player and manager say those lessons will serve Cora well as he moves on from his near-miss in 2021 and prepares for another title run in 2022.

Alex has bounced back from a lot of different things in his life, and he has learned from those things in ways that keep making him stronger all the time, said Henry Turtle Thomas, who recruited Cora to play at the University of Miami and has remained a friend.

A Red Sox spokesman said Cora was not available to be interviewed for this story. But Cora has made no secret that he has grown from the pain and shame he caused himself, his family, and others who employed him and believed in him.

What really hurt me was for them to suffer because of my mistakes, he said tearfully after the Sox eliminated Tampa Bay in the Division Series.

As Johnson noted, no one disputes that sign stealing has been part of baseball as long as peanuts and Cracker Jack. Many teams have lived by versions of the refrain, If you aint cheating, you aint competing.

Johnson, now 78, managed the New York Mets in the 1986 World Series, which ended with the Red Sox losing Games 6 and 7 at Shea Stadium in one of the most devastating postseason collapses in franchise history, and he said, We knew they were stealing signs in Boston and flashing them on the scoreboard. Everybody knew what was going on because everybody was trying to get that little extra edge on the other guy.

In my estimation, that was never cheating. It was pushing the rulebook as far as you can.

Dwight Evans, who with Marty Barrett was considered the most adept sign stealer for the Sox in the 1980s and figured prominently in the 1986 World Series, said by telephone from Florida that Johnsons assertion is totally false.

We didnt have their signs, said Evans. I wish we did, but we didnt.

Crushing losses

Johnson, whose 86 Mets were described in Jeff Pearlmans 2005 book, The Bad Guys Won!, as the rowdiest team ever to put on a New York uniform, said its not the fault of todays baseball teams that modern technology has opened new frontiers in sign stealing.

The higher the tech, the more you can do, he said. I guarantee you, everybody in the game is trying to get every little edge.

But MLB, having in recent years banned the use of technology to steal signs, has cracked down on the practice, disciplining not only the Astros but the Red Sox and Yankees. In Coras case, he has said he deeply regrets the anguish he caused his 18-year-old daughter, Camila, who like Cora himself was born the child of a widely respected baseball lifer in Puerto Rico.

By now, Coras story is familiar to many. His father, Jose, was a founder of the Little League program in their mountain valley town of Caguas, 20 miles south of San Juan. Jose, also a baseball writer and scout for the San Diego Padres, taught the game to Cora and his older brother, Joey, who at 21 made his major league debut with the Padres in 1987, when Alex was 11.

A year earlier, while Alex was still playing Little League, Jose was diagnosed with colon cancer. Alex entered the sixth grade believing his fathers treatment had defeated the cancer, but Jose succumbed to the disease on Oct. 5, 1989, at the age of 52, when Alex was 13.

In death, Jose Cora remained a guiding light for his sons. Alex, like Joey, who attended Vanderbilt, followed his fathers advice by entering college, the University of Miami, rather than sign with the Minnesota Twins after they selected him in the 12th round of the 1993 draft.

But Miami proved too much for Cora, a mostly Spanish-speaking teenager, unmoored from his family and struggling in English-speaking classes. He soon retreated to Puerto Rico, homesick and all but defeated.

The first thing he did when he went home was try to sign with the Twins, but it wasnt a possibility at that point, said J.D. Arteaga, his Miami teammate and closest college friend, now the universitys pitching coach. Also, Joey wasnt going to allow that to happen. He made sure Alex was on the next flight back to Miami.

Cora returned stronger and wiser, as he would nearly 30 years later after his suspension. A slick-fielding infielder, he quickly established himself as a leader and served as an unofficial player-coach throughout his three years at Miami an experience that culminated in one of the most crushing defeats of his baseball life.

On an unforgiving Nebraska night in the spring of 1996, Cora broke a tie score with a go-ahead single with two outs in the top of the ninth inning in the final game of the College World Series against Louisiana State.

We all thought it was the game-winning RBI, Arteaga recalled.

But Miamis All-American closer, Robbie Morrison, retired the first two batters in the bottom of the ninth, only to surrender a two-run walkoff home run in the last game of Coras collegiate career.

Cora collapsed in the sod, sobbing inconsolably. He was still sobbing when a teammate lifted him from the grass, and still crying, choking on his words, when he addressed the team afterward, expressing love for his teammates, none more than Morrison.

Thats Alex, Arteaga said. Thats how much he cares.

Cora later was enshrined in the schools Hall of Fame.

Alex had that it factor, Thomas said. He wasnt a great hitter and he maybe wasnt the best student in the classroom, but in my 39 years of coaching college baseball, he was the smartest player and the best defender in the infield Ive ever seen.

Manager in the making

Cora was selected in the third round of the 1996 draft by the Dodgers but would have gone higher if not for his bat. He made his way with other skills, the most tangible being his defensive wizardry, the most intangible his baseball intellect.

In 2000, Johnson chose the 24-year-old Cora as his starting shortstop over Mark Grudzielanek, a proven veteran who had hit .326 the previous season.

Alex was short of physical abilities, but when you looked at his makeup and mental approach, he was the kind of player you want to have on your team, Johnson said.

A former major leaguer himself he played 13 seasons as a second baseman, mostly with the Baltimore Orioles Johnson said Cora reminded him of his Hall of Fame teammates Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson in how hard he worked to become the best player he could be.

By the time Coras athleticism ebbed around age 30, he had established the leadership qualities that enabled him to spend the second half of his 14-year career as a valued utility player.

Cora left his mark in Boston by helping the Sox win the 2007 World Series, while mentoring the likes of Dustin Pedroia. Afterward, Cora later told the New York Post, he sat alone in a private room and just started crying, because thats something I would have loved to share with my dad.

Cora was 36 when the St. Louis Cardinals released him in spring training in 2011, ending his playing career. He spent a few years as an ESPN analyst before the Sox managerial job opened in 2017. The opening prompted Coras former Dodgers teammate Paul Lo Duca to tweet a sentiment shared by many in baseball.

The smartest player I ever played with was Alex Cora, Lo Duca said. It was inevitable that he was going to manage.

Dave Dombrowski, then Bostons president of baseball operations, came to agree.

Welcomed back in Boston

Cora had weathered other personal challenges between winning a World Series as a player with Boston and returning in 2018 as the franchises first minority manager. They included divorcing Camilas mother and making minor headlines in 2008 when he was booked for a second time at a Florida jail for alleged probation violations stemming from his conviction on a 1999 charge of driving under the influence when he was a 23-year-old Dodgers prospect.

Cora resolved his legal issues, and his probation was terminated in June 2008, during his final season playing for the Sox.

Dombrowski said his research on Cora confirmed Lo Ducas evaluation.

Many people I talked to said he was always the smartest guy on the team and always a leader, Dombrowski said. He also was a great communicator, both in English and Spanish.

Many people I talked to said he was always the smartest guy on the team and always a leader.

Dave Dombrowski on Alex Cora

Coras only drawback was a lack of major league managerial experience. Dombrowski said the Sox signed him on the conditions that he hire a veteran bench coach (Cora chose former Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke) and agree to work with Dombrowskis special assistant, Tony La Russa, who had 33 years of managerial experience.

The arrangement proved to be historic. The Sox won 17 of their first 19 games under Cora and a franchise-record 108 games overall in the regular season before they blew away the Yankees, Astros, and Dodgers in the postseason.

Coras catchphrase for Bostons offense was doing damage, and he gleefully boasted about the Sox obliterating the Yankees, 16-1, in Game 3 of the ALDS.

We scored 16 at Yankee Stadium, he shouted at Fenway Park before the duck boat parade. Suck on it.

After Coras suspension and self-imposed exile in Puerto Rico, Red Sox executives wasted little time hiring him once they interviewed him in an airport hangar on the island. If the Sox hadnt hired him, Dombrowski said, another team inevitably would have.

Read more: The inside story of how the Red Sox decided to rehire Alex Cora

Alex is a tremendous individual, and the Red Sox are very fortunate to have him back, Dombrowski said.

Cora said he became a better person during his suspension, a better father to Camila, his ex-wifes son Jeriel, his 4-year-old twin sons, Islander and Xander, and a better partner to the twins mother, Angelica.

His watchword for the Sox in 2021 shifted to humility. He refrained from telling anyone to suck on it after the Sox eliminated the Yankees in the Wild Card Game on the 32nd anniversary of his fathers death. And he criticized his pitcher, Eduardo Rodriguez, for pointing at an imaginary watch on his wrist in Game 3 of the ALCS to mock Houston shortstop Carlos Correas signature move, which is meant to signify its our time.

Houston swept the next three games after Rodriguezs stunt, and time was up for Cora and the 2021 Sox. On Thursday, he returned home to Puerto Rico, with more to learn about baseball and life.

Bob Hohler can be reached at robert.hohler@globe.com.

Continue reading here:
After a humbling suspension, Alex Coras resilience was evident as he nearly made history with the Red Sox - The Boston Globe

The prize is named for Cornelia Hahn Oberlander,aGerman-born Canadian landscape architect who died in May of complications from COVID-19, weeks shy of her 100th birthday. TheNew York Timescalled her the grandedame of landscape architecture, and she was renowned for socially responsible, collaborative work, from playgrounds to museums, which blended prescient advocacy for environmental sustainability with a modernist sensibility. Perhaps her most celebrated project Robson Square,a three-block public plazain Vancouver, designed with architect Arthur Erickson.

Bargmann, who has practiced for more than 30 years (she is also a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia) focuseson contaminated, neglected, and forgotten urban and post-industrial sites. Working closely with architects, historians, engineers, hydrogeologists, artists, and local stakeholders, she has transformed Superfund, mining, and manufacturing sites, and created parks, corporate campuses, and housing.She often speaks of her her desire to unearth design elements from cast off places.

Shealsobrings her background as an artist (she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Carnegie Mellon University and aMaster in Landscape Architectureat Harvards GraduateSchool of Design) to all of her work, unearthing a narrative for each project that is rooted in its history and offers up alternative and experimental possibilities for the future.

Asked what she might do with the Oberlanders cash award,Bargmanntells Metropolis: It will probably involve a few of my favorite things: A long road trip, defunct and fallow land, the neighbors, mayors, and aspiring landscape architects.

By honoringBargmannan activist, provocateur, critic, and public intellectualas its inaugural laureate, the Oberlander Prize claims landscape architectures increasingly cross-disciplinary mantle with pride and urgent, agitational insistence.

The clear signal that [the Oberlander] sends to the landscape discipline is that those who are working on the margins are those who are creating the most innovation, often, says Maurice Cox, commissioner of Chicagos Department of Planning and Development, in a TCLF video introducingthe prize winner. Bargmann was selected by an independentseven-person jury chaired byDorotheImbert, the landscape architecture chair and director of the Knowlton School at The Ohio State University.

TCLF has been working for years to establish the prize. In 2017, TCLF board member JoanShafranand her husband RobHaimesdonated $1 million to supportits creation; TCLF board members and other supporters have since made significant donations. Honorees will be included in TCLFs oral historyarchiveand their projects will be added to the organizations database of more than 2,100 significant built landscapes. Going forward, their work will be assessed on a regular basis for any threats from neglect or destruction.

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Julie Bargmann Is the Winner of the Inaugural Oberlander Prize; a Pritzker Prize for Landscape Architecture. - Metropolis Magazine

Construction on the Rockford Airport cargo expansion has come right to the edge of Bell Bowl Prairie. (Courtesy of Cassi Saari)

Most battles between development and conservation, or the economy and the environment, are pitched as an either-or.

Supporters of the movement tosave Bell Bowl Prairie, a small patch of rare remnant prairie situated within the boundaries of Chicago Rockford International Airport, continue to hold out for a win-win.

At a meeting held Tuesday evening and attended by 150 people (counting both in-person and online), an alternative layout was presented for the expansion of the airports cargo facilities. Landscape architect Domenico DAlessandro demonstrated how a road, currently planned to plow through Bell Bowl, could be rerouted.

Renderings demonstrating the road (left) that would run through Bell Bowl Prairie as part of the Rockford Airport cargo expansion. (Courtesy of Save Bell Bowl Prairie)

The answer is simple, he said. Lets realign this road. All this road has to do is skim around (the prairie). Thats all we have to do.

Amy Doll, director of Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves, reiterated the stance ofBell Bowl backers: Saving Bell Bowl doesnt mean development doesnt happen. The coalition of conservationists respects the airports economic value to Rockford and the surrounding region, she said, but theres a better way to do this.

Still, with bulldozers stationed at the prairies fence, the time to present airport officials with options may have long passed.

A proposal to reconfigure the road that would plow through Bell Bowl Prairie, and have it skirt the natural area instead (blue dotted line). (Courtesy of Save Bell Bowl Prairie)

Rockford is ranked as the 17thlargest cargo airport in the U.S. and the fastest growing in the world, with business up 300% over the past five years, officials say. The cargo expansion a cornerstone of the airports strategic plan was cleared for takeoff years ago, backed by federal funds, and is barreling down the metaphorical runway.

In June 2018, a contract for design of the nearly 100,000-square-foot cargo facility was approved. Construction began October 2020. In January, $50 million in bonds were issued, and in February, the announcement of a seven-year lease agreement for the facility. This past July, Emirates and Qatar airlines were reported as new cargo clients. These and other milestones can be found in thepublished meeting minutes of the Greater Rockford Airport Authoritys board of commissioners.

Along the way, airport officials say they dotted all their is and crossed all their ts in terms of following guidelines and rules related to Bell Bowl, which is listed on the Illinois Natural Areas Inventoryas an outstanding, high-quality gravel prairie, fewer than 22 acres of which exist in Illinois in total.

The airports outreach included public notices, public meetings, and notices to all media in the area,Zack Oakley, deputy director of operations and planning, said in a statement provided to WTTW News. As required, RFD (Rockford Airport) completed the Environmental Assessment in 2019 and ultimately received a Finding of No Significant Impact from the FAA in November 2019. Construction has since commenced in areas that were included in the 2019 Environmental Assessment.

Bell Bowl isnt referenced in meeting minutes, but notes from theAugust 2018 meetingbriefly state:Were working on environmental studies in order to move forward with any midfield construction in the future.

Those studies were severely flawed, prairie proponents say, and they also dispute the airports version of its communication efforts regarding the cargo expansion.

The two sides have been at a stalemate since August, when the federally endangered rusty patched bumble bee was spotted at the prairie. The airport agreed to pause construction in the area until Nov. 1, a date pegged as the end of the bees foraging season. A plan to relocate two state-listed endangered native plants by Nov. 1 the large-flowered penstemon and the prairie dandelion is being coordinated with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Oakley said.

IDNRcouldnt immediately provide details on the relocation plan.

While the airport pushes forward with its construction timeline, the Save Bell Bowl Prairie coalition continues to pursue legal recourse but is relying largely on a grassroots campaign to drum up support for, if nothing else, a chance to press pause.

Our immediate goal is that on Nov. 1, bulldozers dont go through a high-quality area, said Doll.

Thousands of letters have been sent to elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, whose record straddles both sides of the issue: His environmental advocacy recently earned him a conservation leadership award from Openlands, while airport meeting minutes cite the senator as instrumental in the growth at RFD. (The senators office hasnt responded to multiple WTTW News requests for comment.)

Representatives from the Illinois Environmental Council say the action is moving the needle, minimally in terms of putting Bell Bowl on legislators radar, but has yet to produce concrete results.

As the clock ticks on Bell Bowl and its loss creeps closer to reality, its supporters are left with the existential question of why, with climate change crises at hand, these 11th-hour scrambles are still necessary.

Why is the prairie expendable? DAlessandro asked. Why is this happening? It boggles the mind.

Contact Patty Wetli:@pattywetli| (773) 509-5623 |[emailprotected]m

Originally posted here:
Bell Bowl Prairie Proponents Have a Proposal to Save Rare Land and Allow Rockford Airport to Expand - WTTW News

Judy Rose| Special to the Detroit Free Press

Detroit town house was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Classic Mies van der Rohe townhouse in Detroit's LafayettePark has a beautiful setting and glass walls.

Tanya Wildt, Wochit

Set in Detroit's Lafayette Park, this town house by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is a meticulous piece of mid-20th century architecture, updatedwith a cool Ikeakitchen.

Ludwig ("Less is more") Miesdesigned 162 of these town houses, and they are closeto identical but for changes made by owners. Like row houses, they're joined side-to-side in small groups.

They're part of the gracious park and residential mix that forms Lafayette Park just east of downtown close to the city, close to the Detroit RiverWalk, close to Eastern Market,designed and built in the 1950s under the aegis of urban renewal. The other neighborhood components are 24 one-story courtyard houses and two high-rise buildings.

The area is so well-known in architectural circles, said the unit's ownerJennifer Reinhardt, "You look out and see people with cameras, you see Japanese tourists."

This town house has the advantage of looking out into the neighborhood's Plaisance Park, which makes the view from its living room even more spacious.

"I love the landscaping," Reinhardt said.

She noted that Mies and fellow planners, including landscape architect Alfred Caldwell, filled the grounds with young honey locusttrees,which have since grown into a leafed canopy overhead. From a drone shot above, this area looks like woods.

"To think they were planning 40 years ahead," Reinhardt said.

Mies was a proponent of International Style, which emerged in the 1930s. Steel beams carry the weight of his buildings,not wood bracing, nor stacks of stone or brick. That means the exposed walls can be all glass,and in these townhouses they are both front and back.

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Infront, the floor to ceiling glass goes down the side of the entrance and the dining room.At the rear, it's theliving room,with the park view beyond.

In this town house, the living room, dining room and three bedrooms are all the same spaces as designed,all with one glass wall.

The long galleykitchen, which runs along oneside of the building and gets its light from both ends,has beencompletely updated.

It has new black textured cabinets now with stainless steel handles. Appliances are all built-in stainless steel. Its counters are gray granite, and its backsplashes are amix of small blue tiles.

The main floor powder room also has a contemporaryupgrade. It has a floating cabinet now, suspended to give the sense of more space. Its sink and counter are poured concrete. Its floor is concrete tiles.

This row of town houses has one difference from the others. All its units have geothermal heat, which keeps the energy cost low, Reinhardt said.

Realtor Jason Hill said these town houses are especially desired by people whose fields are related to architecture, art,preservation or city planning.

"They like the minimalist style, the art gallery feel,."Hill said.

That would include Reinhardt, whose specialty is preservation planning. After working here for anonprofit group and then for the city of Detroit, she's headed to a job in a new location.

Where: 1415 Nicolet Place, Detroit

How much: $369,000

Bedrooms:3

Baths: 1

Square feet: 1,400

Key features: Classic Mies van der Rohe townhouse in LafayettePark. Beautiful setting, glass walls, close to downtown, Detroit River, Eastern Market and more. Co-op ownership.

Co-op fee: $1,077 per month. As a co-op fee this covers more than the usual condo fee gas, cable, internet, water, property taxes, security and more.

Interesting fact: The great architect beganlife as Ludwig Mies, with Mies meaning misery in German. But he expanded his name to suit the stature he'd achieved. After several versions he settled on adding "vanderRohe," or, from the family of Rohe, his mother's maiden name. This puts him in the company of the self-named Le Corbusier, whose real name was Charles Edouard Jeanneret.

Contact: Jason Hill, Historic Realty Detroit, 313-220-4820.

Original post:
Mies van der Rohe town house with walls of glass ticks all the boxes for artists, architects - Detroit Free Press

Kate Orff is the founder of SCAPE, a design-driven landscape architecture and urban design studio based in New York. (MacArthur Foundation)

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When Hurricane Ida hit the Gulf Coast 16 years after Hurricane Katrina, all eyes were on New Orleanss new levee system. The levees that had failed so disastrously in 2005 had been rebuiltand this time they held. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief, but MacArthur awardwinning landscape designer Kate Orff believes that gray infrastructure (levees, flood gates, and sea walls) can only take us so far. The infrastructure we really need, she says, is green. Orff, recently profiled in The New Yorker, insists that ecology is the infrastructure of the future. Her work with SCAPE Studio restores and harnessesrather than resistsnatural systems to ensure the livability of our rapidly changing world.

Laura Flanders

Laura Flanders: Kate, you and your firm, SCAPE, work on design projects in many parts of the United States, including in Louisiana and New York. When you saw Hurricane Ida barreling towards both those places and others too, what went through your mind?

Kate Orff: I had a flashback to the evening that Superstorm Sandy hit. You cant imagine watching the meteorology and it looks like a comet headed straight for your region. And in the case of Superstorm Sandy, it went directly up the New York bight. And the case of Ida, it came through Louisiana and up and over the central United States. Just the tale of these two storms describes how the risk that we face is truly diverse. Theres not one kind of climate risk in our built environment. Theres not just sea level rise to contend with or extreme heat. We are looking, in the case of Ida, at a rainstorm that dropped incredible amounts of rain on our built environment, which weve largely paved over. So, we had a very, very different set of challenges here after Idaflash flooding, some very tragic deaths in my borough of Queens, people living in basement apartments that are located in a former lake. So, weve covered up much of our nature-based infrastructure, and we filled it in, and now we are living with the risks that we have built.

LF: Youve just put your finger on a variety of challenges that are changing all the time, unpredictable, complex systems intersecting, not just with our habitat, but our habits of development, and housing, and where we put people. Talk for a minute about how that relates to the point that I hear coming from you that any one solution, particularly, a built concretetype solution wont be all we need to deal with climate change. And instead we need this kind of collaborative approach where we work with nature for something that you call regenerative design.

KO: I feel like 1927 was a seminal time for America. We had major floods in the Mississippi River area, and there was a big movement to build levees and put up gray infrastructure up and down the Mississippi River system. And that set into motion this approach, which was build a wall and then if it floods, build it higher, spend more money, and then more and more money to try to reduce risk through hard infrastructure, to try to lock natural systems in place. But, of course, that is not the way that natural systems respond. And that obviously is wholly insufficient for a climate-changed environment where were experiencing more intense rain in many regions, where we are facing more extreme heat, where sea levels are rising. The old rules, frankly, do not apply.

LF: Am I hearing you right, that it would be a mistake for people to say, OK, look, what weve been doing works. It worked with respect to Ida. Lets just pour more concrete? Current Issue

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KO: We have to do the opposite. We need to remove, depave, and undo many of the mistakes that weve made in the built environment, particularly here in the New York region. We have to soften our shorelines. We need to remove roadways. We have to integrate different forms of non-motorized transport into our built environment. Otherwise, flash flooding will get worse, and our biodiversity will continue to plummet. We will have more incidents of extreme heat, because that is also very related. What Ive been trying to do, and what the SCAPE office has been trying to do in many, many different contexts, is to try to integrate and revive ecosystemsnot just to bring nature back in a kind of a nostalgic way. Its really about propelling us forward into the next century with a vision around how people, nature, and society can co-exist and how we can reduce our climate risk.

LF: Could we even go back if we wanted to? Is rewilding, as some people call it, even an option at this point?

KO: I love the term rewilding because it inspires people. Theyre like, I get that. That sounds great. However, just rewilding for the purposes of bringing species back isnt enough. Ive tried to be very, very vocal about recasting and framing ecosystems as next century infrastructure. So its not just about rewilding, its about thinking critically about design, about engineering, and about this new hybrid world, where were weaving ecosystems back into the urban landscape where they have been decimatedlike in the New York Harbor. Almost 25 percent of our harbor was oyster reefs. That number is now around zero to 1 percent, but those reefs cleaned the water and slowed the waters.The Q&A

LF: You mentioned Storm Sandy, and the lives that were lost then, including in Staten Island, that drew your attention to an area that youve been working in ever since. And your work there has reached a kind of tipping point, it seems to me. Talk to us about what these Living Breakwaters are, and what is happening right now. Will it go ahead after what weve just seen?

KO: Were leading a project called Living Breakwaters, which is a chain of breakwaters that are seededwith oysters, with the Billion Oyster Project. They clean the water, they slow down the water, they take that dangerous wave action out of the equation. They help replenish beaches and reduce erosion. But theyre also designed to foster critical structural habitats. Theres a big social component to the project, too. Its a community organizing project. Its designed to bring educators to the shoreline and to promote citizen science in the form of reef monitoring and oyster gardening. Its a different model from Lets build a wall and throw a billion dollars in this one tiny thing that may or may not help and that may or may not account for that very dynamic environment that we find ourselves in. We have to use more tools in the toolbox. Right now, we are thinking about the future with the tools of the last century. And so I think this way is really the way to proceed.

LF: Is there other legislation that youve also got your eye on, and what would be your best-case scenario outcome of this moment?

KO: We have a dwindling window to act. We desperately need a robust infrastructure bill to pass, and we cannot spend the money on this infrastructure bill on widening roads and on carbon-intensive forms of infrastructure. We have to do the opposite. And so, Im incredibly hopeful that in the bill, there is language in there around nature-based infrastructure. Im truly hopeful that these projects can be moved front and center. Also, Laura, you asked me about what else Im interested in, I do feel like the Civilian Conservation Corps concept has tremendous potential.

LF: So the Civilian Conservation Corps was what we had in the 30s. This time its a climate corps, is that right?

KO: Yes, the Civilian Climate Corps. And Im so excited about the potential of the Climate Corp to be tied to this infrastructure bill. That would be a dream job for me, which would link these two things up because we do need to invest in an infrastructure, but we also need to invest in science-based learning. I think about what the Living Breakwaters project represents, which is integrating, the seeding of the reef by school children, eighth graders, middle schoolers, and high schoolers, and think about the tremendous potential of integrating the next generation who wants to participate.

LF: We need federal government action, but are there things that people can do to change their habitats, their habits, the soft architecture of our lives?

KO: We havent broken through in terms of (A), just making sure that everyone is aware of the risks that they face in their immediate environment. And then (B), I dont think that weve invested enough in preparedness and education. We also will probably face very, very difficult choices in the next decades. I do feel like thats where this kind of softer human infrastructure will come into play. We may need to move people out of harms way. We may need to kind of develop a national framework for equitable managed retreat. And we will need to expand the ways that were beginning to address some of these challenges and not just say, throw billions of dollars at a single wall.

LF: You say you dont ever give up hope. You never despair. What keeps you going?

KO: Oh, I despair. I despair. I just also feel like its an emotion that you have to sit with but then move through. It cannot be the final word. At this moment, when we have this opportunity in front of us to invest in ecology as infrastructure, to invest in the future, to invest in a climate adaptation roadmap for the nation and all kind of bioregions, we simply have to act.

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Why Ecology Is the Infrastructure of the Future - The Nation

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Differences of working at a practice in another part of the world - Archinect

The City of Warren Parks and Recreation Commission has directed a consultant developing a conceptual site plan that includes mountain biking opportunities at Washington Park.

What that does not mean, however, is that development at the 65-acre site overlooking the City of Warren will start tomorrow.

To the contrary, it will likely be years before a project, if any at all, is undertaken at the side.

The commission held a special meeting on Tuesday to specifically discuss Washington Park. A public hearing was held earlier this year but Tuesday marked the commissions first opportunity to discuss the future of the park in any depth.

What the commission ultimately approved in a split vote was to direct the consultant Mackin Engineering to prepare the site plan including all three options presented or, as Commission member Kris Whittaker put it, the whole pie.

That action is limited to guidance provided to the consultant.

We can take pieces out of that pie down the road, Whittaker said, should a project be funded. At some point in time (there) may be grant funds. In the meantime, we also have options of removing items. (This is) not something that is cast in stone.

Matt Lokay, a senior landscape architect with Mackin Engineering, outlined three options for the park.

Were limited on development potential by the steep slopes, he said. Its a great view, one of the best Ive seen in a park.

The first option he outlined would be limited to improving the roadway and establishing formal parking, potentially creating a small trail with sensory-friendly nature play elements on the top of the ridge, potential for a waterless restroom and Americans with Disabilities Act improvements for parking and a path to the overlook.

Option two would include the items in option one but enhance and expand the trails, creating 2.5 miles of walking trails.

This idea keeps the park passive but accommodates a broader group of users, he explained.

The third option would make the trail shared use and, as a result, open the majority of the 2.5 miles to mountain bikes.

Each commission member was then given an opportunity to speak.

Mark Zavinski said he has always seen this as a passive park and questioned the value of expanding a park while struggling to maintain the parks as they are.

Judi Wilson, who is heavily involved with the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter, highlighted the DARs role in the parks history. The park should be a passive park, she said. I think its been a wonderful park all these years and it should continue to be a wonderful park.

Kirk Johnson said he would attempt to give voice to the voiceless and explained Washington park is an ideal destination for the clients he works with as a direct support professional. There are more than enough places for mountain biking elsewhere, he added.

Whittaker raised concerns about liability relating to the oil wells on the site.

Its beautiful up there, Jackie Angove said. Anything we can do to maintain it, keep it safe, Im all for it.

The commissions chair, Mike Suppa, said hes been going to the park since he was a child and always thought Washington Park could be a magical place.

He said one of his long laments is the parks under utilization and argued that the park is not an untrammeled wilderness. Any attempt to portray it so lacks its basis in facts.

I would like to see something done to reinvigorate the park and make it more than a 15 minute destination. Im willing to consider any initiative that makes (the) park a vibrant place to be. (We) can continue to let it be a place few people know about, care about or utilize. We have that choice.

Varying views from the public were also expressed that raised concerns about parking, security and other issues.

Department of Public Works Director Mike Holtz said the city contracted with Mackin to develop the conceptual plan so if funding came available in future the city would be able to write a (grant) application that was a decent application.

I would think, he added, you would want to try to get as much as possible from this scope of work. He said the conceptual plan would be an active document. Whatever we pick now thats not whats going to come to Washington Park. It may never happen.

This is really a paint the picture (of) what we would like to see.

Johnson suggested he was hearing what I would call confirmation bias from representatives from the city where by the power of suggestion there would be development done. One of the options is largely missing a no action option. I think that members of the public need to know that we dont have to develop the park.

Freenock noted that the commission agreed to accept a grant to fund the conceptual design and that a no action option would be a waste of money.

I just dont see how we can move forward with any overt developments, Johnson said, when the adjacent property owners dont want grandiose development.

There are viewpoints across the board, Suppa countered. There is certainly a viewpoint that you characterize correctly but you continue to characterize it as a 90 or 100 percent viewpoint and thats not fair.

Johnson and Zavinski voted in opposition to Whittakers motion, which passed 3-2.

Johnson said he doesnt think option three should be a part of it. (It) can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The commission also approved a motion to instruct the citys staff to explore a potential gate for Washington Park for consideration at a future meeting.

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Moving ahead with plans for Washington Park | News, Sports, Jobs - timesobserver.com

After living in Princeton for 17 years, author Lauren B. Davis has finally authored her first novel set in the town, as well as in neighboring Trenton. Even So, published by Dundurn Press on Oct. 12, explores the value of loving difficult people and sheds light on the marginalization that Davis has herself witnessed in her time in Princeton.

The book follows two women a privileged matron residing in Princeton and a Catholic nun running a food pantry in Trenton as they navigate the challenges of their relationship and the broader issues of inequality in their communities.

When Davis and her husband first moved to Princeton, they expected a diverse community. Although they found that to be true in some ways, in other ways Davis felt the town was not nearly as integrated, both racially and economically, as she had thought.

I was struck by this dissonance between the bright sparkling university, with all its great minds and talents, and some of the undercurrents on the streets of Princeton, Davis said. Its Ralph Lauren on one side and people who have trouble getting housing on the other.

Even So reflects these societal divisions and prompts readers, in particular Princeton residents, to ask themselves who they consider to be the other in Princeton and where they see themselves, Davis said.

Her previous eight novels have all examined similar questions: Who gets marginalized and why? Who do we choose to be the other and why do we choose for them to be the other? What happens to both of us as a result?

Davis has also long been interested in the idea of love as a tool for transformation rather than simply a reward for good behavior.

In the novel, Princeton matron Angela Morrison is discontent and is questioning the choices she has made; she is searching for a far more passionate life than the one she has.

At the pantry where Angela volunteers, Sister Eileen introduces her to Carsten, a landscape architect who has come to build a vegetable garden for the soup kitchen, and the two begin an affair. Angela ends up causing enormous tragedy and seeks out support from Sister Eileen, who is then confronted with the challenge of caring for someone who has caused immense harm to others.

In the words of Davis: Its easy to love people who have been harmed, but far less easy to love people who do harm.

Davis was inspired, in part, by a friend of hers who is a Catholic nun who often talks about wrestling with difficult angels.

Although Even So tackles serious issues and may prompt some Princeton residents to ask tough questions of themselves, Davis hopes local readers will also have fun recognizing locations in the book. Davis herself loves reading novels set in places where she has spent time.

Davis will discuss her newest book on Thursday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. in an online event hosted by Labyrinth Books and the Princeton Public Library. She will be joined by author and Princeton University Professor Sheila Kohler, and Sister Rita Woehlcke, director of the Sisters of Saint Joseph Associates in Mission of Philadelphia.

Register for the event on the Labyrinth Books website.

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Princeton and Trenton are settings for latest novel by author Lauren B. Davis that explores marginalization, othering - Planet Princeton

Billionaire Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and chairman of Palantir Technologies, during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Nov. 18, 2019.

Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Peter Thiel's proposed luxury lodge on New Zealand's South Island has been criticized by a local environmental group who believe it is "inappropriate" for the natural landscape.

The PayPal and Palantir co-founder, who profited from an early investment in Facebook, wants to build the lodge and a private residential building on a 193-hectare (477-acre) estate that he owns on the shores of Lake Wanaka, near Queenstown.

Thiel bought the estate in 2015 for a reported $13.5 million through an Auckland-headquartered company he owns called Second Star Limited.

Details of the development, designed by Tokyo Olympic Stadium architect Kengo Kuma and Associates, emerged in a planning application in August.

They show several buildings that are designed to blend into the landscape. There's a private home built into a hillside as well as a larger luxury lodge with enough space for 24 people. There's also a separate meditation pod, several water features and a yet-to-be-designed back-of-house building.

But in a six-page letter to Queenstown Lakes District Council this month, the Upper Clutha Environmental Society said it opposed the application in its entirety.

"The Society believes the applicant has not meaningfully avoided, remedied or mitigated adverse effects," the letter reads, before going on to say that "the proposed development is inappropriate."

The environmental group argues that the buildings will be an eyesore on the natural landscape and that the development is "extremely unlikely" to meet the "reasonably difficult to see test" set by the local council.

A representative for Thiel did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Kengo Kuma and Associates said its objective was to "design an organic architecture that fuses into the landscape" and respects the indigenous nature. Elsewhere, Jo Fyfe, senior planner at John Edmonds and Associates, who carried out an assessment of the environmental effects of the complex, said the placement of the buildings into the landscape was "thoughtful."

The so-called "owner's cabin" has a spa, pool, theater lounge, office and three bedrooms, while the guest cabin has its own spa and pool, as well as a library, and 10 guest bedrooms with uninterrupted north-facing views toward Lake Wanaka and the Southern Alps.

To highlight the visual impact of the development, the campaign group opposed to the development noted that "the row of buildings proposed extend across a wide visual catchment of the subject site; the buildings stretch for 330m."

"The associated car parking, access roads and paths will further detract from views of outstanding natural landscape; no less than 7.4ha [hectares] of the site is proposed to be dug up in earthworks of 36,800 m3," it continues.

Aspects of the development will be visible from Lake Wanaka and a number of public tracks in the area, the group said. "People driving, riding, walking, paddling or boating in these highly frequented public locations will be assailed by a large number of buildings spread laterally across the subject site," it argued.

The lavish lodge would feature 10 bedrooms.

The society, however, said it was impressed by the "ecological and biodiversity enhancements" described in the planning application.

It also admitted that the development could result in potential economic gains for the area if the proposed tourist unit buildings are used in the manner described in the application.

But the positive effects "will not meaningfully mitigate" the adverse effects of the proposed development, it added.

Located in relative isolation from the largest population centers of the world, New Zealand has become a popular destination with high net worth individuals in recent years. Billionaire Google co-founder Larry Page was granted residency at the start of the year.

Home to around 5 million people, the country has become linked with "preppers" those who try to prepare for catastrophic events that may pose a threat to humanity.

Reports had suggested that Thiel was planning to build some sort of apocalypse-proof bunker on his estate. While some of the buildings appear to be built into hillsides, it's unclear if any of them are intended to serve as a bunker.

The prepper craze was first put under the spotlight in Jan. 2017, when an article in The New Yorker titled "Doomsday prep for the super-rich" revealed how New Zealand is essentially like a mecca for wealthy preppers. It's remote, geopolitically stable, and sparsely populated. Importantly, it could also become completely self-sufficient in terms of water, food, and energy if it ever needed to.

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Peter Thiel's luxury New Zealand lodge opposed by environmental group - CNBC