Under a bright noon sun, Fernando Casanova tricked a brand-new street light into turning on—and offering a new vision for nighttime safety in Newhallville.
Casanova, an electrician with Pasquariello Electric, did the deed for a crowd gathered at the corner of Lilac and Newhall streets Monday.
They gathered on the corner to try to stop trouble, not to make trouble. The group of ministers and city government workers united to bring 11 new LED (light-emitting diode) streetlights to various blocks of Lilac in order to better illuminate the night and, they hope, reduce crime in the process. They dubbed their effort “Project Lighten Up.”
“Let there be light!” Alan Kendrick of Church of the Redeemer proclaimed as Casanova put electrical tape over a sensor that otherwise will turn on the corner streetlight every night once it gets dark.
Project Lighten Up grew out of a grassroots Newhallville organizing campaign spearheaded by Minister Donald Morris and called Promise Land. (Read about that here.) The campaign went door to door to ask people their priorities for improving the neighborhood. Better-lit streets emerged as one of nine top goals.
The city agreed to install the 11 lights on Lilac in response. They cost close to $6,000 in total, according to Seb Asadourian of the city engineer’s office. He said other LED streetlights have gone up on Ashmun Street and at State and Chapel. The new LED lights cost less and last longer than the traditional “high-pressure sodium” lights they replace. They consume about half as much electricity, according to Asadourian. Also, they emit a brighter, whiter light; that enables people to see more clearly and better notice colors (of fleeing vehicles, for instance) than they can in the yellowish glow of the old lights.
That deters criminals from committing crimes in the first place and better protects officers who arrive at crime scenes, said top neighborhood cop Lt. Kenny Howell.
“Lilac happened to be on the of the darkest streets in the city,” Kendrick said. He said the group originally thought it had to raise money for the streetlights. Now that the city has agreed to foot the bill, the group plans to raise money to place “strategic post lighting on people’s private property.”
2012年5月7日 星期一
2011年9月27日 星期二
Latest Trends in Hotel Refurbishment
UK hoteliers are looking forward to 2012 with a "cautious optimism" – something that has been distinctly lacking in recent years. Some hotel owners can see the light at the end of the tunnel and many are considering expanding their businesses next year, according to the Frank Knight Hotel Operator Sentiment Survey 2011.
The findings showed that just over 50 per cent of the operators questioned said that they would be spending on refurbishing their existing stock.
Typically, guest room refurbishment can fall into two broad categories, refreshment and re-branding.
Refreshment is commonly required every five to seven years and involves adding new elements to the rooms to ensure that the hotel remains competitive in its target market. This will include redecorating, replacing furniture, fittings, equipment and minor works that improve the ease of operation.
Although Royal Garden Hotel has a rolling refurbishment programme of this kind, May saw the luxury hotel bring its 45 million refurbishment project to a close. The result is an excellent example of a well-executed refurbishment programme that responded to the needs of guests and sharpened the brand's competitive edge on London's luxury hotel scene.
"We implemented the refurbishment in stages," explained deputy general manager, Jonathan Lowrey in a recent interview with hotel-industry. "We have re-fitted guest rooms floor-by-floor and conference and events facilities were refurbished in stages as well. We carefully timed these stages to minimise disruption to our guests and customers."
A photo gallery of the Royal Garden Hotel's refurbishment is also available on hotel-industry.
While the Royal Garden Hotel favoured the partial-closure approach, the Savoy Hotel closed down completely between 2007 and 2010 to conduct one of the most talked about ambitious hotel refurbishment projects of recent times.
The 220 million restoration incorporated the entire building, including its iconic entrance and all 268 guestrooms and suites. Our photo gallery of refurbished Savoy Hotel will guide you around the newly designed property.
Re-branding or re-modelling aims to move the hotel into a different sector and increase room rates. This can involve creating new guest rooms using redundant space, replacing services and bathrooms, changing room and area layouts or introducing new guest facilities, such as IT and in-room entertainment.
When the Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria fell into the safe hands of the Guoman collection, the company set about bringing the property into line with its brand's standards, yet preserving the aesthetic essence of this famous railway hotel. No corner of the property has been left untouched, with all bedrooms, public areas, restaurants, meetings and event spaces refurbished.
The findings showed that just over 50 per cent of the operators questioned said that they would be spending on refurbishing their existing stock.
Typically, guest room refurbishment can fall into two broad categories, refreshment and re-branding.
Refreshment is commonly required every five to seven years and involves adding new elements to the rooms to ensure that the hotel remains competitive in its target market. This will include redecorating, replacing furniture, fittings, equipment and minor works that improve the ease of operation.
Although Royal Garden Hotel has a rolling refurbishment programme of this kind, May saw the luxury hotel bring its 45 million refurbishment project to a close. The result is an excellent example of a well-executed refurbishment programme that responded to the needs of guests and sharpened the brand's competitive edge on London's luxury hotel scene.
"We implemented the refurbishment in stages," explained deputy general manager, Jonathan Lowrey in a recent interview with hotel-industry. "We have re-fitted guest rooms floor-by-floor and conference and events facilities were refurbished in stages as well. We carefully timed these stages to minimise disruption to our guests and customers."
A photo gallery of the Royal Garden Hotel's refurbishment is also available on hotel-industry.
While the Royal Garden Hotel favoured the partial-closure approach, the Savoy Hotel closed down completely between 2007 and 2010 to conduct one of the most talked about ambitious hotel refurbishment projects of recent times.
The 220 million restoration incorporated the entire building, including its iconic entrance and all 268 guestrooms and suites. Our photo gallery of refurbished Savoy Hotel will guide you around the newly designed property.
Re-branding or re-modelling aims to move the hotel into a different sector and increase room rates. This can involve creating new guest rooms using redundant space, replacing services and bathrooms, changing room and area layouts or introducing new guest facilities, such as IT and in-room entertainment.
When the Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria fell into the safe hands of the Guoman collection, the company set about bringing the property into line with its brand's standards, yet preserving the aesthetic essence of this famous railway hotel. No corner of the property has been left untouched, with all bedrooms, public areas, restaurants, meetings and event spaces refurbished.
2011年9月19日 星期一
‘You Can Never Tell’: Cluttered stage robbed play of its magic
If there is a chair on the stage and a person in a wig sits on it and reads out a sentence, you will believe that this person is a judge in his courtroom.
And if the person exits and two people in white coats walk in immediately discussing the health of a patient, you will not question how this very space has transformed itself from a courtroom into a hospital in a matter of seconds. This is because once you take your seat in a theatre auditorium, you consciously or unconsciously slip into what is known in theatre circles as suspension of disbelief.
I rather hoped that theatre directors in Nairobi would have more faith in the audience’s suspended disbelief, when I watched Strathmore University Drama Society’s production of You Can Never Tell (1897) by Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw on Friday, September 9.
Though I am now well acquainted with Dramsoc’s use of stage space, this time, the play was staged in the Strathmore auditorium where the lighting is not suited to theatre productions but rather to lectures and other forms of public speaking.
Thus, it did not allow for Led light off on the sets that were not in use. Also, the arrangement resulted in too much clutter and the cast being limited to a very small part of the stage at any given time, which was a shame as the stage is very large. This led to awkward movement around furniture, which greatly compromised the actors’ performance.
This insistence on realism — that there must be a dentist’s surgery that looks as much like a dentist’s surgery as resources can allow, and a dining room and a hotel room suite and a window overlooking the seaside, all at the same time, robs the stage of its magic.
And after all that, the play lacked the attention to detail that realism demands, though it wasn’t clear if this was due to negligence on the part of the director, Nick Muthama or the stage manager, Paula Bosire. The dining table — in an upmarket hotel — was set with an uncharacteristic mix of goblets and wine glasses, Mrs Chande did not sit facing the table squarely and primly in a manner that reflects her social class, ginger beer came in a Smirnoff bottle, scotch was served in mugs, and the audience even succumbed to unsolicited mirth when water was poured out of a green plastic jug.
Mrs Chande and her children Gloria (Nicole Dusenge), Dolly and Philip have returned to Kenya, having lived in South Africa for 18 years. Dolly and Philip finally meet their estranged father Cosmas at the dentist’s surgery and invite him to lunch without knowing who he really is.
And if the person exits and two people in white coats walk in immediately discussing the health of a patient, you will not question how this very space has transformed itself from a courtroom into a hospital in a matter of seconds. This is because once you take your seat in a theatre auditorium, you consciously or unconsciously slip into what is known in theatre circles as suspension of disbelief.
I rather hoped that theatre directors in Nairobi would have more faith in the audience’s suspended disbelief, when I watched Strathmore University Drama Society’s production of You Can Never Tell (1897) by Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw on Friday, September 9.
Though I am now well acquainted with Dramsoc’s use of stage space, this time, the play was staged in the Strathmore auditorium where the lighting is not suited to theatre productions but rather to lectures and other forms of public speaking.
Thus, it did not allow for Led light off on the sets that were not in use. Also, the arrangement resulted in too much clutter and the cast being limited to a very small part of the stage at any given time, which was a shame as the stage is very large. This led to awkward movement around furniture, which greatly compromised the actors’ performance.
This insistence on realism — that there must be a dentist’s surgery that looks as much like a dentist’s surgery as resources can allow, and a dining room and a hotel room suite and a window overlooking the seaside, all at the same time, robs the stage of its magic.
And after all that, the play lacked the attention to detail that realism demands, though it wasn’t clear if this was due to negligence on the part of the director, Nick Muthama or the stage manager, Paula Bosire. The dining table — in an upmarket hotel — was set with an uncharacteristic mix of goblets and wine glasses, Mrs Chande did not sit facing the table squarely and primly in a manner that reflects her social class, ginger beer came in a Smirnoff bottle, scotch was served in mugs, and the audience even succumbed to unsolicited mirth when water was poured out of a green plastic jug.
Mrs Chande and her children Gloria (Nicole Dusenge), Dolly and Philip have returned to Kenya, having lived in South Africa for 18 years. Dolly and Philip finally meet their estranged father Cosmas at the dentist’s surgery and invite him to lunch without knowing who he really is.
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