(psst… it's all good… pass it on…)
I am bummed that I still have not been to James Enders Pop Art Gallery at 217 E. High Street, Pottstown, PA!
Tonight at 7 pm, James Enders Pop Art Gallery presents THE MIAMI VICE ART SHOW: NEW WORKS. This show is the culmination of James’ work for this year. There will be a special appearance by recording artist DAVE ALEXANDER and J-BIZ FROM MAINTAIN RECORDS. There’s a $5 COVER. Must be 21 to drink; 18 to enter.
The PDIDA office at 139 E. High Street was packed last night with more than 60 people who might best be described as “hungry for conversation.” The food was barely touched, and there was no need for background music. There were just a couple breaks for announcements and to give away two tickets to the First Annual Costume Ball at the Elks on Dec. 17 (thank you, Leighton Wildrick!) and three $20 gift certificates to Funky Lil’ Kitchen (thank you, Chef Michael Falcone!)
Otherwise, there was non-stop networking & brainstorming & sharing among a cross-section of area residents, business owners, entrepreneurs, non-profit leaders, and public officials. Let’s nurture this and keep it going.
Due to the events downtown on Fridays in December, the next Happy Hour is on Wednesday, Dec. 15 from 5-7 pm at the Brickhouse. Thank you to Katy Jackson for donating a Brickhouse Happy Hour gift certificate for that. Appetizers & drinks will be available at reduced rates, and Positively!Pottstown will buy appetizers until the petty cash runs out!
In the meantime, follow up, keep in touch, take the next step.
It’s Friday afternoon, do you know where your friends are?
They might be at the monthly Postively!Pottstown Happy Hour! It starts in just one hour and runs til 7 pm. It’s at the PDIDA office at 139 E. High Street. $5 gets you refreshments, a free chance to win a $20 gift certificate to Funky Lil’ Kitchen and the opportunity to network with more than 60 people already signed up! Walk-ins welcome!
At 7 pm there’s a Neighborhood Watch meeting at the PAL building at 146 King Street. All are welcome there to meet neighbors and figure out ways to make Pottstown a safer place. Hope to see you there!
p.s. As I type, I can see a tree getting decorated over on Smith Plaza. Hometown Holidays are coming up – Dec. 3, 10, 17. More on that soon!
LOTS going on in November & December. Feel free to send news of your organization’s activities. See calendar here.
There are multiple musical events happening in Pottstown this weekend. I’m going to let you know about all of them, and then you can decide what you’re in the mood for!
(1) At 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, the Senior Theater Performance Troupe at the Tri-County Performing Arts Center will put on their Veterans Day Tribute. They will celebrate all veterans with a USO-style show filled with popular songs from the Civil War through World War II. Tickets are $12 for adults; just $10 for students and seniors; and $8 for children 12 and under. Go here for tickets and more info. Tri-PAC is located at 245 High Street, Pottstown, PA 19464.
(2) If you want to continue enjoying great music while honoring veterans AND support the Pottstown High School Boosters, you will want to get your tickets ASAP for the Veterans Day Extravaganza this Saturday, Nov. 13 at the Stanley I. Davenport Center for Performing Arts at Pottstown High School, 750 N. Washington Street. Doors open at 5:00 p.m. and the show starts at 6:00 p.m.
Organizer, music enthusiast and dedicated booster Tom Coyle has put together an amazing line-up of classic doo-wop and oldies performers, guaranteed to bring back fond memories. The list at press time includes: Jimmy Beaumont & the Skyliners (“Pennies from Heaven”), the Duprees (“You Belong to Me”), Shirley Alston Reeves & the Shirelles (“Soldier Boy”), and Larry Chance & The Earls (“Remember Then”). The show will be hosted by radio personality KING ARTHUR of SoundsofPhillyRadio.com and WNJC1360.
Tickets are $45 and will benefit the PHS Boosters. Keep the fun going at an after-concert DJ dance at the Elks Lodge, 61 High Street Pottstown, PA 19464 (Cover: $5.00). Contact Tom Coyle directly for tickets at 610-306-9361 (NOT the school.)
(3) And, finally, if you want to hear one of the most accomplished and magical choirs in the country, you should head over to Emmanuel Lutheran Church at 150 N. Hanover Street on Saturday evening, where the Westminster Choir from Princeton, NJ will be conducted by Joe Miller. Special guests include the Hilltones and Hilltrebles, a capella groups from the Hill School.
The Music at Emmanuel series is now in its 27th season and brings extraordinary musical talent to downtown Pottstown, usually for free. The Minister of Music at Emmanuel Lutheran is Andrew Meade, who received his master’s degree from Westminster. He has been at Emmanuel since September 2009.
“With a group of really well-trained singers led by an incredibly talented conductor, the energy and vibrancy of sound will be unlike anything most people will have heard before,” he said.
I couldn’t agree more. For a sample of the angelic sound of this choir, check out this performance of Peter Christian Lutkin’s choral benediction The Lord Bless You and Keep You. It was recorded this past May, just before graduation, in the Princeton University chapel.
The Emmanuel Lutheran sanctuary, beautiful and with great acoustics, seats 450 people. Tickets for Westminster Choir are $10 at the door. Students with a valid ID get in free. The concert this Saturday begins at 7:30 pm. A reception to meet the artists follows every concert.
In a comment on another post, Katy mentioned Easton, PA’s Downtown Ambassadors program, and I thought I’d post some links. I’ve heard a few folks from Pottstown mention this, but I didn’t know that there was a company that actually provides this service to downtown improvement districts. Basically, you can contract to have casually-uniformed ambassadors on your downtown streets, cleaning, providing info to visitors and being a security presence. They carry 2-way radios, too.
Here’s a link to Block By Block, the company. And here’s an article on the positive feedback on Easton’s program. Looks and sounds like a great idea. Money — always an issue. Maybe a volunteer force? Worth looking into, for sure. Thanks, Katy!
The article about Danville, PA that we just added to our Revitalization Library got me thinking about very specific actions that Pottstown might want to consider now.
Why not take the $45,000 remaining after painting the Mrs. Smith’s building brick red and apply it to QUANTIFIABLE & VISIBLE ACTIONS to improve Pottstown’s downtown?
High Street is THE face of Pottstown. People take one look and make a snap judgment, maybe without even getting out of their cars. Pretty soon High Street is going to be beautifully illuminated. Now is the time to press any advantage to be gained from that, coordinate resources, and put out a blitz of tried-and-true downtown economic development strategies.
1) I’ve heard from several sources that there was a downtown site inventory/survey started or completed as follow-up to the Economic Development Strategic Plan. Where is it? Resurrect & update it. Find a simple, clean, attractive, inexpensive way to create an online database with key information about vacant properties that are available for sale or rent; allow for uploading of photos. Call upon Montgomery County Community College’s new urban planning students to help with site inventory and in getting additional info from local realtors and the county’s property records database. Input the data and unveil a new downtown district marketing tool via PDIDA’s website.
2) Determine the vacancy rate in the downtown and set a goal for getting X number of additional storefronts occupied within 6 months. Use some of the $45K to create a rent subsidy/marketing incentives package to attract new businesses that have solid business plans. Include existing businesses in the marketing plans. (I don’t know what PDIDA’s budget is, but I’m pretty sure it needs more resources to get its job done.)
3) There is this wonderful resource for new and existing business owners right in the New York Plaza building at 244 High Street: SCORE. They’re a non-profit business mentoring association that gets funding from the U.S. Small Business Association. Four times a year they offer a workshop seriesto help with all aspects of running a business. They offer other courses as well, all of which are taught by experienced professionals who volunteer their time to share their knowledge. Use some of the $45K to fund partial scholarships for new Pottstown-based businesses and nearly-full scholarships for existing business owners.
Imagine the messages the Borough could pretty quickly & easily send to the business world:
1) Here’s our downtown property inventory; we want to help you find the space that works for your business.
2) If you have a solid business plan, we will help with the rent during a pre-determined start-up phase.
3) We help promote all our businesses.
4) We will fund training workshops and introduce you to a network of business professionals to help you succeed.
5) By the time the 2011 First Saturdays start up again, there will be a VISIBLE difference in the downtown.
6) By coordinating the expertise already in the community, we can make $45K go a long way.
High Street is how the outside world judges you.At some point, you gotta put on your full-court press.
(Ideally, along a parallel path, the Borough would be doing the same thing for its industrial sites, including facilitating brownfield clean-up & marketing the sites nationwide, even internationally. I’d put an emphasis on green manufacturing and renewable energy tech companies, but that’s just me.)
I am sending a HUGE thank-you out to Pottstown resident Andrew Kefer for sending along this article: “Welcome to Downtown Danville, the Vibrant Small Town You Never Expected.”
There are so many lessons here that could be immediately applied to Pottstown’s revitalization.
1) Create a “better business climate.”
2) Tap Montco college students for discrete planning and community development projects and give those students real-world experience.
3) Resurrect the facade improvement program. (Is PDIDA’s Facade Rehabilitation Loan program active?)
4) Promote arts district downtown. (Danville is doing a multi-year mural program: “To one degree or another, all murals should touch on Danville’s heritage and history,” said Danville Main Street manager, Jim Wilson. Although I think a mural program would be fantastic, in the post that follows this one, I’m going to suggest using the additional $45K from the re-painting of the Mrs. Smith building toward other economic development efforts. For me it’s a matter of timing and getting the most bang for the buck. )
5) Create a business incubator downtown. Get designated as a Keystone Innovation Zone to get grants to attract tech start-ups and entrepreneurs. (Is this state designation/funding still available?)
Thanks again to Andrew for this informative, idea-packed article!
Mélange Contemporary Dance Company is the resident dance company of the Tri-County Performing Arts Center on High Street. They are back from their recent tour of Poland and are performing this weekend. There are just two shows left – tonight and tomorrow afternoon, so get your tickets today! The following press release gives insights to their recent overseas trip. sr
Back from their tour of Poland, the Mélange Contemporary Dance Company returns to the Tri-County Performing Arts Center, 245 E. High Street, Pottstown for a weekend of superb music and dance. On stage for three shows only, November 5th through 7th, their performance features pieces performed at The International Dance Festival in Ladek Zdroj Poland, as well as new works.
The dances are informed by experience – and their experiences during this year’s trip to Poland left some lasting impressions! Much like our recent weather, Poland experienced severe storms and flooding, and when Mélange arrived to perform at the International Festival they discovered that the stage had become unstable due to the wet ground. The entire festival had to be moved to the town square – a quaint, old part of the town, while pumps sent in from Russia worked to reclaim the original festival area.
The town of Ladek Zdroj, Poland is one of the oldest spa towns in Europe. The old buildings survived untouched during WWII because the Germans utilized the spa treatments. It is said that Mozart’s wife Costanza used them too! During the dancers’ downtime they were able to relax and enjoy a swim in a naturally heated indoor pool of mineral water, time in a salt cave that helps sinuses and respiration, and a body de-tox. They were also given a class by a world class instructor from Warsaw.
During the festival Mélange was a headlining group, and participated in a week of classes, performances, and lectures with dancers, teachers, critics, and students from around the globe. A local sculptor thought their program was the best one during the whole week and has since sent pictures he took to Michelle Jones-Wurtz, for whom he made a sculpture that he plans to present to the company next year.
The company includes Founder and Artistic Director Michelle Jones Wurtz, Christa Campbell, Krista Grunklee ,Emily Horstmann Getchell, Jessica Jarvis, Jill Michalsky, Sara Pyfer, Jackie Kokolus, and Tija Ore. Their November performance at the Tri-PAC will showcase a diverse, energetic suite of dances.
Tickets for all shows at the Tri-PAC are available online. Please note that seating is limited, and shows do fill quickly, so go to http://www.tripac.org to purchase your tickets now or call 610.970.1199!
Tickets range from $13 for children 12 and under, $15 for students and seniors (65+), and $17 for adults. Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. When available, tickets will be sold at the door. Remember, it’s all happening on High Street!
Village Productions is a dynamic nonprofit performing arts organization that seeks to strengthen community, inspire creative exploration, educate, and entertain, through the presentation of quality performing arts events and educational opportunities geared toward a diverse audience. The new Tri-County Performing Arts Center at 245 E. High Street, Pottstown, PA is the home of Village Productions. You may contact Village Productions through their website at http://www.tripac.org, or by telephone at 610-970-1199.
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