While I am off visiting a college class at UMass today, my mother will be with my children, presumably making “creepcakes” such as the mummies seen here.
Too bad I can’t show you all of the decorating ideas, as they are published in the paper version of Martha Stewart Kids magazine, but not online. The recipes use brightly colored taffy, mini marshmallows, chocolate kisses, and gumdrops to create goons and goblins and horrifying faces that can only delight. My mother was inspired when we looked through the magazine and, as she is doing me the favor today of babysitting for the afternoon, it just seemed like a good fit with the kids.
I’m feeling rather creepy myself. It’s been a long time since I visited a college class. The setting is an undergrad senior studio, with Professor Henry Lu of the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning department. I called him up recently to interview him for an article I was researching about downtown Springfield. Professor Lu has eight years of experience working on the Urban Laboratory, a collaborative project between the city and the university. In the process, Lu and his students have worked on a variety of design projects in a number of city neighborhoods, interacting with locals in the process, and really providing an unusual and highly valuable service along with an education for the students. I had asked Professor Lu a few years ago if the Urban Lab was still active, and he said that due to budget cuts, all projects were on hold.
The city is going through a lot of changes, what with its fiscal crisis, indeed what with its everything crisis right now (see my other blog), and one of those changes is a complete overhaul of the city planning department. I am having some trouble keeping track of how things have been reorganized, but I know that David Panagore, who has served as the deputy assistant to the Finance Control Board’s chief executive Philip Puccia, has been appointed to head up the economic development department, which has now been merged with city planning. I have looked up Panagore a little bit to find out his experience, and was pleased to discover that he has been lauded for doing good development work in a California community. He also emailed me directly a few months back to ask about citizen buzz in my own neighborhood, after I made a post on my other blog about complaints on our civic association email list. I was impressed.
Professor Lu, while not a Springfield resident, is highly invested in the city and knows its neighborhoods well. He told me that even though there is no budget for design projects in collaboration with the city, he is working on his own. Thus he invited me to stop by the senior studio, where, of all things, they are working on a re-design for Court Square at the center of Springfield. This small park, which is at City Hall, Symphony Hall, and the newly-minted MassMutual Center (formerly known as the Springfield Civic Center), used to be overrun by homeless folks drinking out of brown paper bags. It recently underwent a renovation and looks much nicer, and has no more park benches for any use at all. I mentioned this to Professor Lu and he conceded that the new renovations are nice; but they are talking about designing a new iconic park for a city that has no icon.
This all matters to me so much that I’m rather creeped out. I may have just discovered a very powerful ally when it comes to talking about the needs of the city. Someone not invested in politics, but ideas, and with an education that informs his ideas. Thus my nervousness. I was not sure why he wanted to invite me to the studio class, but I have to believe that he has his reasons for needing an ally, too. And that the students in the class can benefit from having an “actual resident” there to comment on their ideas and brainstorms. And that they may be more nervous than I am about whether their own ideas are any good. So this should be fun.