Chestertown Futures Case Study #4: Matt Hogans
Posted by Dave Wheelan on July 22, 2010 · 2 Comments
Matt Hogans, like many native sons of Kent County, made it a point not to return to the community when he graduated from college in the early 1980′s. Leaving his Rock Hall roots behind, Matt joined the international firm of Hapag-Lloyd in New York City, and followed it with a long tenure in Baltimore with similar businesses as well as the Port of Baltimore itself. It was only years later that he and his family decided to return to the Eastern Shore to help with his father’s insurance and real estate business. From the perspective of a tough-minded businessman, Matt Hogans looks at Chestertown’s future through the lens of a real estate executive and land developer. While he leaves little doubt he wants his community to grow, he also points to the dangers that come with development, citing Middletown, Delaware as an example of what can go wrong.
Next Month:Cherilyn Widell Historic Preservation Planner
Chestertown Futures is a two-year project of the Chestertown Spy to provide a sustained community conversation on Chestertown’s future and aspirations through the unique voices of twenty-four members of the community representing all aspects of greater Chestertown. By design, these interviews are longer than most broadcast interviews to allow each participant ample time to express their views. It is therefore advisable to allow time for the YouTube video to load the interview fully before viewing, which may take up to three to five minutes.
Between Preservation and Innovation: Architecture Today in Chestertown by Kathleen James-Chakraborty
Posted by Dave Wheelan on July 17, 2010 · 1 Comment
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First, may I say what a treat it is to be back in Chestertown. It is particularly meaningful to me to speak to you on what would have been my father’s eighty-sixth birthday. It is apt, I think, for me to be discussing the relationship between preserving the past and building for the future on his birthday because, while living in one of the town’s oldest houses, he was one of the few in the late 1960s and early 1970s who argued for modern architecture here. In particular he was involved in ensuring that the Clifton Miller Library and the Daniel Gibson Fine Arts Center were not built in the Colonial Revival style popular on campus through the 1950s and again more recently. I should acknowledge, however, that it was my mother who kept 103 standing. If my father ever so much as hammered a single nail into its fabric, I am entirely unaware of the fact.
While I believe strongly in the merits of historic preservation, I am also old enough to know that a great deal of what appears eighteenth century in Chestertown is a lot younger than I am (not that I am so young anymore, but I’m certainly not yet 200!). Moreover, a certain percentage of it has as strong a relation to the town’s original architectural fabric as a Disney castle does to a medieval fortification. No building stays exactly intact for more than a few generations, and the erasure of the recognition of these incremental changes not only goes against international best practice in preservation but also wipes out an appreciation of the intervening history. The desire to forget that Chestertown was ever anything but colonial has resulted in the destruction of some of the most distinctive spaces of my own youth, the late nineteenth century timber roof of Emmanuel Church, the wall of drawers that held every possible nail and screw at Cooper’s Hardware, and the wrap around front porch of what was Ms. Simper’s boarding house on our block of Queen Street. In the case of these two Queen Street porches the associations certain architectural forms have acquired with respectability and social status have replaced two very congenial front porches; the social character of the street has become greatly diminished as a result. So the larger question for me is not authenticity but the way in which we use architecture and landscape architecture to construct identity and shape experience.
The first question is why one particular chapter in Chestertown’s past stands out for us. The town is three hundred years old, and yet it is largely the eighteenth century that has defined its view of itself for at least the last half century. In how many other areas do we really want to turn the clock back that far? I would hope that there is no one who would really want to turn it back even to 1960, the year I was born in what was then pretty much the only modernist building in town. At that time the town was still strictly segregated. Many blacks lived in tinderbox shacks, paying exorbitant rents to some of the town’s most privileged citizens because they couldn’t afford the cars necessary to live in what became the relative freedom of the suburbs carefully located far enough outside of the town limits so that taxpayers would not share the cost of their water. Who lives in these houses now? Are there any blacks or low income people left? The entire population of St. Michael’s shifted over a generation. What does it mean when absolutely all the people with ties to a community move out? Almost none of my high school classmates stayed. Never occurred to me or most of my friends that we might live here as adults.
The eighteenth century was certainly a time when the town mattered and witnessed major events in American history. There was also a high quality of craftsmanship, although the house I grew up in was not particularly well built. Moreover Chestertown was closer to the center of American architecture than it would ever be again. The colonial period is valued today for its historical associations but also for social status and the contribution it makes to tourism. My mother nearly sold our house to someone from the Midwest who hadn’t even seen it, but liked the way in looked on the internet.
Buck-Bacchus Store
My example of colonial architecture, the Buck-Bacchus Store, is another house that has been much refurbished since my childhood. It was originally a store, which reminds us that the distinction between dwelling and working was much more blurred then. When I was very small there were still two grocery stores on the next block of Queen Street and we bought our penny candy at what is now the White Swan. It may not have appeared appropriately historic, but Mrs. Sipala’s was one of the social centers of our small universe, even if she did report to our parents when we regularly spent all our milk money on candy or, in the case of boys, poked our heads into grown up magazines.
Even the core of the historic district is not purely colonial, and it is far denser than it was two hundred years ago. I don’t know how many more modest houses have not survived, but there are certainly cases of infill. The two houses flanking the one in which I grew up are cases in point. Much of what we love about the historic district today is a result of the relentless belief in progress that characterized Chestertown’s builders even as the town lapsed into relative obscurity. All but one of the houses the north side of Water Street between High and Maple were erected within the living memory of some of my childhood neighbors.
This block is also unique for the number of outbuildings that survive, barns in particular, but also at least one smokehouse. Not many of these buildings were in very good shape in my day because they were out of sight and with carriages and horses no longer a means of transportation. They neither contributed to social status or function, but they are an important part of its architectural fabric and should be cherished. By the way, I was allowed to walk half way around this block at the age of four!
Christ Methodist Church is one of the town’s finest examples of Victorian architecture. Would anything this relentlessly modern be allowed today? The main direction of growth in the second half of the nineteenth century was not along High Street but to the east, along Maple and Washington Avenues, lead by the same Stam who built Stam’s hall. There was a major change in the figure ground relationship between building and garden as individual houses, mostly fairly large, were set on larger lawns for greater privacy.
Note that almost all who could afford it moved into in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century into relatively new houses, whether located within the historic district or outside it. The exception, Widehall, was transformed just over a century ago by the addition of the colonnaded porches on the back that have absolutely nothing to do with the eighteenth century.
In my youth, almost all the smaller single-family houses inhabited by whites were new and to the east on the far side of Washington Avenue. Other twentieth century expansions were located even further away, across the river in Kingstown (where the green provided a very handsome buffer between the busy road and the first houses) and further out of town. These houses had all the modern conveniences. In our house one had to walk through a bedroom to get to a bathroom, something that was inconceivable in houses where indoor plumbing had not been an add-on, but part of the original design. Postwar suburban houses, like their Victorian predecessors, followed national rather than regional models, but lacked the detail that gave the Victorian buildings so much of their flair. Note that preservation inevitably focuses on the facades and front rooms of houses; I don’t know anyone who has wanted to turn the clock back ten minutes on kitchens and bathrooms.
One of great shifts in second half of the twentieth century prompted by the automobile was the greater geographical range of places people who worked in the town lived. That one could commute from Quaker Neck was a novelty in my day. Now, assisted in part by the internet, there is a great range of places people who live in the town work. Both shifts preserve the scale of the center of the town, while nonetheless transforming its environs. The new story in my childhood were the number of new houses on small lots dotting country roads as well as the number of people living on farms and in crossroads communities who lived off investments or commuted to town to work. Now, the official expansion of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan region to the town’s doorstep brings other pressures, with farmers selling off single fields to be filled with MacMansions which, whatever the style of their architecture, are completely removed from the pedestrian grid.
The town is still the gathering place, but its character changed with the coming of the automobile. One block of Maple Avenue became in the 1950s dominated by gas stations; Kent Plaza began in the 1960s to rival High Street. More recent is the rise of Cross Street with the shifts in the traffic patterns out to Quaker Neck. Note as well the height of Stam’s Hall, which would never be allowed by any historic commission today. It was a major interruption of the scale and style of the town, despite already being very out of date architecturally when it was built in the 1880s. I’ve never been upstairs!
Stam's Hall
The eastern and northern extensions of the town have for over a century and a half been areas of decreasing density. They are within walking distance of the center, but most people drive. The creek, the rail line and issues of color and class long provided the western side of town, by contrast, with a sharp edge between real density and open farmland or marsh. From our front steps one could see the trotters on the track of Stepne Manor which was far closer to us than any of the schools we walked to daily, much less the college. And yet the boundaries between our front rooms and the sidewalk and between the sides of our house and those of our neighbors could be measured by our outstretched arms.
Should the east or the west side of town serve as a model for the future? There is no question as to which is environmentally better, but is it also socially better to live in a town where it is possible to walk everywhere or to have more visual and aural privacy (two of our neighbors were going deaf, but for decades we heard almost everything they said to one another, to their guests, or on the telephone; when we didn’t have a television we stood on the picnic table to watch theirs).
If you are going to have dense development then shared green space is necessary as well as private gardens on the interior of blocks. Wilmer Park is one of the great most positive additions to the town since my day, although the original goal of shifting resources towards the black community has largely been erased by the changes in the demographics of the blocks closest to it. There is the possibility within the existing scale of the town of creating more variety in kinds of housing, incorporating more green features and using these to generate new details. The move in contemporary architecture is towards the revival of abstraction at the same time that the level of detail is much more refined than it was throughout most of the second half of the twentieth century. One must remember that already most Victorian architectural ornament was mass-produced, as is a lot of the pseudo-colonial detail that has been added to the town’s architectural stock over the course of the last half-century (some of the rest has been torn out of one historic structure to be inserted into another).
I’d like now to detour for a few minutes to talk a bit about my scholarship. Having come from Chestertown, I’ve kept my distance ever since, I must admit, from the eighteenth century, although I very much enjoy living in proximity to Dublin’s many Georgian rowhouses. Instead I’ve focused on architecture that at first glance appears completely unlike anything ever built here. And yet, if one looks more carefully, one sees that I am attracted to buildings that work with rather than reject their contexts.
I wrote my dissertation and first book on the German architect Erich Mendelsohn, whose Schocken Store in Stuttgart, completed in 1926 I am showing here in a day and night view. This department store, the city’s largest, balanced attention to scale and context with the patent excitement it demonstrated about the new. Mendelsohn rejected German history in the wake of the country’s defeat in World War I, but not urban context. In an era in which architecture of consumerism largely masked the industrial origins of many of the products for sale, this building drew attention to the relationship. It upheld the promise of more egalitarian access to the fruits of production in a chain that focused on well designed and made products at modest cost. It reminds me of the Walmart debate of a generation ago here. What would it be like if such a store could be built on the western boundary of the town, with the parking around in back, as it is in many German towns (and was on High Street in my childhood, when Cannon Street did not matter to those making planning decisions). What would it mean to be able to walk to buy the things that you use on a daily basis? As a child and a teenager, I didn’t walk or bicycle further than the Amity Bakery (their lighter than air chocolate covered doughnuts were my favorite), just shy of the Kent Plaza, to spend money. This store was, I should note, demolished after a scant four decades in favor of something more “modern.”
There is a Chestertown connections to this topic, I spent many a coffee and brandy-fueled evening at Erica Salloch’s while I was writing the dissertation. Her critical outlook upon the land and in this case the city she had left as a young woman sustained the sense of the relationship between art and politics I had gained growing up on a college campus during the Vietnam War.
Outsiders and underdogs have also always fascinated me. This I attribute to Mrs. Wilson, my first grade teacher. I was very fortunate to be in the first integrated first grade in the county’s history and thus have one of its finest teachers. The first teacher in the county to earn her MA, she came back from Temple full of stories of watching Bill Cosby in the cafeteria. Earlier she had been part of a group who brought Thurgood Marshall over to get black teachers paid on the same scale as their white counterparts. She taught us about Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman, who were a great deal more exciting than any of the local figures who had been involved in the Revolutionary War. I am also grateful to the Smith family who introduced me to Judaism.
Schocken Store by Mendelsohn
Mendelsohn was Jewish and lived briefly in Jerusalem after leaving Germany in 1933 and before immigrating to the United States in 1941. I am no expert on his work in British Mandate Palestine, but buildings such as his Anglo-Palestinian Bank in Jerusalem of 1936-39 are likely to be part of my next project. This will focus on the export of modern architecture from Central Europe to the rest of the world in the 1930s, forties, and fifties, and of the origin in the developing world of the backlash against postmodernism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I am fascinated by the relationship between patronage and identity. Why has enthusiasm for modernism been consistently greater outside the English-speaking word and Europe than within the countries usually seen to define modernity. I see this in my own family. All of my Indian in-laws live in buildings that are more relentlessly modern than those my siblings and I occupy. And this despite the fact that three of us focus professionally on modern design!
I also appreciate the way in which Mendelsohn introduced modern architecture to an ancient city. The Bank is located just outside of the medieval city walls. It is clad, according to British colonial regulations, in local stone, but Mendelsohn’s adjustment of his form to local conditions, with smaller windows, for instance, is equally crucial to its success.
The building which probably did more than any other to convert me into a historian of modern architecture is Louis Kahn’s Library at the Phillips Exeter Academy, completed in 1972. From the outside it is larger than the other buildings on a campus not so different from the Washington College of my youth, but the use of red brick and the scale of the window openings, as well as the wooden paneling, all help to establish a welcome equivalence.
Inside is entirely different, with concrete and travertine predominating in a much more monumental composition. I can still remember the shock of experiencing this space for the first time, having no idea what was inside. This is where I went to school, having left Worton behind, and what a difference it was. Here was imagination on a scale that one could only dream of in Chestertown, modern and yet certainly informed by the past, by ancient Rome, by nineteenth century mills, by the colonial revival, even by early modern architecture of India and Pakistan, which Kahn was visiting regularly as he designed it.
It is the balance here between brick, wood, and concrete, between abstraction and detail that makes this work so well. Natural light is also crucial. This is architecture as unsentimental poetry, something I had never experienced in Chestertown, where sentiment was everything; here one finds instead toughness without brutalism.
More recently, I have spent much of my time in a rustbelt in Germany called the Ruhr where my husband teaches. Here historic preservation of an apparently triumphant past has taken very different form than in Chestertown. Our city of nearly four hundred thousand people probably has fewer eighteenth century buildings than Chestertown; from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century it was the center of continental Europe’s largest network of coal mines. Germany has strict land use regulations; our apartment building fronting a medieval high way looks out in back over farmland and the remains of an old hunting park. The few buildings that survive from the eighteenth century and earlier are all as well protected as their counterparts here. The question is what to do with the even more outmoded traces of a vanished but perhaps heroic recent past.
The mines and mills that closed in the first decades after the war were mostly torn down with little thought for historic preservation; they were widely viewed as dirty and as too closely associated with the robber barons who in many cases had been uncomfortably close to the Nazis or, at the least, insufficiently supportive of democracy. Those that survived until the bitter end, however, like this blast furnace in Duisburg, have often been preserved. The lighting is by the British designer Jonathan Park, better known for his designs for rock concerts. It makes sure that anyone traveling on the nearby high way after dark is sure to notice and remember the park.
Equally remarkable, however, is what one sees by daylight. The landscape architect Peter Latz invented a new kind of park here, when he created Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord across the course of the 1990s. First, he made the blast furnace ruins double as sculptures within his park. This had been done before, most notably at the Gasworks Park, which opened in Seattle in 1975. Second, he designed interventions based in the minimalist art that was very popular with the region’s few art historians, and reflected the impact of the American sculptor Richard Serra, who had much of his early work fabricated in the region, where many of his first patrons also lived. Third, his plantings were intended to help heal and even beautify a badly poisoned landscape. Indeed, the Germans despite their love of regulation, have allowed access to brown-fields that would in the United States still be off limits to the public. This may be why parks like this often seem to be more popular with landscape architecture professionals from around the world than with locals, who remember all too well what kind of contamination occurred here.
Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord
There may be several lessons here for Chestertown. First, the past that can be valued and understood as art is not defined by age alone. The industrial centerpieces of the Ruhr’s new parks are seldom over a century old. Second, merely preserving the past is not as important as finding ways to make it matter in the present. The new parks provide a variety of amenities, from open space to special installations for activities like rock climbing. Third, they involve the transfer of private property into public space. This goes against of the last several decades when the larger problem has often been understood to be the privatization of the civic realm. Finally, there is a healing of the environment by converting it from productive to leisure space. We have to be frank about the role that tourism plays in our economy, a tourism that is scarcely enhanced by high cancer rates and dangerous drinking water.
Chestertown doesn’t have any old blast furnaces, and I am not recommending that we leave houses or even barns to decay in the middle of un-ploughed fields, but I do think we should think about how we can appreciate an unvarnished past, rather than putting fancy new woodwork, not to mention granite counter tops and Jacuzzis, in every colonial mansion. Of course I speak as a former denizen of a house that was always in a state of considerable disarray.
Many views of Chestertown today correspond almost exactly to the Chestertown of my youth. The view from the river that greeted us on every trip back from visiting relatives in Washington and Baltimore; the storefronts that lined the path to Stam’s Drug Store and thus to ice cream cones on summer evenings, the driveway up which we hit singles in soft balls (the goal was to hit the ball much less far but into the box bushes flanking it in both yards, which with luck produced a home run).
If the physical change has in some cases been very slight, there has certainly been considerable social change. Some has certainly been for the better. The worst of the abject poverty and the racial discrimination that accompanied it has been alleviated. People may argue about health care reform but they don’t pay the doctor with muskrats anymore. And there are restaurants, something that was entirely missing in my youth. Better coffee, too, I am sure. I read the complaint in the World Café forum that there were no ethnic restaurants with some amusement. I was seventeen before I ate my first bagel and my first Chinese or Indian food; did all in advance of my mother, who was and is not exactly unsophisticated!
On the other hand, I don’t know how many day to day necessities one can still buy on High Street, where we shopped for cloth (almost all my clothes were home made; we spent hours on the stools at the Yard Stick flipping through pattern books with our friends) and candy, every imaginable piece of hardware and toys one could buy and still have change from the dollar I got every time my grandfather visited. I don’t know if children can still walk all around town on their own, knowing full well that if they did anything they shouldn’t, their parents are likely to hear about it from the check out ladies at the grocery store (One of the most notable examples of juvenile crime in my youth was when a classmate of my sister’s stole a town police car from in front of headquarters – the keys were in the ignition – on a Saturday night and drove it into the courtyard of the high school, where it wasn’t located until the following Monday morning). And I don’t know how much real progress has been made on race, how many formal or casual meals blacks and whites are sitting down and eating together.
I also don’t know what the right balance for adults is between privacy and community. This is as important issue and closely related to the relationship between preservation and innovation. People who grow up in the older districts of towns are used to not having much privacy, but they may justifiably hunger for more than they had as children. People who come from elsewhere may enjoy the fruits of community without necessarily understanding the small compromises that have traditionally been a part of daily life here.
When my father died, my aunt from New York was stunned when the manager at the A&P wouldn’t let her pay for the ham and the turkey she had walked over to buy; she had no idea that after nearly two decades of regular visits he knew exactly who she was and had probably been expecting her.
The outsiders, who of course included my own parents even if my mother lived in Chestertown for nearly half a century usually arrive with more education and economic resources. Many of the efforts to cap development and control architecture have been instigated by this group, but an acknowledgement of the needs of natives is necessary to preserve real community, social fabric rather than just bricks and mortar. This is what has been entirely lost in St. Michael’s and Oxford.
The question is what innovations can contribute to the welfare of the community. Sustainable architecture is needed to balance the energy costs of tourism; sustainable agriculture to preserve the ecosystem that farmers have historically known and cherished in more detail than townsfolk. Sustainable sociability is also important.
Chestertown has always been a place in flux, whether or not the external architectural signs of this have been allowed onto the facades of the historic district. And much of the agenda has been set elsewhere, from England and Philadelphia in the eighteenth century to Baltimore in the nineteenth and twentieth. Nor has power historically been equitably distributed within the community. How can all of this be overcome to maintain a distinctive and high quality of life? I don’t have any easy answers. My own instinct is to acknowledge change, allow for the expression of architectural innovation (particularly in relation to sustainability), and broaden connections across the community.
Chestertown Futures Case Study 3: Liza Brocker
Posted by Dave Wheelan on June 28, 2010 · 9 Comments
When Play it Again Sam’s co-owner Liza Brocker graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, she was rather clear her future was going to be on the West Coast. After graduating from Santa Clara University, she spent more than ten years working in high pressure marketing and communications jobs with some of Silicon Valley’s largest corporations. She also settled down with Pete Brocker and her two small children in the San Jose area for what was to be a traditional suburban life in the sun and fun of California.
Things changed dramatically a few years ago when, on an annual visit to see her mother, who lives in Chestertown, the young couple started to compare their hectic life in the Valley with the slow, nurturing pace of the Eastern Shore. They made the bold decision to relocate. Within weeks the Brockers bought a house in Pomona, sold their Bay Area home in days, and moved to Kent County.
Since that time, Liza and husband Pete have both seen the promise and challenge of small town life from the unique perspective of running retail stores, including the very popular Play it Again Sam’s coffee shop.
Next Month: Real Estate Executive Matt Hogans
Chestertown Futures is a two-year project of the Chestertown Spy to provide a sustained community conversation on Chestertown’s future and aspirations through the unique voices of twenty-four members of the community representing all aspects of greater Chestertown. By design, these interviews are longer than most broadcast interviews to allow each participant ample time to express their views. It is therefore advisable to allow time for the YouTube video to load the interview fully before viewing, which may take up to three to five minutes.
Excerpts from “Letters to Sophie” by Hailey Reissman
Posted by Spy Staff on June 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Letters to Sophie by Hailey Reissman
Dear Sophie Kerr,
I imagine you beautiful. You are a woman in a café with a long, thick neck and a wide-brimmed hat, one of those women whose epitomizes the quality of being there, who is elegant and beautiful and never makes apologies for themselves. You are the woman I long to be, the grownup with temperance, grace, intelligence. You dress in long dresses speckled with bright, oversized prints, whose flowing hems almost graze your ankles. You have a voice that will momentarily lilt in the middle of a sentence, silencing all other things. This is a power you reserve, because you understand it. You leave your silverware crossed in a small X on your napkin. You watch, contented by the lives of others.
Dear Sophie Kerr,
What I like about the Eastern Shore is the birds. In spring, young hawks circle the red-bricked college, teetering and swooping in smooth streams of movement, long, feathered pendulums constantly balancing against some changing wind.
Then there are the small birds; the ones that chatter and have fanned tails that part from their bodies with the curve of the space between a frog’s legs, with the texture of small, sand-beat scallop shells. They leave wispy clumps of feathers that blow across the cement outside my front door and I imagine smell animal and strange.
Dear Sophie Kerr,
Did you ever sit at your desk, looking at the same green-patterned grass of Maryland that I can see now, and fear for everything you wrote? Did this feeling ever stay with you through the night, biting through your blankets?
Did you ever want to write something so badly that you couldn’t get out? Did you cry at small things, like the shake of weeds in the wind or a small gathering of freshly-born birds? When people published your stories, did things change? Did you feel validated or disappointed or simply nothing at all? Did you talk with hours with acquaintances about the parts of life most misunderstood? Did you eat with your napkin tucked in your collar or spread across your legs?
Dear Sophie Kerr,
Why this gift? Why us?
Dear Sophie Kerr,
I wonder if you’d like me. I imagine you in a dark-wood house with red-and-orange rugs and many paintings; I imagine sitting with you. You read a draft and you mark it up with slant, black handwriting. You are generous with your advice and your company and your conversation. In the minutes with you in your house I am given the great strength of being understood.
Dear Sophie Kerr,
Did you ride the subway at night? Did you drink whiskey? Did you miss Maryland? Did you sit by the Hudson and watch boats pass? Did you ever wish you were someone else? Could you feel stories the same way you feel a jacket against the skin? Did your memories ever get so bleary that you just weren’t sure who you were?
Dear Sophie Kerr,
What comes next?
Chestertown Futures Case Study 2: Bill Ingersoll
Posted by Dave Wheelan on May 30, 2010 · 4 Comments
While visioning exercises can be challenging work, so are the hard realities that come with managing and administrating change. For almost thirty-five years, Town Manager Bill Ingersoll has been doing just that as the local government’s CEO as well as the zoning administrator and housing authority. With family roots going back hundreds of years in the community of his birth, Ingersoll remembers simpler times with pleasure, but is also proud of where Chestertown stands now.
As a direct participant of some of the Town’s more challenging decisions over the years, this three-decade veteran of community disputes argues unapologetically for caution and taking the long view, however painful that can be. With his dry humor and long institutional memory, Ingersoll sees Chestertown’s Futures from his own unique point of view.
Next Month: Play it Again Sam Co-Owner Liza Brocker
Chestertown Futures is a two-year project of the Chestertown Spy to provide a sustained community conversation on Chestertown’s future and aspirations through the unique voices of twenty-four members of the community representing all aspects of greater Chestertown. By design, these interviews are longer than most broadcast interviews to allow each participant ample time to express their views. It is therefore advisable to allow time for the YouTube video to load the interview fully before viewing, which may take up to three to five minutes.
Marc Castelli: Art and the Chesapeake Waterman
Posted by Chris Metzloff on May 11, 2010 · 4 Comments
Those who live around the Chesapeake Bay tend to have a special affection for the folk who work out on those waters. And no one has a better understanding of, and sympathy for, the all-weather workers of this unique world than the artist Marc Castelli. His art is currently on display at the Carla Massoni Gallery in Chestertown. The Spy asked Marc to put in his own words how he transfers what he has seen of the watermen’s life to canvas.
Images presented in this video are courtesy of Marc Castelli.
Spy News: Wayne Gilchrest Taking Stock
Posted by Spy Staff on April 27, 2010 · 15 Comments
Wayne Gilchrest sat down with the Chestertown Spy’s Kurt Kolaja and Dave Wheelan before a speaking engagement at the Bookplate bookstore on Cross Street on Friday night. In keeping with his reputation as a straight shooter, the former congressman spoke candidly on what is wrong with Washington, the Republican party, his successor Frank Kratovil, and life after Congress.
Chestertown Futures Case Study 1: Alex Castro
Posted by Dave Wheelan on April 19, 2010 · 3 Comments
Rarely does a newcomer to Chestertown come with such unique qualifications to comment on its possible future than Alex Castro. The architect of the acclaimed Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, the designer of the renovated Charles Theatre, co-founder of the award winning magazine Urbanite, and accomplished artist and sculptor, Castro brings over thirty years of studying the urban experience through his trained eye to Chestertown’s challenges and opportunities in the next ten years.
Next month – Case Study 2: Town of Chestertown Manager Bill Ingersoll
Chestertown Futures is a two-year project of the Chestertown Spy to provide a sustained community conversation on Chestertown’s future and aspirations through the unique voices of twenty-four members of the community representing all aspects of greater Chestertown.
By design, these interviews are longer than most broadcast interviews to allow each participant ample time to express their views. It is therefore advisable to allow time for the YouTube video to load the interview fully before viewing, which may take up to three to five minutes.
Profiles in Spirituality: The Future of the Episcopal Church (Part 2)
Posted by Chris Metzloff on December 23, 2009 · 1 Comment
On a very cold and wet evening in November, six local clergy members from the Episcopal Churches of Kent and Queen Anne’s Counties gathered at Emmanuel’s Parish Hall to talk candidly about the future by answering the question: Will the Episcopal Church exist in the 21st Century, and if so, why would it be relevant to believers?
It was not lost on the panelists that a similar discussion, as Rev Osberger points out, took place in 1780 when the rectors of the local parishes gathered at the same spot during a similar time of profound change and challenges. One of the historic results of that meeting, suggested by The Rev’d James Jones Wilmer, Rector of Shrewsbury Parish, was the renaming of the church itself to the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was later adopted by the American branch of the Anglican Church.
Given this unique history, it seemed appropriate for the Spy to honor this important moment by bringing together the current rectors from some of the same parishes. While the issues have changed since 1780, the Church nonetheless faces equally important challenges of keeping important traditions of the past, while also acknowledging the needs of an entirely new generation of men and women seeking spiritual guidance and answers.
Professor J. David Newell, retired chair of the philosophy and religion department at Washington College, moderates a discussion with Rev. Daniel Gross, Rector of Emmanuel Church; Rev. Nanese Hawthorne, Rector of St. Luke’s Parish, Queen Anne’s County; Rev. Tom Hughes, Rector of Shrewsbury in Kennedyville; Rev. Allen LaMontagne of St. Paul’s; Rev. Charles Osberger of Old Wye Church, and Rev. Heather Cook of the Diocese of Easton.
The first part of this program is available by clicking here: Part I
DW
Profiles in Spirituality: The Future of the Episcopal Church (Part 1)
Posted by Chris Metzloff on December 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment
On a very cold and wet evening in November, six local clergy members from the Episcopal Churches of Kent and Queen Anne’s Counties gathered at Emmanuel’s Parish Hall to talk candidly about the future by answering the question: Will the Episcopal Church exist in the 21st Century, and if so, why would it be relevant to believers?
It was not lost on the panelists that a similar discussion, as Rev Osberger points out, took place in 1780 when the rectors of the local parishes gathered at the same spot during a similar time of profound change and challenges. One of the historic results of that meeting, suggested by The Rev’d James Jones Wilmer, Rector of Shrewsbury Parish, was the renaming of the church itself to the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was later adopted by the American branch of the Anglican Church.
Given this unique history, it seemed appropriate for the Spy to honor this important moment by bringing together the current rectors from some of the same parishes. While the issues have changed since 1780, the Church nonetheless faces equally important challenges of keeping important traditions of the past, while also acknowledging the needs of an entirely new generation of men and women seeking spiritual guidance and answers.
Professor J. David Newell, retired chair of the philosophy and religion department at Washington College, moderates a discussion with Rev. Daniel Gross, Rector of Emmanuel Church; Rev. Nanese Hawthorne, Rector of St. Luke’s Parish, Queen Anne’s County; Rev. Tom Hughes, Rector of Shrewsbury in Kennedyville; Rev. Allen LaMontagne of St. Paul’s; Rev. Charles Osberger of Old Wye Church, and Rev. Heather Cook of the Diocese of Easton.
Part II will be presented next week.
DW
Spy Fortnightly Profile: Dianne Dumanoski
Posted by Marty Fujita on November 11, 2009 · 1 Comment
In a sobering but realistic profile of humanity’s negative impact on global planetary systems, author Dianne Dumanoski, our fall Spy Chat speaker (in partnership with Washington College’s Center for Environment & Society), makes a eloquent argument that “the radical experiment of our modern industrial civilization is now disrupting our planet’s very metabolism.” Dumanoski believes that our climate is changing faster than original scientific models predicted, in unexpected ways, and with dangerous consequences. Given the increasingly short window for action, politicians and the traditional media have done little to heed the warnings and avert crisis. Humanity’s future, Dumanoski argues, will depend on our ability to return to systems based on flexibility, diversity, redundancy, and community and away from current trends that rely on technological fixes, unsustainable economic models of growth, and excessive globalization.
Marty Fujita
Green Editor
The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile Earth can be purchased at Amazon.com
Spy Chat: The Episcopal Church in the 21st Century
Posted by Spy Staff on November 7, 2009 · 2 Comments
In November 1780, inside the Chestertown Chapel, a meeting of the Anglican clergy from the parishes of Kent and Queen Anne’s Counties took place at what is now known as Emmanuel Church to discuss the future of their church and faith. One of the results of that meeting, suggested by The Rev’d James Jones Wilmer, Rector of Shrewsbury Parish, was the renaming of the church to the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was later adopted by the American branch of the Anglican Church.
Given this unique history, it seems all too appropriate for the Chestertown Spy to honor this important moment by bringing together the current rectors from some of the same parishes to discuss their church and their faith as the Episcopal Church moves into the 21st century. While the issues have changed since 1780, the Church nonetheless faces equally important challenges in keeping with the important traditions of the past while acknowledging the needs of an entirely new generation of men and women seeking spiritual guidance and answers.
On Wednesday, November 11th at 7 PM at the Emmanuel Church parish hall, Professor J. David Newell, retired chair of the philosophy and religion department at Washington College, will moderate a discussion with Rev. Daniel Gross, Rector of Emmanuel Church; Rev. Nanese Hawthorne, Rector of St. Luke’s Parish, Queen Anne’s County; Rev. Tom Hughes, Rector of Shrewsbury in Kennedyville; Rev. Allen LaMontagne of St. Paul’s; Rev. Charles Osberger of Old Wye Church, and Rev. Heather Cook of the Diocese of Easton.
Admission is free.
Spy Fortnightly Profile: In & Out of the Studio with Vicco von Voss
Posted by Chris Metzloff on October 30, 2009 · 8 Comments
John Muir, California’s beloved naturalist, once noted that between two trees there was a doorway to a new world. Local artist and craftsman Vicco von Voss has been finding that door in his own special way since he began his career as woodworker and furniture maker in Kent County almost twenty years ago. His passion for wood and design, coupled with a spiritual context for his work, has led von Voss to his own world in his craft and in his relationship with the Eastern Shore landscape.
Profiles in Spirituality; David LaMotte on the Afterlife
Posted by Chris Metzloff on October 20, 2009 · 5 Comments
David LaMotte, long time Kent County resident and President of LaMotte Chemical, shared many similarities with his late father, the Reverend David H. LaMotte, former rector of old St. Paul’s Parish, Kent. Both men were southern gentlemen, passionate duck hunters, and held a strong sense of family and pragmatic views of life and work. They also shared a fascination with the afterlife and the study of near death experience that David Jr still continues today. In a revealing interview, he talks about this special father-son exploration into the spiritual unknown, and how it changed his views of religion and life itself.
Profiles in Conservation: Tom Leigh
Posted by Chris Metzloff on October 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment
To date, there are only hundred and fifty official Riverkeepers in the United States, and Chestertown, thanks to the Chester River Association, has one of the best in Tom Leigh, the official Riverkeeper for the Chester. Every week, Tom patrols the river, spotting environmental trouble as well as educating boaters and other users on the problems the Chester River faces. Tom’s work doesn’t stop there. He provides important advocacy for the river’s protection and works collaboratively with other non-profits, landowners and key stakeholders to keep pressure on local, state and federal lawmakers to insure the Chester’s long term future. This is not an easy job.
Spy Fortnightly: In and Out of the Studio
Posted by Chris Metzloff on September 25, 2009 · 1 Comment
For almost thirty-five years, Susan Tessem has created a unique vision of the Eastern Shore with her stunning landscapes and breathtaking colors. Her modest approach and exceptional eye has brought a special clarity and beauty to the Chester River experience, and endless pleasure to those who collect her work. She has also exhibited at such institutions as the Norfolk Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Henri Gallery, American Institute of Architects, and the Easton Academy of Art.
As the first full time professor of art at Washington College from 1975 to 2004, she created from scratch a visual arts program that survived its humbling beginnings in the windowless basement of Tawes Theater, while also pushing her students, the College, and Chestertown to develop a real art community that now is perhaps one of the most active on the Eastern Shore today. Of course, she is also known as having one of the best laughs on the Delmarva.
Susan Tessem is represented by Carla Massoni, MASSONIART, www.massoniart.comOne of a Kind: Colchester Farm CSA
Posted by Spy Staff on September 23, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Colchester Farm’s community supported agriculture (CSA) project is one of those special resources in greater Chestertown that is not immediately noticed by most. Over the past five years, the CSA has slowly increased its membership to 140 families, providing fresh, pesticide-free produce for almost half the year to its subscribers, while also creating a special connection to those that grow this food on some of the most special and fertile land in Kent County. At a time when more and more Americans are rethinking what they eat and where they get their food, Colchester Farm has created a viable option for our community through the creative energy of this non-profit’s dedicated staff and board, as well as its members donations and support.
The Chestertown Spy will be hosting a benefit for Colchester Farm’s CSA with a special showing of the award winning documentary Food Inc. on September 24 at 7:30 PM at the Prince Theatre in Chestertown. Students (of all ages) are asked to donate $5 and the adult suggested donation is $10 at the door. For more information, please visit www.eventbrite.com
Profiles in Spirituality – The Voice of Karen Somerville
Posted by Dave Wheelan on August 31, 2009 · 10 Comments
It seems fitting that Karen Somerville would be the Spy’s first profile in spirituality. While Karen could easily have fit into many categories, including music or African American history, it is her faith that connects the dots to her singing and her lifelong commitment to her community. It is a story of love, belief, and healing that has given her a voice that rivals some of the best vocalists performing today. She is a unique gift to all who live in and around Chestertown.
DW
The Chestertown Plan: A Design Strategy
Posted by Dave Wheelan on July 17, 2009 · 4 Comments
Since the late 1660s, there has been some sort of plan in place for Chestertown’s growth. From its early beginnings as a prospective port village for the British Crown to today’s comprehensive plan, the “town plan” has governed how it must function commercially and socially, and also lays out a hierarchy of sites for government, religion, residential, retail, shipping, and even death. Local architect Peter Newlin walks us through the Chestertown plan’s many stages over the years and poses interesting and challenging questions for the town’s future.
Profiles in Conservation: Rob Etgen
Posted by Nancy Taylor Robson on July 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Everything we do affects and is affected by land use — air and water quality, the safety and nutritional value of our food, the health and vibrancy of our communities. It’s an ecology, an interdependency that impacts our daily lives. Many on the Eastern Shore are working hard to benefit our quality of life through environmental conservation and imaginative, forward-thinking land use. Foremost among them is Rob Etgen, Director of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy and manager of Colchester Farm in Georgetown, MD.
The above video is a teaser of the full interview which lasts two and a half minutes. To watch the full 22 minute interview, Click Here for Vimeo, or Here for Youtube
