Get In The Spirit > Re-Cycle, Re-Use + Re-Imagine Books/To Give and To Share

A world of information and ideas within reach of every resident . . . Yipes! That sounds too good to be true
For you, dear readers, bargains on pulp fiction and non-fiction at the Mesa Main Public Library thanks to Janice Dell, Volunteer Coordinator, and her merry band of helpers who have selected "nearly new" books going on sale at the lowest prices in town starting today through January 3, 2016.

They're too big to stick in a stocking, but you no doubt

get the idea

 

 

 

Hours of Operation

Monday	10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Tuesday	10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Wednesday	10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Thursday	10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Friday	10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday	10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday	Closed

Find out what's going on all the time and every month > http://www.mesalibrary.org/
You can even find a link to register to vote.

MACFest + Downtown Mesa Indie Fest > THE BIG WE Take-Over on Main Street

Good Ole' Kris Kringle was getting his jollies on inside the window at Gunell's Jewelry Store seeing the turnout on Main Street for Small Business Saturday, November 28, 2015.
It's not quite all merry and a winter wonderland yet, but word is getting out when MACFest adds two more days to their calendar schedule to collaborate with the Downtown Merchants Association and The City of Mesa for a big promotion November 27-Jan 3, 2016.
Valley Metro Light Rail is pitching in giving free rides on all the stops at Main Street Light Rail station platforms downtown from Country Club to Main to Mesa Drive, but of course you're more than welcome to walk or bike. See >> merrymainstreet.com

The message is: Get here for sights you might have reminisced about from days gone-by or get here for sights you never could have imagined happening in downtown Mesa.

Another Article Re:The Twilight Garden [Post here 29 October, 2015]

[Updates 02 Dec about Creative Machine] Different style, different content and different focus in another feature on The Twilight Garden located close by the Valley Metro Light Rail Station at Main Street/Country Club.

Posted: Sunday, November 29, 2015 11:26 am

Pocket park offers respite in downtown Mesa

By Shelley Ridenour Tribune

Offers what? Not too many people use or have the word "respite" in their everyday speech . . . is that spite and spite again? Like "re-think"?

As you can see from one of the stunning images taken at twilight by David Jolkovski that accompanied the article it's not a "pocket park" - it's exposed with public access on three sides, with this one looking south across Main Street. The open location with benches facing the acrylic sculpture configurations, is on the north side leading to/from a parking area, and on the east side occupies the space next to Il Viniao restaurant.

The post on this site titled "Valley Metro Public Art > The Shadow of A Memory" has images from the daytime with this longitudinal view of the streetscape looking east on Main Street and a cyclist walking his bike enjoying the scenery.

Twilight or daytime, thanks to Valley Metro and the City of Mesa, Creative Place Making and the role of an artist get highlighted in not just one but two reports.
 

Connect to and read both.
Find out more about Creative Place Making by scanning or searching this BlogSpot - there's a link to five videos

As noted in the Oct 29 post on this site, one source was Cindy Ornstein, Arts & Culture Director for The City of Mesa, who sent some details about how the design of the Valley Metro Public Art space evolved after Rob Antoniak, Valley Metro's Community Outreach go-to guy hooked us up.
The Mesa Tribune article did include those.
Your MesaZona blogger is including a link here to the artist and the company that fabricated Twilight Garden [page July 31, 2015] http://creativemachines.com/fabricating-twilight-garden

Keep your eyes out for more Interactive Public Art.

About Creative Machines = a group of visionary artists, engineers and fabricators doing world-class work for clients everywhere from their base in Tucson, AZ.
We are a multi-disciplinary firm whose abilities span exhibition design, ball machine sculptures, and monumental public art.
We create monumental and human-scaled work that is beautiful at first glance but yields deeper rewards with continued interaction.
Our work is rooted in science, perception and history.

Since 1995 we have been making dynamic experiences for museums, science centers, libraries, hospitals, university campuses, transit stops, art museums, trade shows, and public spaces across the globe. Regardless of the time of day, someone somewhere is enjoying our work.
We never stop innovating.
We make technically sophisticated projects and explore fabrication strategies that have never been tried before. Extensive research and prototyping let us create the most innovative and unique work for our clients.
In certain areas we can do things that no other firm can

Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema helps United Food Bank

Separate from what they do on a national stage or how they might vote on international matters like refugees and emigrants from the wars in The Middle East, it's nice to see who we elect to Congress in Washington DC to represent voters' interests in the U.S. House of Representatives doing the right thing locally.

Smart Growth Here + Now ReSource > (Re)Building The New Urban DTMesa

Why would anyone want to live in downtown Mesa?
Smart Growth America finds that more and more Americans want to live in walkable, downtown neighborhoods, and companies want to locate in these places too.
These neighborhoods generate strong tax revenues and have lower municipal costs per capita. And they are the often the heart of a town or region’s economic activity.
. . .  one big question remains in your mind. HOW can center city Mesa do it?
Read more >> Comments are invited!

Canyon Winds Forecast For The Las Sendas Area

According to a report by Roland Murphy from Arizona Business Exchange on November 17, 2015, a new 261,380SF "Senior Community" [is there ever going to be a junior community??] is getting proposed with plans and zoning requests to the City of Mesa at the northwest corner of McDowell Road and Ridgecrest in the city’s Las Sendas area.

A Not-So-Ordinary Property With A History + A Lot of Stories

Welcome to Nana'sGardena, or "Grandma's House", a Queen Ann-style brick home originally  built in 1901 that fills the northwest corner of Sirrine Street at 2nd Avenue.
Your MesaZona blogger was stunned at the sight of this historic property while walking around the block and neighborhood with Augie Gastelum, head of NEDCO the Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation, a couple of months ago.

We strolled and talked for two hours on both sides of the east-west expanse of 2nd Avenue from Mesa Drive to Center Street in a district called Southside Heights [Los Altos].
Augie and his wife Jennifer purchased their own home, built in 1935, here about a year ago, welcoming a new addition to their family about the same time.
2nd Avenue is regenerating with both the old and the new side-by-side, improving all the time into a very livable and diverse neighborhood.
There are single-family homes nestled in with multi-family units, at least one group home/service organization, Community Bridges, a recovery treatment center, Riversource, and directly across Sirrine is Nana's Garden.

Here you'll find  a welcoming trellis arbor and a white picket fence, flowering shrubs, metal and stone sculptures,low-impact desert  landscaping, two pelapas, citrus trees, extensive plantings and gardens with benches, stone walkways, a grandchildren play area, and a surprising Koi Pond, with a close-up view in the image to the left.
Just the other day, "Grandma" Margaret Lambert and yours truly chatted under the shade of a tree enjoying the pleasant serenity by the water feature.
I apologized for maybe intruding on private property, after walking by a few times, but after seeing the welcome sign at the top of the arbor on a Sunday morning, ventured in.

Grandma, recently-divorced in 1979 decided to move to downtown Mesa with her two kids in 1979 buying this old house after looking at others.
It needed a lot of work thirty-five years inside and outside in the bare yard. Today it's  a work-in-progress.
Nana invited me into her office where's she's occupied with plans for the future and gathering historic photographs and documentation about the property and people who lived here starting in the last century . . . one of whom, Mrs. Wingar was married to an owner of The Mesa Ice Company.
Plans are underway with the City of Mesa Historic Preservation Board getting all the paperwork, approvals and research in place to establish the South Side Heights Historic District.