Peoria Illinoisan

I made this little song so I could learn my prepositions
About the places things could be and even their positions
About, Above, Across, Along, Among and Beside
After, Against, Around and At, Into, and Inside

I will admit that this is all very hard to understand
And at the end it will cramp up my little hurting hand
Before I get Behind, Below, Beneath or Between
I will go Down During gym class and very Likely scream

Besides the fact that this will end some time in the short future
And Except For this I’d have a headache even doctor’s couldn’t cure
To learn Before, Beyond, and But - By, From, In, and Past
Of, Off, Onto, Outside, Over, Since, Through – and no it’s not the last!

They say that Opposites attract, but Underneath it all
The end is Near, On will I go Toward the very final call
So Out, Under, Until and Up, Upon, With and Without
Within and To and “THAT IS ALL” I finally get to shout!

So learn your prepositions and keep a smile on your face
You’ll be smarter and be relieved you’ll always know your place
And in ten years you will still be singing this crazy song
And remember your fourth grade class to which you used to belong.

-Mrs. PeoriaIllinoisan, 2008

Sung to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Major General’s Song.

Peoria Journal Star Real Estate Transactions:

1109 W. Main St., Peoria, Lullo Investments Inc. to Eldorado Partners, $1,385,000.

Eldorado Partners is an offshoot of Coldwell Banker Commercial Devonshire Realty and appears to build and maintain retail outlets and mini strip malls. It is owned by Tim Harrington and Tom Harrington Jr. who are based out of Champaign.

I’m guessing the building will be torn down. No word on what type of building will replace it, or what that building will contain, but here are a few developments created by Eldorado Partners to give you an idea of what might go there…

This is a development in Charleston, Il, as printed in the Charleston Journal Gazette:

Eldorado Partners of Champaign is seeking a variance in the city’s setback requirements for drive-in lanes at the Dunn’s site

[…]

Harrington said they plan to purchase the Dunn’s site, demolish the building there, and construct an approximately 5,000-square-foot “upscale” retail center. He said that center would offer two to three storefronts, including one with a drive-in lane.

And another, from the Lincoln Courier:

The Lincoln Starbucks was set to open in Childers Plaza, a small strip mall now under construction at Illinois Route 10’s intersection with Interstate 55.

[…]

Eldorado Partners was responsible for developing the other Starbucks’ sites in central Illinois.

Tenants at other locations developed by the Harringtons include Papa Murphy’s Take ’N Bake Pizza, H&R Block, Sprint and Super Cuts.

Getting excited yet?

Update from an anonymous email:

“Devonshire will rehab Walgreens and build 24 luxury apartments.”

While I don’t have any deep emotional attachment to the Fieldhouse, it has been a fixture in Peoria for a long time, so it is a somewhat bittersweet to watch it come down. I walked over and snapped a few photos last night. (Grabbed a souvenir brick too)

....

For more photos, check out the blogs of Jonathan Ahl and Kirk Wessler who have also been keeping an eye on it, and don’t forget about the Bradley Fieldhouse WebCam where you can watch it live.

I admit that I can be a bit slow sometimes in picking up on symbolism, but a little bell rang in my head today and I finally figured out what I fear everyone else has known for a long time…

The illegal Kellar Rail cleanup, organized by the RTA for this weekend is more than just a silly way to get some publicity, it symbolizes everything they believe. They are “cleaning” up the Kellar Rail because they believe Trains, and the manufacturing base they serve are evil and dirty.

Bikes and trails, on the other hand, are friendly and clean.

It’s a classic case of good vs evil.

Trains: Dirty.

Bicycles: Clean.

Industry: Bad.

Exercise: Good.

If they weren’t so darned arrogant and closed minded, maybe all of Peoria would be able to finally benefit from industry and jobs reliant on rail, of which there is great nationwide demand, and a trail to benefit quality of life issues that we all want.

Emtronic’s latest post (in which he was possibly abducted by aliens) explains why he loves Peoria, even as much as it is a love/hate relationship, got me to thinking about a half baked post I wrote but never published.

Considering I’m short on both thoughts and time, I’ll just throw it out there… still half baked… and with the original title…

CJ Summers, in a post that I kicked myself for not thinking of myself, asked “Tell us all what you sincerely like about Peoria.”

I found it interesting that some of the usual commenters stayed away from this post, as evidenced by one from a new resident who said

“I’ve never lived in a town where the negative image issues are as largely self-inflicted, or self-generated, as they are here. I, for one, am tiring of being rebutted when I do try to say something positive about Peoria, to a Peorian.

In other words, I think it would be smashingly positive if you would stop arguing with me when I say you don’t suck.”

On that note, here are some things I love about Peoria, in no particular order:

The Riverfront.

Our Skyline.

Easy Interstate access connecting various parts of the city.

Our cultural diversity.

Springdale Cemetery.

Glen Oak & Bradley Parks.

Glen Oak Zoo.

Common Place.

The Junior League of Peoria.

Forest Park Nature Center.

Wild Life Prairie Park.

Excellent and inexpensive golf.

Grand View Drive, High Street, Moss Avenue, The Uplands, and the Randolph-Roanoke historic district.

Bradley University.

Our rich history.

I don’t like crowds. Especially upwards of 100,000.

I don’t like standing in line for and hour and a half only to be told when I got close that helicopter rides are shut down until after all of the jets are done flying… in approximately two hours… at which point I can get back in line… the back of the line.

I enjoy set up day, where you can watch the performances for what they are without the horrid music or announcer.

As much as enjoyed Blue Angel’s up close, I was much more excited when I saw them from Alpha Park amongst the quiet of chirping birds, and again when they buzzed my house and flew in formation past Bradley University. There’s just something about seeing them where they supposedly shouldn’t be, such as over my house, that gets me excited.

It pays big dividends to know the backroads out of the airport.

It pays bigger dividends to have a wife who can score VIP parking passes.

By the good fortune of knowing the right people, I got a sneak peek of the Prairie Air Show on set-up day. I’ll be there again on Sunday, but set-up day is the special day I cherish when those who are lucky enough to get in are allowed a preview of the show.

(I took a bunch of photos, but I think my son captured it perfectly with this pic.)

All vendors and exhibitors were asked to leave by 3pm, just before the elite U.S. Navy Blue Angels were scheduled to go up for a practice run, so I drove over to nearby Alpha Park and recorded some video. Admittedly, my video is a bit rough, but I can’t tell you how jaw-dropping it is to have these planes flying directly over your head, sometimes just a few hundred feet off the ground. Seriously, I about feel over backwards more than once!

If you can’t make it to the air show, or don’t want to pay the admission price, do your self a favor and have a picnic at Alpha Park this weekend.

Several years ago a friend who had older children witness me coming home from work one day where my daughter ran up and gave me a big hug … “Daddy’s home!”

My friend said “You’d better cherish these times, because they won’t last.”

Now I come home to…

• Hey, Dad.
• Can you get me a glass of water?
• Can you take me to the book store? I have a gift card.
• Can you get me a glass of milk?
• What’s for dinner?
• Can you fix my computer game? It’s not working.
• Tortellini. Now!
• Can you take me to Best Buy? I have a gift card.
• Mom said I can’t play until my homework’s done!
• Can you take me to the Dollar Store? or Target?
• I forgot my book at school.
• But it’s a new Disney Channel movie. Why can’t I stay up!?

I’m not saying it’s not all good… just different. Cherish the moments indeed. I’m anxiously awaiting the “you are the cause of all my troubles” phase.

The senior art history major [Elizabeth Albert] said one minute she was walking across University Street at its intersection with Bradley Avenue, and the next minute her body was smashed against a windshield, then lying on the street.” I hurt so bad, all I could do was just lie there,” she said.” I didn’t want to move because I didn’t know how badly I was injured.”

As it seems the local media doesn’t seem to care about the latest car vs Bradley pedestrian accident, I’m grateful that at least Bradley’s student newspaper, The Scout, did and put it on the front page.

According to the article, this latest accident has inspired some students to draw up a petition encouraging Bradley University to push the City of Peoria to install a four way stop sign … on FaceBook. That’s great, but it seems to me that they ought to stand on said corner with a clip board and a pad of paper and ask those who are crossing the street to sign it.

Albert is the third student to be hit at that intersection by a driver turning left [heading North on University from Bradley Avenue] in three years. Several students have also been hit at the intersection of Main and University streets and along Bradley Avenue, but the problem “hasn’t been overwhelming,” [University Police Chief Dave] Baer said.

If three students had been killed as a result of bouncing off of windshields, would that be considered “overwhelming”?

City traffic engineer Nick Stoffer says change likely “is not going to happen, but adds that the area will looked at again as part of a new Main & University area traffic study.

In a personal evaluation of the intersection, student Stephanie Falash, says this:

“I can confidently say that while walking to and from class, I have at least one close call with a driver every day, if not more. I didn’t know this would be such a problem when I first moved into St. James.”

In a strange moment of cosmic karma, Bradley President Joanne Glasser, as reported in the same issue of The Scout, gave a speech reflecting back from 25 years in the future.

“We are truly a walkable campus,” she said of the future. “And that has gotten Bradley a lot of national attention.”

Ms. Glasser, this would be a good starting point.

Your web site is painfully slow to load. It’s not quite as bad as the Journal Star’s, but it’s running a close second. You might want to look into that.

While I’m on the subject of 1470, Ken Zurski is still misnaming Pioneer Parkway as THE Pioneer Parkway. I can’t believe I’m the only who cringes everytime he says that.

CEFCU Traffic One Update for Thursday April 10: There is flooding in the roadway on University just south of Forrest Hill.

That would be me. According to Jonathan Ahl, anyway. I don’t know how much of an expert I am, but I will admit that music was, is, and always will be a large part of my life.

While my grade school mates were discussing the latest A-Team episode, I was busy trying to find someone who cared that on my most recent bicycle ride to The Peoria Record Co., I picked my first bootleg- The Who at Woodstock.

In High School I would routinely fill the hallways with the sounds of Steely Dan and once hijacked a religion class with a dissertation on Stairway to Heaven. (It was around this time that WCBU left the door wide open for WGLT when they made the unfortunate decision to discontinue nighttime Jazz and Blues programming, and let go of Jim Reeves and the Blues Dog.)

In College I spent many a night trying to convince anyone who would listen that John Coltrane was the equally cool and influential jazz equivalent of Jimi Hendrix and debated ad nauseum on the topic of who was the better song writer- John Lennon or Bob Dylan. Of course, Dylan is. I also took a road trip to Memphis where I toured Graceland and Sun Records where I annoyed them with questions of about my real passion- Stax Records - also located in Memphis.

I now spend my free time digging deep into the Blues and listening to XM Satellite Radio’s ‘deep tracks’ and ’soul street’ where real music and DJ’s still exist.

Music expert? I prefer to simply call myself a music fan.

The aforementined accident on University at Bradley Avenue got me to thinking about how unsafe that area really is. Yes, it’s no secret that Bradley kids jaywalk all over Main Street and also University, but the young woman who was hit by a car was actually walking on a striped crosswalk. One would think crossing a street at a crosswalk would be reasonably safe, but not in this instance. You see, the crosswalk in question is not located at a light, nor at a stop sign. In fact, there isn’t really much indication to a driver that a crosswalk even exists.

According to Illinois State Law, “When traffic control signals are not in place or not in operation the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way, slowing down or stopping if need be to so yield, to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk.”

Oh, really?

In my mind, this crosswalk is more dangerous than actually jaywalking in the middle of the block because it gives the pedestrian a false sense of security. Heck, if a car actually did stop in the middle of University they’d probably get rear ended.

I’ve thought long and hard and cannot think of another place where a crosswalk exists on a busy street not located at a stopping point for cars. This makes absolutely no sense. At minimum there should be flashing lights to warn motorists of this oddity, but the real solution would be a pedestrian light, similar to the one on Main St.

The Main Street pedestrian cross walk doesn’t fulfill its intended purpose because of the length of Main Street and the numerous points one might want to cross at. It would work here. The athletic fields which butt up against University are fenced in, therefore to get from St. James apartments to the Bradley campus, one is forced to choose which side of the athletic fields to exit from. The two choices are Bradley Avenue or the edge of Campustown, which has a light. Bradley Avenue needs one too.

Yea, I know we’re traffic lighted to death around here, but if properly timed with the Moss light it would cause only a minor inconvenience. Or we can wait for another kid to get hit. Nothing like death to inspire a change in policy.

This time on University near the intersection of Bradley Ave where the kids dart across 5 lanes to get from the apartments to campus.  There is a cross walk, but no light or stop sign. There is a light if one were to walk down to Campustown, but it is as little used as the Main Street pedestrian light.

You hear of Police ticketing people for stupid things, why not start ticketing Bradley jaywalkers for their own good? Actually, Bradley ought to build a pedestrian bridge at that intersection …of course, no-one would use it…