neighborhood – Page 3 – Black and White

Steel Road

railroad maintenance — Railroad crew makes repairs to the CSX/Buckingham Branch bridge over Moores Creek. This route attracted the incendiary attention of General Sheridan’s subordinates in the 1860’s.

Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM)

Miss Chelsea — SAK Construction’s TBM, Miss Chelsea is on the move, headed NNE, grinding through 1700+ feet of bedrock, going where no one has gone before.
Interesting boring job.

operator conveyance — Drive to work, ride the man-basket down into the hole, fire up the TBM. How is the machine moved forward? What protective gear does the operator wear? At the moment it’s a horizontal short walk (100+ feet) from the tunnel entrance to Ms. Chelsea. Later on it’ll be longer. Bike to work? What is the lighting like in there? Any chance of a live video feed?

old soldier, Carl D. Proffitt

Chubby fetches the DP — Olive and Chubby built their Woolen Mills house in 1939. I admire his service record. Daily Progress has that story.

2009 Dogwood Festival Parade — Additionally, I admire his persistence, his neighborliness. He always had a kind word. He lived on, beyond Olive, beyond five siblings. It takes a lot of courage to age in place. Chubby Proffitt had courage.

A million cubic feet

CAT 740B — Work was paused temporarily Monday at RWSA’s excavation for members of the public to visit the site, the location of the future Rivanna pumping station.

nobody looks good in a hardhat — First up. Schooling from Dr. Richard Gullick on this great project, using gravity to transport waste water to the sewage plant instead of building a massive pump station adjacent to residences, a state scenic river and a park. The influent to the new pumping station will flow through a pipe in a tunnel bored through 1600 feet of bedrock.

big hole — Attendees at the edge of the excavation.

release the Kraken! — The tunnel boring machine, the mechanical star in our community drama of doing the best, not the cheapest, thing. Enduring thanks to the public and the RWSA Board for this outcome.

magical mystery tour

environmental protection area — May 15 Woolen Mills residents take a guided tour of the environmental protection area next to Moores Creek with Andrea Terry of RWSA. Native people lived just north of here. Split when Europeans arrived.

words are wind

Market Street plan — Meetings I remember. Huge category. This the meeting that laid out improvements to Market Street east of Meade Avenue. Plantings, stormwater BMPs, profile changes. I’d been canvassing residents of the street the day before (9/7/2008), encouraging their attendance at the meeting. Charles said he wasn’t coming, a waste of time: “the City will never do this for us, it’s all about the money, the river will rise up and wash us away.” I tried to persuade him, encouraging him to be more sanguine.
Hey Charles! You were right. The improvements weren’t forthcoming.

railroaded

Marchant Street closed — For 150 years, people have walked from the President’s house to Woolen Mills Road (E Market) via Marchant Street. Earlier this month the street was cut off, severing the connection between the northern and southern portions of the Woolen Mills Neighborhood, without process, without advance notice. Hey Woolen Mills Neighborhood!
It sucks to be you.

30 x1028 px box

what remains?

Danny Meeks & homeplace — Once there was a park, a commons and a house on a hill. The hill remains, for now.

Charlottesville Marathon

Woolen Mills Chapel in the distance — Step by step, 26 miles and 385 yards. This section features sixty one feet of downhill, through the Woolen Mills neighborhood to the Rivanna River.

cardinal oversees unusually active bipeds

Rivanna fog

Rivanna trail — Wednesday evening, cold water, warm air