Nobody brings rail closer to the airplanes than Reagan National and Metro.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

It’s late afternoon, and I’m standing inside New York’s JFK airport with over a dozen of my favorite relatives, when we suddenly learn that the flight to Reagan National has been canceled due to a severe weather system in the nation’s capital. Even worse, the storm has knocked out the rest of the day’s flights as well.

As frequent travelers know, when weather grounds planes, there’s no free ride and no free hotel— just the prospect of lining up a set of hotel rooms (which can easily run $500/night rooms in Gotham City) or scrambling to find a squad of large, luggage-ready rental cars and enough drivers willing to launch a five-hour (traffic-willing) trek to the DC area.

But now there’s another way. Thanks to the 2004 opening of a rail link, JFK has easy access to Amtrak. For $8.50 per person and about 30 minutes of our time, the combination of the “AirTrain” and the Long Island Railroad took our voluminous group of cousins, in-laws, and tired children to Manhattan’s Penn Station. And that gave us myriad options to ride Amtrak back to the D.C. area. While we chose the high-speed Acela, which was pretty peppy, the point of this story is transportation redundancy. America needs a transportation system in which the pieces fit together.

Planners call this inter-modal transportation, and it’s something that can reduce auto traffic as it allows people in smaller cities like Charlottesville to seamlessly make their way— typically via rail— to the better long-distance options found in bigger cities. Unfortunately, the promise of an inter-modal system has not been met by (more)

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Some people know him as a quiet man who walks his dog along East Market Street. Some people know him as a boisterous preservationist for the Woolen Mills neighborhood. Some know him for his recent service on the Charlottesville Planning Commission. And some haven’t met him but have discovered his photo-driven blog which shows a keen eye for detail and amazing interplays of light. Thus the name: Black & White.

Bill Emory has put the focus on little noticed corners of Charlottesville and other places, so we this week we thought we’d put the focus on his work. —Hawes Spencer

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The bridge has provided free skyline views since 1904.
PHOTO BY RACHEL OBENSCHAIN

The Sears Hill bridge will be saved. On Tuesday, July 27, the fate of the historic Staunton footbridge was sealed with the city’s decision to take ownership and restore the 106-year-old structure.

The debate came to a close with owner Richard Macher offering to pay up to $20,000 to temporarily remove the bridge, which currently stands atop the Staunton passenger rail station which he also owns. The City of Staunton agreed to match Macher’s pledge and assume responsibility for the restoration. The city’s $20,000 portion will come from its general fund, which City Manager Steve Owen noted might require a budget amendment.

Although no firm repair cost has been determined, prior estimates suggest the price could climb as high as $250,000, so Owen expressed hope that the community will get involved to close the funding gap.

Until January, after it failed a private engineering inspection and a Staunton building official ordered it closed, the bridge provided a direct connection between the Sears Hill neighborhood and the commercial district of downtown Staunton.

For over a decade, the bridge also added flair to the Pullman, the restaurant and ice cream shop which occupied the former C&O railroad station. Macher has reportedly indicated that he intends to place a Macado’s— his 17-venue restaurant chain (more)

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UVA president John Casteen dedicates his final building.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

In perhaps his last public appearance as president of UVA, John Casteen today dedicated Bavaro Hall, the long-awaited $37 million addition to the Curry School of Education, which has doubled the size of the school. It was a fitting end for a man who has presided over the construction or purchase of 134 buildings for UVA. That’s a lot of golden shovel and ribbon-cutting appearances.

“I think this is the last thing Betsy and I will be doing in our current identities,” Casteen told the crowd.

One of his goals during his presidency, Casteen joked, was to see an open field where Bavaro Hall now stands. “I failed,” he deadpanned.

The new building was designed by Darden School architect Robert A.M. Stern, and includes multiple open conversation areas,  conference rooms, and a garden courtyard. The building— executed in a neo-Jeffersonianism complete with brick columns and hints of Boston’s Faneuil Hall— transforms a stretch of Emmet Street by blocking the old view of Ruffner Hall.

Robert Pianta, dean of the formerly Ruffner-centric Curry School, called the project a complicated one that “went off without a hitch.” He thanked Casteen for his vision and also thanked (more)

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“I hope more people get to know how much fun ice skating and hockey are, and will participate in the sports,” says Roberta Williamson, left, with new owner Mark Brown, his daughters, Annabel and Caroline, and Bruce Williamson.
PHOTO BY TOM DALY

Local ice skaters, meet your unlikely hero: 29-year-old businessman Mark Brown. On Friday, July 16, he purchased the struggling Charlottesville Ice Park to end months of fear and speculation that the massive building, widely seen as a Downtown nexus, might— like the controversy-stained shell of a hotel nearby— stand empty for years.

The purchase comes two weeks after skating stopped and at a price of $3 million, more than a million less than the asking price and about a million below the 1996 development price.

“I hadn’t really thought about it when the sale was announced in February,” admits Brown, a Kentucky native and 2002 UVA grad who grew concerned when, weeks after the owners announced the June 30 closure in April, no buyers had come forward. Part of the problem, then Ice Park co-owner Roberta Williamson said, was in the ice rink’s bank statements: she estimated the business she and her ex-husband Bruce Williamson and two other investors purchased for $3.1 million in 2003 had been losing as much as $70,000 per year, a deficit she said they simply could not sustain. (The Williamsons bought out their partners sometime after the sale.)

Although Brown, a father of two, had never (more)

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Clean-up following a storm strenuous– and dangerous– work. CLICK FOR SLIDESHOW.
PHOTO BY TOM DALY

As the stormclouds rolled in late on Thursday afternoon, June 24, commuters finishing work for the day may have planned on a wet ride home. They got a lot more than that as an intense three-minute storm commonly known as a “microburst” turned what should have been short drives into harrowing hours-long affairs plagued by downed trees and power lines. Unlike the much smaller June 3 microburst, however, most commuters’ nightmares didn’t end at their driveways, as 45,000 Dominion Virginia customers were rendered powerless by the storm, with some homes in the dark for as long as four days.

“This was worse than Hurricane Isabel,” says Charlottesville Fire Chief Charles Werner, noting that his department responded to 31 homes struck by trees– four more than during the remnants of Hurricane Isabel, a day-long storm event in September 2003. In the urban ring, another 15-20 houses were hit by trees, says Albemarle County Fire Chief Dan Eggleston, noting that the worst hit neighborhood was Bennington Road just off Barracks Road near Georgetown Road. (more)

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Van der Linde’s recycling facility(surrounding the holding pond) is permitted to handle 1,000 tons of trash a day. The RSWA’s Ivy transfer station: 150 tons a day
PHOTO BY SKIP DEGAN

Last year, our local governments stood behind the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority as it spent nearly $400,000 trying to prove that recycling entrepreneur Peter Van der Linde had defrauded area tax payers. Now it appears that tax payer funds, including disposal fees that once went to the RSWA, will be headed Van der Linde’s way.

Last week, Charlottesville City Council said good-bye to its long-standing support agreement with the RSWA, which had required City trash be taken to an RSWA-sponsored transfer station for the purpose of collecting a “service contribution fee” to support the Authority’s services, awarding a new City contract for trash disposal services to Van der Linde Recycling.

Under the contract, all City curbside trash will be taken by Waste Management (whom city has a separate $759,430 hauling contract with) to Van der Linde’s Materials Recovery Facility in Zion Crossroads, which is permitted by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to process commingled recyclables, construction and demolition debris, and household waste for recycling.

With a low bid of $39 per ton, Van der Linde beat out his neighbor, former RSWA partner Republic Services Inc. (formerly BFI and Allied Waste), which has received City trash since (more)

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Developers Jim and Cynthia Stultz get mean in their efforts to go green, taking the first whacks at the old apartment building they own(ed) on 14th Street.
PHOTO COURTESY MARTIN HORN INC.

Demolition began Tuesday, June 8 at a 1960s-era, five-unit apartment building located near the Corner district and owned by developers Jim and Cynthia Stultz of CBS Rentals, who plan on replacing it with Charlottesville’s “greenest” apartment building, aptly named The Greenhouse. Daggett & Grigg Architects have the design honors, and Martin Horn will do the dirty work, tearing down 219 14th Street NW and creating Charlottesville’s first LEED-certified apartment building, expected to be finished in August 2011.

LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, is an initiative created by the U.S. Green Building Council to develop standards for sustainable design and construction.

The 40,000 square-foot structure will have four stories, a basement, and on-site parking, including some underground. Most of the 28 apartments will be three-bedrooms, but there will also (more)

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McGuffey Park’s slide and sandbox area has already deteriorated beyond repair. It will be removed as part of an $80,000 upgrade.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Back in 2007, sleepy little McGuffey Park near the Downtown Mall got a fancy $700,000 make-over, courtesy of the City, which pitched in $420,000, and a trio of North Downtown moms called the Friends of McGuffey Park, who raised over $279,000 for the 1.1-acre project and received an award from the City Planning Commission for their efforts. They promised that the new park, with modern play equipment and a unique design, would become a “world class” facility.

But less than two years later, structural problems, dying trees, and hoards of unruly youths have created a world class pain— as City Parks staffers intend to spend another $80,000 on repairs.

The problem with the teens has (more)

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The signs drew honks of support and occasional jeers from passing drivers.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

A group of local citizens staged a peaceful Sunday afternoon protest at one of Charlottesville’s BP-branded fuel stations. The group, numbering over 20 at the height of the Memorial Day event, lamented the disaster caused by BP, as crude oil continues to spew from a broken well that the mammoth company was operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Organized by musician Brandon Collins, one half of the brash acoustic duo B.C., the protest took place at the Everyday Café at 241 Rolkin Court atop Pantops mountain.

Inside the convenience store, a clerk gave the phone number for a district manager for station owner Virginia Oil Company, but he declined comment. Outside, a customer who would give his name only as Gary took a dim view of BP— and of the protest.

“It won’t do a bit of good,” said Gary, noting that (more)

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The mysterious third-floor Dome Room will finally be open to the public on June 11.
PHOTO BY TOM DALY

Monticello was designed for the pleasure and architectural curiosity of its owner, but as a new tour and exhibit will show, it was also designed for the enslaved workers who moved about the house relatively unseen, serving food, changing linens, and emptying chamber pots.

On Tuesday, May 25, Monticello boss Leslie Greene Bowman and staff gave the press a sneak peek at rooms that have never been opened to the public. It’s all part of a new “behind the scenes” tour that will launch June 11, accompanied by a new exhibit in the cellar level called “Crossroads,” all to shed light on the intersections between Jefferson, his family and guests, and the enslaved workers.

“We’re trying to make Monticello a more lively and entertaining experience,” says Susan Stein, Monticello’s senior curator.

Indeed, during Tuesday’s tour, reporters were led through the cellar complex to the to-be-restored “office,” a sort of staging area where food was carried before being served upstairs in the dining room.

For an additional $15 over the base tour rate of $22, visitors will now be able to climb as many as 75  very steep and narrow stairs to the third floor— definitely not recommended for the frail, the obese, or those carrying small children. The expanded tour opens the second and third floors, where various guest and family rooms are on display, as well as the restored Dome Room.

On the second floor, (more)

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What Washington & Lee University officials are calling a “close call” should be a wake-up one for UVA students planning to celebrate this weekend. During a W&L party in Lexington last weekend, a deck on a house with as many as 80 people on it collapsed, injuring nearly 30 students and sending 22 of them to the hospital. Luckily, no one was seriously injured in the May 14 incident.

According to the North American Deck and Railing Association, that’s not always the case. Since 2000, there have been more than 30 deck collapse fatalities, and 75 percent of the people on collapsing decks get injured or killed. What’s more, there are 40 million decks in the country more than 20 years old.

“Every weekend, somewhere in the country, a deck collapses or someone falls through a deck rail,” says Joe Loferski, a Virginia Tech professor of wood science who has been researching the causes of deck collapses since 2000.

A nearly identical disaster occurred during a weekend party at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2008, when (more)

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George Huguely on the field and behind bars. What compelled his rage?
UVA SPORTS/POLICE PHOTO

Papa loved mama
Mama loved men
Mama’s in the graveyard
Papa’s in the pen

–Carl Sandburg

Why would a college athlete, a young man from a prominent family with everything going for him, attack and possibly— as police allege– brutally murder his former girlfriend? As shock gives way to grief, questions about drugs and sanity invariably arise over UVA student George Wesley Huguely V’s fatal altercation with 22-year-old Yeardley Love . Although Huguely has several alcohol-fueled incidents in his past, two doctors say in recent interviews that it’s unlikely that intoxicants alone could drive someone to kill.

“If intoxicated, the risk will increase,” says Dr. Bankole Johnson, (more)

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Yeardley Love and George Huguely.
UVA SPORTS

Imagine the families. Chevy Chase, Maryland and Cockeysville, Maryland are only about an hour apart. George Huguely and Yeardley Love had been dating for some time. The families had to have met, right?

Now, in the wake of Yeardley Love’s death— allegedly at the hands of her boyfriend, George Huguely— imagine the interactions between the two families. If it hasn’t happened already, at some point, it will. They’ll cross paths, and familiar looks will be replaced with downward gazes, stifled emotions. Should they speak, think of the fumbled words, the tears, the heads shaking.

The Huguely family would likely want to apologize, and the Love family might want to forgive. But truthfully, nobody could (more)

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Defense attorney Francis McQ. Lawrence, with partner Rhonda Quagliana, faces the media horde after client George Huguely’s first court appearance. PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

George Wesley Huguely V is not the first UVA student to be charged with murder.

In 2003, Andrew Alston was charged with second degree murder for stabbing local firefighter Walker Sisk to death on the Corner, and many were stunned when a jury sentenced him to three years for voluntary manslaughter.

So what can a shocked community expect when Huguely eventually comes to trial?

The Hook checked with a couple of top gun defense lawyers to see how they’d defend the young man who made a statement to police that he’d had an altercation with victim Yeardley Love, kicked her door in, and shook her so hard that her head repeatedly hit a wall, and then took her laptop when he left.

Rule number one: Hire the best lawyer money can buy. (more)

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Alcohol and violence were factors in George W. Huguely V’s 2008 arrest in Lexington.
ROCKBRIDGE REGIONAL JAIL

A red-stained UVA lacrosse t-shirt and a letter to Yeardley Love are among the items taken by Charlottesville police from accused killer George Huguely’s apartment on May 3.

Police removed two white Apple laptop computers, a green spiral notebook, two white socks, a bathroom rug, a shower curtain, the apartment’s entryway rug, a pair of blue cargo shorts, and a Bobby Jones brand polo shirt, according to the Daily Progress.

The search warrant in the Charlottesville Circuit Court clerk’s office is now sealed, as is the judge’s order to seal that and subsequent search warrants.

“My recollection is that [Albemarle] Judge [Cheryl] Higgins signed it,” says Paul Garrett, clerk of court. That now-secret order was requested by the commonwealth’s attorney, adds Garrett.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman did not (more)

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