[PRCo] Re: PAT's cuts

[Fred Schneider]

I would be delighted to have you move the East Penn meet to Lancaster some year and then I wouldn't have to drive to Phylthydelphia.    

Lancaster County Convention Center has 0.85 acre under room plus auxiliary rooms.   

http://www.lancasterconventionhotel.com/

Twist my arm hard enough and I could even be talked into bringing the Birney out.   The Strasburg Rail Road might also be happy to see youz guys even though it isn't electrified.   The state railroad museum wouldn't run you out of town either.   

You shouldn't have any trouble finding pimps and prostitutes either ... they usually are found several blocks to the west of the Lancaster Convention Center if the gestapo aren't active that night.   

There are a number of excellent restaurants downtown ... one of the best is the Loft at North Water and West Walnut 
http://www.theloftlancaster.com/biography.ivnu
http://www.theloftlancaster.com/dinner.ivnu
The bar on the first floor under the restaurant serves the gay crowd.    There is a great story about my brother-in-law going up stairs to the Loft one night and using the staircase from bar instead of the outside staircase from the street ... he got his butt pinched by another man.   If you're straight, be advised to enter the restaurant from Water Street.   The chef, Günter, grew up in Europe and served his apprenticeship cooking in the 1960s on cruise ships.   He's our age, Rich, loves his work and isn't about to retire.   

The only remaining downtown theater was the city's oldest ... it was already well established when the first horse car line opened in 1874.  It eventually was degraded from operas and live stage to movies and then down to "B" movies and then was restored with all the gold leaf and became home to its own plays, the Lancaster Opera Workshop and Lancaster Symphony Orchestra.   The Fulton Opera House / a.k.a. Fulton Theater is one of those architectural treasures that we are lucky we didn't lose ... it lasted simply because it was a block off the main street.   Other than the symphony, the last two shows I saw there were Oklahoma two years ago and Sound of Music last week and both were absolutely outstanding.   The bald headed conductor in the third link ... the only thing I could find for the symphony ... is Stephen Gunzenhauser.    The last chat I personally had with him was after he had returned from conducting in Italy in exchange for getting an Italian conductor on the local podium.   I asked why he didn't just stay and enjoy a vacation in Europe.   Turns out he lived over there for several years.   At that point Stephen switched to speaking German with me.   Is he that accessible?   Well, his wife was trying to rope my wife into working again.   Marie had previously been the registrar for the symphony when it only meant filling the house once.   Over the last 30 years they have gone to four or five performances for each show instead of one.   He  just happened to walk up during the conversation.   
http://www.fultontheatre.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz7I6i0a2PQ   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp0V6WrmfEg


On Dec 27, 2010, at 1:00 AM, richard allman wrote:

> how many square feet of exhibit space? East Penn always on the lookout! AND, 
> do not forget the other supposed pathway to prosperity for cities-casino 
> gambling-at least for the builders, the loan sharks, and the pimps!!!!
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Derrick Brashear" <shadow at gmail.com>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2010 11:07 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: PAT's cuts
> 
> 
>> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 10:59 PM, Fred Schneider
>> <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On the third point .... the hotel ... the Commonwealth passed enabling 
>>> legislation allowing all cities to build convention centers and tax the 
>>> hotels out in the county to pay for them. This was a case of our 
>>> legislators at play. Once the opportunity is there, most mayors are dumb 
>>> enough to take the money and run.
>> 
>> Your legislators, particularly, seem to have worked things pretty hard
>> to make the Lancaster Convention Center happen, in spite of the fact
>> that the original legislation would not have allowed it.
>> 
>>> The convention center in Lancaster was held up for years by the suburban 
>>> motels challenging the right of the city to tax them. They lost.
>>> 
>>> How well the new Lancaster Convention Center will work is open to 
>>> conjecture. There are over 100 motels in the county, some others are 
>>> large enough to handle such events. The only advantage is that you can 
>>> walk from this place to a handful of downtown restaurants and pubs ... 
>>> high priced places that were once stores. But I am not convince that a 
>>> skyscraper hotel (it is now the tallest building in down and eclipses the 
>>> old Griest Building by about 10 feet) is worth our tax money. It will 
>>> take a monumental effort to keep it filled.
>>> 
>>> The Berks County Convention Center Authority owns a theater downtown ... 
>>> same sort of scheme ... if the public isn't willing to support it, then 
>>> let's force them and tax them. It was the old Rajah Shrine theater 
>>> rebuilt with your money and mine because no one went to downtown Reading.
>>> 
>>> http://www.sovereigncenter.com/udp.php?id=76
>>> 
>>> Considering that the number of people in prison, an indicator of crime, 
>>> has increase four-fold since 1980 and most of that is within six to eight 
>>> blocks of the new convention center, would I really want to recommend to 
>>> my friends that they go there and walk around the streets at night? (If 
>>> you want those numbers, they were in the Lancaster paper this morning ... 
>>> jumped from .06% to .23% of the population in 30 years.)
>> 
>> Most of the people in prison are within 6 to 8 blocks of there? Well,
>> I suppose that's one way to fill housing, right? ;)
>> 
>> I missed the last holiday, so uh, happy new year.
>> 
>> 
> 
>