If you were worried about how avant garde jazz would fare under quarantine, you can rest easy.
Local sax man Tim Harding (Hotel X) has been collaborating with (Ornette Coleman/James Blood Ulmer/John Zorn/Lounge Lizards) drummer Calvin Weston. Recording facilitated and produced by Minimum Wage studio right here in Oregon Hill.
Neighbors: If you’re seeking diversion, conversation, connection, join in a new series of community Zooms offered by VCU Libraries. Topics range from Preservation Week to factchecking Convid-19 info, from how to enjoy the libraries’ online the libraries new website to what is everyone reading. We’ll help you hook up to Zoom if it’s new to you. A series of brief virtual events designed for the VCU Libraries community, highlighting timely subjects, celebrating achievements, practicing creativity and more.
Sessions are held Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. and last approximately a half hour to 45 minutes each. Some sessions will be good for high schoolers studying at home. The lineup: https://www.library.vcu.edu/about/events/2019-20/community-zooms.html
This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.
If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.
In recycling news, the website WasteDive.com recently ran a column covering COVID-19’s evolving impact on the waste and recycling sector.
Starting in mid-March, the Waste Dive team dedicated the majority of its time to covering what the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation meant for waste and recycling in the United States. Frontline workers have been affected, services have been disrupted, policies have been temporarily changed and financial effects have been significant for the public and private sector alike.
Catch up on all of our reporting here, in reverse chronological order to present the newest stories first.
Locally, the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority has created their own news page in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic. Click here to see that.
“Neighborhood Vignettes for Unusual Times” published by young Laurel Street neighbor Lucia.
Click here to see the whole issue.
Thankfully Venture Richmond has ceased spraying herbicide in the Jame River and Kanawha Canal at the request of the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association. As a result the canal is teaming with amphibians.
It is tragic that the James River and Kanawha Canal was recently backfilled beside the Tredegar Iron Works. The water from the canal provided all of the power for the Tredegar Iron Works. The underground raceway for the water remains on the site.
With the pandemic at a peak here in Virginia, large Easter gatherings have been cancelled.
But neighborhood churches are still recognizing the holiday-
St. Andrews Episcopal Church is holding Easter service online. Click here for details.
And Pine Street Baptist Church has a very poignant sermon in its April monthly Beacon newsletter called “Waiting for Who Knows What”. Here’s an excerpt:
Even as we wait for Easter, even as we wonder if we will worship together on Easter, Easter still shapes us and informs us of who we are. We are an Easter people regardless of what day we find ourselves in. Easter is not a day but a way of life as a follower of Jesus. Easter is what shapes us and forms us and tells us who we are. We wait not in despair but in hope.
There were many residents of Oregon Hill who worked at the Tredegar Iron Works. Beside the canal, the Tredegar company store, built just after the Civil War, survives where many Oregon Hill residents doubtless shopped for many of their household needs. Some of the shelves that held the goods are still visible inside the building. According to the interpretive plaque, Tredegar did not provide script like some companies, instead workers who shopped at the store had the bill deducted from their wages.
Richmond Magazine reports on Pine Street neighbor:
In recognition of her focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, Varina Library (Henrico County Public Library) Assistant Manager Cristina Ramirez will be recognized with the Unsung Hero award from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government & Public Affairs at VCU.
Excerpt:
As one of the area’s few Spanish-speaking librarians, she’s seen firsthand the hindrances that language barriers can create, along with the value of cultural representation. Latinos accounted for just under 10% of the nation’s librarians in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“One of the big messages I’ve tried to let every system I’ve worked in know is we have great resources, but we need to also have more people that … the public can relate to,” Ramirez says.