Showing posts with label Civic Center Plaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Civic Center Plaza. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A look back at Spring 2011


Early morning Tuesday, June 12, 2012 ~ overcast and rainy. A few distant claps of thunder. A day of rain? 66-degrees Fahrenheit outside. 78-degrees indoors, in my apartment.

I take so-o many -- too many -- photos and get behind in sorting them. That’s why I decided to take a look at Spring 2011 and see what pictures are worth sharing before I started clicking on the “send to trash” button.

May 18, 2011...

Little League baseball field at Denison Park in South Corning. This is the “Minors” field. These players are somewhere in age and skill between “T-Ball” (4-6 years old) and the “Majors”.



May 21, 2011...

New park on Denison Parkway, a main drive through Corning. At the far end is a fairly new Walgreens.



Corning’s many alleys have old-time carriage houses with the upstairs converted to apartments.



This converted carriage house is at the rear of the stately Rosewood Inn on Corning’s East First Street.



May 25, 2011...

Market Street is always being spruced up. Here the front of Heron Creek gift shop is being painted.



Civic Center Plaza houses the Social Security office, the library, city hall and a union hall, plus (pictured here) a large covered skating rink.



Centerway Square, at a midway point of Market Street. The square hosts musical events and those who wish to dine outdoors, even an occasional political rally. Unseen on the right is the “bandstand”. At the right rear is the tall clock. To its left is a public parking garage. Far left is the Information Center, the Chamber of Commerce and several businesses.



June 3, 2011...

Again on Market Street, the second block coming from the east end.



******

Corning's history, from Wikipedia.com...

The first settlement in the town of Corning was made near the site of the future city in 1796. The community was set apart from the town as a village in 1848. Corning was incorporated as a city in 1890. As the glass industry developed, Corning became known as the "Crystal City."
The Corning area's first real industry was lumber. The first settlers used the area's river systems to transport logs and finished lumber in fleets downstream to buyers. This gave rise to large mills which helped to develop the area. Rafting of lumber began to wane as timber was depleted. At one time the mills of the Corning area were reputed to be among the biggest in the world. After the lumber was depleted the great mills moved north to new forests.

East, across the Chemung River from Corning, lies Gibson, the site of a feeder canal for the Chemung Canal system. Some of Corning's early prosperity came from the feeder canal system exposure. Canal cargoes from Corning included soft coal, timber, tobacco, grain, and whiskey. From April 22 to December 11, 1850, the canal season that year, the newspaper reported that 1,116 boats left the port of Corning. Tolls for the year totaled $54,060.39. Among items shipped were 46,572,400 pounds of coal. The canal's best peacetime year was 1854 when 270,978 tons of freight was hauled. The Civil War brought an abnormal amount of business, with a peak of 307,151 tons hauled in one year.[3]
After the Civil War, an industrial boom occurred in the region. Ingersoll Rand opened during this period in Painted Post, just north of Corning.


Read more about Corning.


******


You can “Like” Corning NY Step by Step on Facebook and see additional photos there.


Sunday, September 26, 2010

Life sized photos at Corning NY City Hall



Corning NY's City Hall is located at 1 Civic Center Plaza.




This city block consists of City Hall on the south side, a union building on the west, Social Security and the Southeast Steuben County Library on the north side and the offices and concession stand for the skating rink on the east.




The north side walls of City Hall, the side facing the center of the plaza, are almost entirely glass, fitting in this city with its rich glass history.




On the inside walls, downstairs and up, are larger than life photos of actual Corning NY residents.




Walk past these photos and you'll soon realize that the eyes seem to follow you. A bit spooky, but utterly fascinating.




The pictures of the children were more difficult to photograph.




Stand outside or down below on the first floor and look up to see them on the outside of the second floor walkway.




These pictures are best seen from the outside, but with my little digital camera there was too much glare and reflection to get a good shot through the window glass.




To get an idea of what it's like to have the people in the pictures follow you with their eyes, click on a picture to enlarge it, then move your head from one side of the screen to the other. Watch their eyes!