Drawing Rooms: One Midtown building is home to 2 friends–who just happen to be major figures in the world of children’s book illustration.

December 30, 2015 | by M. Diane McCormick

Two holders of the most prestigious honors in children’s literature were talking about doorbells.

“I want to test out my new doorbell,” said Jonathan Bean.

“Can you ring mine, too?” asked neighbor and friend Lauren Castillo. “I feel like the last couple of packages I’ve had . . .”

Welcome to the micro-illustrators’ colony above Yellow Bird Café in Midtown Harrisburg. The residents are neither homegrown nor stereotypically starving artists, but are, instead, recognized professionals who settled in Harrisburg for the affordability and ambience. In the process, they are helping to make Midtown a hub for successful artists.

In this building, the top-floor apartment is occupied by illustrator and writer Jonathan Bean, two-time winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature. The apartment below is home to Lauren Castillo, illustrator and writer whose “Nana in the City” is a 2015 Caldecott Honor book.

Bean and Castillo were friends before coming to Harrisburg, and that’s how the story starts. Both are products of the mid-Atlantic. He grew up in the Reading area and graduated from Messiah College. She’s from Bel Air, Md. They met at the School of Visual Arts in New York in an intensive, two-year master’s degree program in “illustration as visual essay.”

By graduation, Bean had sold his thesis as the book “At Night,” the charming story of a girl who can’t sleep and finds rest on the roof of her home overlooking a city vista that combines elements of Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, and Chicago—with the Rockville Bridge in the distance. Castillo found success illustrating manuscripts for other authors and then branched into writing.

Bean stayed in Brooklyn about four years before returning to Reading. After more years overcoming physical problems that limited the use of his arms, he was looking for a new home. He got a call about a Midtown apartment from Messiah College illustration professor and Harrisburg resident, Stephen Fieser. He moved there in 2012.

In the meantime, Castillo stayed in Brooklyn for 14 years before heading to California with her brother in search of new surroundings. Early this year, Bean called her about an available apartment in his building, and she moved in a few months back.

Artists “can work anywhere, for the most part,” says Bean.

He eyed Harrisburg “because it was cheap.” Plus, life near “that hub of activity” around Midtown Scholar Bookstore and the Broad Street Market would “have enough things to do to keep me entertained, but also it’s a small scale.”

“New York City has a lot to offer, but I never have time to do it all,” Bean says. “The things I have time to do are scaled to the things Harrisburg has.”

Bike or Feet

In Brooklyn, Castillo found she was paying $2,000 a month “for a tiny little box.” The constant need to work kept her “strapped to my place.”

“There are places I want to travel, but you have to keep working to pay your bills, and you don’t have the time or money to travel anywhere,” she says. “Even to take a week off to visit my parents in Maryland was a big ordeal.”

Midtown, she says, “feels to me like a Brooklyn neighborhood.” All the necessities—shopping for produce, coffee shops for human company, a train station for trips to New York City—“are accessible here by bike or feet.”

Their building is owned by Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse. Bean says Papenfuse extended an unwritten condition that he be “artist in residence.” So, a shingle hangs outside the front door: “Bean Illustration.”

On some 3^rd in the Burg nights, Bean attaches a “Studio Open” sign to the shingle, inviting visitors to drop in. Along the stairway is a gallery he calls “The Steps Shown,” with examples of the meticulous process and many multiples of drafts he employs to produce the final product.

Midtown’s artist community appeals to the two illustrators.

“For such a small city, they really appreciate the arts here,” says Castillo.

Like Harrisburg’s amenities, the artistic scene is manageably scaled, adds Bean.

“It’s here if you want to look for it and have that community,” he says. “There’s a lot of talent and a lot of really energetic and hardworking artists here.”

Lots for a Little

Other successful artists agree that Harrisburg blends affordability and vibrancy.

Artists and screen printers Joelle and Justin Arawjo own a Midtown home and run their thriving business, Fennec Design, from a Millworks studio. They once lived in an increasingly ritzy Philadelphia neighborhood “where you pretty much needed to be a millionaire,” says Joelle. “We were a young married couple who wanted to own a house and have a yard.”

Justin agrees that “a growing group of artists, especially young artists” is supporting and inspiring each other and amping up Midtown’s creative vibe.

“Because the city is so affordable, it’s possible for younger people to devote themselves to their art, as opposed to the cities where you have to work another job,” she says.

Fieser, the veteran illustrator who says he “proselytizes” to bring artists to Harrisburg, says, “It’s more fun for an artist, the more of them there are around.”

“Even for those who want to move from an apartment and buy a house, you can get so much real estate for so little,” he says. “They get really tired living in New York and having all their income sucked away by rent.”

In their apartments that double as studios, Bean and Castillo have views of N. 3^rd Street and the Broad Street Market. Castillo clips her character studies to wires strung on the wall. Bean used his rooftop access to spray paint a recent project and to grow a vegetable and herb garden.

Castillo is thinking about renting a Millworks studio, which “would feel like you’re in one large, shared studio space where you can go visit with your neighbor.” She looks around her studio—essentially half of the apartment’s blended living room and kitchen.

“It’s kind of tiny but decent sized,” she says. “For now, we’ll see. I’ll stick around.”

For more information on these award-winning illustrators, visit www.jonathanbean.com and www.laurencastillo.com.

Ups & Downs: Harrisburg and the unsettled, topsy-turvy, can’t-make-up-its-mind year.

December 30, 2015 | by Lawrance Binda

A heated election, nagging parking problems and lots of bickering—Harrisburg, as usual, didn’t lack for drama in 2015.

Once again, it’s time for my annual Top 10 list of Harrisburg news events. Each January, I revisit and rank the stories that I believe had the greatest impact on the capital city over the prior year.

In some ways, Harrisburg had a good year (continued redevelopment) and in some ways a bad year (stubbornly high crime). All in all, 2015 was a year that started off with great expectations of progress, had plenty of highs and lows and ended up decidedly mixed.

Kipona Chaos. The last thing that Harrisburg needed was to feed the perception that the city is unsafe—and that’s exactly what it got as scores, hundreds (who really knows?) of youth went on a Labor Day weekend rampage. The trouble began with an argument between two teenagers just as the annual Kipona festival was wrapping up for the night. Soon, crowds of kids descended on the riverfront and, emboldened by their numbers, began roaming through streets in Midtown and Uptown, vandalizing cars (including the police chief’s!) and a convenience store. One teenager accidentally shot himself in the leg. Eventually, arrests were made, but not before the damage had been done both to property and to the city’s always-fragile image.

Bar Brawl. What responsibility does a business have to its community? I asked that question in a blog post last year after the city tried to shut down several bars it deemed problematic. The 3^rd Street Café in Midtown fought back, appealing revocation of its business license to the Dauphin County court. The owner claimed he couldn’t be held responsible for what his patrons did just outside his bar; the city disagreed. At press time, the judge still had not decided whether the bar stays open or closes.

Front Street Fix. First came the lane closures, then the tree cutting, then—oh boy—the noise. By early summer, Harrisburg was divided in two: those who approved of PennDOT’s redesign of Front Street and those who didn’t. In the end, it wasn’t the commuters, reduced to two lanes, who bore the brunt of the project, but those who lived along the street, shocked to discover that PennDOT could, and did, work all night long. However, due to their sacrifice, Harrisburg now has a smooth, less forbidding road, which, on most days, begs the question—why were there ever three lanes to begin with?

Nightmare at the Museum. What’s messier than a splatter painting studio? The financial tangle that the Susquehanna Art Museum found itself in just months after opening the doors to its beautiful new facility in Midtown. To sum up: two entities laid claim to one $1.2 million state grant—JEM Group (the project’s general contractor) and Fulton Bank, which wanted to get paid after SAM defaulted on a $3 million loan. The sides chose negotiation over litigation, and, by year-end, an agreement was at hand, which provided some funds to both entities and allowed the museum to stay open.

Midtown Resurgence. At this time last year, the following places did not exist: The Millworks, Zeroday Brewing, the SAM building, Next Step Performance and both The Kitchen and The Capitol Room at HMAC. They all opened last year, and, in October, WCI Partners began converting the Moose Lodge/Ron Brown complex to mixed-use space, bringing back an entire city block that had been shuttered for a decade. In other words, 2015 was a landmark year for Midtown’s main commercial stretch. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news. SAM’s financial troubles clouded the picture, and another big project, GreenWork’s proposed “Education Row,” went nowhere. Will last year’s new projects finally push Midtown past the tipping point, ending its annoying one-step-forward, half-a-step-back routine?

Parking Redux Redux. When it comes to Harrisburg’s parking system, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. Parking meter revenues topped projections, but nagging enforcement problems and weak garage usage provided far less income than was expected. One bright spot: Mayor Eric Papenfuse’s gamble—which lowered happy hour rates downtown and provided four free hours of parking on Saturday—paid off, so those parker-friendly measures should continue. So, for the third straight year, parking scores a spot on my annual Top 10 list. To steal a quote from the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza—congrats, or something.

Papen-fights. City Council, the county commissioners, the Harrisburg Regional Chamber, the Hershey-Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau—if there was an entity to tussle with, Mayor Papenfuse tussled. October may have been the low point, with Council President Wanda Williams repeatedly calling him “a liar” followed by public squabbles with both HHRVB and the Chamber/CREDC. By year-end, the mayor and his frenemies had mostly walked back their disputes, agreeing to work towards resolutions or at least a détente.

Council Shakeup. Eric Papenfuse is not a shy guy (see above). On TheBurg Podcast, he boldly stated that City Council needed new blood and who, in his opinion, should stay and go. He got his way. Following a spirited election, city residents voted in three new council members, substantially changing the tenor of the seven-member body. I rank this story high not because of the 2015 campaign, per se, but because of what it could mean for the city—and the mayor’s legislative priorities—in 2016.

Harrisburg Less Strong. “Harrisburg Strong” began to show its weak spots as the city’s financial recovery plan failed to deliver expected revenues for a second straight year. In 2015, city revenue was about $6 million less than projected by the Strong Plan. Papenfuse said that the plan’s architects had made overly optimistic projections and that some critical revenue sources, such as from the aforementioned parking, were soft. To fix the structural deficit and deliver an acceptable level of city services, the mayor called for a tripling of the local services tax and greater revenue from commercial sanitation enforcement as part of his 2016 budget.

Reed Arrested. There was no contest for the year’s No. 1 story, as former Mayor Steve Reed’s arrest was not just Harrisburg news but national news. Love him or hate him, Reed reigned over the city for 28 years, commandeering a comeback built upon a combination of bricks, mortar, debt and delusion. In the end, he was indicted on nearly 500 criminal counts covering various theft, fraud and corruption charges. The sight of agents hauling hundreds of museum-quality Wild West artifacts out of Reed’s poorly maintained Cumberland Street house is one this city will not soon forget.

So, what’s the final verdict on 2015? There were plenty of ups and downs, but, in the end, I think we were marginally better off as a city on Dec. 31 than we were on Jan. 1. Not a lot. Not enough. And probably not as much as I had hoped or expected. But, all in all, we’ve moved forward a few squares.

Lawrance Binda is editor-in-chief of TheBurg.

River Diver: Keith Williams captures the health of the Susquehanna watershed–one creek at a time.

December 30, 2015 | by John Duffy

What might seem like a fetid, murky backwater to you is an afternoon of exploration for Keith Williams.

After all, there is life in even the most neglected and forgotten corners of the Susquehanna River’s many tributaries, streams and pools. And, for an explorer like Williams, every such corner is a new chance to discover, to interact and to understand the complex story of the sprawling watershed.

Williams began exploring the creeks and backwaters of the Susquehanna River about a decade ago after seeing a film called “River Webs” about a Japanese field biologist who pioneered the art and science of studying small water ecosystems. Williams figured he could do the same thing.

“I knew that interacting with the waterways was the best way to study them,” he said.

As a trained environmental biologist, he knew what to look for. As a part-time rescue diver, he had the gear and the knowhow. As executive director of NorthBay, an environmental education and outreach center on Elk Neck in Maryland, he had the mission: teaching students about the impact our choices have on the environment.

And getting more people in contact with creeks and rivers is his manifest mission. He makes regular visits to streams and rivers from suburban Philadelphia to the Allegheny Plateau, sometimes with NorthBay students, sometimes alone. Mostly, his expeditions focus on small sections of water, but he’s done 10-mile snorkels before.

Today’s spot is one of Williams’ favorite. It’s a pool hugging the east bank of the Susquehanna below Safe Harbor Dam at what used to be an old canal lock. Barely larger than a backyard swimming pool and scarcely more than 2 feet deep, it doesn’t look like much upon first glance.

There is barely a trickle of water going into it. Jagged, slippery rocks surround it on three sides. Safe to say hardly any feet ever trod there.

But donning his wetsuit and a mask with the relaxed speed of a professional, Williams is soon in the cool water like an eager kid. He has more than once wondered what horrific thoughts people think when they see him face down in a stream.

As expected, life abounds here: log perch, sunfish, dace. An eastern water snake slides effortlessly between the rocks along the edge of the pool.

And there are crayfish. Lots and lots of crayfish—big ones, too. Williams, however, is concerned. These are not natives, but an invasive brand called rusties. They can devastate ecosystems. They eat more, grow faster and are more numerous than most waterways can handle.

Even with the invaders, this spot on this day seems relatively healthy, he said.

“There was a lot happening down there,” he says, stepping out onto the warm rocks. “I come here a lot, and every time there is something different happening.”

Today’s discoveries include a small school of stonerollers, barely an inch in length, dancing through the shallows. Despite their small size, he can spot them from their behavior alone.

Getting to know this little slice of a big river system is what Williams sees as the truest way of doing environmental science. Real science is about following a sense of wonder, and Williams still has it.

“It’s amazing the stuff you learn from observation, and, with the perspective of learning it in a tiny mountain creek,” he said.

And this from a guy who’s snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef off of Australia.

“Of course, this isn’t as colorful, but the things I see here are every bit as complex and interesting,” he said.

Can you describe the color changes of male creek chubs prior to spawning? Williams can.

“Their colors can rival some tropical bird species,” he said.

And it’s a pastime that doesn’t depend on the seasons. With the right gear, Williams can explore streams on the coldest of days. It means he sees things that few other people will ever see, let alone imagine.

“You would be amazed at what is still happening in the winter,” he said. “It’s a lot quieter to be sure, but stuff is still happening under the ice.”

With all of Williams’ experience, every trip has a surprise, a revelation or a sign of hope in what are often highly stressed waters. Progress is indeed measured in tiny increments often reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. But the re-appearance of a single species of benthic insect can mean big improvements.

“You’re not going to see that unless you spend time looking,” he said.

Given that deforestation, soil runoff, nutrient loading, coal dust, industrial and municipal pollution have had their effect for more than three centuries, some may think it’s a wonder the Susquehanna can support life at all.

“If you can eliminate these problems and give it half a chance, this river can recover,” he said. “Its resilience is remarkable.”

It only takes a few horror stories in the era of social media to make people think there is no hope: a fire at a fertilizer plant that kills an entire ecosytem, a cancerous smallmouth or intersex mutations in fish populations. The Susquehanna is at a crossroads. But Williams, for one, sees possibilities.

“The river is truly impacted, but that doesn’t mean we cannot make contact with it,” he said. “We have to if we want to understand it.”

To learn more about Keith Williams’ work and see some of his stunning photographs of the Susquehanna River watershed, visit www.creeksnorkling.blogspot.com.

You Are What You Eat: Healthy Living Kitchen approaches nutrition in a holistic, realistic way.

December 30, 2015 | by Rebecca Hanlon

A crunchy bundle of kale. A prickly, sweet pineapple. A pile of shiny cashews ready to be munched on.

Each of these foods might seem ordinary to most people, but, to Michelle Wohlfarth, they are the fuels our bodies need to function at their best.

As the founder of Healthy Living Kitchen in Hummelstown, Wohlfarth strives to make sure everyone who walks in her store can find the foods, the education and the tools needed to live a healthier lifestyle.

Her own journey toward a better understanding of the body’s needs started about 10 years ago, when she went back to school at the Institute for Integrated Nutrition in New York. There, she found the holistic approach to wellbeing, diet and whole-health living.

“I always loved food and loved to eat,” she said. “My family was always the weird one where I incorporated healthy foods into my kids’ diets and used herbs for natural healing. But my understanding of these practices really didn’t come into fruition until I learned about food therapy.”

Wohlfarth continued her education at the National Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, learning from mentors who guided her in the basics of chef skills while teaching her to incorporate foods that cleansed, rejuvenated and fueled the body.

“So many people know they should be eating fresh foods and unprocessed grains, but they don’t know the first steps of properly preparing these more natural, often denser, foods,” she said.

Resource Hub

Wohlfarth’s journey has taken her to a couple of locations in the area. About a year ago, she moved into an old garage on S. Rosanna Street in Hummelstown, turning it into a fully functioning educational kitchen and market.

Since she’s been in the space, her vision to be a resource hub of health for the community is finally starting to come together, she said. Some of the most popular offerings at Healthy Living Kitchen are the detox and weight loss classes, which draw people in who want to take a first step in living a healthier life.

In those classes, Wohlfarth instructs students to push out bad foods by filling up on good foods. Instead of telling people what they can’t have, she focuses on what they should be feeding themselves. While the detox class does cut out refined foods, gluten and dairy, it also recommends people fill up on leafy greens, beans and healthy fats. In turn, she said, people notice their skin looks better, that they have more energy and, over time, that they don’t crave the foods they once ate regularly.

“People have the general idea that food can change the way they feel. They’ve heard of clean eating, and they want to get started but often have nowhere to go,” Wohlfarth said. “There are so many times in a day where someone just pops in because they need answers. Maybe they have Lyme disease or they have aching joints, and they want to know if certain foods can help them feel better.”

A Good Feeling

Wohlfarth also tries to provide resources for people who are aiming for a more holistic lifestyle.

She keeps a list of physicians in the area who support clean eating and holistic practices so that her clients don’t get funny looks when they try to tell their doctors about their lifestyle changes.

“A lot of doctors support healthy eating and exercise, but not everyone is on the same page when it comes to holistic living,” she said.

One misconception that many people have about healthy eating is that a salad is good enough, Wohlfarth said. She doesn’t discourage those who eat a spinach salad every day, but the nutrients in spinach only do so much, she said. What they should be mixing in is kale, collards and Swiss chard to add nutritional variety.

People also eat whole grains, but they often don’t cook them properly, resulting in digestive problems or nutrients running through the body and back out again when the vitamins and minerals can’t be absorbed. At Healthy Living Kitchen, people can learn the proper ways to cook grains, beans and other foods so they can digest them easier and get the full benefits of each food.

Chewing also is an easily overlooked contributor to helping the body absorb more nutrients, Wohlfarth said. Properly chewing food gets the digestive process going sooner and makes it easier for the rest of the body to do its job. Plus, she said, people tend to eat less because they are enjoying the food rather than inhaling it.

“Healthy living is attainable for people if they just have the tools and resources they need to achieve it,” Wohlfarth said. “I think, more than ever, people feel empowered to take those early steps in taking control of their diets. And it’s a good feeling to know we can help them do that.”

Healthy Living Kitchen is located at 16 S. Rosanna St., Hummelstown. For more information, call 717-512-0077 or visit www.healthylivingkitchenpa.com.

A Voice for History: “Red Velvet”–historical experience and modern sensibility

December 30, 2015 | by Meghan Jones

Illustration by Ryan Spahr

“His life was a triumph over all expectations,” says J. Clark Nicholson, artistic director of Gamut Theatre Group.

Nicholson is referring to Ira Aldridge, whose life story forms the basis of “Red Velvet,” a new play that he is directing.

“Red Velvet” tells the true story of Aldridge, a Civil War-era African-American actor whose life is unknown to most of us groundlings, but commonly known in the theater community. The play progresses as Aldridge looks back on his life in the early 19^th century, when he had the chance to play the iconic Shakespeare role, Othello.

Aldridge gave a performance that shocked the country so much the production was forced to close after two nights.

To clarify, Othello, the character, is a Moor and therefore written by Shakespeare as black. Yet, until Aldridge’s performance, only white men in black face had played the role. It is no wonder then that a black man in the role would be so shocking to audiences, as Aldridge played Othello in a way that had never been seen before.

Aldridge belonged to some of the first black theater companies in the United States and was one of the first members of The African Grove Theatre, which had a company that included fugitive slaves. To continue his career, he decided he had to leave for England, where he became one of the most sought-after actors in Europe.

Today, he is one of just 33 actors recognized with a bronze plaque at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon and the only African American so honored.

Anthony Golden Jr., the actor cast to play Aldridge in Gamut’s production, discovered the play in college.

“I was the only black guy in my theater class,” he says, “and that made me connect with Ira in a spiritual way. I felt like I understood him.”

Learning about Aldridge—his story, experience, and tribulations—gave Golden the driving force to teach audiences another way to view the world. This is what live theater is supposed to do, he believes— it allows us to enter a life that is not our own and find ways to connect with it.

Giving Voice

It took nearly 200 years for Aldridge’s story to be told on stage. “Red Velvet,” written by playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, opened in 2012 at the Tricycle Theatre in London.

Gamut was one of the first theaters in the United States to get the rights to perform the play, bringing this important work to Harrisburg, a majority-black city. Clark hopes that the story will inspire more actors, regardless of race, to realize that they can achieve success despite hardships they may have.

For Anthony, playing this role means giving voice to a hidden history, while helping to foster the local community. He wants people to enjoy the show, but would prefer even more for them to go home and have a discussion about what it meant.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “I hope to be able to say that I changed at least one person’s life, and I want to help the world by using the tools that Ira wished he had.”

Gamut Theatre is located at 15 N. 4^th St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.gamuttheatre.org or call 717-238-4111.

JANUARY
THEATRE EVENTS
At Harrisburg’s Professional
Downtown Theatres

Jan. 6 & 8, 6-9 p.m.
OPEN AUDITIONS FOR “THE SEAGULL”
by Anton Chekhov
at Gamut Theatre
Schedule auditions at 717-238-4111

Jan. 13 & 16
OPEN AUDITIONS FOR “SNOW WHITE”
Ages 8-18, Jan. 13 & 16, 6-8 p.m.
Ages 6 & 7, Jan. 16, 3-4:30 p.m.
presented by Popcorn Hat Players Young Acting Company
at Gamut Theatre
Schedule auditions at 717-238-4111

Jan. 13 to 30
POPCORN HAT PLAYERS PRESENT “SLEEPING BEAUTY”
at Gamut Theatre
Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m.
Saturdays at 1 p.m.
Tickets $8

Jan. 15 at 7:30 p.m.
TMI IMPROV COMEDY 3^rd IN THE BURG SHOW
at Gamut Theatre Reception Stage
Bar opens at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets BYOP (bring your own price)

Jan. 23 to Feb. 7
“RED VELVET”
by Lolita Chakrabarti
at Gamut Theatre
Tickets $30 at GamutTheatre.org
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.
Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

Community Starts at Hello: A simple resolution for 2016–engage with those around you.

December 30, 2015 | by Andrew M. Enders

At the start of each new year, society pauses to reflect on the prior year while also outlining an agenda of resolutions for the year ahead. Somewhere in that shuffle of review and soon-to-be broken promises, we often lose sight of the simple course corrections that could make a meaningful impact on the year to come. We have a tendency to make things too complicated.

Our community should embrace one simple, meaningful change in behavior. Start with a “hello.”

Make a resolution to acknowledge and engage those around you. Stop being a stranger within your own neighborhood, whether you live in the city or visit daily for work. Put down your phone. Take off your headphones. When you are among others in public, make the conscious decision to be actively open within your environment. If you don’t make the effort to get to know the people around you, no discussion can reach a meaningful depth. It would be a substantial, yet simple way to start the process of uniting our community through conversation.

The exchange of ideas requires time and energy. Ideas need time to gestate. If we are consistently avoiding conversation and rushing through a discussion merely to get it done, we are not taking advantage of the opportunity to refresh our city.

Could it start with genuine, personal interaction that revolves around the thesis that Harrisburg is a place conversation is embraced? Conversation could be the key to an expansion of positive action. I know that we have a critical mass of individuals who believe vibrant discussion is a good thing for society.

This is happening in Harrisburg every day. It is the spontaneous conversation that erupts in laughter at the corner table at Little Amps. Perhaps it is an economic debate that is considered among friends at the Dauphin County Library System’s McCormick Riverfront Library. Or could it start with a quick greeting exchanged between two runners along the trail? We have no shortage of venues in which to engage in spirited debate.

Harrisburg is a place that we should all proudly identify with, even if there remains room for improvement. In many settings, I have been engaged in conversation on how to make Harrisburg better. I am sure that you have, too. What if we stop merely indulging problems that continue to create discord and shift the conversation to a focus on actionable solutions?

Launch Harrisburg forward with dynamic discourse. This won’t happen unless you are open to the notion of engaging others. The presumption must become that others are open to listening. It also means that we must refrain from pontificating or yelling our message without direction.

Be actively inclusive in your discussion, do it reasonably and without embellishment or vitriol. Limiting dialogue only to ideas that you agree with can be more damaging than it is positive. If there is one area of this process that could be challenging, it is that we will all need to engage in uncomfortable conversations. Listen more. Be thoughtful of your word choice and inflection when you do speak.

Harrisburg, like most good conversation, is a work in progress that ebbs and flows with the energy of its participants. Success is measured by the process as much as the outcome. Finding commonality in purpose is one approach that should be employed to guide our dialogue. We have plenty to disagree about, but finding that one shared vision is way more meaningful (and usually a lot more fun).

If the opportunity for substantial and vibrant conversation is one reason that Harrisburg is already a great place, then its continued success rests squarely with us, its inhabitants. Insightful discourse guides us to make decisions that will provide the most significant impact on our community.

But, in order to have relevant and productive discussion, a baseline understanding of the issues is critical. This means taking time every day to investigate current events and to spend time immersing yourself in history. Be quick to ask for additional information. Be slow to ignore those facts that you don’t immediately recognize as important. History is not important just because we memorize dates and people. Historical facts characterize our sentiments and provide context to our arguments. History gives our present day conversations meaning.

We have a societal obligation to address the issues that impact a community. Issues like safety, taxes and our infrastructure must be actively debated. At the same time, we should not ignore critical elements like the arts and city beautification—engagement is one key component to making sure that these values are woven into the fabric of Harrisburg. Achieving this balance can only be achieved by challenging one another to reflect and talk about what matters.

Find your outlet for discussion. Discussion without activity is wasted energy. Our community has vibrant professional organizations to propel forward unique and critical dialogue. Robust non-profit organizations help to sustain missions that might otherwise not be given the attention they need. Identify something of substance and then share your message.

Make civility the norm and make it routine. Who knows what path a shift to situational awareness and conversation might lead us. When you walk down one of Harrisburg’s streets, make it a point to share a meaningful “hello” with a stranger. We should unite in the concept that Harrisburg is already great and build sustainable success through meaningful discussion.

Andrew M. Enders, Esq. is a third generation insurance professional with Enders Insurance Associates, one of TheBurg’s Community Publishers. He also is the 2016 president of Harrisburg Young Professional

What’s the Plan? After scores of meetings and tons of input, Harrisburg’s comprehensive plan process enters the final stretch.

December 30, 2015 | by M. Diane McCormick

Comprehensive plan leaders Bret Peters and Geoffrey Knight.

The handwritten suggestions on 5×7 notepaper are posted for all to see at a beHBG comprehensive plan public meeting. Some of them make sense, expressing decades of frustration.

“More PARK renovations in the inner city. Harrisburg has to work for the kids.”

Others? Well, one of the submissions is nothing but a tot’s scribble in red marker. And there’s this, in a child’s handwriting: “I would like to see NFL team & stadium.”

Sorry, kid. Harrisburg will never work that well for city youth. But the Harrisburg comprehensive plan process is giving voice to dreams that have been silenced for years. Whether those dreams come true is another matter, but planners hope the process creates a new normal for transparency and dialog that bridges the festering trust gap among city leaders and residents.

Harrisburg City Council kicked off the comp plan process in early 2015 for a simple reason—because the state requires it. Also because the city’s previous plan is 41 years old. Remember 1974? If you wanted to watch M*A*S*H, your butt had to be on the sofa at precisely 9 p.m. on Tuesday. Meanwhile, your new AMC Gremlin sucked back 13.2 miles per gallon in gas.

At that time, 68,061 people lived in the city of Harrisburg, down from historic highs in the 100,000 range. Today, 49,082 residents rattle around among neighborhoods livable and not-so-livable, navigating streets that flow one way or split for reasons that might have made sense in another era but today only serve to divide.

Real Value

First, a note on what the comp plan is and isn’t.

It isn’t a tool for improving schools, bringing down taxes or whitening teeth. It may have some of those effects, but it’s focused on improving the physical environment and, therefore, projecting a stronger, healthier city to the world.

The theory goes like this: When people can navigate easily from one section to the other, social and geographic divides fall. When run-down lots turn into neighborhood gathering places, connections are made. When vacant buildings are reused, jobs are created.

“What points of the city have real value for the future?” asks Bret Peters, partner with Office for Planning and Architecture, the Harrisburg firm selected by a steering committee that launched the process. “Where there are structures with potential, you have redevelopment and reinvestment.”

It’s about integrating existing city elements, says Peters. Build a bridge from Division Street to Industrial Road, and Uptown connects easily with HACC and Wildwood Park. Make Market Street two lanes its full length, studded with redevelopment projects, and Allison Hill flows easily into downtown.

The plan envisions a city that’s easy to bicycle and walk, has transportation hubs, and offers a green waterway not just at the riverfront but also along a pristine, flood-free Paxton Creek.

Generational Opportunity

In Peters’ office behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral, there is a war room of sorts, where posters lining the walls display more than 40 transformative concepts—parks and greenways, fresh-food markets and rehabbed housing, repurposed schools and reinvigorated warehouses.

There is also, in this room, a giant map of the city pinned with more than 120 red, blue and yellow pushpins. Each pin represents a forum, neighborhood gathering or community meeting where planners solicited ideas and presented the comp plan as it took shape. Residents of all ages—including that tot who couldn’t write letters yet—submitted ideas on notepaper. Planners pureed those initial ideas into concepts that residents could vote on, in person or at behbg.com.

Community outreach and transparency are hallmarks of the process, says city Planning Director Geoffrey Knight, “hopefully insuring that we were in as many places and in front of the community in as many different ways as we possibly could have been.”

Some residents have been skeptical, assuming that planners are “supposed to have X number of meetings” and then craft the plan to their liking, Knight says. His team is “trying to disabuse the public of that notion.”

“We’re trying to find organizations and individuals and entities that traditionally haven’t interacted with the city all that much,” says Knight. “We do realize that over the last 40 or 50 years, there’s been a lot of apathy and mistrust built up. That’s been well-earned, because governments at the time just didn’t feel that public outreach was as necessary as we realize now, today, that it is.”

Of course, the ideas that rise to the top are no surprise. How many decades have city residents cried out for less crime, less blight, more greenery, fewer divides between the Hill and downtown, and for God’s sake, more grocery stores?

The next steps put comp plan ideas into practice, say planners. To prevent dust from piling up on the final document, the community must be vigilant and “continue pushing to say we want to start getting these in,” says Knight.

And for the funding that must, in nearly every case, materialize to turn ideas into reality? Knight sees three ways around that hurdle. First, grant funding spigots open more easily when projects are part of a comprehensive, well-thought-out, current plan, not a yellowed document that conjures Gerald Ford wearing wide ties.

Second, prioritize existing funds. “We are a fairly resource-constrained municipality, but we do have money to pave roads or do demolitions,” says Knight.

Instead of following an ad-hoc basis, allocate funds according to their fit with the plan. When an underground utility is replaced, paint bicycle lanes during resurfacing, and the task is done with “marginal costs.”

Third, use the plan to guide developers, urging them to build and invest in the areas where their interests intersect with the plans.

Same goes for integration among governments, says Peters. One of the plan’s more ambitious concepts is a revitalized industrial park on South Allison Hill, the area between 17^th and 19^th streets where that faded beauty, the Coca-Cola plant, and other industrial remnants now stand vacant.

That area is also at a prime location with direct access to I-83—the same stretch that PennDOT just happens to be widening and dramatically revamping in coming years, says Peters. It’s a “generational opportunity” to tell PennDOT “this is the community and the kind of area we’d like to see, and this is how we need roads to be designed coming in and out of the highway.”

“What we’re trying to do is create an export economy in this neighborhood where people are exporting goods and services, where people are coming in off the highway, buying things, and leaving,” says Peters. “Nobody views this neighborhood as a destination at the moment, but we want to turn it into one.”

Optimistic Exercise

But is any of this realistic or just Jetsons-style dreams?

Knight says much of implementation is simply “on-the-ground stuff in deferred maintenance that there’s money out there for.”

“Some of these concepts aren’t pie in the sky,” he says. “They might be a water taxi or splash park or skate park.”

And even though decades of mistrust prompt some to say that the city has more pressing needs, Knight paints the comprehensive plan as, “by nature, an optimistic exercise.”

“It’s meant to work on the premise that, if we do fix things up in five years, 10 years, where are we as a community?” he says. “You have to have those ideas and projects that think a little bit more long-term. We have addressed immediate needs that people care about, and where will we go from there?”

Milestones Ahead

Harrisburg’s Comprehensive Plan process should be wrapped up later this year, according to the following timeframe:

March 1: Final document is completed and issued for public comment. It’s also sent to Dauphin County and adjacent municipalities for review.
Mid-April: Harrisburg Planning Commission reviews the plan and votes to recommend its adoption or not.
June: Harrisburg City Council votes on whether to adopt the plan.

Fun on a Bun: Burger wishes, French fry dreams at the Broad Street Market.

December 30, 2015 | by Ashleigh Pollart

The malady: a wee too much to drink on a Friday night.

“The Cure”: ground beef seasoned to taste like breakfast sausage, sriracha mayo, a fried egg, French fries and Taylor ham, on a freshly made bun.

This is the type of morning-after remedy I can get behind—the my-mouth-is-suddenly-salivating creation at The Harrisburger, Broad Street Market’s gourmet burger joint that opened as part of a wave of new businesses in June.

When I asked the owner/griddle-master/mad burger scientist, Lou Lerant, how he concocted this tantalizing twist on your typical burger, he had a straight, matter-of-fact answer.

“I wanted sausage, but I had beef,” he said. “So, I just looked up ‘How to make breakfast sausage,’ took the seasonings and put it in the beef.”

Thus was born The Cure, Lerant’s very own hangover therapy. You’re welcome, Midtown millennials. But wake up early—there are only 10 of these babies available each Saturday.

Works of Art

The Cure’s creation happened the way that many of The Harrisburger’s one-of-a-kind combinations do, such as the Bacon Me Crazy, Sweet Chili O’Mine, Plain Jane and Truffle Shuffle—by inspiration, trial and error and repeated tastings.

“I like to offer something a little different that keeps them coming back,” Lerant said of his unique offerings.

The recipes are homegrown, with friends and family serving as the enthusiastic testers for his backyard grill experiments/works of art. These same friends and family encouraged Lerant to go into the burger business.

“Having my own restaurant was always something I wanted to do,” he said. “I just never had the means to do it.”

Lerant began to think more seriously about his dream when, one day, he was walking through the market and began speaking with the previous manager, Ashlee Dugan.

“I realized it wasn’t really that expensive to lease a space there,” he said. “Starting something up in the market is still fairly expensive, but not nearly as expensive as getting your own building.”

In another life, Lerant worked as an insurance underwriter and, like many others, regardless of career, was not happy in the job.

“I went to school and went to grad school, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he said. “Everything I did, I was like ‘It’s OK,’ but I was never happy. I go to work, I go home and that’s it. I was always looking for something better.”

Lerant’s decision to chase his dream was applauded by his older co-workers when he announced his new venture.

“When I left my old job, all the older guys I worked with said ‘I wish I did this,’” he said. “And now they’ve been stuck in their job for 30 years instead of doing something else.”

Taste the Difference

In his quest for happiness, Lerant keeps his neighbors and customers top of mind.

He strives to make great food with the most local, high-quality food he can get find. In fact, his beef—freshly ground every morning—comes quite literally from Lerant’s neighbor, Hummer’s Meats, in the next building over. In addition, he picks up his buns every day at The Pennsylvania Bakery.

When possible, Lerant strives to support his fellow business owners by using local produce in his recipes. Some of that produce ends up as garlic aioli and caramelized onions, burger embellishments that Lerant makes himself.

“It’s time consuming, but I think people realize it and can taste the difference,” he said.

To add more zest, he uses the beer of another Midtown business, Zeroday Brewing, in some of his recipes.

Like others who call Midtown home or pass through this historical area of Harrisburg, Lerant recognizes the neighborhood’s evolution over the past few years.

“It seems as if Midtown is trying to become something,” he said. “People my age are trying to start small businesses and promote the town itself.”

Lerant even enthusiastically told me that he is now seeing more customers from outside the city, which is a relatively new audience for the market. As for The Harrisburger itself, Lerant is thrilled to see what the next few months hold.

“It may not work,” he said. “I may not be around forever. But at least I can say I did it, and I don’t regret doing it, which I think is the main takeaway.”

The Harrisburger is located in the Stone Building of the Broad Street Market and is open Thursday to Saturday during regular market hours. For more information, visit www.theharrisburger.com or call 717-836-0154.

On Becoming Whole: Movement, thought, wellness come together at Body IQ Life.

December 30, 2015 | by Susan Ryder

Intensity, drive and endurance. Faster, further and more.

That’s how exercise and weight loss have traditionally been approached.

But there’s another way, a way in which weight loss serves as the byproduct of exercise, not necessarily the motivation. In this way, mind and body care are addressed together, as one.

Body IQ Life, a Camp Hill-based Pilates and wellness studio, offers such a holistic approach to exercise.

“Movement is thought in motion,” said owner Janine Galati, a certified Romana’s Pilates teacher, exercise physiologist and licensed massage therapist.

Pilates is mindful. Mindfulness involves the awareness of how your body moves when exercising. For example, the typical curl involves little thought and is easily done with a quick flex of the bicep. But attempting to do a bicep curl while engaging the tricep involves a whole different process. One must concentrate, think about the motion.

“We teach people how to use their body,” said Galati. “We don’t teach how to tense muscle. We teach how to leverage the body.”

This takes proprioception, a sense of understanding of where one’s body is in space. Pilates focuses on corrective exercise, learning how to use the body well, preventing injury and staying healthy.

With Her Hands

An injury launched Galati into her present career.

She danced with the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet five days a week, six hours a day, until the age of 25. She left ballet to attend Temple University, where she studied exercise physiology, with the goal of becoming a surgeon. While there, she picked up sculling and injured her back. The injury left her numb to the foot in one leg, limping, and in severe pain.

Doctors advised her to have a lumbosacral laminectomy, but friends had other advice. They told her to seek out Romana Kryzanowska, a first-generation Pilates teacher who had studied directly with Pilates creator Joseph Pilates.

Galati healed her back working with Romana and subsequently developed an interest in the practice. She was enthralled with how Romana used her hands to determine the kind of treatment people needed. She realized that she wanted that type of close relationship with healing, a relationship the surgical profession would not allow.

“I work in a very old way,” she said. “My teacher taught me a tradition with her hands.”

Galati studied with Romana for five years then opened the first Philadelphia-based Pilates studio in the Rittenhouse Square area. At the time, aerobics was in, and Pilates was new.

“People were annoyed that I wanted to help them organize their bodies,” she said.

However, athletes, dancers and actors saw the benefits of Pilates and visited Galati’s Philadelphia studio. Martina Navratilova, Bruce Hurst and Toni Collette, among other notables, have studied with her, she said.

In 2008, Galati joined her soon-to-be husband and moved to Camp Hill. Her studio there resembles a physical therapy office, but is softer and more welcoming. Among the equipment are pieces designed by Joseph Pilates.

One piece, the Cadillac (yes, named for the car) is a padded table with stainless steel poles at each corner, a push bar and arm and leg springs. Gatali stretches new patients on this table where, along with a written evaluation, she determines their needs.

Beside the Cadillac sits the reformer (it sounds more menacing that it is), another pivotal Pilates machine. Its padded center glides, and students push with their feet against a stainless bar at the end or pull with arm straps. These machines use body weight and springs to lengthen and strengthen muscle.

Motions focus on precision and mechanics—quality verses quantity. This precision allows for economy of energy, working smarter not harder. Galati watches and manipulates patients as they use equipment to ensure that they engage the proper muscles.

Personal Attention

Along with physical flexibility and strength, Body IQ Life emphasizes self-care, taking care of the mind, body and spirit.

Galati said that this is necessary because “people’s brains and bodies are at two different speeds.” This self-care includes massage, aromatic herbal footbaths, restorative yoga and meditation, in addition to Pilates.

Students come to Galati for a variety of reasons. Most are women, Baby Boomers, folks who have had orthopedic problems, those investigating nonsurgical options, and those who need some type of correction such as help with poor posture or balance.

People who study with Galati receive individual attention and a personal plan. No two plans are alike because no two people are alike. Participants have different problems, needs and motivations, and their plans will reflect that.

She also teaches a class through the Camp Hill Recreation Department so that folks can participate and receive the benefits of her guidance in more cost effective way.

“I work the ladies hard, but I keep them safe [from injury],” said Galati.

She hopes that exercise will becomes a part of a person’s daily care. Not a chore or cultural expectation, but a genuine desire to be happier and healthier. She wants people to take the time to understand themselves and their bodies better.

“I want to create a collective conversation about health and wellness,” she said.

Body IQ Life is located at 2208 Market St., Camp Hill. For more information, visit www.bodyiqlife.com or call 717-412-4195.

Harrisburg on the Wall: “The Burg 2” will give the gift of art by selling it.

December 30, 2015 | by Rebecca Hanlon

Step into Gallery@Second, and it seems like Harrisburg is breathing through the art displayed on the walls.

That’s certainly how owner Ted Walke wants people to feel when they experience “The Burg 2” art exhibit, slated for Jan. 14 to March 12.

“The city has so much to tell,” Walke said, as he prepared his gallery for the exhibit. “There’s a level of pride in being part of Harrisburg. When art can showcase that, it can be the wave that the community rises on.”

Walke and his wife, Linda, hosted their first “The Burg” exhibit in 2010, with the intention of featuring local artists who could showcase everything from abstract to contemporary pieces that represented a slice of Harrisburg.

Many people who visited the first show recognized their homes or favorite hangout spots captured on canvas, film or paper.

Walke remembers the reaction to the initial exhibit, people grabbing framed art straight off the wall and bringing it to the front counter for purchase. Whatever was behind the frame spoke so deeply to them that they had to have it, he said.

He hopes for the same response this time around, especially since the gallery’s share of the sale will go back into the arts through Sprocket Mural Works, a group dedicated to creating vibrant community murals throughout Harrisburg.

“There’s a really good feeling we have about doing this,” Walke said. “We know that art can impact the community, and, if we can help that progress in Harrisburg, then we feel we’re on the right path.”

Lasting, Inspiring

Community donations are what keep Sprocket Mural Works running, said its co-founder, Jeff Copus, who’s also the art education director with Jump Street.

Formed about two years ago, Sprocket has completed about 10 different murals throughout the city, ranging from a geometric-inspired mural at the Kindergarten Academy on Filbert Street to a colorful tree celebrating diversity along Kittatinny Street in Allison Hill.

The organization uses every cent to place art throughout the city, the donations off-setting costs that range from paying artists to buying high-quality paint supplies, Copus said.

“Funding is one of the largest things we have to overcome right now,” he said. “The more money we have, the more projects we can do, and we’ve often been in a place where a lack of funds has kept us from doing more. When we have someone from the community recognize our efforts and choose to support us, it really means a lot.”

Any money raised through the Gallery@Second exhibit will be applied to 2016 projects, he said. This includes a large mural planned for April on the west wall of Midtown Cinema.

Painting a mural on the broadside of a two- to three-story row home can cost about $12,000, or about $10 per square foot, Copus said. A few factors play into that, including whether the wall is in good condition and what the artist charges for his or her work. The paint used for the murals is also expensive but is a high-quality, high-pigment paint meant to last about 30 years. Most exterior paint grades found at the hardware store will start to degrade after about five years.

“We want to go into these neighborhoods and offer more than a Band-Aid on their buildings,” Copus said. “We want to provide something lasting, something inspiring.”

All Around Us

Artist Karen Commings is delighted that her contribution to the exhibit will not only bring art into someone’s home, but will help provide art to entire neighborhoods through the gallery’s donation, she said.

No matter how many times she’s photographed Harrisburg, there is a new scene, a different angle or a change in the light that gets her to look at the city differently, she said.

The photograph she submitted for “The Burg 2” captures a scene down North Street taken from the steps of the Pennsylvania Capitol. After adjusting the highlights to bring out the white in the image, it looks more like a watercolor than a photograph, she said.

“I’d like for people to see the photo and look at that scene as they never have before,” she said. “How many times do we pass certain things and not pay attention to them? As an artist, I try to find beauty in the things people often do not even notice. There is beauty in the everyday and mundane.”

For Walke, the hope is that each person who visits “The Burg 2” walks away with that same sense of awe. He hopes a passion for the city is rekindled through the framed art that hangs on the walls of his gallery.

“If we can get that pride to flow through the streets of Harrisburg, into the lives of each and every person who lives here, then I think we’ve accomplished something great,” he said. “Art is all around us in Harrisburg. Sometimes, we just need someone to show it to us.”

Gallery@Second, 608 N. 2^nd St. in Harrisburg, will host “The Burg 2” from Jan. 14 to March 12. For more information, visit www.galleryatsecond.com or email [email protected]. More information on Sprocket Mural Works can be found at www.sprocketmuralworks.com.

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