Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "the grid"

The Grid in Technicolor

2011-11-19T01:21:38Z

Right now Sacramento is full of "Kodak moments." This afternoon I stalked Downtown and Midtown for those moments. There was something around every corner.

The Grid in Technicolor:

Alleyways of Sacramento receive names, part three

2011-11-04T05:17:27Z

On Oct. 11, the City Council approved an ordinance that officially named the alleys of the central city. On Tuesday and Wednesday, The Sacramento Press highlighted many of these alleys, including their new names and what residents and business owners think of them. More alleyways are included below.

Leistal Alley

Cohn said Leistal Alley is an alley that the city has put resources into renovating.

With a lighted walkway and an upscale pavement job, co-owner of Old Soul Coffee Jason Griest said he hopes that all of the other alleys will soon be similarly renovated.

“We see a lot more foot traffic in the alley now that they’ve renovated it,” the 36-year-old Midtown resident said.

Griest said that he thought a better name for the alley would have been “Old Soul Alley” as an homage to the coffee shop that gives the alley its character and charm.

Matsui Alley

Bombay Bar and Grill is located on Matsui Alley and 21st Street, and Manager Amit Kumar, 35, said that the naming will make it easier for customers to find restaurants located along the alleys.

Kumar also said that naming the alley after someone prominent will help it stand out from some of the other alleys.

Neighbors Alley

Opera Alley

The 17th Street. Commons housing complex is located on Opera Alley.

Louise and David Thompson, two seniors who live near Opera Alley, run the Interfaith Experience, a community outreach group that seeks to unite different churches in the area.

Louise Thompson said that she thinks naming the alleys is a great idea that was long overdue.

But Louise Thompson said that she believes that the city should have looked more into the history and character of the alleys to find the most suitable names for each one.

“There are all kinds of dramas that happen within these alleys,” she said. “If we were to really concentrate on the particular landscapes that create these alleys, then we could be recording history and giving (the alleys) a sense of place.”

David Thompson said that he agreed with his wife.

“There is always history that gets eroded and lost, and naming (the alleys) accordingly would keep that history alive,” he said.

He added that he thinks it would be a good idea to call Opera Alley “Commons Alley,” because of the housing complex.

Powerhouse Alley

Powerhouse Alley runs south of P Street and next to the Fremont Community Garden.

Brandon Louie, a 30-year-old community organizer who lives in Boulevard Park, said that naming the alleys is a good first step in utilizing the space that the alleys provide.

“I think giving the alleys an identity gives us more of an incentive to clean them up,” he said.

But Louie said that he doesn’t want the naming to be just a symbolic gesture and that it is important that Sacramentans take action to redevelop them soon.

Louie said that it would be hard to come up with a better name than “Powerhouse.”

“Maybe The People’s Alley,” he said. “Something a bit more communal.”

Quill Alley

Quill Alley is perhaps one of the busiest alleys in Sacramento, as it is home to the 16th Street light rail station, where many people come into Sacramento from the suburbs.

Ray Thompson, a state worker from Land Park, said that his main concern was that the names be in order alphabetically.

When asked about the name “Quill,” the 48-year-old said that he would have tried another name that better kept up with the history of Sacramento.

“Quill is more like pens or writing,” he said. “I probably would have named it something to do with rail or industry.”

What do you think of the city's names for the alleys? Leave your thoughts in the conversation below.

John G. Hernandez contributed to this story.

Central city alleys receive names

2011-11-02T06:04:54Z

After initially being proposed five years ago, City Councilman Steve Cohn’s idea to name Sacramento alleys has finally been put into action. On Oct.11, the City Council approved a list of new names for the alleys.

Cohn said that the alleys need names to help residents identify them more easily.

“Instead of saying ‘the alley between L and Capitol,’ you could just say the name of the alley,” he said.

The process for naming the alleys took so long, Cohn said, because it is very complicated.

“It took a while because we had to do a lot of outreach,” he said. "It's part of the rules and regulations for naming streets."

Cohn said that approval was needed from various administrative agencies like the Department of Transportation, the Sacramento Police Department and the U.S. Postal Service. Permission from these agencies was needed to coordinate and integrate the new names without creating duplication or confusion.

All of the alley names begin with the letter of the street they are directly south of. However, there was often disagreement on what words should be used for the naming.

“My original proposal was names of international cities, and some (residents) liked that, but others didn’t,” Cohn said.

To reconcile the differences, he said that city staff asked local neighborhood and business associations, such as the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, what kind of names they would like to see by holding public events throughout 2008 and 2009. Names relating to Sacramento's history and culture were often popular, like Democracy and Jazz.

The proposal was also delayed several times during the past five years.

"It was put on the shelf from time to time," Cohn said. "There wasn't a lot of people working full-time on it."

Cohn said that street signs will not be put up on the alleys anytime soon, especially with their $300 price tag.

“Little by little, as the economy improves and our budget improves, we may go back and appropriate the money,” he said.

The alleys are located in between B and W streets, and many stretch between Third and 30th streets. The first letter in each alley’s name is the same as the street that it is directly south of.

The Sacramento Press high-lighted some of the alleys below.

Blues Alley

Blues Alley is located in the northern part of the city that lies near many industrial buildings and residences.

Saleh Tyebjee, 26, is an engineer who lives in the downtown area. He said that although naming the alleys gives them some much-needed character, the names will ultimately make it more difficult for people to navigate on the grid system.

“It’s one of the nice things about living on the grid,” he said. “You always know where you are. (Naming the alleys) makes it a little more difficult to find your way around.”

Tyebjee said that if he could have named the alley, he would have called it “Grant Alley” because the alley runs right up to Grant Park.

Chinatown Alley

South of Blues Alley is Chinatown Alley, which runs through some of Sacramento’s oldest neighborhoods.

Jeff Laible lives off of Chinatown Alley. The 52-year-old installation mechanic said that he believes naming the alleys will actually help people navigate better throughout the central city.

“It’s not just the alley between C and D,” he said. “If you say ‘Chinatown Alley,’ you know which one it is.”

Laible said that he has no preference when it comes to names for the alleys, as long as everyone actually knows the alleys’ names.

Democracy Alley

Eggplant Alley

Forty-seven-year-old promoter and resident of Eggplant Alley Jerry Perry said that he had trouble understanding how the name “Eggplant” was decided on.

“I cannot believe that they couldn’t find something more relevant historically than the word ‘eggplant,’ ” he said. “(It) sounds like some 1920s cartoon character lives here.”

Perry said that he has lots of ideas for the alley that he thinks would have been more suitable, like “Excellent Alley.”

“I think it would have been more exciting if they had found more historical Sacramento characters,” he said. “A lot of the names they chose are weak.”

The rest of the alleys will be showcased throughout the course of this week.

What do you think of the city's names for the alleys? Leave your thoughts in the conversation below.

John G. Hernandez contributed to this story and created the video.

What does it take to run a Temple?

2009-09-20T03:01:52Z

Sean Kohmescher has come up with a winning business model when it comes to his two Temple coffee shops, but don't call him a businessman.

"My identity is not a businessman," he said. "My identity is someone who is passionate about coffee and tea."

Someone wanting to follow in his footsteps might think twice about replicating the road to his success.

Kohmescher spent eight months building the first location. "I built everything. If it's not a chair and it's not a couch, I built it," he said.

Although Kohmescher has a degree in interior graphic design, he has no formal background in architecture. He couldn't afford an architect at that time, so he drew the plans up himself -- sketch after sketch. "I learned the hard way," he said.

After the plans were up to the Department of Health and city building code's specifications, Kohmescher got to work using his own hands and his own tools: a hammer, jig saw, skill saw and belt sander.

Kohmescher was still working full-time while working on his first Temple. He would work all day and then go work on his own business, "anywhere from five to eight hours a day." When asked how much sleep he got, he laughed. "Not very much. It was a tough year."

The interior wasn't the only thing Kohmescher had to worry about before opening in 2005.

Before he opened his doors for business, he would regularly see women defecating near Temple's doorway and homeless people gathered near where the railing is, enjoying a beer. He called the police many times to make sure these issues weren't hindering his ability to attract customers.

Kohmescher recalls what was going through his mind on the day of the first Temple's grand opening, "I hope this works."

The decision to be open 365 days a year was settled upon from day one.

"It's important to be a community spot," he said. "Not to be selfish, to be in business for the people."

What about Christmas? "When I grew up we went to bars and coffee spots on holidays," he said. "On Christmas more than any other time I want to go out to breakfast."

The hard work didn't stop when the construction was finished. Kohmescher worked 18-hour days for the first four months that Temple was open with only one other employee to help out.

"I didn't have a choice for it not to succeed," he said. "When you sell everything you own, it's not an option."

Temple keeps it simple, specializing in coffee, tea and pastries. "When you do other things, you dilute the product."

The Old Soul muffins and pastries are baked at 3 or 4 a.m. every morning so that when Temple opens at 6 a.m., they're still warm. Other coffee shops have their baked goods delivered by semi truck from the Bay Area so by the time they hit the shelf, or the display case, they're already a day old, he said.

Kohmescher is adamant about people recycling. He finds it weird that people order coffee in to-go cups and then sit there and drink them at the shop. "Would you order take-out at a restaurant and then sit there and eat it with a plastic fork?"

His environmental conscience encompasses more than just the fair trade and organic coffee or the desire to recycle. The air conditioning may be constantly blowing, but Kohmescher said he keeps his shops at the SMUD-recommended temperature for energy efficiency -- 76 or 77 degrees. The thermostat only allows the temperature to fluctuate one degree.

June 29 marked the opening of the second Temple. Kohmescher decided he wanted another coffee shop to house a roaster and provide a space for training and certification programs.

Ben Lance has worked for Temple for over two years and has managed the S Street location since its opening.

Despite the long hours and long days, Lance said he genuinely loves what he does. "I would be here all the time anyway."

Kohmescher's passion for coffee has rubbed off on Lance, he said."The fire was there before, [but since working for Temple,] it’s bloomed into a brush fire."

Lance calls himself a "lifer," and hopes to "bring the level of quality and coffee awareness to another level, so there’s more understanding for the general public"

Temple is preparing for the Western Regional Barista Championship in February and the United States Barista Championship in March.

Lance has been practicing his latte pours for the Millrock Free-Pour Latte Art Competition on Sept. 25 in Seattle.

He will compete against 39 other baristas to pour the best looking latte. This is Lance's second time competing. Last year he placed 11th.

Kohmescher spends quite a bit of time at both Temples. "[I don't want to be] an absent owner," he said. "If I’m away, I’m doing other things for the business, for the coffee world."

His advice for someone else trying to open up a business: "Learn the business, work at a great place to get experience, take classes, become educated."

Asked if he would do anything differently, "I'm going to say no," he said after finishing one of his eight daily 8 oz. coffees. "What you’ve done makes you know what you know."

Sac PD alert: Help needed to catch a sexual predator

2009-08-26T01:24:49Z

From a Sacramento Police Department press release:

The Sacramento Police Department is asking for the community’s help in identifying a sexual predator that attacked a 26-year-old female.

On July 31, 2009, at 7:24 p.m., the male suspect was standing near the 3rd and T Street watching the victim unload items from her car. The
suspect waited for the victim to enter her residence and then approached her door two times. The suspect used a ruse to try and get the victim
to open her door. When the victim opened the door, the suspect forced his way into the residence. The suspect attacked the victim and reached
under her shirt. The victim began to scream causing the suspect to leave.

A composite sketch of the suspect was completed in hopes that someone in the community will recognize him and contact the Police Department.

The Sacramento Police Department urges anyone with information pertaining to this crime to contact Crime Alert at (916) 443-HELP or text in a tip to 274637 (CRIMES). Enter SACTIP followed by the tip information. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.

Sergeant Norm Leong
Sacramento Police Department
Public Information Officer
5770 Freeport Blvd
Sacramento, CA 95822
(916) 221-0420

Best Restaurants - a different take

2009-07-21T01:54:18Z

It's that time of year again - time for "Best Restaurants," brought to you by Sacramento Magazine.

After reading the readers' picks for each category, it made me wonder whether the results would be different for readers of The Sacramento Press. Our focus has been primarily on events and coverage of things in the Grid, whereas Sacramento Magazine covers a larger demographic including the suburbs.

There were four categories that stood out to me in Sacramento Magazine's Best Restaurants: Best Burrito, Best Pizza, Best Burger and Best Coffeehouse.

I live in the Grid and therefore have my own biases about restaurants that live in Downtown and Midtown. I prefer restaurants in this area to those found in the outlying areas. It would be interesting to see the results had it been limited to only restaurants in the Grid.

Best Burrito went to Chipotle, with Dos Coyotes coming in second and Ernesto's coming in third. Both Chipotle and Dos Coyotes are chains. The Grid has very few chain restaurants, and I wonder if the presence of chains amidst family-owned and unique Sacramento restaurants makes a difference in reader choice. Does the quality speak for itself?

Best Pizza went to Round Table. Granted, Chicago Fire and Zelda's picked up second and third place, but I wonder how a delivery-based chain is even allowed in the running. Did Hot Italian or Luigi's or Giovanni's make it in the top five?

For the category of Best Burger, there are quite a few restaurants that come to mind that did not make the top three. Jim Denny's, Whitey Jolly Cones and Nationwide Freezer Meats were all missing from page 115 for best burger. In-N-Out, however, took first place, the Squeeze Inn (deserving, in my opinion, one of the top three) made second and McDonald's placed third.

For Best Coffeehouses, Starbucks was voted first place, Peet's took second and It's a Grind made third. When I think of good coffeehouses, I think of the unique havens in the Grid. Temple comes to mind. So does Weatherstone and Naked Lounge. If I want ambiance and a coffee or tea that comes in a mug that was washed and that is reusable, I do not go to Starbucks. If I want free wi-fi that does not require a cellular account, I cannot go to Starbucks. If I want a swirled foam design on my latte, I will not go to a mass chain coffeehouse.

My coffee choices come from currently living in the Grid, although I did grow up in the suburbs.

After reading this list, I looked at Sacramento Magazine's website. At the bottom, it reads "Find the best that Sacramento, California has to offer at Sacramento Magazine Online. With fantastic features such as a restaurant guide, an entertainment and events calendar and monthly recipes, you’ll find everything you need to know about exciting Sacramento, California."

Now, I ask you - readers of The Sacramento Press - if you were to vote on Best Restaurants for The Sacramento Press (in the Grid), which ones would make your top three for best burrito, pizza, burger and coffeehouse?

What should I write about?

2008-12-17T23:38:52Z

OK, here's a big question, one that stops everyone at some point, even veterans:

What should I write about? What's "interesting"? And there are other questions: Is this story too small? Too big? Not local enough? TOO local?

We're feeling our way on this one, but we've been very specific that this is about The Grid, the central city, midtown/downtown. (BTW, I'm not that keen on the midtown/downtown distinction, because they're such vague areas. A map I once saw in the Bee had the line demarcating the two meandering all over the Grid, making hash of the distinction. So let's just call it "downtown" or the Grid, eh? And don't get me started on the whole "Handle District" or "SoCap" thing ... that's marketing, pure and simple.)

We want reporting on what's happening in this little 806 square block of heaven and hell known increasingly, if not universally, as the Grid. Because that's what it is, a grid, and one of the great beauties of it is that it is so well-defined. Though I've heard people extend the Grid into East Sac, and past Broadway into the inner suburbs like Curtis and Land Parks, the Grid is very well defined. And that's a good thing. We've got two freeways and two rivers hemming us in, and that gives us something to push up against. We should keep it well-defined, in the same ways that San Francisco and Manhattan are "hemmed in,' and Los Angeles is not. Limits are a good thing, they literally "define" something.

I focus first on the geography because Sacramento is a place more than, say, an idea. In fact, the idea of Sacramento is rather dull: Capital city. Zzzz. I grew up in the suburbs and lemme tell ya, that was not an inspiring idea then, and it still isn't.

However, the reality is much more interesting than the idea. Sacramento, the place is, in a word, cool. Yeah, that's right. No, it's not New York, but it's also not Albany, NY, or Salem, Oregon. (Austin? C'mon, be fair...) But people who come here from other places - unless those other places are Chicago or SF or other much larger cities - are struck by Sacramento's complexity and depth.

After all, Sacramento is one of the most diverse cities in the US, and thus, in the world. We have a new African American mayor, who follows a Latino mayor and a female mayor, and they represent us well. We have thriving communities that are almost cartoonishly diverse. My street in the grid, on the south side, is home to Chinese immigrants, Indian shopkeepers, gay couples, a mahjong parlor, dive bars, several Burners (denizens of Burning Man) and more than one drug dealer. And a Latino family of four, and a Vietnamese family of three. And musicians. Musicians everywhere.

Sacramento is diverse in every way, and the Grid squares that (pun intended). My point is this: Every single one of those people has a story. Some of those stories are old - my ancient Chinese neighbors came here in 1969, escaping Communist China, and still barely speak a word of English - but others are as fresh as daily headlines: One neighborhood house has seven guys living “halfway” to somewhere, and there’s an art gallery - wait, now there are two - just down the street. We used to have a record label two blocks down (they moved to nicer Digs), and we’ve got a cigar store that is all the way Cuban. There used to be an all-local-rap radio station next door.

These are ALL stories. They’re too small for The Bee. But they’re perfect for us. We’re interested in the Capitol and its craziness, but we’re not at this point equiped to cover that (on the other hand, if you're in the Capitol, we'd love to hear from you). But the above stories, and so many more, are instantly available to us.

Or rather, to YOU. It is you who will tell these stories, and the more that are told, and linked to each other, the more we will create a crazy quilt of cross-referenced stories that will reinforce each other, and teach us about each other.

And there is no story too small for SacramentoPress.com. In fact, as a new writer, you're more likely to go too big, to be too inclusive. My advice: Forget trying to cover the waterfront (unless you've found a very interesting part of the waterfront); just tell a simple story. You'll find that even the smallest story isn't all that simple, and as you build it, and post it, others may have aspects of the story to add.

This is another remarkable part of what this site can do: Every story is potentially just the start, not the end, of any story. When I used to write a story for The Bee, I'd cover it the best I could, then it would be published, and that was that. If someone called to add something to the story, as often happened, I had no way to update the story. That's changed, even at The Bee, but at SacramentoPress.com, that's our bread-and-butter. Every single reader has the opportunity to add something to the story, and that, again, is the essence of the Storyline. Stories do not end just because a reporter stopped reporting, and wrote it. Life goes on, and SacramentoPress.com captures that ongoing story.

Start the conversation!

Editing a new kind of newspaper

2008-12-17T23:13:08Z

As the Managing Editor of SacramentoPress.com, and a life-long journalist of more than 30 years, I thought I should start a storyline about what I'm trying to do here. My purpose is to get feedback, and to give you, the potential or current contributor, and above all, to give MYSELF, some idea of what's going on with SacramentoPress.com. Despite my experience as a writer for The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento (and other) magazines, my own blog and with stints at radio, this is as new for me as it is for everyone else.

Because this is NEW. The internet is not yet a generation old, blogging far newer. And journalism - well, what is that? Our Thursday, Dec. 18 workshop will answer that, in part, but let me try to demystify it a bit for you, especially in context of SacramentoPress.com. Because while we use the word "press," your laptop is the press. There are no big - and we're talking BIG - presses like those that cost The Sacramento Bee so much money to run. There is no paper, though founders Ben and Geoff routinely refer to the press as "the paper."

So what is this? It's not a "paper"; that’s just a convenient metaphor. SacramentoPress.com is something new. It's contributor-driven, amateur in the best sense of the word (for the love of doing it) and, especially as we get more and more people contributing, self-edited. There is no way that Editor-in-Chief Geoff Samek or I can edit everything that goes on this site, and that will become even more true as the readers/contributors grow in number, as you already have significantly, in just a month.

So, how to get a handle on this thing? As I see it, the essence of what drove newspapers into existence two centuries ago, and continues to drive the news, is very simple: STORIES. We love to hear stories, to tell stories, we tell each other stories all day long, just as we tell ourselves stories as we live our lives. These stories range from purely factual (and possibly even accurate) to fantastical. Along with Geoff and Ben, I’d love to see SacramentoPress.com become a repository of stories about this central city, where there is so much going on, against a backdrop of so much history, and with so many unimaginable things yet to come.

Stories boil down to people. "Who?" is always the first in the old cliche who-what-when-where-how (and why). Yes, the trees are beautiful, the architecture rich and sometimes grand, the art and music compelling at times. But it’s always the people who make Sacramento what it is, and that should always be our focus. Good people, bad people, and as often as possible, interesting people.

Regarding journalism and how that applies at SacramentoPress.com, amateur as it is, the main thing that it boils down to is what journalists call “reporting.” You’ll all heard the word, and everyone knows that journalists are “reporters.” But what does it mean?

It means that, above all, your responsibility as a reporter for SacramentoPress.com - self-assigned though you may be - is always to find out what is, to the best of your knowledge, true. What was actually said, what was actually done, where and when did it actually happen? In blogging, it’s too easy to just go straight to the WHY - you’ve got a theory about why trees are being cut down, why drug dealers are suddenly in an apartment complex, why a developer is building in this spot rather than that spot - but if you post accurate information, you empower every reader who comes after you to add more, to build something true, together. Something that will literally serve the entire community, in ways you can’t even imagine now. Perhaps even years down the line. But it has to be TRUE.

How do you know it’s true? Best is to see it with your own eyes, though even that’s not foolproof. Next best is to talk to someone who saw it themselves, and better still, two or three people who did. You do this every day, in things that matter to you. So, write about things that matter to you.

And if you get to a point where you don’t know something - and that is devoutly to be hoped for, because when you have to learn something, then you’re really going somewhere - you need to call someone. You may not know what you need to know, but someone else does, and more often than not, they’re happy to tell you. And they’ll tell you something that you didn’t know, and it may well be something completely contrary to what you thought you’d find. And that’s when it really gets good.

OK, that’s enough for now. I’ll be posting more, in part to give you a break, and also to give you a demo on how storylines work. And to get myself better at it. Because I’m just a step or two ahead of you...