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Past Newsletters

3.08

Yourland Update - Construction, Web Update, Smitty's Video from 1961, Urban Farm Trial

 



We are very pleased to announce that demolition and abatement are nearly complete for the first phase of Yourland.  Our demolition team has been on the 16th Street and Buckeye site for several weeks now and are currently cleaning out the stripped down Smitty's and Walgreens spaces.  This effort has removed nearly all of the cosmetic elements from the spaces and has brought them down almost to their wood, metal and concrete cores.  As our LEED certification is requiring, we are minimizing our waste output and have saved almost all of the removed items for future reuse.  

As you can see in the pictures below, there is a wonderful contrast between the two major spaces in the Phase 1 building.  The old Walgreen's space (on the south side of the building) has a wooden truss ceiling throughout, while the Smitty's roof (on the north side of the building) is made of solid concrete.  This cement roof will allow us to do our planned rooftop gardening, while the wooden truss roof will be suitable for our harvesting of solar energy.

We are also very excited to share with you Yourland's updated presence on the web.  The Yourland home page (www.yourland.net) has been redesigned and has some great new content that has been very helpful for us in our leasing efforts.  In addition to the Yourland site, now the Welcome Diner has an official presence on the web (www.welcomediner.net).  We have included in the site some pictures of the diner, the menu, a bit of history, a bit of media, and some other useful and fun information as well.  

The Martha + Mary homepage, www.marthaandmary.net, has been updated with a renewed focus.  Marthaandmary.net is a media sharing page that offers varying and continually updated content.  We imagine the website to be a portal of sorts, a venue where people can share with each other something of themselves, and a place where they can plug into the Martha + Mary network.  Use the search box to search the contents of the entire Martha + Mary domain, and other sites that we value and click on the "m+m" icon for some more information on Martha + Mary as an entity.  We're very excited about what this website can offer, and we look forward to its development in the coming months.  Be sure to check the site periodically.  We hope that there will be something of value waiting for you.

Currently marthaandmary.net is featuring a short, five-minute video that Arnie Eggers, the original Smitty's baker has shared with us.  On his first journey to Arizona in 1960,  Arnie brought along his video camera, stocked with 8mm film.  He documented his journey from Iowa to Arizona, capturing Smitty's #1 while it was being constructed and charted its progress to opening day.  The video ends with a shot of the cake that Arnie made for the first anniversary of Smitty's #1.  Here are a few stills from the video:

Please take a minute to watch this valuable little piece that reveals so much about Yourland's roots.  We hope that you will enjoy as much as we have!  Click here to view the video. 

We would like to introduce the newest member of the M+M team: Meet Reuben Brock, the new managing cook of the Welcome Diner.  

Reuben is originally from upstate New York and has been in Phoenix for six and a half years.  He comes to us from his previous position with LGO Hospitality and is very excited to be a part of the Welcome Diner's community focused service.  He is a musician, a sculptor, a gardener and did I mention he was single?  Peter Hearn, our former managing cook is poised for consultation as the Diner expands to Yourland and will now be focusing his attention on a new project that he and his family are beginning, called onetuffcookie (www.onetuffcookie.com).

Reuben will also be coordinating a Yourland urban farming/composting trial program at Old Southern, a Martha + Mary farmhouse property in South Phoenix.  There he will reuse and compost food waste from the Diner, in addition to gardening the property, which will in turn supply fresh vegetables for use at the Diner.  We have also been enjoying the fruits of our gardening project on 4404 N. Central Avenue.  Our flower and herb gardens are in full bloom, adding much life and beauty to our 4404 project.  If you're in the area please feel free to drop by sometime for a sandwich at Pane Bianco, a cup of coffee at Lux, or maybe for some gift shopping at Passage.  Here is a picture of Old Southern and a few of the flowers in our 4404 gardens:

 

All the best!

The Yourland Team

 

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