Topic: Cumberland River

“Lighting Up the Cumberland,” Now THAT’S a spectacle!

By Turner McCullough Jr. | July 6, 2008 |

Cumberland City’s “Thunder On The Cumberland” proves itself a worthy sequel.

Cumberland City changed the date of their annual fireworks show honoring our Independence Day holiday. Normally held the last weekend of June to avoid conflict with well-known displays by larger communities, this year Cumber City went with the actual holiday to stage its fireworks spectacle. There was some confusion in regions beyond the immediate community. Some folks thought they had missed this year’s event. However, late inquiries provided the correct schedule and the crowds came out in force. They were well rewarded for their determination to attend this show. Well paid indeed! Very well paid, in fact!

The celebration festival was preceded by a parade through Cumberland City’s business district and a multi-locale collection of vendor sites, entertainment stages and rides for the young at heart. A petting zoo was also on hand to thrill young minds and hearts. The cooler weather made the afternoon activities easier to bear than had been the case with Clarksville’s production just 24 hours before.

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Sections: Arts and Leisure, Events | No Comments

Urban sprawl and the building of people-friendly communities

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 28, 2007 |

On the Road in America is an occasional column of thoughts, ideas and observations from my travels.

When I first moved to Clarksville four years ago, I was initially fascinated with the immense geographic area of the city. It was an “urban sprawl” that included an explosion of multiple housing developments. It looked, for the most part, like the bedroom communities of exploding around New England’s major cities. Sort of. But less well planned.

In fact, the photo of downtown Northampton (above left) looks a lot like Franklin Street with the exception of the width of the Main Street, which is large enough for multiple lanes of traffic, angle parking on both side of the street, and in the winter, mountains of snow plowed into the middle of the road until the bucket loaders roll in and haul it all to the river. Just around the corner is Smith College, perhaps a tad larger than APSU, but not much. Crosswalks are located on every block and motorist beware: you will be ticketed for failing to yield to pedestrian right of way everywhere in the city. People walk, bike and bus everywhere in this city.

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Sections: Issues, Opinion | 1 Comment »

Cleaning and ‘greening’ an urban landscape

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 15, 2007 |

Mayor Johnny Piper’s plan to clean up vacant lots around the city is a giant leap in moving the city forward and instilling a sense of civic pride. It goes hand in hand with efforts to clean up litter; it’s the kind of action that sets a positive example for the community at large.

Though some communities use tax dollars to fund such actions, in the late 1980’s one northern city and its then 27-year-old newly elected mayor, Daniel J. Szostkiewicz, opted to launch a clean up the dregs of a decaying city landscape and move urban renewal giant steps forward by obtaining a federal grant for the walloping sum of two million dollars — for clean up. There was a lot to clean up. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, Politics, Technology | No Comments

‘Muck Pluckers’ clean up Cumberland river and shoreline

By Debbie Boen | August 5, 2007 |

What do a shopping cart, two auto tires and a Leaf Chronicle newspaper box have in common? They were picked up today as litter along the shore of the Cumberland River in downtown Clarksville.

All that, along with chairs, buckets, plastic pipe and about 14 bags of trash, were pulled from the shoreline by a team of volunteers who call themselves the “muck pluckers,” a volunteer team that braved the high heat, humidity and poor air quality to clean one small part of the city. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News | 1 Comment »