February 2009 TheBurgGreater Harrisburg’s Community Newspaper Free Contents In the Burg Home & Family 4 Letters Good Eats 23 Young Burgers 5 The First Word 16 Restaurant Row 24 Bricks & Mortars 6 City Hall 17 Home Cooking 25 Wags & Whiskers 8 State Street 26 Game Boards Culture Club Burg Biz 18 Creator Sports & Bodies 9 New Business 19 Passing Judgment 27 Senior Health 10 From the Ground Up 20 On the Outskirts 28 The Great Outdoors 11 Doing Good 21 Happenings 29 Move It! 30 One More Thing … Street Corners 12 Neighborhoods 13 Around Town 15 Past Tense Welcome to TheBurg! We’d love to hear from you. Send your ideas and comments to our editor, Pete. pdurantine@ theburgnews. com TheBurg 3 Letters General & Letters TheBurg Readers Welcome Having lived in Harrisburg and the environs for P.O. Box 676 more than five decades, I read with great interest Harrisburg, PA 17108-0676 Our Inaugural Issue every page of your first issue this afternoon. My www.theburgnews.com sincere congratulations on your very constructive step forward for Harrisburg, by creating a genuine Editorial: 717-602-4300 Congratulations on a successful first edition of and independent community newspaper — one Ad Sales: 717-350-0428 TheBurg! I loved everything about it — the con- that contains an eye-pleasing layout and design, tent, layout, contributing writers, overall appear- diverse articles and beholden to no individual or ance — everything! interest. Your operating philosophy and focus on Principals Editor: Peter Durantine I picked up my copy (well, two) at the ‘helping people understand the city, not fear it’ [email protected] downtown Y. After the two I took, there was only merits commendation. Your zeal for and stated one left — and that was Saturday morning! So it journalistic commitment to accurately and thor- Advertising Executive: Angela Durantine seems like they are going quickly. oughly inform readers of both the myriad accom- [email protected] You really did a wonderful job and I look plishments and numerous challenges we face as forward to the next issue. a city are laudable. In these especially challenging Art Director: Lawrance Binda Amy Whitney times, I encourage you to keep that commitment [email protected] Harrisburg to balance, fairness and accuracy in your report- ing, attributes that seem to be painfully absent in Happy New Year. I liked the first edition. Well too many publications of today’s Fourth Estate. Staff & Contributors M y best wishes to you and your col- done. Good luck. Sales Associate: Jill Miller leagues for utmost success in 2009. [email protected] Dan Langan Edward Nielsen Lower Paxton Township Harrisburg Reporter: M. Diane McCormick [email protected] It’s really nice to know that someone took an I just picked up the inaugural issue of TheBurg, interest to put out a newspaper about the good and it looks great! With every turn of the page Reporter: Carol Maravic things that are happening around the city of is another interesting story — whether it’s [email protected] Harrisburg. A lot of the neighborhoods are re- highlighting an important local issue, such as ally changing and coming together, and a lot of transportation, or spotlighting new and interest- Reporter: Rick Kearns people are moving back into the city because of ing businesses — both in the city and beyond. [email protected] the affordable homes. My wife and I live in one of TheBurg provides us with glimpses of the people, the newly built homes. businesses and organizations that make up the Cooking: Rosemary Ruggieri Baer Charles H. Ray fabric of this wonderful community. I’m im- [email protected] Harrisburg pressed! Keep up the great work! Sports & Fitness: Laura Spurgeon Brett Marcy [email protected] I happened to pick up your new publication at Mechanicsburg Starbucks in Strawberry Square the other day and Outdoors: Kermit Henning wanted to say THANKS!!! What a great paper! I’m The paper is fantastic. I love the single-page [email protected] of a certain age, so some of the other “cost free” article idea. There is lots of space, white space, papers don’t appeal to me, but yours certainly which gives value to the text. And the articles Pets: Todd Rubey did! A little history, some current events, lots of have familiarity, but depth. For example, I have [email protected] good info, etc. lived in Harrisburg for 25 years and keep up on Best wishes for continued success, hop- a lot of its pluses. I had already found La Kasbah. Game Boards: Erik Arneson ing to see more issues in the future. I loved it! It’s This Moroccan setting is my favorite midtown [email protected] very attractive too. Clean looking and easy on the restaurant, but I didn’t know it meant “Castle.” eyes. You cover everything — mass transit and pets. Capitol History: Jason Wilson Mary Bungo I learned something from every article. Thanks Hershey so much for putting this out there. You cover our cultural variety without broadcasting what you are doing! Editor’s Note: Ruth Hoover Seitz We’d like to thank everyone for all the supportive Harrisburg comments we received on our first issue. We were astounded by the outpouring of good will from the Cover: Capitol Winter by Nick T. Ruggieri (1908- community. The letters re-printed in this section 1996). Nick was one of Harrisburg’s most popular were completely unsolicited. Really. We swear. and devoted artists — days before his death he was still teaching art class. For a remembrance of Some letters were edited for space. his life and work by his daughter, Rosemary Rug- gieri Baer, please turn to page 18. 4 TheBurg In the Burg The First Word Want to Meet New People? Start a Newspaper. Lawrance Binda anuary 1 had finally arrived. For months, Jwe had anxiously awaited the first day of the New Year, when we would begin to University’s new Academic Center, where distribute the inaugural issue of TheBurg. we chatted for awhile with Steven Infanti, Now, at long last, it was here. We didn’t the school’s marketing and communications know exactly what to expect or how we’d be vice president. We later met hotel clerks, received. We only knew this — it was cold. convenience store owners and just random Really cold. guys on the street. If you ever want to really, So, Burg editor Pete and I bundled truly meet the people in your neighborhood, up against the chill, packed up the van start a local newspaper. Okay, maybe that’s and began to visit about 100 locations in not practical advice, but it is one way to do it, the Harrisburg area. We wanted to do the we learned. distribution personally so that we could At night, exhausted and hungry, introduce ourselves to the people who would we badly needed sustenance and some carry the paper — and maybe meet some relaxation. So we thought — hey — let’s other folks in the process. It turned out to be try La Kasbah, the Moroccan restaurant an excellent plan. that we featured in our first issue. It was a Almost immediately, we bumped terrific choice. The owners, Ty and Mohamed into a well-known Harrisburg broadcaster Safouan, were just as warm and inviting as and blogger. Standing on a street corner just our reporter had said they were. And the across from the Capitol, he asked us about food was excellent. Fortunately, they didn’t TheBurg, wished us good luck with our new seem to need any more publicity from us venture and snapped our photo, which because the place was packed, which we he immediately uploaded to his website. were happy to see. Five minutes into the process, and we were So, after many months of planning already becoming known around town — and writing and designing and worrying, a promising start for our new community TheBurg has hit the streets. We’d like to newspaper. thank everyone who read our first issue, The next day was equally cold, and especially those who sent us comments on we continued our rounds. We drove and what, admittedly, is a different type of local stopped, drove and stopped, dropping off newspaper, one that will continue to grow bundles of papers throughout the city, as and change as the years pass. And thanks, well as to some locations on the outskirts. Harrisburg, for such a warm welcome on such Along the way, we met up with great people a cold weekend. like Bill at Transit News, Chris and Surina at the Downtown Café and Pat at the Caffeine Larry Binda is the art director of TheBurg. Our editor, Connection — and thanked them all for Pete, welcomes any and all comments. Please write carrying our papers. We took a long elevator to him at [email protected]. ride up to the fourteenth floor of Harrisburg TheBurg 5 City Hall A Life of Service Baseball Park Slated Chief Konkle Reflects on for Massive Upgrade 27 Years as a Firefighter ommerce Bank Park will undergo a Peter Durantine Ctwo-year, $45 million renovation that will improve everything from the stadium’s hen Donald Konkle became entrance to its scoreboard. WHarrisburg’s fire chief in 1982, arson was The work will be performed in two frequent, often causted by people setting Chief Konkle: major advances on his watch. phases so that play at the park will not be fires to their own properties in the midst of affected. unprecedented social and economic woes. “The successes in fire fighting and The first phase, running from now Much has changed in 27 years.