SMOKIN! Ruins of burned car at 8th and Washington.

  • SMOKIN’! Ruins of burned car at 8th and Washington.

The photo would have been far more dramatic had I had a camera when I passed this car about 5:50 a.m. on the Mills Freeway. It was “fully involved,” as the firefighters say, with six-foot-high flames engulfing it. By the time I went home, got a camera and drove back, Little Rock firefighters had doused it and were heading back to the station house. Smoke was still rising from the incinerated, tireless remains. I was interested in following the smoke originally because the car sits in a neighborhood targeted for the Little Rock Technology Park. Then, the flames seemed to me to indicate a torch job. I wanted to be sure there wasn’t significant cargo inside the burning car, like human remains. There wasn’t. …..

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… Well, one thing led to another on a quiet Sunday …. A drive through the neighborhood showed plenty of homes sporting Not For Sale signs … The Central Arkansas Library System’s children’s library is making significant construction progress …. Need to ask Bobby Roberts what’s the story on the handsome frame bungalow that was preserved and now sits behind the perimeter construction fence for the library. (SEE UPDATE BELOW AND PHOTOS) ….

… I parked in War Memorial Park for a 40-minute walking loop around the park …

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TAKE ME OUT: Time to raze derelict Ray Winder Field, with its weeds and a graveled outfield used for UAMS construction staging.

  • TAKE ME OUT: Time to raze derelict Ray Winder Field, with its weeds and a graveled outfield used for UAMS construction staging.

… Five and a half years after the last ball game, Ray Winder Field still sits decaying, its playing field a weed lot. The city and UAMS share responsibility. Can we expect similar stewardship in Technology Park neighborhoods? ….

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… When did I miss the $2 charge to park a car in the open parking lots across from the Little Rock Zoo gate? ….

… People are pigs. The litter along roadways and in the park proper is disgusting. Mostly fast food leavings. ….

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NO FISH STORY: There really are catfish in the pond at War Memorial Park.

  • NO FISH STORY: There really are catfish in the pond at War Memorial Park.

… There ARE fish in that pond at War Memorial. Two men were trying their luck at 6 a.m. One had a bucket with a pan-sized catfish wriggling at the bottom …

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Walking pathways in the park have improved and the little loop where the Walker Tennis Center once stood draws early-morning walkers. Some walking links need improvement, such as along Monroe past the stadium parking lot and around the undeveloped, non-golf-course land west across Fair Park from the zoo, south of the main picnic area…

… The Zoo, starved for money all these years, could use a more finished look than you currently see walking around the perimeter. Maybe the new tax money will help. …. I’d have rather seen the city pour $22 million into the amenities that make a city aesthetically pleasing, such as great parks, than join the corporate welfare arms race. If you didn’t read the excellent AP report in today’s paper on the mutually destructive race by Kansas and Missouri to bounce businesses back and forth across a state line with escalating handouts, you should and here’s a free link.

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UPDATE: Library director Bobby Roberts fills me in on the house I noted by the library under construction (above). Very interesting. His note follows:

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