All Posts by this Author

The Architecture and Community Heritage group of Fort Wayne (ARCH) will offer its annual Home and Garden Tour on Saturday, June 16, 2012. The tour will be held in the historic Wildwood Park Neighborhood located at the corner of North Washington Road and Freeman Street near Jefferson Pointe. The Wildwood Park Neighborhood has been nominated as a Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places.

Wildwood Park is one of Fort Wayne's favorite neighborhoods

The tour features architecturally significant homes and planned roads and parks designed by nationally prominent landscape architect Arthur Shurcliff. While Shurcliff’s name might not ring a bell to most people, he was quite a prominent landscape artist during the early 20th century.

In 1928 Shurcliff was hired by John D. Rockefeller Jr., and the Boston architectural firm of Perry, Shaw & Hepburn to serve as Chief Landscape Architect for the restoration and recreation of the gardens, landscape, and town planning of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. It was the largest and most important commission of his career. He also designed a number of prestigious sites in Boston, including Old Sturbridge Village, the Charles River Esplanade, and the zoological park at Franklin Park. Shurcliff designed Carter’s Grove in Virginia, Greatwood Gardens at Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont, the Wells brothers’ estates at Sturbridge, Massachusetts (creators and founders of Old Sturbridge Village), and the Richard Crane estate at Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Contact ARCH for more information and to purchase tickets.

Wildwood Park may have been one of Shurcliff’s few designed areas outside of New England. Why did Shurcliff, who lived in Boston, accept a commission for Wildwood Park located deep in the heart of America’s Midwest? The answer is anyone’s guess. That unknown factor makes the tour that much more intriguing.

The tour includes a dozen houses and gardens in a variety of architectural styles. Presentations will be offered about period architecture and style as part of ARCH’s 2012 Community Education Program.

Contact ARCH for more information and to purchase tickets at 260.426.5117 or information@archfw.org.

Saturday, June 16, 2012
12:00 – 5:00pm
Advance tickets: $10; Day of the tour: $12

As if Fort Wayne doesn’t have enough great festivals, here is one designed to promote the significance of Fort Wayne’s three rivers to the city’s history and current status.

IPFW Riverfest 2012 is Saturday, June 23rd.

But don’t think this is an event filled with lectures and philosophical debates. Just the opposite is true! This one-day festival offers some of Fort Wayne’s most unique opportunities for fun and creativity.

Riverfest is held on the banks of the St. Joe River at the IPFW Campus. The date for Riverfest is Saturday, June 23, 2012. Hours: 9 a.m. to midnight. Cost: Free

One interesting event I’d encourage people to attend is Sayaka Ganz, IPFW art teacher, creating sculptures from scrap materials and river debris. By using these reclaimed objects, she will show how to turn something as common as a soup can or spatula into cool pieces of art. Hint: This would be a great project for families to work on this summer after hiking on pathways throughout the county. You teach kids to help clean up the environment and be creative simultaneously!

The festival celebrates families with Familyfest. Familyfest has a new location in front of Kettler Hall on the Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne campus. Hours: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.

The festival will also sponsor a river walk/run, sand volleyball courts for tournaments, local vendors selling yummy food, and musical bands playing.

Make time in your schedule to attend this fun event.
St. Joe River
2101 E. Coliseum Blvd.

For additional information, please visit the Riverfest website.

With such innocuous titles as ‘I’m into something good’, ‘Mrs. Brown, you’ve got a lovely daughter’, ‘There’s a kind of hush’, and ‘I’m Henry VIII, I am’, Herman’s Hermits and lead singer Peter Noone earned top billing during the 1970s as part of the British invasion in the US. Noone and his band went on to sell 60 million records and seven of their albums went gold.

Noone and his band will perform their classic hits on June 9 at 8 p.m. at Foellinger Theatre.

Peter Noone will entertain the crowd with decades of favorites.

Noone is filling in for the concert scheduled for Monkees singer Davy Jones. Sadly, Jones died of a heart attack earlier this spring. Peter Noone had often performed with Jones over the last several years and he generously agreed to fill the void.

Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone is part of  “A Summer to Remember” concert series at the Foellinger Theatre.

Seats for Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone are priced at $25 for Reserved seating and $20 for bleacher seating.

Concert tickets may be purchased by calling 260.427.6000 or at www.fortwayneparks.org.

Tickets may also be purchased by visiting the Parks & Recreation Department office at 705 E. State Blvd, Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Tickets will be sold online until three days before each concert. Tickets are then available by phone with a credit card or at the main office (705 E. State Blvd). Tickets will be held at the Will Call window at the theatre prior to the concert.

Please note: Wheelchair accessible tickets and companion tickets are not available for purchase online. Please call 427.6000 or 427.6715 (day of show) to purchase.

Foellinger Theatre offers free parking at all concerts.

If you’ve never been to the Lincoln Tower Soda Fountain tucked inside the grandiose Lincoln Tower in downtown Fort Wayne, please make an effort to go there this summer. It is a charming step back in time to the 1960s with bar stools, flavored cokes and spritzy sodas of many flavors.

Besides soda drinks, the Lincoln Tower Soda Fountain menu includes sandwiches, baked goods, popcorn and wraps. One of its most popular sandwiches is the tuna with sliced egg on whole wheat bread. Some sandwiches are named after local legal officials based on their preferences. Prices are moderate with sandwiches ranging from $3.75-$4.50.

The restaurant is open from 7:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. As the county courthouse is located across the street, it’s probably to be expected the restaurant’s busiest time is lunch.

The soda fountain has been open since the 1930s. Ilene Stein has owned it since 1985.

The Lincoln Tower Soda Fountain is located inside the Lincoln Tower in Downtown Fort Wayne.

I have a particularly sweet memory of this place. A couple of years ago my son had been accepted at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. We were spending time together before he left strolling around Fort Wayne’s downtown area. We stopped in the Lincoln Tower Soda Fountain to eat. The nice lady who took our order was friendly so I mentioned proudly that Chris was leaving for the military soon. Our waitress insisted on giving him a free soda for his service to our country. It still touches my heart to think of her respect for his decision to serve. It’s a privilege to write about a place that is so loyal to our American soldiers. I’m headed back in there as soon as I can.

And, check out the Lincoln Tower Soda Fountain on Facebook under “Tower Fountain.”

116 E Berry St Ste 101
Fort Wayne, IN 46802
260.422.6688

My first memory of Zesto’s on Broadway was back in the 1960s when my family would go to the Children’s Zoo one day each summer. After a hot day of trekking around the zoo seeing so many fascinating animals, we would stop by Zesto’s on the way home and cool off. It was as much a part of our day as picnicking outside the zoo grounds midway through the day at the zoo.

Life doesn’t get much better than a vanilla ice cream cone dipped in chocolate.

Summer starts at Zesto.

Of course, it was always a challenge to beat the drips. Depending on the heat of the day – usually it was VERY hot – the drips would start slow and then accumulate. That cone felt ten miles around as we tried to keep the ice cream from pooling at our feet. We never ordered other food. To our family Zesto’s was reserved for ice cream orders.

You could say Zesto’s was one of the first handicapped accessible restaurants in the area. There are no steps other than getting out of your vehicle to walk to the tiny window to order. Because the place is so popular the small bench on the side of the building was almost always occupied by other customers. Therefore, we would hover near our car, licking our cones to our hearts content, and enjoy the day.

Thankfully we can still do that today. Zesto’s has opened for the season! You can find them at their original location at 2225 Broadway or at one of their newer locations: St Joe Center, Falls Drive or E. Washington Center.

Check out their menu online. That chocolate-dipped cone I mentioned above is only $2.22 for a small.