WATERTOWN — Coordinate and market downtown as one entity. Have popup musicians perform after hours. Organize shop weekends downtown. Create more public art.
WATERTOWN — Coordinate and market downtown as one entity. Have popup musicians perform after hours. Organize shop weekends downtown. Create more public art.
WATERTOWN â The portable steam engine, the paper bag, the safety pin and the Little Trees that dangle from rear-view mirrors â all Watertown inventions celebrated in a community mural taking shape this week.
Designed by Potsdam artist Liza L. Paige, âThe Inventions of Watertownâ is the first commission for the Riverwalk Art Project, a multi-year initiative headed by the Watertown Downtown Business Association. The goal: breathe colorful life into Veteransâ Memorial Riverwalk along the Black River, and propel the city to become a north country cultural center.
âThis is only the beginning,â DBA President Joseph A. Wessner said of âThe Inventions of Watertown.â
WATERTOWN â Dan Robbins, the artist behind the paint-by-numbers sets from your childhood, might have been proud of efforts to take the graffiti-filled retaining wall in the cityâs Veteransâ Memorial Riverwalk and create pieces of art.
Thatâs because the public will be invited to participate in a paint-by-numbers mural this summer along a section of the 20-foot-tall wall in the city park along the Black River. The paint-by-number will be the first piece completed along that nearly 500-foot-long wall.
After that first paint-by-number piece is completed, organizers plan about 20 murals in all that will be finished over the next few years, said Joseph Wessner, president of the Watertown Downtown Business Association, which is spearheading the project.
WATERTOWN â For years, motorists have complained about how long it takes to get from one end of Public Square to the other, getting stuck at a traffic light seemingly forever and maneuvering through a series of traffic signals.
Well, the city and a traffic expert have been working on a wireless system that would coordinate traffic signals in and around Public Square to get traffic go through the area more efficiently.
Three years ago, the city obtained a $1 million grant from the state Department of Transportation the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program to reduce vehicular emissions in Public Square.