Grand Rapids Flood of April 2013

Posted on by farlane

Waterwindows

Waterwindows, photo by Canon Screwdriver (gary syrba)

This mLive article on the historic Grand River flooding in Grand Rapids explains that April 2013 is now the third wettest month on record for the city:

Evan Webb with the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids said 10.57 inches of rain had fallen in the city this month as of 8 a.m. Wednesday, its wettest month in 17 years. That should come as no surprise to West Michigan, which saw weeks of heavy rainfall caused widespread flooding and led the Grand River to crest at record levels.

Grand Rapids already had shattered its longstanding April rainfall record, but just crept into the top three wettest of any month of the year.

The No. 1 spot goes to June 1892, when 13.22 inches of rain fell. Second place belongs to September 1986, when 11.85 inches doused the city.

Webb said it is possible Grand Rapids could see enough rain to put it in the No. 2 spot, but it is unlikely with only a week and a half left in the month.

mLive also has some crazy pictures of the flooding including some great aerial photos and a timeline of the flooding.

View Gary’s photo on black and see more in his Water, water, everywhere … but not a drop to drink slideshow. He writes:

All the rain we have had, and the heavy winter added to the water levels a bit around here. The floods are near records. The Grand River, which goes through the heart of the city and ends at Lake Michigan hits the flood limit at 18′. We went 3 1/2 feet over that. Many buildings flooded, many roads were covered for days, and many, many basements flooded. Our sump pump has been running non-stop for two weeks. We have been lucky… we only had about 20 gallons of water that got into the basement… though the sump pump has siphoned thousands of gallons from around our house. Many neighbors had a few inches of water in their basements. A lot of homes have dumpsters in the driveway. Pretty sad. Still… the crowds downtown looking at the floods and taking photos are amazing. People are everywhere, and most are fine.

You might also be interested in the Great Michigan Flood of 1908.

Old Leonard Street Bridge in Grand Rapids

Posted on by farlane

leonard street bridge

Old Leonard Street Bridge, by Peter Oosse

When I was researching last week’s post on Michigan’s longest covered bridge, I found a neat feature about the historic bridges of Grand Rapids. It looks at three bridges, the Bridge Street Bridge, the Pearl Street Bridge and the Leonard Street Bridge:

In 1879, at a time when other bridges were being replaced by wrought iron spans, a new covered bridge was erected by City Engineer William Seckel at the Leonard Street crossing. This bridge, at a length of 832 feet, earned the distinction of being the longest covered bridge ever built in the State of Michigan. This ornately portaled, lattice truss bridge served the city’s traffic until 1913.

Click through for more and also see another view of Leonard Street Bridge.

The photo reads Old Leonard Street Bridge, Grand Rapids, Mich. Oldest Bridge in Grand Rapids, Built 1879. It’s from early 1900s by photographer Peter Oosse and you can see more shots from turn of the century Grand Rapids in the collection of William Blik at WellWooster.com. There’s a lot more Grand Rapids history there too!

Much more Michigan history on Michigan in Pictures.

Zombies love Michigan Blood

Posted on by farlane

ZombieDay

ZombieDay, photo by cpcaines

The Annual Grand Rapids Zombie Dash bills itself as the most terrifying night race in the world. Much as in the forthcoming zombie apocalypse, participants are divided into 2 classes, hardy survivors who will run a 5k for their lives a 5k, and members of the zombie horde who will attempt to separate said survivors from said lives. All the details are on the web site, and there’s also a post-race concert.

The event is also raising awareness for a topic near and dear to the un-beating hearts of zombies everywhere and also Michigan citizens. They’re holding early registration where you can also register for Michigan Blood Stem Cell Program at Gazelle Sports in Grand Rapids on Friday the 26th.

According to Barbara Hile, Program Manager for Michigan Blood’s Marrow/Stem Cell Program, “Patients needing blood stem cell (marrow) transplants can only find a suitable match within their family about 30% of the time. The remaining 70% of matches are made between complete strangers via the Be the Match Registry. Therefore, the more young people who join the Registry, the more chances we have of a match for thousands of patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood diseases. A marrow transplant is often the patient’s last, best chance for survival.”

Read more at the link above or at www.BeTheMatch.org/join.

Check this out gruesomely gigantic and see more in cpcaines World Zombie Day, Royal Oak MI 2012 … if you dare.

Interesting (for me) side note: CP added three photos to the Absolute Michigan pool on Flickr and one of them was of my friend Bradley!

ArtPrize 2012 Winner: Adonna Khare’s Elephants

Posted on by farlane

Elephants 4

Elephants 4, photo by rkramer62

For the second time in 3 years, a large drawing at the Grand Rapids Art Museum has captured top honors in ArtPrize. mLive reports:

Adonna Khare, a week before the Sept. 19 opening of ArtPrize, installed her 8-foot tall, 35-foot wide drawing “Elephants,” on a second-story wall of the museum.

As ArtPrize unfolded, the artist from Burbank, Calif., continued to add daily to the original triptych, spilling over onto the museum walls with additional figures and more details, as thousands of people every day passed through the ArtPrize exhibition center.

“People would come and sit with me,” she said. “Kids would sit with me, and I could share about art.” More than three weeks later, Khare’s drawing has grown to be 14 feet tall, 40 feet wide, and her purse has grown $200,000 richer.

You can see this background big, check out a wider view of the entire piece or watch Rachel’s ArtPrize 2012 slideshow.

More art on Michigan in Pictures.

Lights in the Night over Grand Rapids

Posted on by farlane

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 30, 2012: This entry was in the ArtPrize Top Ten entries announced today. 

Lights in the Night

Lights in the Night, photo by Robby Ryke

Last night the skies of Grand Rapids lit up with 20,000 fire lanterns for the Lights the Night entry in ArtPrize 2012 (ArtPrize and Facebook pages). From everything I can find, it looks to have been an incredible spectacle.

View this on black and definitely (definitely) check out Robby’s HD video from Light the Night which is really tempting me to lift my “no videos” policy on Michigan in Pictures.

You can also see a video from high above of the fire lantern launch at mLive. See more photos from Stacy, BetsyLouWho, Jack, Lisa, Debbie, flickaway, and Kevin and please add links to ones you took or found in the comments!

September’s Full Moon … and lighting the Grand Rapids sky

Posted on by farlane

Downtown Grand Rapids

Downtown Grand Rapids, photo by NightFox Photography

The autumnal equinox happened on Saturday, making the full moon that will rise this Sunday, September 30th the Harvest Moon. It’s also known as the Wine Moon, the Singing Moon (Celtic), Barley Moon (Old English) and the Elk Call Moon.

This weekend the skies of Grand Rapids will host another interesting phenomenon, Lights in the Night. On Friday (Sept 28) this ArtPrize entry will seek to launch thousands of fire lanterns downtown. Get all the details at www.lightsinthenight.org.

Check this out on black and see more in Cory’s Grand Rapids slideshow.

ArtPrize 2012

Posted on by farlane

ARTPRIZE 2011-5780

ARTPRIZE 2011-5780, photo by RichardDemingPhotography

ArtPrize opened yesterday in Grand Rapids and runs through October 7th. Now in its 4th year, ArtPrize is the largest art competition in the world, awarding over a half million in prizes. $360,000 of this is awarded by public vote. If you’ve never experienced a city turned upside down by art, it might be a good idea to plan a trip to Grand Rapids.

This year in an effort to become a more sustainable effort, ArtPrize has added various levels of membership that include perks like priority seating and tickets & receptions to events during ArtPrize and year round.

Check it out bigger and see more in Richard’s massive ArtPrize 2011 slideshow.

Also see past ArtPrize photos on Michigan in Pictures and at absolutemichigan.com/artprize.  mLive’s ArtPrize section is a great resource as well.

Butterflies are blooming in Grand Rapids

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Wingspan

Wingspan, photo by TerryJohnston.

…at Meijer Gardens to be precise, where Butterflies Are Blooming is:

…Meijer Gardens’ most popular annual exhibition and the largest temporary tropical butterfly exhibit in the nation. March 1–April 30, visitors can escape the Michigan winter and mingle with more than 6,000 tropical butterflies flying free in the 15,000-square-foot Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory.

The exhibition boasts more than 40 different species from the Far East, Africa and Central America. Each week hundreds of chrysalises arrive at Meijer Gardens and are painstakingly sorted, inspected, labeled and pinned in our sealed Butterfly Bungalow. The chrysalises are then placed in a special emergence area of the Bungalow where visitors can witness through a window their magical transformation into butterflies!

Once ready to be released into the conservatory, the butterflies are placed on plants where they acclimate to the environment and gain strength before taking to the air. It’s a wonderful place for photos and just one of the opportunities for visitors to observe the butterflies up-close and personal. Throughout the tropical environment, butterflies can be viewed drinking nectar from the flowering plants and feeding stations, lighting on the odd nose or shoulder, and congregating along the stream beds, as well as in flight all around.

Here’s a little butterflies & Beethoven for you in this video! Many more great ways to get out and about in our March Event Calendar on Absolute Michigan!

Check this out bigger than a butterfly and see many more in Terry’s butterfly slideshow.

Here comes ArtPrize

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

art prize preview 2011 040

art prize preview 2011 040, photo by jode1115.

“I think it’s terrifying & thrilling.”
~Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic at New York magazine on ArtPrize

ArtPrize, the radically open competition held every year in Grand Rapids that gives away the world’s largest cash prize – all decided by public vote – starts today and runs through October 9th. You can keep up with it at absolutemichigan.com/ArtPrize and also through the mLive Artprize section.

Of course there’s an ArtPrize Facebook (and Twitter & Tumblr), and an ArtPrize photo group and a lot of ArtPrize photos in the Absolute Michigan pool. For all you photographers out there, there’s a daily ArtPrize photo contest with a camera or laptop as the top prize!

ArtPrize is in its third year and truly is one of the most amazing events I’ve ever been to. If there’s any way you can make the trip to Grand Rapids, do it. You won’t be disappointed!

Check this photo out background big and in her ArtPrize 2011 slideshow.

What Was There, Michigan Edition

Posted on by farlane

Princess Theatre, Detroit photo courtesy WhatWasThere

The other day I came across a new website called WhatWasThere. This innovative project ties historical photos to Google Maps and Google street views so you can see what was there. You can browse around a map, zooming in and out and then click on photos. The site lays them over the Google street view and lets you fade the old photo to reveal what’s there now!

Unsurprisingly, Detroit has the best coverage so far, and it’s pretty cool to see how sites like Woodward Ave looking north at Jefferson (location of the Spirit of Detroit) or Griswold Street have changed. Water Winter Wonderland (a cool site in its own right) has a sweet shot of the interior of the Princess and says that the Princess Theatre was shuttered in 1922 and located at 520 Woodward. That’s the present site of the old Comerica Bank HQ. At another of my favorite sites for old photos, Shorpy, you can get this photo bigger and even buy a print!

Here’s the link to WhatWasThere for Michigan.  There’s not a whole lot of photos to be found (yet) outside Detroit, but one of the coolest things is that you can add your own historical photos, so the site is only going to get better. There are some definite gems though – be sure to check out Grand Rapids City Hall, the seriously cool looking Lansing Masonic Temple at the site of Cooley Law School and the not very much changed Front St in Marquette. A surprising hot spot is Port Huron – check out Sperry’s Department Store to get going.