Charlottesville Breaking News
Sweet addition: Pearl's comes to West Main
Pearl’s Bake Shoppe owners Laura Condrey and Laurie Blakey sweeten up West Main on May 6.Courtesy Laura Chapman Blakey
Pearl's will even whip you up a wedding cake.Courtesy Laura Chapman BlakeyCupcakes, cookies, macaroons, muffins, tarts, croissants…you can't swing a rolling pin these days without hitting a sweet shop somewhere in town. Come May 6, you'll be able to sink your sweet tooth into goodies at Pearl's Bake Shoppe between Sweethaus and the Albemarle Baking Company on West Main in the historic Peyton-Ellington Building at 711 West Main Street. The Richmond-based cupcake-centric bakery comes with an impressive resumé. Open since 2010 on Richmond's Grove Avenue, the shop's cupcakes have been voted Richmond's best by Richmond Magazine, and last year, Virginia Living Magazine voted them the state's best. Sweet!
The inspiration for the venture has some local roots, as co-owner Laurie Chapman Blakey says it came from her grandmother, Pearl Gentry Chapman, who lived her entire life in Greene County.
"My Grandmother was the most amazing cook. She cooked everything from scratch, using home-grown ingredients," says Blakey. "Even as a child, I appreciated the extraordinary culinary efforts it took to prepare the deliciousness that came from my Grandmother's garden and kitchen."
Indeed, that effort and attention to detail appears to be the secret. According to Blakey's partner, Laura Condrey, when they opened in Richmond, they were inundated with customers.
"We were hoping for...
Arbor Day
Bill EmoryOn April 26, Charlottesville Parks and Recreation planted a large diameter Platanus occidentalis in Quarry Park, Girl Scouts planted five saplings, and Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards unveiled a plaque designating the big sycamore in the background as a landmark tree. Virginia Department of Forestry recognized Charlottesville as a “Tree City” for the 7th year running. Tree Commission boss and former Charlottesville Mayor Elizabeth Waters was on hand, as was City Councilor Kathy Galvin.
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Commentator Bill Emory puts up a new photo nearly every day at billemory.com/blog.
Biscuit Run bonanza: How Hunter Craig turned a donation into a windfall
Craig and fellow UVA BOV member Alan A. Diamonstein at a Richmond retreat in August 2012.File photo by Hawes Spencer
Life in the Biscuit Run "donut hole": The Breeden family home sits on 36 acres at the center of what will someday be a state park. Peyton Walz, left, Summer Puopolo, center, and Elizabeth Breeden are brainstorming ideas for how best to use the land that's been in their family for 40 years, but they do know they want to be "good neighbors" to the park. "We don't think 100 houses is the best use for the land," says Walz.Courteney Stuart
Outgoing Governor Tim Kaine, right, joined developer Hunter Craig, left, and DMB violinist Boyd Tinsley to celebrate the December 2009 donation of the parkland at a December 2009 event at the Monticello Visitors Center.file photo by courteney stuart
Life in the so-called "donut hole" is idyllic, with mountain views and rolling fields. The planned state park guarantees the land around the Breeden's property will always retain its rural character.Courteney Stuart
Craig admired the Biscuit run parcel as far back as the early 1980s, when he was in college.uvaHunter Craig has a way of snatching victory from defeat. Craig's masterstrokes in the field and in the courtroom follow a tumultuous year for the now 52-year-old media-shy banker, developer, and UVA Board of Visitors member. In May 2012, he withstood a publicized effort to remove him from the bank he helped launch. Two months earlier, one of his children was diagnosed with cancer. While arranging for the girl's treatment, Craig suddenly found himself near the center of what became known as "UVA June."
As the lone Charlottesville-based executive committee member of the University of Virginia's governing body, Craig initially signed off on the resignation of President Teresa Sullivan last summer– and found himself vilified. But as turmoil mounted over the ouster of the popular president, Craig publicly offered to resign to make way for a faculty member on the Board, and he expressed frustration that he wasn't able to muster the votes to bring back the president. A few days later, over the objections of Rector Helen Dragas, Craig and two others forced a Board meeting to take another vote. Although Dragas quickly issued her right-move-the-wrong-way memorandum and secretly plotted to push student leaders to parrot sentiments provided by paid spin-doctors, support for the ouster crumbled. Sullivan was reinstated.
And then, of course, there's Biscuit Run, the 1,200-acre southern Albemarle County tract that Craig and a group of investors donated to the state in...
Get Out! events, shows, things to do
Pink Floyd's provocative library of albums comes to The Jefferson.pink floyd wallpaper download“Long you live and high you'll fly, and smiles you'll give, tears you'll cry, and all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.” ― Pink Floyd
Floydian experience
The Machine, the Pink Floyd tribute band that brings to life the famed psychedelic music of the British band that sold 250 million records worldwide, has been at it for 20 years. Using elaborate stage displays, combined with a bit of theater, the New York-based band covers almost all of Pink Floyd's 16-album oeuvre, including all the classics like The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), and The Wall (1979). The band is also known for taking requests from fans, so don't be shy. But how much do these guys really sound like Pink Floyd? Well, as Rolling Stone's Matt Diehl wrote, “The Machine duplicates the sound and hits of Pink Floyd with chilling accuracy.” For those of us who have The Dark Side of the Moon's album cover emblazoned in our mind's eye, this could be a special treat.
May 3, Jefferson Theater, 8pm, $20-$25
OPENING ACTS
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The week in review
Worst carjacking: Three men approach the driver of a yellow Nissan Xterra on Longwood Drive around 9:30pm April 25, rob the driver, and one of the suspects pulls a gun, NBC29 reports. When the driver flees on foot, he's grazed by a bullet. The suspects, whom police describe only as black males, take off in the Xterra.
Worst collision: Honda Civic driver Shirley N. Manthorne, 29, crosses the center line on U.S. 33 in Greene County, slams head-on into a tractor trailer April 29, and dies at the scene. Virginia State Police say speed and alcohol are not factors, and charges are not expected to be filed.
Local loss: Genial businessman Walt Levering, 68, dies April 23 of leukemia. Levering founded Central Virginia Technology Council and was a former president of the board of Piedmont Virginia Community College.
Latest convicted alleged bath-salts purveyor: Stephen Dominick McFadden of Staten Island is sentenced April 29 to two years and nine months for supplying C-Ville Video with the recently illegal product, K. Burnell Evans reports in the Progress. Prosecutors said this was the second federal prosecution for the coke/meth substitutes; C-Ville Video owner Lois McDaniel was sentenced to two years and four months in March.
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