Tag Archives: Arkansas Arts Center

Vote Today FOR Little Rock’s Arts+History

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Feb9electionlogoToday is Election Day for the Campaign for Arts + History.

By voting FOR on Tuesday, February 9th Little Rock residents can expand and enhance our Arkansas Arts Center, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, and MacArthur Park. Your vote FOR on February 9th will upgrade facilities and public spaces to ensure the Arkansas Arts Center keeps its accreditation by issuing a bond backed by an existing hotel tax on out of town visitors.

Polling sites are open from 7:30am to 7:30pm.

  • Your for vote will keep the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock accredited, with updates to aging facilities over 50 years old, bringing in more world-class exhibitions and educational opportunities.
  • Your for vote will help expand and enhance the Arkansas Arts Center and improve the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History by providing much needed help to aging facilities and addressing landscaping needs in MacArthur Park.
  • Your for vote will spur community involvement by increasing educational opportunities, attracting more world class exhibits, expanding art classes and renovating the Children’s Theatre.
  • Your for vote will establish a public/private partnership between public funding and private donations that ensures our city can expand and enhance the Arkansas Arts Center, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History and MacArthur Park.

In legalese: An issue of bonds of the City of Little Rock, Arkansas in one or more series in the maximum aggregate principal amount of Thirty-Seven Million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars ($37,500,000.00) for the purpose of financing a portion of the costs of improvements to MacArthur Park, including particularly, without limitation, renovations and additions to, and furnishings and equipment for, the Arkansas Arts Center and renovations and equipment for the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, including any necessary parking, landscaping, signage, drainage, lighting, road and utility improvements in MacArthur Park. The bonds will be payable from and secured by a pledge of the collections of the taxes levied by the City at an aggregate rate of 2% upon the gross receipts or gross proceeds derived and received from the renting, leasing or otherwise furnishing of hotel, motel, bed and breakfast or short-term condominium or apartment rental accommodations for sleeping for profit in the City, pursuant to Ordinance Nos. 21,140 and 21,141 adopted December 1, 2015. The proceeds of the bonds will also be used to provide a debt service reserve and pay costs of issuing the bonds.

Art+History Throwback Thursday – Arkansas Arts Center in the 1960s

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On February 9, Little Rock voters will have the chance to say Yes to improving the Arkansas Arts Center, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, and MacArthur Park.

Leading up to that election is a good time to look back at the development of these entities over the years.  Today, some mid-century images of the Arkansas Arts Center.

AAC 1960sThis includes the cover from the May 1963 dedication week, a jazz album produced by the Arkansas Arts Center, a scene from an early Beaux Arts Ball, and the original Arkansas Arts Center logo (as it appeared on a matchbook).

Early voting now through Feb 8 for Arts+History in Little Rock

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Feb9electionlogoEarly voting started yesterday for the February 9 special election for Arts + History in Little Rock.

By voting FOR on Tuesday, February 9th Little Rock residents can expand and enhance our Arkansas Arts Center, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, and MacArthur Park. Your vote FOR on February 9th will upgrade facilities and public spaces to ensure the Arkansas Arts Center keeps its accreditation by issuing a bond backed by an existing hotel tax on out of town visitors.

Early voting takes place at the Pulaski County Election Commission headquarters at 501 West Markham (across from City Hall) from 8:00am to 5:00pm through February 8 (no weekend early voting).

On Election Day (February 9), regular polling sites will be open from 7:30am to 7:30pm.

  • Your for vote will keep the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock accredited, with updates to aging facilities over 50 years old, bringing in more world-class exhibitions and educational opportunities.
  • Your for vote will help expand and enhance the Arkansas Arts Center and improve the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History by providing much needed help to aging facilities and addressing landscaping needs in MacArthur Park.
  • Your for vote will spur community involvement by increasing educational opportunities, attracting more world class exhibits, expanding art classes and renovating the Children’s Theatre.
  • Your for vote will establish a public/private partnership between public funding and private donations that ensures our city can expand and enhance the Arkansas Arts Center, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History and MacArthur Park.

In legalese: An issue of bonds of the City of Little Rock, Arkansas in one or more series in the maximum aggregate principal amount of Thirty-Seven Million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars ($37,500,000.00) for the purpose of financing a portion of the costs of improvements to MacArthur Park, including particularly, without limitation, renovations and additions to, and furnishings and equipment for, the Arkansas Arts Center and renovations and equipment for the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, including any necessary parking, landscaping, signage, drainage, lighting, road and utility improvements in MacArthur Park. The bonds will be payable from and secured by a pledge of the collections of the taxes levied by the City at an aggregate rate of 2% upon the gross receipts or gross proceeds derived and received from the renting, leasing or otherwise furnishing of hotel, motel, bed and breakfast or short-term condominium or apartment rental accommodations for sleeping for profit in the City, pursuant to Ordinance Nos. 21,140 and 21,141 adopted December 1, 2015. The proceeds of the bonds will also be used to provide a debt service reserve and pay costs of issuing the bonds.

 

“Disagree to Agree” is topic of February Architecture and Design Network

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According to architect  Neil Denari, it’s not unusual for parties to disagree when it comes to making decisions about  matters architectural. Stands taken in response to deeply seated concerns about money or commitment to “a specific direction and outcome” sometimes lead to stalemates. In his lecture, Denari will talk about ways in which NMDA deploys  “potentially disagreeable ideas into a welcoming context of agreement”. Equal amounts of “logic and enthusiasm” are key to resolving  differences between architect and client.
Tonight (February 2) Denari will discuss this at the Arkansas Arts Center at 6pm as part of the Architecture and Design Network series.  A reception at 5:30 will precede the address.
 
A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Denari, who earned a BArch at the University of Houston and a MArch from Harvard, founded the firm that bears his name in 1988, the same year he began a five year teaching stint at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Currently, he serves as Professor of Architecture and Vice Chair of Architecture and Urban Development (AUD) at UCLA. Living in New York City during the 1980s,  he worked for James Stewart Polshek Partners as a senior designer. Denari has held visiting professorships at UC Berkeley, Columbia, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas at Arlington. Author, artist and filmmaker as well as architect, Denari has won a number of prestigious awards, including two from the National Academy of Design. 
 
Architecture and Design Network lectures are free and open to the public. Denari’s participation in ADN’s Little Rock lecture series is made possible by the UA Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. For additional information contact ardenetwork@icloud.com.
 
Supporters of Architecture and Design Network include the Arkansas Arts Center, the Central Section of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture, the UA Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and friends in the community. 

13 CLOCKS next at Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre

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AAC CT ClocksThe Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre invites you to join the brave Prince Zorn on a whimsically impossible fantasy quest from the ever-surprising, always entertaining imagination of James Thurber. The 13 Clocks will run January 29 – February 14.

In The 13 Clocks, Thurber tells the story of Princess Saralinda and her evil uncle, the Duke, who holds her prisoner in a tower, refusing to let her marry. That is until Prince Zorn arrives to rescue her. But first, he must complete an impossible task: deliver 1,000 jewels to the Duke just as the 13 castle clocks strike five o’clock.

The cast is led by Samantha Harrington and Geoffrey Eggleston.  Adapted for the stage by Keith Smith from the story by James Thurber, it is directed by Bradley D. Anderson, AACCT artistic director. Costumes are designed by Nikki Webster, technical direction and set design by Drew Posey, lighting design by Mike Stacks, properties design by Miranda Young and Sarah Gasser is the stage manager.

Performances are Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.

 $12.50 General admission, $10 for Arkansas Arts Center members

 

Art+History Throwback Thursday: City Park in 1907

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On February 9, Little Rock voters will have the chance to say Yes to improving the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, Arkansas Arts Center, and MacArthur Park.

Leading up to that election is a good time to look back at the development of MacArthur Park.

The land now known as MacArthur Park had originally served as a horse racetrack in the early days of Little Rock.  By 1836, the federal government purchased the land for construction of a military arsenal.  The flagship building, the Arsenal Tower building, is the only remaining structure from that time period.  

The land served as a military outpost until 1892.  On April 23, 1892, a land swap took place where in the City of Little Rock was given the property with the stipulation that it would be “forever exclusively devoted to the uses and purposes of a public park.” (Never mind that the federal government took part of the land back for the construction of the Wilbur Mills Freeway.)  

In return for giving the City this land, the federal government took possession of land on the north side of the Arkansas River (then part of Little Rock) – that 1,000 acres became Fort Logan H. Roots. The park opened on July 4, 1893, with the name Arsenal Park. Since it was the City’s first and only park at the time, residents started referring to it as City Park. In time, the designation Arsenal Park fell from use.  In fact, it is referred to as City Park exclusively and officially in City documents throughout the first 42 years of the 20th Century. 

On March 9, 1942, Little Rock’s first public park was renamed by the Little Rock City Council.  By a vote of fourteen ayes, zero nays and four absent, the alderman approved Ordinance 6,388 which renamed the park in honor of General Douglas MacArthur. 

The text of the ordinance says that “it is fitting and proper that the bravery and glorious deeds of General Douglas MacArthur, a native son of Little Rock, should be commemorated.”  This was passed a few months after the United States’ entry into World War II.   Though he was already a well-established military figure, most of the MacArthur legend during the war would take place after this naming. 

In 1952, General MacArthur (contemplating a run for the GOP nomination for President) visited Little Rock in March.  Later that year, the eventual GOP nominee (and 34th US President) General Dwight Eisenhower visited the park.  The 1952 Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson also visited MacArthur Park in 1952.

Today, MacArthur Park is the anchor of the burgeoning MacPark district as well as the MacArthur Park Historic Distric.

 

Arts+History Throwback Thursday: Arsenal Building in 1942

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Associated Press photo

Associated Press photo

On February 9, Little Rock voters will have the chance to say Yes to improving the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, Arkansas Arts Center, and MacArthur Park.

Leading up to that election is a good time to look back at the development of these two MacArthur Park sited museums.

This is a 1942 Associated Press photo of the Arsenal Building.  Completed in 1840, it was decommissioned in 1890 after fifty years as a military arsenal and later officer barracks.  In 1893, the land on which it sits was transferred from the Federal Government to the City of Little Rock. The land became Little Rock’s first public park.  Briefly known as Arsenal Park, it was known as City Park until 1942, when it was renamed MacArthur Park after the five star general who was born there in 1880.

From 1942 until 1996, it was home to the Museum of Science and History (under several different names). The building was restored in preparation for the museum moving in.  After the building was vacated again in 1997 (when the museum moved to the River Market to become the Museum of Discovery), it stood vacant in preparation for a proposed military history museum. In 1999, the building was hit by a tornado which severely damaged part of the roof and caused some interior flooding.  The building was repaired and restored while plans for the new museum were underway.  In May 2001, the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History opened.