Here’s a suburban experiment cities can learn from (via WaPo)

Howard County is the picture for this artist (via Columbia Flier)

Mother’s Day Photos

Pro Cantare concert highlights anniversaries (via Columbia Flier)

Howard Community College’s focus on students will carry on [Commentary] (via Columbia Flier)

Rouse’s vision is focus of Founder’s Day festivities on May 9 (via Baltimore Sun)

Gail Holliday’s iconic posters return for Columbia’s 50th birthday (via Columbia Flier)

Chrysalis Opens Saturday with Dedication, 500 Minutes of Music

Howard high schools commemorate Columbia founder’s artistic appreciation (via Howard County Times)

HCPSS Fine Arts Celebrates Columbia’s 50th Birthday

Columbia turns 50 (via Howard County Times)

Scholarship Forest

Founders’ Day

50th Birthday Kicks Off

Celebrate Columbia’s 50th Birthday with a special personalized brick at the Downtown Columbia Lakefront

Part 5 Columbia at 50 POLITICS: The Shifting Weight of Columbia Power (via Maryland Reporter)

Part 4 Columbia at 50: Media in the New Town: Communications part of building community; the Flier and the rest (via Maryland Reporter)

Columbia named #1 Best Place to Live in US by Money Magazine

Part 3: Shopping and Retailing at the Heart of the Columbia Plan (via Maryland Reporter)

PART 2: Working in Columbia: Its Downtown and Business Parks Went Up and Down With The Economy (via Maryland Reporter)

PART 1: How the “garden for growing people” got planted and grew (via Maryland Reporter)

Here’s a suburban experiment cities can learn from (via WaPo)

By Amanda Kolson Hurley

In an era when city living is virtually synonymous with cool, Columbia, Md., emanates suburban uncool. Located off U.S. Route 29 between Washington and Baltimore, Columbia is not a tight grid on the map, but a plate of spaghetti — a tangle of crooked parkways and cul-de-sacs. Cities reach for the sky, but Columbia hugs the ground, with shopping centers and man-made lakes passing for landmarks. In cities, 20-somethings get together at cafes for brunch; in Columbia, 40-somethings catch up while watching their kids at the pool or playground. Columbia’s version of a city hall is a nondescript building in an office park. The most colorful thing about the place is its twee street names, chosen from literature: Rivendell Lane, Marble Faun Lane, Rocksparkle Row.

Read more at washingtonpost.com

Howard County is the picture for this artist (via Columbia Flier)

Mike Giuliano
Howard County’s rural landscapes and the Columbia cityscape have long served as subject matter for local artist Mary Jo Tydlacka, whose exhibit at the Bernice Kish Gallery at Slayton House is tied into the ongoing celebration of Columbia’s 50th birthday.

Tydlacka, who has lived in Columbia since 1970, has frequently exhibited at Slayton House. It’s fitting that the current show is a mini-retrospective of her work.
An early work gives a sense of what has remained the same and what has changed for her over the years. The 1973 acrylic painting “Clarksville Farm” features rural subject matter that she has known well over the years, but it’s stylistically distinctive for the relatively thick paint application and extremely vigorous brushwork.

Although assertive colors and expressive brushwork have remained a constant throughout her career, the brushwork generally seems to have settled down a bit since her very loosely brushed “Clarksville Farm.”
MORE at ColumbiaFlier.com

Mother’s Day Photos

In celebration of Mother’s Day, we’d love for you to post photos of your favorite Columbia Moms. Tell us in the post what you love about her, why she is special, and how she’s made a difference in the Columbia community.

We’ll take all the photos submitted and create a collage of the fabulous Mothers in our community.

All submissions will be entered into a drawing to win some #CMD50 swag,

  • In order to submit a Memory, you must have a username, which will be displayed as the author of this memory. Usernames may only contain lowercase letters (a-z) and numbers.
  • I warrant that I am the rightful owner of this entry I have submitted to the Columbia 50th Birthday Celebration "Memories" (the "Work") and of all trademarks, copyrights and/or patents associated with my entry and, to the best of my knowledge, the Work does not infringe any third party's proprietary rights. I agree that the Columbia 50th Birthday Celebration ("CMD50") has the right to verify the ownership and originality of the Work. I understand that in the event my submission is selected by the judges as a winning entry for any contest, and my ownership rights and originality of my entry are not verified to the satisfaction of CMD50, the judges may select an alternate winner. I hereby grant permission to CMD50 or anyone authorized by CMD50 to use statements, quotes, testimonials, photographs, designs, models, software and/or any other material(s) provided by me as part of my entry in the Contest, as well as my name, photograph, likeness and, if applicable, the name of my company and affiliation, for advertising, trade and/or promotional purposes without any additional compensation to me. I represent that I am not an employee of CMD50, or of any of its affiliates, subsidiaries or advertising or promotional agencies, nor am I connected with or related to them or any of their employees in any way. I declare that these statements are true, correct, and made with the knowledge that any false statements will invalidate my entry. The Columbia 50th Birthday Celebration, Inc. reserves the right to review, edit and possibly not include a memory if there is inappropriate language or content.
Pro Cantare concert highlights anniversaries (via Columbia Flier)

By Mike Giuliano
Columbia Pro Cantare’s concert on Sunday, May 14, at 8 p.m., falls on Mother’s Day, but that special occasion is actually coincidental for a concert program called “Anniversary Celebrations!”

“It’s the 50th birthday for Columbia, our 40th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of the Jim Rouse Theatre,” said Columbia Pro Cantare’s founding director, Frances Motyca Dawson, about three major anniversaries happening in 2017.

Dawson added that she is especially pleased that the on-stage mistress of ceremonies introducing the compositions on this festive program will be Liz Bobo, a former Howard County executive and former member of the Maryland House of Delegates.

Most of the music on the program has specific links to the events being commemorated.
MORE at BaltimoreSun.com

Howard Community College’s focus on students will carry on [Commentary] (via Columbia Flier)

By Kathleen Hetherington

Part of our series of essays from leaders imagining the future of Columbia.

Jim Rouse would be very proud to see the changes that have occurred at Howard Community College since we opened our doors to students in 1970. While our 50th anniversary is still a few years away, we are proud to join Columbia’s 50th anniversary celebration this year because the idea of having a college for the community was part of the initial plan for Columbia.

Rouse was a visionary, and he always encouraged everyone to think big. At HCC, we have certainly achieved that goal with the wide range of associate degrees, certifications and certificates that we offer. Our mission is “Providing pathways to success,” which is evident by the work of our talented faculty and staff every day. Our focus is on students and ensuring we do everything possible to prepare them for transfer to a four-year university or for work immediately upon graduation.

So will that change 50 years from now? Highly unlikely. Our emphasis is on student success, and that will never change. But many things that have affected colleges and universities over recent years will continue to impact HCC going forward. One of the most powerful changes is the influence of technology. Enter one of the classrooms in our new Science, Engineering, and Technology Building, and you will immediately be impressed by how technology intersects with the teaching and learning that occurs in the classroom. Or go into our Health Sciences Building and see how simulated mannequins, which mimic real-life patients and their symptoms, are used to help prepare students to be the best nurses and health science professionals in the region.

MORE at BaltimoreSun.com

Rouse’s vision is focus of Founder’s Day festivities on May 9 (via Baltimore Sun)

By Janene Holzberg

With six months’ worth of 50th birthday festivities already underway in Columbia, one coming event stands out for its goal of zeroing in on what the future may hold for the planned city.

Founder’s Day: A Celebration of the Vision, Leadership and Legacy of James Rouse” will be held May 9 with a dual mission of honoring the vision of Columbia’s late founder at the half-century mark and defining ways to catapult that vision forward.

“Jim established the foundation for a better city, but the success of Columbia is up to the people living and working in Columbia today,” said Barbara Kellner, who is director of the Columbia Archives and is organizing the free event.

Founder’s Day “gives everyone a chance to explore the possibilities with other community leaders,” Kellner said.

MORE at BaltimoreSun.com

Gail Holliday’s iconic posters return for Columbia’s 50th birthday (via Columbia Flier)
Artist Gail Holliday of Yuma, AZ

More than 50 years ago, Gail Holliday left her home state of California for a job in Maryland. Fresh out of college, the young artist had been hired by Jim Rouse to capture his vision, in art, of his new city, Columbia.

Fast forward to the present and Holliday has again traveled across the country, though this time from her home in Arizona, to Columbia, to help preserve an aspect of her work that once greeted visitors to Columbia’s exhibit center — five metal pole “trees” that featured Holliday’s images of Columbia on 25 metal “leaves.”

“Gail had done them very early in Columbia’s history,” said Barbara Kellner, director of the Columbia Archives. “The neighborhood prints had been done on silk screens and at some point painted on these metal pieces and hung. For the better part of 25 years, they were in front of the old exhibition center.”

 

MORE at BaltimoreSun.com

Chrysalis Opens Saturday with Dedication, 500 Minutes of Music

The two-pronged grand opening – a Dedication and the Grounds for Celebration Festival – of the Chrysalis, a 21st century amphitheatre and community space, high performance stage, public park pavilion and urban scale sculpture immediately adjacent to the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

Soaring 60 feet high and enveloping 5,000 square feet, the $6.6 million Chrysalis is developed, owned and managed by the not-for-profit Inner Arbor Trust.  Planning, funding, design, entitlements and construction were led by Strategic Leisure.  Architecture, engineering and construction responsibilities were primarily fulfilled by Marc Fornes THEVERYMANY, Arup, A. Zahner Company, Living Design Lab, Mahan Rykiel Associates, Gutschick, Little & Weber, Whiting-Turner Construction Company and Development Management Group.

The Dedication is set for Saturday, April 22 at 11 a.m. with tours, followed by a dedication ceremony at noon and an opportunity at 1 p.m. to meet the creative team behind the new performance venue.  The Dedication is free and open to the public.

A ticketed Grounds for Celebration Festival with 8 acts, 12 performances and 500 minutes of music is scheduled from 2:30-11 p.m.  Performances include:

2:30 – Bele Bele Drum Collective

3 – Alex Brown Trio

4:15 – Hambone

4:30 – Bele Bele Drum Collective

5:15 – Dirty Grass Players

5:30 – Ron Holloway Band

6:45 – Hambone

7 – Dirty Grass Players

7:45 – Letitia VanSant Trio

8 – The Wharf Rats, Live!

9:15 – Letitia VanSant Trio

9:30 – Chopteeth

Admission to the Grounds for Celebration Festival is $20 (which includes fees and parking), free for attendees under 16.  Buy tickets at www.MerriweatherMusic.com.   Festival attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets and are invited to bring picnic food. One sealed bottle of water is allowed per person but no other beverages are permitted on the grounds.

Howard high schools commemorate Columbia founder’s artistic appreciation (via Howard County Times)

When James Rouse founded Columbia in June 1967, arts and education were inclusive components for the healthy, growing community, according to Pam Land, Howard County public school’s lead theater arts teacher.
To remember a man who supported the dreams of future artists, Land said more than 700 students representing Howard County’s 12 high schools will share Rouse’s influence on their passions during a Columbia 50th birthday tribute on Sunday, April 23 from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Students representing each high school will give a five-minute artistic performance based on quotes from Rouse gathered within the last 50 years and selected by their respective teachers. Singers, dancers, instrumentalists and visual artists will use their talents to tell the tale of Rouse and Columbia as part of the city’s ongoing birthday celebration, which spans six months.

 MORE at Howard County Times

HCPSS Fine Arts Celebrates Columbia’s 50th Birthday

Ellicott City, Maryland—Join the Howard County Public School’s Fine Arts Program in celebrating Columbia’s 50th birthday at 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 23, 2017, at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

This free event will feature student performers from Howard County’s 12 public high schools taking the stage to honor Jim Rouse’s legacy of community, collaboration, integration, diversity, vision and human values. The performances will feature vocal and instrumental music, dance, and other fine arts.

A limited number of Pavilion seating tickets are available for family members of the student performers. The student performers will receive their tickets from their high school. Lawn seating is also available and does not require a ticket or registration.

 

Columbia turns 50 (via Howard County Times)

Columbia celebrates its 50th year this year. The milestone milestone comes at a pivotal time for the planned community, which is old enough that some of its earliest neighborhoods are fraying and need uplift, and young enough that it is only now undertaking the task of creating a true downtown.

Follow along as we take a look at Columbia in its golden year.

 

baltimoresun.com

Scholarship Forest

Along with HCC, Howard County Government, and the Columbia 50th Birthday Board, we are creating a “Scholarship Forest” right on HCC’s campus. To accomplish this, the county is providing 50 trees ranging in height from 2-6 ft. to be planted in the newly created “Scholarship Forest” located in the area between lot A and Duncan Hall. You can get an idea of the types of trees that will be featured in the “Scholarship Forest”at the GreenFest event on April 22, and plant your own tree if you choose to.

 

Each tree is eligible to be “named” by a donor with a gift of $1,000, and all funds will be placed in a Columbia 50th Scholarship Forest Endowment. Selling all 50 trees will provide a $50,000 endowment to help students who are Howard County residents with financial need… in perpetuity. The endowment will earn interest, and each year the interest is awarded to students as scholarships.

 

But wait! You’re not only helping students in need, as a donor you get a little recognition too. A plaque will be created listing the name of each donor who purchased a tree.  Don’t need to have your name on a plaque? You can also honor someone specific, your family, or list your business or organization. This plaque will be placed in Duncan Hall near the exit closest to lot A so donors can look out and see the “Scholarship Forest” at the same time.

 

Trees can be sponsored for $1,000.

 

Email Missy Mattey for more information.

Founders’ Day

Founder’s Day Event Celebrates Rouse Legacy May 9

Biographer and Professor of Urban Planning Featured

Community members are invited to attend “Founder’s Day: A celebration of the vision, leadership and legacy of James Rouse “ on Tuesday, May 9, from 9 a.m.-noon, in Smith Theater, Howard Community College (HCC).  The event is being presented by the Columbia 50th Birthday Celebration and HCC.  It is free and open to the public.

“The vision for Columbia was to create a ‘better city,’ and James Rouse established the foundation for that ‘better city,’ but the success of Columbia is up to the people living and working in Columbia today,” explained organizer Barbara Kellner, Director of the Columbia Archives.  “Founder’s Day gives everyone a chance to explore the possibilities with other community leaders.”

Biographer Josh Olsen, author of “Better Places, Better Lives: A Biography of James Rouse,” will serve as moderator for the morning’s activities, and Harvard Professor of Urban Planning Ann Forsyth is the keynote speaker.  Her topic is “Health and Well-Being in Columbia: Early Aims and Future Potential.”

Following Forsyth’s presentation, she will moderate a roundtable discussion featuring Ian Kennedy, Executive Director of the Downtown Columbia Arts and culture Commission; Nikki Highsmith Vernick, President & CEO of The Horizon Foundation; Heather Kirk-Davidoff, Enabling Minister, Kittamaqundi Community Church; and former Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, President of Margrave Strategies.  They will look at “Going Forward: Today’s Answers to Creating a Better City.”

The event is free but registration is encouraged.

Celebrate Columbia’s 50th Birthday with a special personalized brick at the Downtown Columbia Lakefront

Columbia Association is offering its Buy-a-Brick program for the first time in five years, this time with special bricks in honor of Columbia’s 50th Birthday celebration taking place in 2017.
A section of the plaza at the Downtown Columbia Lakefront will be reserved for bricks placed around a large paver reading “Columbia Maryland 50.” There is also an option to purchase bricks for placement in other areas of the plaza.
The opportunity to purchase a brick will continue through Feb. 24, 2017. Bricks are $100 for placement in the 50th Birthday section and $75 for placement in other areas of the plaza. Bricks can have up to three lines of text, with 15 characters per line; spaces between words count as a character. CA cannot guarantee that those purchasing multiple bricks will have them placed next to each other.

Bricks may be purchased online at ColumbiaAssociation.org/bricks or by downloading the form and bringing it with payment to CA’s Customer and Member Service Center, 6310 Hillside Court, located off Stevens Forest Road near the county vehicle emissions inspection station. The form and payment may also be mailed to Columbia Association, C&M Brick Program, 6310 Hillside Court, Columbia, MD 21046.

Certificates are available to download and present as a gift to others.

For additional information, please contact Christina Pierre at 410-423-4102 or Christina.Pierre@ColumbiaAssociation.org.

Part 5 Columbia at 50 POLITICS: The Shifting Weight of Columbia Power (via Maryland Reporter)

By Len Lazarick

As the election returns came in the night of Nov. 5, 1974, Howard County’s old guard was riding high. It looked like their campaign to “Beat the BLOC VOTE” from Columbia had worked. Republicans would get their first county executive, and car dealer Charlie Miller, who had approved the plans to build Columbia as an elected county commissioner, would get to stay on the County Council.

But as the results from Columbia precincts poured in later, elation turned to shock. The new town had voted overwhelmingly for the liberal slate of Democratic candidates, nine to one. People who had lived in Howard County for just a few years beat the old timers.

Three of the five new County Council members actually lived in Columbia, and one, Dick Anderson, was even a former general manager of Howard Research and Development Corp., the Rouse Co. division building the planned community. A fourth, Lloyd Knowles, had moved near Columbia because of the new town, and the new county executive, County Council Member Ed Cochran, a mild-mannered research chemist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab where Knowles also worked, was seen as liberal, too. Only Cochran was born or raised in Maryland.

MORE at MarylandReporter.com

Part 4 Columbia at 50: Media in the New Town: Communications part of building community; the Flier and the rest (via Maryland Reporter)

By Len Lazarick

Tom Graham’s decision to move from The Howard County Times to the Columbia Flier was a bit puzzling to me as I visited him and the new planned community for the first time in early 1973.

After 14 months, Tom was leaving the well-established Times that looked like a traditional newspaper for the magazine-sized Columbia startup that looked liked it came out of a typewriter — because it did.

It turned out to be a smart decision that gave Tom a quarter-century of employment, opportunity and influence. He was attracted by the enthusiasm of the new editor, Jean Moon. Jean says she recognized that Tom was better at reporting on zoning than she was, and she also offered a small raise.

“Despite that, I didn’t say yes until I had a face-to-face with Zeke Orlinsky, the publisher,” Tom said. Tom’s future wife, Mary Kay Sigaty, “was working as a bank teller at the time, and she had warned me that the Flier’s checks sometimes bounced. When I asked him about this, Zeke said that would never be a problem with my paycheck, and it wasn’t.”

MORE at MarylandReporter.com

Columbia named #1 Best Place to Live in US by Money Magazine

You know the phrase “50 is the new 30?” Apparently, that applies to cities and towns, too.

Columbia, Md., turns 50 next year, and it’s never looked better. One of the most successful planned communities in the country, Columbia is a magnet in the Baltimore–Washington corridor, attracting families in search of good schools and businesses hungry for educated employees.

A planned community—where covenants limit everything from new construction to the color you can paint your home—isn’t for everyone (though there are three of them in our Best Places top 10).

But Columbia is clearly thriving. It ranks in the top 5% of the 823 places on this year’s list for job growth and economic opportunity. The schools are among the state’s best. And in this pricey corner of the country, Columbia’s median home price is just over $300,000, 11% less than in Gaithersburg, one county over. “I sometimes tell people this is a little bit like the Land of Oz,” says Gary Ahrens, a retired high school teacher and counselor who sells real estate for Keller Williams.

The prices may be right, but Columbia also owes its success to an idea—or maybe it’s an ideal. Founded in the late ’60s, the town made the concept of community building part of the master plan. Each of the 10 bucolically named villages (Wilde Lake, Oakland Mills) includes a mix of residences— apartments, townhomes, and single-family houses—to promote socioeconomic diversity. Individual homes don’t have mailboxes; they’re collected in groups on each cul-de-sac or block to encourage neighborly mixing. Some people worship at a church or synagogue, but others prefer an “interfaith center,” where the faiths rotate through a communal space.

 MORE at Money Magazine
Part 3: Shopping and Retailing at the Heart of the Columbia Plan (via Maryland Reporter)

By Len Lazarick

Tony Tringali is a living fossil, a historical remnant of ancient Columbia. His barbershop in the Wilde Village Center is not just antique; it qualifies for a plaque as a historic landmark of the Founding Father’s plans.

Tony is the last merchant standing from those that opened their doors 49 years ago for the first Columbia residents. Before the mall, before Route 175, before the eight other village centers opened, there was Tony. [Unfortunately, Tony died March 20, 2017, six months after this article was first published.]

Through thick and thin, he’s been there. In recent years, it’s been mighty thin as the Giant grocery that opened with him was first expanded and then torn down. Regular customers like me would have to figure out how to get to the shop hemmed in by construction fencing, mud and broken sidewalks.

MORE at MarylandReporter.com

PART 2: Working in Columbia: Its Downtown and Business Parks Went Up and Down With The Economy (via Maryland Reporter)

By Len Lazarick

It was an odd celebration, even for the honorees. In hindsight, the way Ryland Homes commemorated its long, 35-year partnership with the Rouse Co. in 2001 was ironic for both companies.

In the Ten Oaks ballroom in Clarksville — at the far western edge of the Rouse Co.’s “new town” — the homebuilder that got its start in Columbia and built thousands of its first homes was saluting its patron and the provider of its home sites. Rouse, the new town developer that the 1960s media idolized, had propelled the small, home construction startup to become one of the largest homebuilders in America.

The baseball caps handed out that day said “Ryland Celebrates Rouse,” and on the back there was the cryptic embroidery “5K/$125M.” It meant 5,000 homes, a quarter of Columbia’s single family and townhouses, and $125 million in land sales.

MORE at MarylandReporter.com

PART 1: How the “garden for growing people” got planted and grew (via Maryland Reporter)

By Len Lazarick

When I tell people I’ve lived in Columbia 43 years, some say, “Oh you must be a pioneer.” But a pioneer, in old-Columbia speak, is technically someone who moved here in its first year, 1967–68. A few of those 2,200 souls are left, and all can tell you of the first store, the first school, the first this and the first that.

But this monthly series of essays leading to Columbia’s 50th birthday next June is not meant as a piece of nostalgia. Many books and hundreds of articles have focused on the first decades of Columbia, the land acquisition, the planning. These essays are about Columbia as a lived experience that brings us to the present, with a long view of how we got here and how it evolved from the plan, and in many cases was not planned at all.

This is called a “memoir” because it is neither complete nor unbiased. It is Len Lazarick’s interpretation of Columbia’s 50 years, or at least some aspects of it, fact-based as much as possible.

MORE at MarylandReporter.com