Construction Maison

OVERVIEW “Wherever there is conflict in the world, a few years later you start to see that population showing up here,” says Andriana Abariotes, executive director of Twin Cities LISC ( Local Initiatives Support Corporation ). Minneapolis-St. Paul has a long history of welcoming immigrants and refugees from around the world and is home to many organizations serving these populations. St. Paul’s East Side, where LISC has worked for years, is home to a rich cultural mix of immigrants including Hmong , Somali, Karin, Bhutanese, Sudanese, Latinos and others, alongside Native and African Americans. “Wherever there is conflict in the world, a few years later you start to see that population showing up here.” “It is a hard to reach population,” says Amy Gillman at the LISC national office . These are “highly impoverished and culturally diverse residents , who face significant barriers to physical and social activities related to health.” To make matters worse , the city is experiencing a ...

In January 2015, a massive fire in Edgewater, N.J., demonstrated that buildings with sprinkler systems are not always protected against fire. The blaze destroyed 240 residential apartments and displaced 500 people from the Edgewater Avalon apartment building . The fire began when a maintenance worker’s plumbing torch accidentally ignited wooden wall studs , and flames quickly spread throughout the structure. Fifteen minutes passed before workers called the fire department . In that time, the fire spread throughout combustible void spaces (between walls and floors) and soon engulfed the building. Emergency personnel from 35 different cities and towns ultimately responded to the incident. Thankfully, there were no fatalities. Immediately after the blaze, people asked why the fire was so devastating. The building had sprinklers, after all. Shouldn’t the sprinkler system have extinguished the fire? To make matters worse , this building had already burned down 15 years prior during i...

The ballad of Mary Bacon. On June 5th, 1969, at the age of 21, just 12 weeks after giving birth to her first child, she rode her first winner as a professional jockey at the Finger Lakes Race Track in upstate New York. No woman had ever won at the venue before. How could they have? Just three months had passed since the pioneering Diane Crump pushed open the door for female jockeys at a race in Florida. If Crump broke down the barrier, Bacon made an immediate mark too. “Why do you wear flowered underwear that everybody can see through your white riding pants ?” asked one journalist. “When I’m on the lead,” Bacon replied, “it gives the boys back there something to look at.” Competing like a woman determined to be more than a secondary footnote in the sport’s history, she became the first female to notch up 100 winners. On the way to that milestone, her legend quickly gathered pace . A five foot four, 94lbs waif, she was photogenic, quick-witted and fed reporters a steady supply of m...