The sounds of a Cajun band blasted from the front porch as a crowd of hundreds packed the yards and street of a residential Minneapolis neighborhood. That scene took place at a unique music festival held last September.

"People were holding hands and swinging around their neighbors or people who live down the block, who they may never have met, just laughing hysterically," remembered festival co-organizer Niky Duxbury.

On Saturday, 24 bands from Minneapolis and one from St. Paul will again haul banjos, fiddles and amps to the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis and set up on front porches for a festival appropriately called Powderhorn PorchFest.

The music festival takes place on the 3200 and 3300 blocks of 17th Avenue in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis. It's the third year the event has been held, and it keeps growing. This year, bands will play on five porches spread across the two city blocks, both of which will be closed to cars.

Duxbury said the idea came about two years ago when she and co-organizer Aaron Blum were talking about how there were few venues where people could see neighborhood bands for free.

"Why aren't all of our very talented musician friends and singer songwriters playing out more and getting more exposure and getting listened to?" Blum said. "A lot of them were just playing their music online, which is a great forum for exposure, but we wanted to bring it to the community, we wanted to bring it to the street."

They wanted an unpretentious festival that wasn't sequestered in a bar or big commercial venue. South Minneapolis' huge stock of front porches fit the bill.

"There's something traditional and old about gathering on a porch in somebody's yard, and playing music," Duxbury said.

"It's an invitation into somebody's home and space," Blum added.

Bands this year will be playing styles including Cajun, folk, hip-hop, old-timey and cumbia, which organizers said was meant to represent the diversity of the neighborhood.

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Bands tune up for Powderhorn PorchFest

PORCHES @ Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL 08.05.14

By: Dillon Kelley

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PORCHES @ Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL 08.05.14 - Video

Updated: Monday, September 8 2014, 04:50 PM CDT

By: CBS 21 Web Staff

MANCHESTER TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Police in northern York County are alerting residents to a suspicious person seen lurking around homes.

Northern York County Regional Police said Monday officers responded to the 300 block of Harvest Drive in Manchester Township for a report of someone prowling overnight Saturday in Sunday.

Two residents reported someone had been on the back porches of their homes, police said. The residents said there were muddy footprints on their porches, and at another home, someone tried to open a back door.

The residents didn't see or hear anything during the overnight hours, police said.

Anyone with information about the incidents was asked to contact police at 717-292-3647 or report a crime tip through their website.

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Prowler reported in York Co. neighborhood

Federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials gathered Monday for a news conference at an outdoor basketball court on the Lower West Side to symbolically return the neighborhood to its residents.

The site, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph M. Tripi, is where many area youths took their first steps down a criminal path.

This is where kids became lookouts, moved on to drug dealers, and where they were introduced to street violence and the 10th Street Gang, Tripi said. This court is now used for its intended purpose, and the families of five homicide victims may have some semblance of peace now that the people responsible for these murders have been convicted.

With Fridays conviction, 44 gang members who have stood accused of racketeering, numerous counts of violence, over two dozen shootings, dozens of narcotics transactions, are all now convicted, said Hochul.

Since 2010, Hochuls office has prosecuted 22 homicides and removed 200 10th Street Gang members from the street, said Buffalo Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda.

They started moving into Riverside, but theyre gone now, Derenda said. Weve also made arrests of 7th Street Gang members. And were taking on gangs in other parts of the city, including the East Side.

In crediting members of the Buffalo Police Department, the State Police and the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, Hochul did not forget to thank neighborhood residents.

The citizens of the West Side of Buffalo stood shoulder-to-shoulder with law enforcement, providing testimony and identification of the gang members who were making their lives miserable for many decades, he said.

While no neighborhood residents were present at the news conference, some were seen standing in driveways and doorways of nearby homes. Those sitting on porches were wondering why television trucks surrounded the playground.

One man, who asked that his name not be used, told of motorbikes disturbing the peace late at night. He also mentioned a corner deli and the customers who camp out in front of the store drinking until 1 a.m. But he admitted the neighborhood is peaceful compared with past conditions.

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Prosecutors cite drop in crime with breakup of 10th Street Gang

Tiny Homes with Tiny Porches, Small Houses
Follow us on: http://www.howtobuildahouseblog.com Music: Whistling Down the Road Downloaded it from the YouTube Audio Library http://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music.

By: Grig Stamate

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Tiny Homes with Tiny Porches, Small Houses - Video

York City Building Inspector Steve Buffington on a vehicle that crashed into two porches on West Kin
York City Building Inspector Steve Buffington on a vehicle that crashed into two porches on West King Street. @ydrom By: Ted Czech - Day cops reporter for @y...

By: York Daily Record/Sunday News

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York City Building Inspector Steve Buffington on a vehicle that crashed into two porches on West Kin - Video

Porches (the original Hard Drivers)
Before Hard Drivers existed, we wrote a track called Porsches. I still prefer it 🙂 credits: Ekstrak Nolan Weekes.

By: Robert Bullough

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Porches (the original Hard Drivers) - Video

GREENUP (JG-TC) -- The upper-floor porches of downtown Greenup have provided shade for more than 100 years and now have the added role of drawing visitors to this community.

The porches were built in the 19th century to shade downtown storefronts and the residents upstairs, said Linda Matherly, secretary of the Cumberland County Historical Society. She said these residents sat on their upper-floor front porches to enjoy the cool breeze and watch parades.

While the downtown porches in many communities have been torn down, Greenup has preserved its porches. Matherly said most of the porches were rebuilt in the early 1990s as part of a village beautification project that has helped earn the downtown a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

"There were a lot of pictures of the old porches and they tried to match them up as best they could. They tried to keep it as true to original as possible," Matherly said.

Greenup is nicknamed the "Village of Porches" and uses porch imagery in its village logo. Matherly said she fields a lot of questions about the porches from visitors to the historical society's Cumberland County Military Museum, Historic Greenup Depot, and Johnson Building and Genealogical Library.

Porch-lined Cumberland Street is part of the original National Road, the first federally funded and built road, which connected the East to westward expansion. The recreated Jackson Truss Covered Bridge was opened in 2000 on part of the old National Road near Cameo Vineyards and the Cumberland County Fairgrounds in Greenup.

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Greenup preserves, celebrates its downtown porches

Little by little, all of your neighbors are bringing out their fall festive decor to color their yards and porches with autumn fun. Wouldnt you love to do the same? But fall decor for your home interior is expensive enough without adding pumpkin topiaries and life-sized scarecrows to the bill. How do you stir up some fun fall porch decor but keep it under budget? These dollar-smart ways to dress up your fall porch are a great place to start!

1. Fall-Colored Planters

Displaying fall flowers, like asters or classic mums, is a great way to bring in fall colors without any additional effort. If you feel like your fall color cascade isnt make enough of a statement, add a few interesting gourds to your blooms for added autumn appeal.

2. DIY Wreath

Every fall porch needs a beautiful, inviting wreath. If youre a thrifty DIYer, grab a pack of coffee filters from any grocery store, or check your cabinets for spares, and hot glue them to a foam wreath. Add whatever fall accents strike your fancy and youre on your way!

3. Organic Garland

If you have access to some really fresh corn, either at your local farmers market or grocery store, pick up some in advance so it has plenty of time to dry. Then, just follow this simple tutorial to create your own organic garland to bring immediate fall flavor to your porch.

4. Fallen Branches or Corn Stalks

Instead of paying someone to clean your yard and garden, pick up fallen leafy branches and arrange them in tall pots or vases on your porch. If you can get your hands on some dried up corn stalks, those are also great as a fall costume for your porch.

5. Collected Feathers, Acorns, Pinecones

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Budget fall dcor

Published September 04. 2014 4:00AM

Four old-style cottages that will boost capacity, enhance experience on verge of completion

Waterford Don't be fooled by the continuing busy rumble of construction work at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Eight years after initial planning began, the campus is on the brink of a major development in its ongoing $8 million project to enhance the residential experience of visiting students, teachers and other professionals.

Four of the theater's seven new Victorian-style dormitory cottages, plus a new rehearsal hall, are slated to open in about two weeks, according to theater Executive Director Preston Whiteway. He said once all seven cottages open, the theater campus will increase capacity for residents from about 40 to roughly 100 beds.

"Now we're going to have a village," said National Theater Institute Artistic Director Rachel Jett.

Whiteway emphasized how the architecture and arrangement will facilitate sociability and create a "summer camp" feel.

Students of NTI and the inaugural National Musical Theater Institute arrive on campus Sunday and leave soon after for a brief off-campus study portion of the semester, some to London and others to New York. The opening of the cottages will come just in time for the students' return, according to Whiteway.

Jett said the additional space will allow visiting artists to stay on campus for extended periods, when in the past they might have stayed at a hotel or been on campus for only a night. This will allow greater opportunity for collaboration between experienced theater professionals and students, she said.

"Now we can invite them to work on what they're working on either with or in front of the students," she said.

Project architect Chad Floyd said he modeled his design for the new buildings on the Methodist camps of the 19th century, where people gathered during the summer for worship and community.

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Theatrical 'village' taking shape at the O'Neill theater center