A down town's big step up

In A down town's big step up

http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/A-down-town-s-big-step-up-1400567.php#page-1

Chris Churchill business writer for the Times Union reviews the long

predicted rebirth of downtown Troy.

The recent announcement of a $31.5 million plan to grace Monument Square with two new buildings that

would include 106 apartments and ground-level retail space is noted. This redevelopment is touted

as transformational for downtown Troy.

In addition to the Monument Square renovations, two new restaurants-- Bootleggers on Broadway

and Broadway Brew Pub and Grill—are preparing to open on a stretch of street struggling since 2009.

Down on the waterfront, the much-anticipated Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is open and thriving. The city is also

set to begin a $1.8 million redevelopment of Riverfront Park.

At the Congress-Ferry street corridor workers are building the first phase of the $160 million

CityStation development, which will target the city’s student population.

Downtown still has its share of problems: vacant storefronts, stores close too early,

problematic landlords, and the struggle to keep middle-class homeowners.

The project itself also faces hurdles: an ever-cantankerous Troy City Council

must agree to sell the city-owned land to developers and the project lacks funding.

The city’s coordinator of economic development, Vic Christopher, is however positive.

He comments that the massive building that is CityStation is transforming its corner of Troy. And to Christopher, the rising building is symbolic of a rising downtown.

The author of this article states his opinion of the city of Troy and the content of his article in his subject line “A down town’s big step up”. This deliberant use of phrasing indicates that the author agrees that Troy is headed in the right direction. He is, however, cautious and plays the devil’s advocate noting the problems and hurdles the city faces. Finally, at the end of the article the author details out the three significant proposals for the city of Troy. This extensive detail gives great information to the newspaper’s readers. 

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The Times Union­­­­­ website solicits independent contractors to deliver the

 newspapers at the top of the page in addition to quick links for subscriptions, customer care, advertisement placement, and the weekly TV magazine. Seglem (2009) states, that the world is made up of visual symbols that require more complex thinking skills than traditional literacy requires. I found the website to be rather cluttered and

non-user friendly. Advertisements are predominant and are a constant distraction on every

page. Their size, color, special effects, and of course, the content varies.

The index, or table of contents, is listed at the bottom of the page instead of the top or the right

of the page. The intent here is to ensure viewers look at the entire page when browsing. The meaning of the page to viewers is therefore dictated by the content at the top of the page, mainly advertisements.

Serafini (2011) notes, that meaning is derived from the position of images in the temporal sequence of written text. The meaning is derived from the spatial relations or grammar of visual images.  The danger in this design is that the content, the words, are not being read but instead the images are conveying all of the message.

References

Seglem, R. & Witte, S. (2009). You gotta see it to believe it: Teaching visual literacy in the English classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(3), 216-226. doi:10.1598/JAAL.53.3.3

Serafini, F. (2011). Expanding perspectives for comprehending visual images in multimodal texts. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(5), 342-335. doi:10.1598/JAAL.54.5.4