Hang Your Hat on This

Just in time to heat up the holidays, the Hat City Kitchen debuts in December.  Watch this space for more details about the latest addition to the Valley Arts District's eclectic range of eateries and nightclubs.  Hat City will serve up spicy Cajun cuisine and sizzling blues music to rival those jumping joints on Bourbon Street.  What a great way to wrap up an amazing year.  

Ten or 15 years from now I think 2009 will really stand out as the birth of the Valley Renaissance, even though some of our ideas took root several years ago.  In May we hosted  "Uncharted Territory," our first curated art show, featuring more than 25 artists from around the world.  Our annual poetry and music festival, VAMP-09, held in June 2009, attracted hundreds of fans from all over northern New Jersey.  Daily Soup Cafe on Central Avenue, which opened its doors in August, is hopping night and day.  Award-winning Luna Stage has relocated to the Valley Arts District and is already producing performances and offering educational programs.  The Open Studio Stroll and Hamstock weekend in October brought hundreds of new people in to the neighborhood and nurtured thought-provoking, eye-catching public works of art.  The [murmur] recorded history project, launched in September, has brought international attention to Orange and West Orange as places of real historic and cultural significance.  

ORNGInk, our teen-run graphic arts company located in IronWorks, has expanded its business to include apparel and accessories.  Garden State Urban Farms -- which supplies locally grown organic vegetables and herbs to Grammercy Tavern in New York City as well as our own Daily Soup -- planted an organic garden next to IronWorks this past summer and plans to expand its VAD farm activities in 2010.  

Wow.

And that's only the beginning.  Here's to another year of radical transformation, new beginnings, increased joy in our daily lives.  I hope you'll stop by Hat City Kitchen and join me in a toast to the future of our neighborhood.  

Thursday, November 26th, 10:00am