Gary Shigenaka, Author at Wallyhood

Good Shepherd Center to be Razed and Rebuilt

Gary Shigenaka April 1, 2025 6 Comments

During a wide-ranging news conference at Murphy’s Pub in Wallingford, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the sale of the iconic Good Shepherd Center to the Chinese-German real estate joint venture Char Siu Polka. The historic building, once a Catholic home for wayward girls, will be redeveloped into a 2000-unit luxury residence complex for wayward tech workers, to be called Amazon Homes at the Good Shepherd. The current children’s playground will be turned into a residents-only off-leash dog park, while the Good Shepherd P-Patch will be “reverted” back into 24-hr. pickleball courts (the site originally was the location of tennis courts for…

tl;dr…A Cautionary Tale of Life in the Age of Online Retail and Delivery

Gary Shigenaka February 13, 2025 2 Comments

This is a tale of the pitfalls of our delivered-to-your-door economy (Wallingford edition). I know there are many such weak points in our voracious retail fulfillment cycle. One only has to scan the likes of local Facebook groups, your connected doorbell app, or that always reliable purveyor of bad news and paranoia, NextDoor, to see multiple accounts of packages disappearing from the porch or the mailroom. My story is not quite so criminal or insidious. I don’t think there were any overt evil-doers involved in this episode. But I am still missing an item that should have been delivered to…

A Neighborhood Rare Gem of a Restaurant: Harvest Beat

Gary Shigenaka January 20, 2025 Leave a Comment

One of the endearing and enduring features of Wallingford is that it is full of little jewels, unique establishments that are often overshadowed and overlooked because of the oversized influence of other places and events. But nestled right in the heart of the neighborhood, on 45^th, is a restaurant called Harvest Beat that is quite wonderful. Those of you who peruse Facebook, the newly ungoverned purveyor of discord and distress, might have occasionally seen offers from Harvest Beat in the Wallingford & Fremont group for friends and family discounts for their 5-course prix fixe (fixed price) vegan dinners. …

Summary of Wallyhood Community Meeting, 8 January

Gary Shigenaka January 16, 2025 2 Comments

On January 8th, the editorial staff at Wallyhood held one of our irregular gatherings with writers, potential writers and editors, and any other curious or interested community members. The Blue Star Café graciously hosted us in their back room and kept us fueled with IPA and appetizers. The purpose of the meeting was, as usual, to recruit and engage. We successfully lured in around ten friends and neighbors to sit with the four of us editors for around an hour and a half. We reviewed the past year, discussed opportunities to get involved with the blog, and then chewed the…

Wallyhood Community Meetup @ Blue Star Café on Wednesday!

Gary Shigenaka January 5, 2025 Leave a Comment

Wallyhood wants to connect! Your neighborhood blog can’t operate in a vacuum, although all of our major media role models (recall our unofficial motto, “It’s not like we’re the New York Times”) do just fine in the far reaches of outer space.

We’re inviting you to come meet us and talk about potentially involving yourselves in the venture that is Wallyhood. Fancy yourself a writer? An editor? Got a beef? Want to bequeath a family fortune to us? Then please consider coming to the Blue Star Café on Wednesday, January 8 at 7:00 p.m. to hang out with us. We’ll …

Traditional English Wassail at Meridian Park on January 11

Gary Shigenaka January 3, 2025 Leave a Comment

Come Wassail on January 11!

Sound and Fury Morris Dancers invite you to a traditional English orchard wassail which will include singing, dancing and poetry. Meet us, rain or shine, at Meridian Playfield on Saturday, January 11th. We have hosted this free and family-friendly event 16 years running! There will be opportunities to communally wish good health to the trees and scare away evil spirits that threaten their health.

When: 1:00pm-2:00pm Saturday, January 11^th Location: Northwest corner of Meridian Park, near the apple trees that grow along Meridian Avenue What to bring: Weather-appropriate clothing and…

A Partially Crowdsourced Guide to What’s Open on Christmas

Gary Shigenaka December 24, 2024 1 Comment

Like all good community blogs, we at Wallyhood like to keep our readers informed about critical infrastructure…like what’s open/closed in the neighborhood on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In the past, we’ve tried to make the rounds to actually ask businesses what their plans are.

Unfortunately, we are but four highly unpaid volunteer editors and a rotating stable of equally highly unpaid writers, and we’ve been unable to completely canvass Wallingford establishments. Writer Ro did begin the task for this year, and I called a few places and prowled around the web. We would like to invite you, the readers, …

Patti on Financial Resources 101 Workshops Coming to Wallingford LibraryThat is very exciting. I love our local KeyBank and library and what a perfect p...
fruitbat on Mexican Food Truck Adds Flavor to 45th and ThackerayAnd they're open late!
Mike Ruby on Good Shepherd Center to be Razed and RebuiltCome out to protest. We need everyone to show up to protect the new forest that ...
Oliver Wang on Good Shepherd Center to be Razed and Rebuiltahhh you got me for the first sentence.
Iwasherefirst on Good Shepherd Center to be Razed and RebuiltI take offense at your offense…times infinity +1.