All posts by Troy R. Bennett
‘Overwhelming’ response to BDN Portland post strikes up musical donations
This Portland musician puts instruments in the hands of new Mainers
Picturing the day Rudy Vallee came home to Maine
The train pulled into Portland’s Union Station at 11:45 a.m. while police held back a throng of over 2,000 people trying to get a glimpse of Maine’s brightest star, Rudy Vallee. After a moment, the 28-year-old stepped off the train and into his mother’s arms while a local band blared his hit song “Vagabond Lover.” […]
5@50: Portland faces in paint, bronze, flesh and feathers
Follow these stealth motorcycle campers into the Maine woods
These two guys from the Bangor area just posted a Youtube video of their overnight motorcycle stealth camping adventure somewhere in Maine. Judging by the bridge they cross over the Piscataquis River, they started out on the Lagrange Rail Trail. After that? Who knows? They end up taking a path unknown to them and camp next to […]
Portland’s mayor has his own solution to ‘brutal’ downtown parking
Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling knows how to beat Portland’s clogged summer peninsula traffic. He parks his car. Instead, he throws a leg over his scooter and zips around town with his face in the wind. “Traffic in this city is just brutal,” he told me, sitting on his orange, Italian-styled steed, parked in front of City Hall on […]
July 4th fireworks ignited Portland’s Great Fire in 1866
Where should Portland’s next famous mural be painted?
With the imminent demise of Portland’s landmark street art mural on the side of Asylum later this summer, I got to thinking about where the city’s next big art project should appear. There’s plenty of blank canvases and banal eyesores up for grabs in this town. Here’s a fairly random list of ideas I found […]