In the centre is the King's Library, apparently rising from the storeys of below-ground book storage.
While night life in downtown Utica is limited to casual taverns like Duffy's and Skoogs Bar & Grill, coffee lovers and literary types are regulars at the Common Grounds Book Café on Illinois Highway 178, a few blocks south of downtown.
In July 1925, for example, Aida was performed at Yankee Stadium, with live horses and a bored camel (not to be outdone, the Polo Grounds booked the Municipal Opera Company to perform Carmen in September, though without animals).
"We tend to get local people on the ground to book our onward travel because we find that they are better placed to do so," he says.
But for a state that is continually trying to shed its identity as a dumping ground, the book does not exactly help with image-building.
The reading from "American Ground," a book based on Mr. Langewiesche's observations and interviews, was part of a series at the South Street Seaport Museum.
"Uncommon Ground," a book by Thomas Leatherbarrow, should help admirers of modern architecture to form a more precisely analytic appreciation of those qualities.
In "Rising Ground", a book essentially about the spirit of place, Philip Marsden's connection is through landscape, particularly in Cornwall where he lives and the Mendips where he grew up.
We seek out and keep our ear to the ground and book only based on talent so 'Mo-Wave is accessible to emerging artists in a way that other festivals may not be.
