Tag: Speed Museum

Amazon wants Texas tax cut, as Trump slams Bezos anew; Haier paid $125M for Appliance Park, and much ado about new KFC pulled-porker down under in Oz

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 9:34 a.m.

AMAZON is seeking tax breaks for a proposed distribution center in Houston that would lower the retailer’s taxes there to 65% for 10 years, starting Jan. 1; Harris County officials meet today to consider whether to call a public meeting on the company’s request. The $136 million facility would create 1,000 jobs and construction would start in the third quarter (Houston Chronicle). Amazon already has at least one center in Houston; it opened in 2014. In the Louisville area, it employs 6,000 at two distribution centers. What it’s like to work in one of the centers.

Presumptive GOP White House nominee Donald Trump has renewed his attack on The Washington Post and owner Jeff Bezos, after the paper called him out for trying multiple times yesterday to quietly link President Obama to this weekend’s devastating attack in Orlando. Trump has revoked the paper’s press access to his campaign, saying Bezos is using the newspaper as his personal mouthpiece to gain tax advantages for Amazon. Bezos bought the paper from its long-time owners, the Grahams, for $250 million in 2013; he owns it separately from Amazon (The Verge). Also, Amazon is getting ready to roll out its second annual Prime Day, a special 24-hour discount extravaganza for Prime members that last year exceeded its Black Friday results. It was held in July last year; the company hasn’t set a date this year yet (Street Insider).

FORD has been much less visible than competitors in forging deals with Silicon Valley partners, raising questions about whether it’s getting left behind in the race for self-driving cars and other innovations. Talks with Google this year went nowhere, while Fiat Chrysler has already forged a relationship with that technology giant. Meanwhile, Ford’s experiments with on-demand shuttles and e-bikes have been overshadowed by General Motors’ Maven car-sharing and Toyota’s alliance with Uber (Hybrid Cars).

GE: We now know what Haier paid GE’s 61-year-old Appliance Park: $125 million, according to Jefferson County Clerk Office records reviewed by Business First. Overall, Haier paid $5.6 billion for the home appliances division in a deal completed last week.

Pulled Pork Burger
Exhibit A.

KFC: Some customers are confused and angry — and even angry about that anger — after the fast food restaurant famous for fried chicken launched a $6 limited edition burger with that other white meat: pork. The sandwich of pulled pork, coleslaw and barbecue sauce on a brioche bun is available across KFC restaurants in at least Australia starting today for the next four weeks (Emmanorris Blog and EFTM ). The Ozzie KFC division posted that video at the top of this page and the photo on the left.

News about the sandwich is spreading across Twitter, with many outraged or at least annoyed over the outrage:

Boulevard sees the Australian Mafia-of-one at work: Greg Creed has been leading a KFC makeover since become CEO of corporate parent Yum in January 2015.

TACO BELL: Our foreign news story of the day is about the Mexican chain’s move into Brazil next month in the megalopolis of Sao Paulo, just in time for the summer Olympics: “Taco Bell desembarca no Brasil ainda no segundo semestre” (Clica Piaui). For those who don’t speak Portuguese, Google Translate is your friend. Facing an increasingly saturated U.S. fast-food market, the Yum unit is ramping up overseas openings, expanding to 1,000 locations by 2020 from about 280 now (Bloomberg).

PAPA JOHN’S: Three men armed with a gun and a baseball bat robbed a driver at 10 p.m. Sunday night in Magnolia, Del., taking money and his cellphone (Delaware Online).

TEXAS ROADHOUSE is hiring in Knoxville and Alcoa, Tenn., at a job fair today (WVLT).

In other news, the newly opened Speed Cinema this weekend will present this year’s Sundance Short Film Festival Tour (Insider Louisville). And on Wall Street, U.S. stocks traded lower again right after the opening bell (Google Finance).

Speed museum weekend film: ‘It’s the Super Bowl of social fashion events’

The recently completed Speed Art Museum‘s expansion included a first-ever 142-seat cinema equipped with state-of-the-art technology. This weekend’s film, “The First Monday in May,” is about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Gala, an annual event that’s surged in popularity under the direction of top Vogue magazine editor Anna Winter. It got a 79% on movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

Movie times, with links to buy tickets:

What better way to celebrate World Baking Day…

. . . than by surfing through Wiltshire Pantry’s Instagram page. Talk about food porn! Our jaw hit the floor right here:

 

If Boulevard was eating lunch at Wiltshire in the Highlands, we’d opt for a natural chipotle turkey sandwich with Broadbent pepper bacon, Kenny’s pepper jack, avocado aioli and greens, on cumin buttermilk white: $10.50.

Where: 901 Barret Ave., 502-581-8561. When: Tuesday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Related: Wiltshire now has a restaurant at the Speed Museum. Also, Wiltshire and Blue Dog Bakery crank out croissants, says The Courier-Journal. Blue Dog’s also on Instagram. New and looking good in Shelby Park: Scarlet’s Bakery; they’re on Instagram, too. And don’t miss PBS’ Great British Bake Off show.

Tally-ho! Woodland Farm wins Derby party race in photo finish

Big smiles, big personalities and big business networking — yes, it’s everyone’s favorite feature in the society shiny sheets: party photos! Boulevard picks though the pics, choosing our favorite coverage. Post-Derby, there were scads and scads in the just-published issue of The Voice-Tribune, including:

Champagne smallerWoodland Farm Brunch
To celebrate the day after Derby and punctuate the end of Derby festivities, 21c Museum Hotel co-founders Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown hosted a brunch at their Woodland Farm in Goshen on the morning of May 8. There were plenty of other bold-faced names there, too — from Speed Museum CEO Ghislain d’Humières to plastic surgeon Dr. Greg Brown, NPR talk show host Diane Rehm and philanthropist and one-time Prince of Wales hostess Christy Brown.

Related: A sneak peek at this year’s hottest Derby party venue.

Philanthropist Al Shands creates new arts grant

The Great Meadows Foundation grants will support visual artists in amounts from $500 to $5,000. They’re named for the home Al Shands and and his late wife Mary Norton Shands built in Crestwood; it includes a museum for their extensive collection of contemporary sculpture and art, according to WFPL.

Al ShandsThe couple developed their interest in collecting after Mary was asked to lead the Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation, now the KMAC museum, in the late 1980s, WFPL says. Shands, 87, is a longstanding Speed Art Museum trustee, and a member of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum advisory board in Venice.

An heiress to a broadcasting fortune, Mary died in 2009. The Shands’ collection is to be bequeathed to the Speed museum upon his death. It includes work by notable artists such as Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Jim Dine and Maya Lin. In a video last year, Shands spoke to The Courier-Journal about the collection.

Photo, left: Shands beside a LeWitt sculpture at Great Meadows; Hyperallergic.

Related: a book examines their art-filled estate.

Where is one of the Speed Museum’s most famous residents?

She’s on an out-of-town trip, according to The Courier-JournalJ. From the Speed’s website:

Anthony van Dyck
Flemish, 1599 ‑ 1641
Portrait of a Woman, about 1635
Oil on canvas
29 1/2 ×23 inches (74.9 × 58.4 cm)
Museum purchase, Preston Pope Satterwhite Fund

 

About the painting’s donor

In an important milestone for the Speed in 1941, Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite gave the museum his collection of 15th- and 16th-century French and Italian Decorative Arts tapestries and furniture.

Satterwhite was born in 1867 Great Neck, N.Y., but lived in Louisville until he was 25, when he moved to New York to complete his medical internship and residency, according to the Encyclopedia of Louisville. He became a successful surgeon and well-known art collector. His ancestors, the Breckinridges and Prestons, were early settlers in Kentucky. Satterwhite died in New York in 1948.

Satterwhite monument
Temple of Love

He and his wife are buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in one of the most elaborate memorials there. Erected in 1928 of pink Italian marble, the “Temple of Love” is a copy of Marie Antoinette’s ornate structure in her Petite Trianon garden at the Palace of Versailles in Paris.

Here’s a Find A Grave photo of Satterwhite and his wife, Florence in front of their 1927 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 at their estate in Great Neck.

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