News Summary

• His goal was “a sense of really positive energy” reminiscent of the fond memories employees experienced.“They were so enthusiastic and that’s rare to find nowadays," Rieger said the night of the first exhibit Nov. 9..
• No developer is going to take on a $10 million cleanup job.”The group also set out to preserve memories of the place they are working to tear down..
• Next door to a railyard with nationwide connections, they envision a light industrial future.Meanwhile, Moving Pillsbury Forward has managed to turn the decrepit site in Illinois’ capital city into a leisure destination verging on cultural phenomenon.Tours have been highly popular and repeated..
• Spray-paint vandals, boosted instead of busted, have become artists in residence for nighttime graffiti exhibitions, which more than 1,000 people attended.Retired University of Illinois archeologist Robert Mazrim has mined artifacts and assembled an “Echoes of Pillsbury” museum beneath a leaking loading dock roof..
• The nighttime November showing proved so popular that Richmond added a second date.Artist Eric Rieger, known to fans as HOTTEA, also took part, creating in a “cathedral-like” setting a huge, rectangular grid of black-light-lit neon strings of yarn suspended from the ceiling..
• “A lot of times, cities (local governments) are focused on their downtowns or whatever gets the mayor the ribbon cutting.”Minneapolis-based Pillsbury built the Springfield campus in 1929 and expanded it several times through the 1950s..