City Employee Featured in National Magazine

City employee Tom Cain's home restoration efforts are featured in the upcoming January-February issue of Old-House Journal magazine. Old-House Journal is a lifestyle magazine with a national circulation of 300,000. The magazine, which has been published for 30 years, is marketed to old house restorers and historic preservation audiences.

The six-page feature article reports on Cain's 21 years of restoring his home and other historic properties in the West Central neighborhood's historic district clustered near Jefferson Boulevard and Nelson Street.

“I've always believed in Fort Wayne's potential and have put my personal efforts into these great homes and a great neighborhood,” said Cain. “Old-House Journal picked up my small corner of a larger community-wide effort to reclaim our gracious old neighborhoods, something many cities would give their eye teeth for. There are a lot more good stories like this waiting to be told to the rest of the country.”

The writer, Anne McCarthy Strauss, has connections to Fort Wayne. Her nephew, Justin Brugger, another City employee, tipped her to the story. Local photographer David Kirk of Kirk Photography provided nine of the 13 images in the full color article. The January-February issue should be at newsstands in late December or early January.

Cain is a senior urban designer for the City's Division of Community Development, where he has worked on civic improvement projects for over 23 years. For more information, contact Cain at 427-2142.