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BATAVIA — More than 50 vendors, new food, displays and entertainment are lined up for this year’s Summer in the City, organizers say. The Batavia City Fire Department is to have a truck and its crew will do child car seat inspections at the fire station while Mercy EMS will have medics and an ambulance to show off during the festival. “We’ll have 350 to 400 cars this year for the Super Cruise,” event committee member John Frank said. “We encourage motorcycles.” The event is set for 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday downtown.

BATAVIA — The main thrust of an overhaul of Batavia Downs’ gaming facility is nearing completion, with construction focusing more and more on finishing touches. But for a project aimed at provoking plenty of “oohs and aahs,” the finishing touches are what matters most when the Downs’ gaming area opens next month.

BATAVIA — He’s known for famously questioning, “If it’s not fun, why do it?” Hear how Jerry Greenfield, along with his partner Ben Cohen, parlayed that humorous attitude and a socially responsible business model into the ice cream empire, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. His presentation will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Sept. 25 in Genesee Community College’s Stuart Steiner Theater.

ELBA — Ladies Auxiliary’s beef on weck. Pull tabs. A “big 50-50 raffle.” Music in the beer tent. A queen pageant and, of course, onions. The Onion Festival returns Friday for its 77th year, with few changes to what has been a successful run.

BATAVIA — As he looked over the large number of tents sprinkled throughout Centennial Park as the OHMS band played following the inaugural GLOW Corporate Cup, John Riter had the look of a proud father. The idea he came up with as Batavia’s answer to the Corporate Challenge had become a reality, and exceeded his expectations.

Batavia turned into “Nash-ville” Saturday. Several hundred people attended the 2013 Nash Car Club of America national convention at the Clarion Inn on Park Road, which officially began earlier in the week.

Rusted and rotten. Dirty and dilapitated. And certainly not driveable. Regardless, a classic car is a work of art to a collector, who is willing to spend years restoring his precious find to, if not new, then almost like-new condition.

It was a lot of work, says Sue Conklin, county historian, for facilities management staff to move all of the county's archives and historical documents from the old firehouse on West Main Street to County Building #2. The staff moved: 1,690 archival items in 575 boxes The research collection of 3,082 books and 666 notebooks 519 bound volumes of newspapers 7 large wall maps, 19 pen and ink drawings, 19 watercolors and 30 framed photographs 39 filing cabinets and 3 map cases Plus staff had to disassemble and reassemble 21 bookcases, 23-foot-long newspaper shelving and all of the shelving for the county archives.

BATAVIA — Church, chicken barbecue and country music are all on the line-up for this year’s Western New York Round-up Rally. Organizer David Kasinski is hoping that the third annual event will draw twice the amount of people for three days of diverse happenings for bikers and nonbikers alike. New this year will be a Downtown Poker Walk for those who don’t own or ride motorcycles.

BATAVIA — Anne Marie Starowitz doesn’t like to use the word fun when talking about the Underground Railroad. Yet her summer children’s program at Holland Land Office Museum is just that: a fun way to incorporate valuable history into lessons. The Underground Railroad is a topic dear to the former city schools teacher.

The colorful and vibrant artwork of Esther von Kramer is on display this month at the Richmond Memorial Library. The artist was born in Buffalo in 1893, but spent much of her adult life in Batavia and was an original member of the Batavia Society of Artists. She died in 1981 at the age of 88 in East Aurora. Her grandson, Eric von Kramer, helped organize the show, pulling together pieces of her work from family and friends.

...this afternoon to go out to Ted and Patricia Hawley's barley field in Byron to get some pictures of the harvest. The Hawleys are opening a malt house -- the first in New York in about 100 years -- and this barley will be used to create malt that can be used by microbreweries throughout the state. All the rain we've had in the past week have made the harvest a challenge. The grain has to reach a search moisture level -- not too moist -- to be harvested. But in waiting for it to dry out there's a chance the grain could pre-germinate on the stock, which would affect the malting process.

One hundred years ago this week, Americans were preparing to mark the nation's 137th birthday and also the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Batavia of July 1913 was a growing village of residential neighborhoods, churches, factories, stores and saloons. Clunky contraptions called automobiles were beginning to fill its mostly unpaved streets.

BATAVIA — The third annual Western New York Round-Up Rally! will be Aug. 9, 10 and 11 in downtown Batavia. There will be DYNO testing all weekend. Live music begins at 6 p.m. Aug. 9. Vendors row and beer tent begin at 5 p.m.

You can't brew beer without malt, which is something Ted Hawley thinks legislators forgot about when they passed a farm brewing bill last year that will eventually require ales and lagers labeled "New York Beer" to contain 90 percent locally grown ingredients.

A new chapter in Batavia Muckdogs history opened Tuesday when farm hands in the Miami Marlins system took the field at Dwyer Stadium for the home opener of the 2013. The 1,900 fans in attendence can surely hope Tuesday's game is a sign of good things to come. The Muckdogs beat Auburn 10-2.

BATAVIA — Leona Pastore used to make her own roast beef for the famous beef on wecks at the Pok-A-Dot. She’d cook all day in her home kitchen and someone would come and get it to take over to the restaurant at the corner of Ellicott and Liberty streets on the city’s southside. She also made pots of pasta fagioli, varying it from the traditional white sauce with a red one.

Of the multitude of factories that dotted the Batavia landscape in the early 1900s, one company stood apart. When Batavia officially became a city in 1915, the Wiard Plow Company on Swan Street had the distinction of being its oldest industry and the nation's oldest manufacturer of agricultural plows.

BATAVIA — Art is getting a little sweeter at the GO ART! site at the corner of Bank and East Main streets. Sweet Ecstasy bakery has moved into a portion of the historic building. A glimpse into its side entrance door gets you an eyeful of muffins, cupcakes and other confectionery treats. The adjacent dining room seats 23 and is open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. week days and 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.

Next week, Hollywood comes to Batavia. GoArt!, in partnership with local author Bill Kauffman -- author of such books as "Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette" and "Look Homeward America" -- and filmmaker Ronald F. Maxwell -- director of the Civil War epics "Gettysburg" and "Gods and Generals" -- will host a screening of the movie "Copperhead" on Thursday, June 13. This will give locals a chance to see the film before its official release in theaters on June 28.

The state of New York is the home of some pretty big foods, like potato chips and salad dressing. Here’s the history behind some of your favourite New York-born staples.

Guitars — tuned. Amps — pumped. T-shirts — ready to be sold for a ridiculous amount of money. Yes, it’s concert season. Darien Lake is the concert venue for summer in Western New York and the lineup of artists scheduled for 2013 is impressive. Country stars Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley and Jason Aldean will all make return trips, rockers Rob Zombie and Alice in Chains will headline festivals, and pop acts Jonas Brothers and Big Time Rush will appeal to the younger crowd. The season will also close out with a mega show featuring Maroon 5 and Kelly Clarkson.

A new novel from P.L. Gaus, the 2009 “A Tale for Three Counties” author, arrives in stores today. “The Names of Our Tears” is the eighth novel in Gaus’ Amish-Country Mystery series and the first original novel to be published by Plume. The publisher had previously republished each of the series’ seven previous novels starting in Oct. 2010.

Sarah Della Penna takes walks with her Great Danes out on a piece of property off Creek Road, Batavia, and always takes her camera. She sent in some of her recent pictures.