Don't Know Much About...

Ah, name calling. Snore.

The Masked Preservation may know history but his reading comprehension skills are clearly lacking.

For if he had read this blog from time to time he'd actually know my recent post about "loving the park your with" is consistent with what I've written here time and time again.

Hell, I endorsed James Shanley based largely on his support for developing a portion of the NRA Lots.

Within this endorsement I inserted this tiny nugget, which clearly was easy to overlook. Perhaps MP's cowl got in the way.

We need a mayor who is looking beyond the squabbles of today and yesterday. Someone who recognizes the status quo just isn't working today. A person who is willing to lead folks toward possibilities they hadn't previously considered.
Shanley did that for me two years ago. We were attending one of the NRA's public hearing about the waterfronts, specifically asking what features should be included in the Cecil Group's plan for a waterfront park. Having just arrived to the city a year earlier, I attended the meeting thinking the battle over the waterfront parcels had been fought and won. The waterfront would be open; it's just a question of what we rest upon this openness (openicity?).
Skating rinks. Tot lots. Art displays. one after another suggestions for park features. Then Shanley stood up and reminded the NRA that the waterfront lots were economic engines that shouldn't be left in idle.
I couldn't believe what I'd heard. Someone actually suggested publicly that the lots be built upon. I thought these issues were settled in the 90s when Roger Foster finally abandoned his hotel bid (or had it abandoned for him), but someone had the guts to bring it up again.
We met for coffee later and his argument was convincing. We can't afford to maintain wide open green space. We need tax revenue. This city needs to maximize our resources if we're going to survive, thrive and restore some of the school programs and services that have been cut over the years.
A park, in my opinion, isn't the most practical or even the most attractive use of that space.

I know the surveys and so-called consensus that has built after 40 years supposedly wants an open waterfront. My question is this. Why isn't anyone using the park we currently have? A month or so ago back, we four made our way down to the Farmer's Market just before closing. We did our shopping, ambling through the crowds that still filled the Tannery parking lot and filling our shopping bags with vegetables, peaches and cider doughnuts. The place was packed, alive and a joy.

Lunch was next so we wandered over the Abraham's, grabbed some sandwiches and made our way to the Waterfront Park for a picnic. One might expect the place to be jamming in the middle of a glorious Sunday afternoon but that one would be wrong. The place was empty, a few families here, a napping waitress there, but the park was a quiet contrast to the bustle of the downtown and the Tannery, with the only exception being the boardwalk and walkways that guided people around the green space. In my opinion, this state isn't unusual. I never see crowds enjoying the grass we do have. The park always looks empty to me.

Having just returned to Newburyport a few years ago, I can testify that people "out there" don't think pastoral riverside retreat when they think of Newburyport. Quite the contrary, they think State Street, restaurants, shops and boardwalks. They want vitality. So do I.

In my opinion, people who have lived in this city forever-plus overstate the importance of the park in the ability to draw visitors to town. Most of the visitors to our fair city have parks in their own towns (admittedly without a river), what they don't have is our historic downtown.

As I write this the temperature is sagging into the 40s. I wonder how man people will be using that park this weekend or the weekend after that? How can we commit such a massive parcel of our downtown to be used for a handful of concerts and a three or four months of pleasant weekend afternoons?

To be clear, I'm not talking about building on the entire waterfront. I think we should extend the park on either side, but we should complement the open space with life, vitality and a return of the commerce that made and makes this city great.

This is the vision James Shanley laid out a few weeks after that 2007 meeting when we met at Plum Island Roasters. He never accepted authorship of the idea. (I'm told it was Nick Cracknell, the former planning director, but not sure.) But he sold it.

 You know, reading that a second time I can see how he might have missed the point. My bad.

But I'm not sure how he would have missed it here or here or here or here.

Anyway, say what you will about Bill Plante and me, but at least you can say things about Bill Plante and me. Last time I've checked neither of us has seen the need to adopt a silly alias.