Someone is going to get hurt.

A View from The Dim Side*

Perhaps the most beautiful byproduct of honest exchanges like the one between the Masked Preservationist and this blog is understanding just how far the Dim Siders need to reach to justify their all-or-nothing view.

MP stacked a few of his thicker history books atop his pulpit and delivered a passionate defense of the public parks - scratch that, LARGE, CENTRAL public parks. His students will learn that such LARGE, CENTRAL parks are as American as Fast Food and Strip Malls, and anyone who doesn't subscribe to the Dim Side view hates America and the working man.

His touchstones in history? New York, Chicago, Boston. I don't see it. Comparing those communities to Newburyport would have held more water during the revolutionary war when our city was large enough to qualify for a major league baseball franchise. But that's not the case any longer.

How does our lovely burg compare at all to 19th Century New York or Chicago? We're not a collection of tenement housing yearning for a blade of grass under our feet. We have Cashman, the Mall, MAUDSLAY for crying out loud. And yes, we can have more park downtown. I just don't subscribe to the absolutist notion held by MP and other Dim Siders.

The unknowing minion of the Grass Seed Cabal and John Deere Inc. gets a little more real with a comparison to Prescott ($187,000 annual budget) Park in Portsmouth. He even attempts to bring things home with an observation that Newburyport's festival often migrate down to Market Landing Park after they'd enjoyed themselves downtown. 

He suggests they're drawn by the flowers and grass. Maybe. But isn't it just as likely those folks are walking to the river or even more likely their parked CARS?

* Note: I obviously don't believe open waterfront folks are dim at all. I'm just amused by the symmetrical name calling. Juvenile, I know.

Attention Dark Siders

Our Imperious Leader Darth Tony Green will be appearing before the Imperial Senate (let's just call it the NRA) tonight at 7 pm in the City Council's chambers. He no doubt will monologue long enough to reveal our secret plans.

Note: this is a Black Cowl and Cape affair and please turn your breathing apparatus on low as the chambers can be a tad echoey.

That is all.

Lost Dog

North End residents if you see a brown spaniel roaming the streets his name might be Gus. He was hit by a car this morning on High Street but still managed to run off down Tyng. Call 978-394-1066 if you see him.

Positive Blog News

Arts Man JC Lockwood pens a great piece about  the return of Hal Fickett, son of blogger extraordinaire Mary Baker, to Newburyport. JC - who sat behind me in the newsroom of the Haverhill Gazzette - can always been found on our blog roll below.

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.

or here.

or......here!

Go Bill Plante

Well said.

For those who don't know, Bill led the Daily News during urban renewal of the 60s and 70s. He's a man who has seen - and helped birth - it all.

Karpville

Okay, now let me just make this perfectly clear. Steve Karp's ownership will NOT change the tenor or tone of Newburyport in anyway.. He's just, um...trying to....oh...what....the...


Chamboard Chic Girls Night Out Newburyport from James F. Clark on Vimeo.


...gulp.

Okay, so this is ... fun. A friend pointed out to me - and I confirmed by watching myself - that the only three local institutions to obtain a plug where Michael's, 10 Center St., and the Phoenix Room, all three properties belonging to Mr. Karp's Newburyport Development.

I'm not really sure what the connection is between Dirty Water, NESN and Karp. But Dirty Water did a similar piece on NED's Cambridgeside Galleria last year.

Perhaps Red Sox/NESN ownership is making amends for beating Karp and Joe O'Donnell out for ownership of the Sox in 2002.

Which sort of takes me back to "It's a Wonderful Life." How would life be different around these parts if Karp had bought the Sox? Would he still have had an interest in owning half of the city?

Fadder's Day

I enjoyed a fine Father's Day morning at Market Landing Park complete with sunshine, warm breezes and a bagel and lox sandwich from Abraham's.

(The perfect stuffing to my Fried Clams from Bob Lobster on Father's Day Eve and my anchovy pizza from Nick's on Father's Day night. Unfortunately, we had to import the Italian rum cake from D'Orsi's in Peobody.)

Anyway, two observations from the morning - other than how lucky can one man be.

1. We parked in the Western NRA lot using our new $5 resident sticker. That is money well spent. But then I watched visitors amble up to the parking meters without complaint, paying for the parking space, and I still see it as a positive. I get no joy out of drawing $3 or $4 from anyone, but it just seems fair to me that they pay to park in our downtown.

2. I've said this before and I'll say it again. On most weekend days, the waterfront park we have is more than sufficient. It was high noon, on a beautiful soon-to-be summer's day and there weren't more than a dozen families down there. I just think converting all of the NRA lots to parkland (with some parking) would create an open, unused field. Therefore, I support the NRA in its pursuit.

We don't need a place to shag fly balls along the water. We need a vital, economic engine.

We also need a decent Italian bakery.

Godspeed Ed Cameron

Good luck in the At-Large Bid.

Job Well Done

We don't ever talk about sports here, but NHS's baseball team's win of the state championship certainly transcends the game. Congrats to the players, their families and, of course, retiring coach Bill Pettingell.



A nice slideshow by the Daily News honoring both Pettingell and the late great Clarence Clemons.

Happy Fathers Day

Knowing Your Place

I gave up on the Globe about a decade ago. I was living in Sutton, the place I lived before I found my true home here, and the Globe didn't offer much coverage of life in Central Massachusetts. The unread papers piled up in the recycling bin so finally I decided to cancel my subscription: a big deal for a guy who's read newspapers since he was six.


I offer that history as a partial explanation of why I missed this short write-up on Yankee Homecoming that appeared in the Globe Magazine last week. Well, I might have missed it anyway if it hadn't generated a few letters of complaint published this morning.


No doubt, the tone of the piece was a bit patronizing. I winced when I read some of the observed short-comings. ("Sushi and yoga options were limited."....ouch) Plus, she referred to herself and her husband as "city slickers." This probably wasn't the intent, but my reading of the comment left me thinking that Newburyporters are the opposite - yokels or small-town rubes.


I'm glad a few folks were driven to stand up for Newburyport. This place is special, and that should be stated. The irony is the author didn't say anything all that bad about Yankee Homecoming or Newburyport. In fact, I've heard far worse from locals and long-time residents.


But this is all about the messenger, not the message. 


I realize the very purpose of this blog is for me, a newcomer, to spout off about what should and shouldn't be done in the place I call home. I obviously don't subscribe to one letter-writer's suggestion that newcomers aren't well tolerated "unless we find ways to listen more than we talk." If I just listened, I wouldn't blog. But I see this blog as an opportunity to engage in dialogue with people I might not otherwise meet. I actually enjoy reading comments from readers more than I like writing these posts, particularly when a proclaimed local calls me out when I'm wrong.


I try to respect the believe that newcomers should be heard less and should listen more. But I also hold that an outsider's perspective is healthy if it's combined with a large dose of humility. 


Perhaps that's where the piece in the Globe fell a bit short. The author almost seemed to appreciate Newburyport most when it was more like Boston (although it's a bit unclear whether she was talking about Yankee Homecoming or the Riverfront Music Festival.). 

"And we battled the crowds and the lines for the right to eat fried junk food. The place felt energized, almost metropolitan, but without the ubiquitous taxis or $18 glasses of wine." 

Finally, it's worth noting that she does conclude the piece with kind words about the city, concluding that she's finally discovered something she never found in New York and Boston - neighbors.I'll agree with the author's final point. I've never lived in a place where it's so easy to meet people and to make friends.

Let's Get Some Details

The Newburyport Redevelopment Authority could make amends for holding private meetings with representatives from Billionaire Mall Magnet Steve Karp's (BMM from here on in) by convincing them to appear at its June 29 meeting, as The Daily News suggests.

But this shouldn't really be a request.  The NRA needs to say, "Talk about your plans on June 29 meeting or we will." The NRA members clearly saw something. Chairman James Shanley suggested in the Daily News that he saw some sort of model, so I'm guessing each NRA member saw the same in their individual meetings.

Shanley said he never saw the hotel plans that were submitted for that location many years ago, but he was shown a schematic of the latest hotel and a site plan.
"It's really about the same size I think," Shanley said. "I never saw the original plan so I have nothing to compare it to."

So if the BMM can't send Tony Green or another designate, the NRA can simply tell us what they saw, what they said, and what was said to them.*

Finally, if Tony Green is gracious enough to attend the meeting. The NRA clearly needs to meet someplace other than a conference room at the Police Station. The crowd for such a discussion will be huge,and one could argue that trying to hold such a meeting in a small space will also violate the open meeting law as many citizens will be denied access by the sheer number of people the room.

[Update: The NRA meeting will be held in the Council Chamber at 7 pm on June 29.]

*Note: I haven't attended any NRA meetings so perhaps this was done. But since the Daily News made no mention of such a discussion I'll assume it didn't happen. Please let me know if I'm missing something.

More Media

Newburyport Native in the news.

(Not enough) Cabbage (from) Patch?

Yeowch, I pulled a muscle forcing that headline.

I hear positive things about Patch, the online, town-specific local news site that's popped up over the North Shore and elsewhere. I'm still not convinced online ventures like that can make real money, at least not easily.

Business sites like CNET certainly get the job done and a good local site might command a loyal enough readership to make it happen.

Given our intense interest in local affairs, I've wondered why we haven't had one in Port yet. Seem like a perfect fit. Perhaps the valiant efforts of bloggers like myself, the Masked Preservationist and the entrepreneurial endeavors of News Maven Kim Gobbi's Newburyport Today is keeping the AOL Barbarians outside the gate. Or the Daily News is too imposing.

Or we're just too small a market.

Anyway, someone sent me this Business Insider piece. Leaves me wondering if we'll ever see a Patch here or anywhere.

The source is a disgruntled employee, so put as much value in it as you like.

Interesting Ad for a Restaurant

Check it out.

Muggsy Barnicle, a columnist on Newburyport Today, writes a bit about this in the most recent column with some interesting speculation.

Go here to read it.

Apparently the previous column had more info but I couldn't find it on the site.

Karp on the Move

The official Newburyport Posts Karp Index is climbing. I'm seeing a lot more activity from our NED Overlords.

The most recent:

WEST PALM BEACH — Could the shabby Palm Beach Mall soon be transformed into a glamorous center for high-fashion outlet stores?
Last month, the partnership that plans to buy the entire site in September unveiled its plan to redo the mall on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard near Interstate 95.
The vision: The Palm Beach Fashion Outlets, 1 million square feet filled with regular, big-box and high-end outlet stores. An opening is slated for 2013.
In an interview Wednesday, billionaire mall magnate Stephen Karp, one of the developers behind the makeover, said he believes shoppers would welcome outlet stores.

Billionaire Mall Magnet.....I like that.

Is Bigger Better

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about the growing push too consolidate smaller municipalities, which is something we've discussed here a few times.

Best tidbit.

Researchers, however, have raised questions about whether such consolidation actually delivers significant savings. Typically, they say, only a few administrative positions overlap between jurisdictions, and further savings can't be realized without compromising service. Public-safety agencies, for example, need a certain staff level to ensure the response times that residents demand.
A 2004 study by Indiana University's Center for Urban Policy and the Environment found that costs creep back in, partly because bigger pools of employees can negotiate for better wages, offsetting the savings of job cuts. Academic studies of Jacksonville, Fla.'s combination with Duval County, and Miami's merger with Dade County found that costs actually rose post-merger as new bureaucracies emerged.
In a study of Wheeling, W.Va.'s proposed merger with surrounding Ohio County, Mr. Rusk, the ex-mayor of Albuquerque, estimated that the potential cost savings would be barely 2% of the combined budget, because the overlap of services wouldn't be as extensive as expected.

I sort of agree with the findings. I think we might see some savings in consolidating say The Newburys, but would they be substantial enough to consider?

 

NED Pays Up

New England Development pays over $4 million in property taxes to Cambridge.

I just thought that was interesting.

Coming where??

This sign is hanging in a restaurant window downtown. Name the location.