If I had a building

Here's a distant shot of the historic freight depot that many think is about to be torn down this weekend. "Historic" is a relative term, I guess. I mean, I don't know if any famous freight ever passed through here or if Kerouac ever rode by it with Neal Cassady in a boxcar, but the fact is that, compared to a lot of what we have left in this town, this is our history. It's near a downtown that keeps threatening to become a destination, is right across from two of our most beautiful urban parks, and is about 100 yards from our ever-expanding greenway and a skate park that is so cool I can't stand the fact that I never got into skating and only donned the haircuts for a few years.

It may go down, though, because the current owner doesn't, publicly, at least, appear interested in entering a dialogue about possible uses. But if it goes down, I hope it's not without some noise. If this is the kind of thing you care about, join the Facebook group or go to the web site and sign the petition. It's a pretty non-confrontational, responsible group of people running the group--friends of mine, radicals only in the sense that they see value conservation.

I see an old building like this and can only think of the businesses I would run there. I mean, look at its length. What would you do there? It looks to me like nice place for a family restaurant and brewery. Maybe some cool apartments or studios running along the back there. Great land for some kind of community gardening (um, unless it's a brownfield). Maybe an indoor skate park so that in the winter the skaters I teach don't have to be so glum all the time.

Anyway, do consider contributing to the noise that just might make a difference here. It would be a real waste of potential to turn this old place into one more corner of rubble. We have enough of those.