Back to Article Index | Next column



Middletown Press logo
Volume 115, Number 79 - Tuesday, December 29, 1998


The inevitable Middletown wish list
by John Friedlander

I tried to end 1998 without making a list, but I couldn't do it. Here are a number of items I'm sure we'll read more about in the coming year.

  • You already know how I feel about the new traffic lights on Main Street -- all vehicle traffic should stop when pedestrians get the light to cross. But while we're improving conditions for Middletown's pedestrians, I'd like to see local motorists show greater respect for walkers, and everyone else they share the road with. Do us all a favor: next time you start up your car, right after you fasten your own and your kids' seat belts, take a deep breath and relax before pulling out. You'll get where you're going soon enough, there's no need to rush. When a traffic light in front of you turns amber, SLOW DOWN or stop, don't speed up! When another driver is rude to you, shrug your inner shoulders and ignore it, don't respond with added rudeness. Resist the temptation to race from light to light as if driving were a contest. As the stewards on airplanes say, "sit back, relax, and enjoy the trip."

  • I'd like to see an incentive program to encourage Main Street property owners to modify their buildings to allow residential use of upper floors. Forward-thinking investors should create mixed-income housing on or just off Main Street, using building techniques that would address noise and security issues. I'd like to see Middletown's downtown population density increase across all income levels. This would improve business for downtown merchants, without putting great additional pressure on already tight parking.

  • I'd like to see Wesleyan give its students a good hard shove into the real world that so closely surrounds its ivy-covered halls. In the west coast city I recently returned from, it was impossible to walk downtown without constantly rubbing shoulders with the university's paying customers. That Wesleyan's population is so invisible in town is difficult to understand.

    The town/gown division goes too far here. Both Wesleyan's students and Middletown would benefit by all kinds of closer relationships. For instance, Wesleyan's iron-clad meal plan robs students of their right to choose where to eat, and hurts Middletown by funneling students' food dollars solely into the pockets of a corporate caterer based in Philadelphia. Wesleyan students should be given more flexibility to dine at Middletown restaurants, or use the kitchen facilities many of their residences include. Students will benefit from more participation in the life of this healthy city, and the city will benefit from students' increased presence.

  • Over the years, I've somehow avoided looking into or thinking deeply about the various issues related to Middletown, Connecticut Valley Hospital and Long Lane School. But the recent report on the atrocious conditions at Long Lane and the constantly simmering background noise of CVH's relationship with the city make it impossible to keep my head in the sand.

    I'd like us to avoid being too polarized in our thoughts about Long Lane and CVH. Sometimes long memories and understandable fears can cloud our visions of the present. Other times fear based on prejudice makes the picture even murkier. CVH and Long Lane each provide services many of us don't understand or are afraid of, but they also play critical roles in our community. Well over 3,000 jobs and important health services are just two of the many factors.

    The most pressing issue seems to be a moderately strong consensus that Long Lane needs new accommodations to replace its outdated and overcrowded facility. The two locations most often mentioned for the new structure or campus are across the street from the current location, and a new site on CVH property. Predictably, neighbors in both areas think the other location would be best.

    I looked at a map and applied as much reason as many other mostly uninformed observers have -- which is to say, "not much." Picking a likely looking unbuilt plot on CVH grounds and drawing a circle around the spot ending where major population begins (Route 9 was a logical boundary), I then drew the same size circle centered on Long Lane School. Here's what I noticed.

    There isn't much in the CVH-centered circle: a couple of dozen dwellings, one housing development, Riverview Hospital and lots of open space.

    In contrast, the Long Lane centered circle has hundreds of dwellings, numerous apartment buildings, at least one school, most of Wesleyan's campus, businesses great and small, and much less open space.

    I can't fault anyone for feeling that a perceived "problem" neighbor like Long Lane should be sited anywhere other than in their back yard. But from what I heard, when the state asked Middletown where we'd prefer to locate a new Long Lane, we were too split to express a clear preference. This increases the likelihood that we will lose the chance to influence the final selection meaningfully. Forgive me for pointing at naked emperors, but this decision looks like a no-brainer. If Long Lane is destined to stay in Middletown, it should go where there are the fewest neighboring back yards: on CVH grounds.

    I hope we can all think about this issue not only as individual property owners whose interests may conflict, but as community residents whose interests are unavoidably intertwined with Middletown's overall fortunes.

    We're in this town together. We're also about to be in 1999 together. I hope we all have a great year!


    Unpublished note: Interestingly, on the day this column was published, the lead story in the Greater Middletown zoned edition of the Hartford Courant reported that a 29 acre parcel of land almost exactly where I'd centered my CVH-based circle had emerged as the likely first choice for a new Long Lane School location.

    Back to Article Index | Next column

    Though I wrote this column, the Middletown Press owns it now, including the copyright associated with it. The column appears here by permission, and no other publication is allowed without express permission from the publisher.