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Volume 115, Number 199 - Tuesday, May 25, 1999
Happy trails, Middletown
by John Friedlander
This will be my last regularly-published column in this space.
No, I haven't been forced to fall on my sword after my last column's strong words about the Governor's Patriots boondoggle. The fact is I no longer have time to do the work needed to write responsibly and still do my regular job as well.
Before I sign off, I have a few parting thoughts.
This is the twenty-ninth column I've written in this space, from the point of view of a long-time Middletown resident returned from a year in a similar town on the west coast, seeing Middletown from an informed newcomer's perspective. Over the last several months, I've had the opportunity to explore Middletown more objectively than I had in the past. I've also spent considerable time comparing and contrasting Middletown with and against Hartford, New Haven and other cities nationwide. I've come away with a newfound respect and appreciation for Middletown, its residents and its leadership.
However, at times I've wondered if we know how lucky we are to live in Middletown. Sometimes it seems as if we aren't aware of the blessings we are fortunate enough to enjoy, nor the threats to those gifts that may be lurking just out of sight.
For instance, I see the challenges Hartford faces with the barrier Route 91 forms between the city and the Connecticut River. It has taken the non-profit Riverfront Recapture Incorporated over 20 years and tens of millions of dollars to stitch together a narrow green ribbon of parks between road and river, and to build a bridge to reconnect the city with a critical element of its heritage. Hartford's downtown almost completely ignores the presence of a river recently pronounced one of the Nation's finest.
In contrast, Middletown enjoys relatively easy access to the River. Though the tunnel under Route 9 that provides a pedestrian path between the lawn of the old municipal building and Harbor Park may be dank and unpleasant, it is not the only route to Harbor Park. In addition, the City's recent acquisition of the Peterson Oil Company's former loading and storage property opens up the possibility for a public boat launch, as well as other riverfront development. It is hard to find a place in downtown Middletown where you can't at least sense the presence of a great river nearby, even if you can't see the water itself. Middletown would be foolish to allow anything to negatively affect the relationship between the river and the city.
Looking southward, New Haven is now up in arms over the proposed construction of a nearly $500 million mall on a grungy plot of land between Routes 95, 34 and rail lines. Proponents say mall construction will bring jobs, opponents say it will kill the nearby downtown retail district. The owner of nearby competing malls has gone so far as to offer New Haven $50 million in funding for downtown improvements in exchange for cancellation of the project.
Meanwhile, in Middletown we enjoy a thriving Main Street, where restaurants compete for space in a spanking new Police Station, and a nearly completed twelve-screen movie theater promises to breathe fresh life into local entertainment options. Cookie-cutter big box retailers are kept at a distance, and no one seems to be under the delusion that a new mall in town would be a good thing. Middletown gets points for recognizing and working to preserve the value of its Main Street.
Still, there are reasons to avoid complacency, and to keep a sharp eye out for changes that could spell trouble.
I'm very concerned that the issue most likely to pose the greatest threat to our quality of daily life will turn out to be one we seem to take for granted: how we get around. The road to the destruction of far too many towns and cities has been paved with, well, asphalt. An unquestioned over-reliance on automobile transport results in intimate downtowns being overwhelmed with traffic, and suburban areas turning into unending crudscapes of parking lots and strip malls.
In Middletown, there are already State-led plans to turn Washington Street into what will essentially be a four-lane highway stretching from Main Street to Route 84 in Cheshire. And Connecticut's Department of Transportation is revving up to rework Route 9 to accommodate more traffic. These are not changes that should be permitted without very careful and well-informed examination of the heavy and long-lasting effects more traffic will have on our community. Defining the future character of Middletown will be a matter of determining the values we hold as a city, making decisions and commitments to support those values, and ensuring that our leadership is fully empowered to act in accordance with our wishes.
We should learn from Hartford's riverfront redemption. An expanded Route 9 must not be allowed to create an obstructive barrier between our bustling central business district and the river that increases the value of our downtown real estate.
We should learn from Meriden how to avoid becoming a city that functions primarily as a highway exit into a mall parking lot. We should learn how not to become a grimy, faceless traffic funnel from any of thousands of mid-sized American towns robbed of their character by the inevitable agglomeration of rubber-stamp franchise operations that follow hot on the tar-covered heels of road-widenings and interchange invasions.
As Middletown grows, we should steer away from the kind of risks New Haven is now taking with its downtown retail district. We should carefully review the lessons learned in Hartford from the construction of Constitution Plaza and the Civic Center. We should avoid glittering "quick-fix" projects like malls, stadiums and vast concrete plazas. The benefits of immediate construction jobs are always outweighed by the long-term negative effects of the destruction of distinctive neighborhoods, the high maintenance costs of low-return real estate, and the dehumanizing presence of gargantuan structures in once-intimate streetscapes.
These are just a few of the important long-term challenges I see in Middletown's near-term future. Certainly there are others. I have confidence that Middletown and its leadership will face these issues more wisely and calmly than many other communities nearby. I see great promise for Middletown in the new millenium, and I look forward to a prosperous new era for a city that may be middle, but is in no way mediocre.
Happy Trails, Middletown!
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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.