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Volume 114, Number 355 - Tuesday, November 17, 1998
Middletown on the way, or destination?
by John Friedlander
What do you do when you don't get invited to the ball? Throw your own party, of course.
What if you don't know how to answer a question? Change the question, as any public relations pro will tell you.
What do you do when you're a city that's "on the way?" As in, "on the way to the beach from Hartford," or "on the way to Meriden Mall from Portland," or "on the way to nowhere without a life of its own?"
If you don't want to pay the heavy price of being an economic backwater, you become a destination -- a place people go through other towns to get to.
I had an interesting conversation with a city official the other day --it's not important who. He's a nice guy, doing a good job, and it was a casual comment that caught my ear -- the kind of comment that sneaks up later to reveal an underlying reality that needs to change.
I asked him if studies had been done to measure the need for a certain type of business. He said yes, many times, and they revealed no more demand than was already being met, because "no one comes here. They might pass through Middletown to get to the beach, but we're off the Route 91 corridor, and there's no reason to visit here -- there's no big draw."
Obviously, he meant no BIG draw: no major theme parks, first-tier museums, sporting venues, etc. Sure, there's Wesleyan, and the county courthouse and some major corporations, but this is not the let's-go-to-Middletown-to-have-some-fun attractions we were speaking of.
When cities sell themselves, they use themes. The Silver City. The Brass City. Nashville is Music City. Putnam has antiques. But when fortunes, fates or trends conspire to make themes irrelevant, cities sag. When market conditions changed, Meriden's silver and Waterbury's brass industries tarnished as economic engines, and both cities' sparkle dimmed.
I nominate arts and entertainment to be Middletown's new theme. Middletown would become a destination -- a place to enrich your life and have fun in.
But if we declare a theme, we have to actually do something with it. We have to weave arts, crafts and entertainment into the very essence of our every-day-of-the-year lives.
Let's install local artists' work in more public places. Restaurants, municipal buildings, banks, gas stations, convenience stores, hair salons, professional offices -- all should display homegrown art instead of mass-produced imitation art, solely commercial messages or (gasp) blank walls. Perhaps Wesleyan Potters could help make this happen?
We need a serious public art space that isn't Wesleyan-owned. I'm all for more Middletown/Wesleyan interaction, but Middletown needs an art space right on Main Street. The Armory is available, and I'm not the only one who thinks it ought to be a concert hall/gallery/community center with programming most nights of the week. Oddfellows Playhouse is wonderful for theater, but there isn't an adequate public multi-purpose venue in town.
We need to resist budget pressures that further reduce or eliminate arts and music instruction in our schools. Tomorrow's art will come from today's children. A generation raised without training in art and music will be a generation that doesn't know how to see, listen, feel or think.
If Middletown becomes an arts and entertainment center, we'll have to turn our televisions off and go out to the art, instead of waiting for it to be delivered like data through a wire or pizza in a box. Art is, after all, something to participate in, not just consume. We'll have to get to the gallery when the photos are on exhibition, or be at the coffeehouse when the poetry is being read, or be in the hall when the musicians play.
To avoid the costs of being an "on the way" city, we'll have to invest in educating our children, building public art spaces, and supporting artists by buying their works. Yes, making Middletown an arts, crafts and entertainment center will cost us some money.
Becoming a destination won't be free. But we'll all enjoy living in a town that isn't "on the way," but has "arrived."
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