Waiting For Good Dough

Years passed in our little town aside the Ohio River. Years of decline layered upon years of decline. Even a few years of false starts passed in the same town, before they were layered over by more decline. During one of the false starts I remember watching an evening of mud wrestling--at the Grand. One of the young girls who maneuvered in the pit that night had to take her bows quickly, because she had to,"get showered, and shampooed, and get to work at The Dodge House", as the owner of the Grand, the emcee of the evening explained.

Apparently those days have dropped off the calendar for good, unless we are now in some extended false start, which will end one day only to find us, once again, roaming a deserted downtown looking for dubious forms of entertainment, with no hope of a decent meal or a good brew.

During those days in New Albany, roughly coinciding with most of the latter third of the Twentieth Century, commercial activity in the downtown area was mostly a memory. The action was in the malls. "Buy local" was an admonition that would have been hard to actualize. One who hoped for a day when New Albany would be home to numerous, good, downtown restaurants would likely have been accused of living in the past. If one had spoken of a day when beer and wine of local origin would be served in good restaurants downtown, one would have likely been called delusional.

And yet, here we are today. Go to downtown New Albany today and find independent restaurants serving good food, good beer and good wine. That the wine and beer is locally produced is icing on the cake. These restaurants are a sign that New Albany has crossed a line between what was and what can be; a line separating decline and abandonment from reclamation and renewal.

But as much progress as New Albany has made, and I hope continues to make, one glaring absence in the culinary scene is seen. Where's the good bread?

New Albany has graduated to a level of appreciation for good, independent restaurants. Our citizens' palates have been cultivated to appreciate craft beer and local vintners. I believe we have reached a point where locally baked, artisanal bread can be introduced into this city.

As we sat down to supper last night, my wife and I both remarked on how good the Pug rolls from the Blue Dog Bakery were. Bread is, after all, one of the oldest staples of the human diet. It is also, in the hands of an accomplished baker, one of the simplest delights.

As the wall of anti-commerce, in the form of tolls and construction delays, between New Albany and Louisville moves closer toward disruption of our regional market, I believe a golden opportunity awaits some talented entrepreneur to open a good bread bakery here. If the owners of the Blue Dog could be enticed to locate here, that would be wonderful, but I sense their hands are full.

The people of our city have responded enthusiastically when good quality food and drink is offered. We have broken the pattern of always choosing the lowest common denominator in dining. This would have been unheard of only a few years ago. Is it too much to think New Albany might now have arrived at a point where the staff of life might earn a higher, artisanal and local expression? I hope the wait will soon be over.             

Open it Off-Broadway?

The Complete Streets workshop today in Jeffersonville was a good introduction to the basic concepts of this tenet of modern urban planning and design. About 40 people were on hand for the workshop, which had an intended focus on Jeffersonville, although the basic ideas are applicable to most cities, and certainly New Albany.

Because the adage is correct that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, I came away with the idea that New Albany's fist step toward complete streets should naturally be to introduce these design elements into the downtown street grid. Upon reflection, however, I think we may actually have a better chance of success by first working on THE street of Uptown-- Vincennes Street. This street cries out for help. Some of the merchants on Vincennes have literally cried out for help as they try to make a go of it on that once-close runner-up to Downtown's bustle. With Downtown's persistent signs of rejuvenation, it's a good time to roll out some assistance to Uptown.

Downtown has benefitted measurably from the Riverfront Development District, which equates to the cheap liquor license zone. A similar helping hand has not been extended to Uptown, unless one counts the elimination of commercial structures across from the high school in favor of parking spaces for students, a heaping helping of auto-centric hamburger joints, a no man's land on the approach to the moribund K & I bridge, and more than enough vacant storefronts, as a formula for prosperity.

The work required uptown to bring about Complete Streets could pay off relatively quickly  because a smaller area is being tackled. Businesses there could use a shot in the arm as little attention has been paid to the area since Downtown has perked up. New Albany could support two commercial districts in the inner city just as it supports numerous commercial areas heading out of town. And a successful rollout of Complete Streets in Uptown could act as a good demonstration project before the Downtown is targeted.

While focusing on Uptown may be the first step toward Complete Streets, an even more preliminary step, perhaps the analogous step of putting on one's shoes, would be a commitment or an ordinance directing all new development to follow the precepts laid out in a Complete Streets model. Years ago, when I fist served on the Plan Commission, I questioned why we always dictated that a developer build a sidewalk unconnected to any other sidewalk. Since that time some of those "sidewalks to nowhere" have been matched up with other sections of sidewalk to make functional walk ways. Likewise, the incremental bits of Complete Streets can be incorporated into the design of  new developments through the Planning Process, and one day those pieces will join to make a walkable, workable city for all forms of mobility. But to get there we need a plan and a commitment.

Once we've made that commitment, we should get the people from Uptown involved in planning, and work to make Vincennes our first Complete Street. We can build from there. And in the meantime, we can add elements of Complete Streets throughout the city during reconstruction and repair. 

It's a Line... Get Over It

Using all powers of temporal divination, try to peer keenly into the distant past. Conjure a time when things unimagined were so unlikely as to form a line between what is, and what could never be. A time when the sane could visualize a future on one side of this bright line, and only those possessed of a weaker hold on reality could see things on the other side of that line. Yes, think back, imagine those long ago days, try to remember the year Two Thousand and Twelve.

 In those distant days, had one said that New Albany would commit one million dollars to park and recreational expenditures, one would have approached the line of non compos mentis. But, had one suggested that we would commit NINETEEN times that amount, it would be necessary to envision a type of cranial artillery capable of launching one's sanity to distances previously fathomed only in such places as NASA or the Goddard Space Institute.

Yet here we are, today, well into uncharted, unimagined territory. The line has blurred, or disappeared, or maybe it was only in our heads. So now I don’t have to question my sanity as closely as I might in those bygone days.

Last Monday, on July 29, 2013, did I actually board a small airplane and fly to a small city in Wisconsin? Did I actually meet there a kindly silver-haired Pied Piper of sorts, a man who talked with great enthusiasm about streetcars? Did I truly walk through a brand new state-of-the-art car barn, redolent of the relic which used to sit at the corner of Vincennes and Chartres Streets in New Albany? Did I actually ride one of these fantasy machines which I thought only existed in places like San Francisco and countless European cities? Did I stand in the mayor of Kenosha's office discussing the laying of track and power lines to run those trolleys?  While standing there in that office, did I, in fact, see one of the streetcars, yellow, as I recall, roll along the track on the Great Lake shore?

It all seems so real. But then, he of the silver hair talked about putting such streetcars  onto tracks in New Albany. He talked of sharing under-used railroad track. He said, or at least my non comp brain thinks he said, the trolleys can now run on battery power thus obviating the need and cost of overhead lines. He talked of tying IUS to downtown New Albany by way of the old Monon tracks, still there but under new ownership and little used.

This was all my vitiated brain needed. Why not bring the streetcars to New Albany? Why not get the Horseshoe Casino, which surely wants to minimize traffic carnage to its patrons, to share in the cost of laying track to their business site just over the county line? Why not incorporate the streetcars into the Main Street Project now under consideration? Why not tie that line into a line in Clarksville which would serve the Green Tree Mall and shopping on Highway 131? The River Ridge development promises thousands of jobs in the future, many are low pay distribution-center-type jobs, why not link to a line that would save the people who work there thousands of dollars they can ill-afford on cars, and provide the streetcar service for them? Why not build a workable transportation system using the appealing device of trolley cars, that can make New Albany a center of innovation and sustainability? Why not recognize that sustainability as a key to making New Albany a relevant place to live and work in the Twenty First Century? Why not take a step which the former mayor-for-life, Jerry Abramson, found too bold for the Possibility City when he pooh-poohed light rail as a pipe dream? Why not try boldness and cooperation among the cities and towns along the northern edge of the Ohio River by tying New Albany, Clarksville, Jeffersonville, and now with River Ridge, Charlestown, into a strong, viable, innovative and sustainable counterweight to the long regional dominance of Louisville?

It's a shame that those in authority chose to follow a well-worn path on the bridges project, rather than allocating a fraction of the multi-billions of dollars dedicated to an auto-centric transportation fix which encourages exurban sprawl and, instead, take just a few of the eggs from that outmoded basket  to revive our cities with a new/old form of transportation which, by its nature, encourages revitalization of our urban areas.    

We have committed to spend a huge amount of public money on a few recreational projects. While those projects may have value for the community, a truly bold step toward a model transportation system could put New Albany on a path that would change the lives of its citizens for the better, now and in the future.

We found the money for the recreational projects. We can find the money for true innovation and sustainability. All it takes is a step over the line.