A team from Public Broadcasting System was in town most of last week doing a segment on Main Street for PBS’s NewsHour. The piece is not on Main Street in the literal sense, but Main Street as a euphemism for small-town America.
John Larson, producer of the series, said presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both threw the term “main street” around a lot in the 2012 campaign. He’s exploring the idea, doing stories on downtowns, taking the pulse of smalltown America.
As was the case with NPR’s Marketplace a few months ago, this team is interested in the elephant in the room, otherwise known as the Joe Higgins Effect. But this crew sought to know more. Questions difficult to answer. Like what’s with the school system, or race relations, or the town’s future? Are you optimistic or pessimistic?
“Optimistic,” I answered without hesitation. The others are not so readily answered.
What’s with the schools, everyone asks. What’s to be done about them? Like everything else, it comes down to leadership, e.g. the aforementioned “Joe Higgins Effect.”
As a local humorist who occupies a desk not far from mine put it, the best thing that could happen for the schools would be integration. That is to say the disaffected families who have left the school system would return. A unified school system is a unified community.
The City Council will soon be making two school board appointments, Currie Fisher’s term is drawing to a close and the seat vacated by the resignation of the newly named Parks and Rec Director, Greg Lewis, must be filled. It’s difficult to overemphasize the importance of these two appointments.
The job is complex and demanding. If you (or someone you know) are up to the challenge, please consider stepping into the arena.
But back to Main Street. Downtown is more than merely the geographic heart of this community. Our downtown is the setting of much of our history and, like our fingerprint, it is what is distinct about us. As fortune would have it, ours is lovely, and we have a mayor who recognizes the importance of keeping it so.
As a kid growing up here in the 50s and early 60s, I got my hair cut on Saturdays at Ferguson’s Barber Shop across the street from The Dispatch. On those Saturdays, downtown Columbus seemed like the center of the universe. The streets were teeming with people and local retailers and tradesmen did a lively business. This was well before the malls and shopping centers.
Time passed and the commercial focus moved east to Gateway Shopping Center (Woolco) and north to Highway 45 and Leigh Mall. Though still lively, the fortunes of downtown waned. There were two groceries (Pennington’s ABC Grocery where Beard’s Antiquities is now and Big Star in the building across the street from Fred’s); Catfish Alley was a lively terminus for commuting factory workers coming to town from the Prairie and Steve’s Cafe, the last cafe standing (r.i.p. the Straight Eight, Bell Cafe, Gilmer Coffee Shop and Ed’s Grill), offered its own community. All those are gone now.
What was the Casanova Disco on Catfish Alley is now part of Old 82, an up-and-coming Cajun-flavored lunch place. Soon a Thai restaurant will occupy what was once the most staid of banks, a couple doors down from my childhood tonsorial emporium. The Rosenzweig Arts Center, an under-appreciated community asset, occupies what was also a childhood haunt, McClellan Five and Dime. What was Steve’s is now a popular watering hole. Most evenings parking spaces on Market Street between Main and the Princess are scarce. Same for vacancies in the almost 200 apartments housed above historic storefronts.
If you’ve not been downtown in a while, let me suggest a field trip. One of ever-pleasant baristas at the Coffee House on Fifth would be delighted to make you a warm drink to help you acclimate. Once fortified, take in the latest exhibit at the Rosenzweig, visit downtown shops or explore the river front. And if your outing happens to be on a Thursday afternoon, stop by The Dispatch for a newspaper and a bag of popcorn. We’d love to see you.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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