The four point Main Street program is terrific. I just love what happens when it is followed in economically vibrant areas like Chicago. If put in place and all existing businesses were on board it could bring real sustainability and rejuvenation to the business district and it's current business owners. Unfortunately at this point I only see slight movement in that direction. I am afraid that Eighteenth Street and Blue Island still lack the direction and organization needed for an economic recovery and have mitigating circumstances that impact them negatively despite all of the positive and well run businesses amongst the unkempt and vacant and there is loads of vacant and ill maintained amongst them. The vision proposed and often spoken of in print as a "thriving Mexican district" is too narrow and focuses on one specific cultural moment in Pilsen at the expense of commerce, the historic cultural stew that lived and worked here, and the reality of the marketplace. At the end of day the cash register is what fuels job creation and sustainability for everyone. The two proposed bookends are fantastic though again the naming is focused too narrowly. The "big" opportunity is ofcourse reweaving the very blue Blue Island island of fast food and currency exchanges back into the center by taking a bulldozer to all of it and rebuilding the shopfronts on Loomis and Blue Island with several stories of apartments above. That is where to be full tilt cultural modernist avant-garde Mexican expressionism, not false "historic". Another key to impact and an essential element is the restoration and reopening of the Cultural auditoriums, Thalia, CSPS, and Plzensky while recognizing what they were. My vision for a successful tourist driven economic district in Pilsen would encompass all the former immigrant populations that resided here as well as the current and even adding those to come as we go forward in the signage to encourage more cultural tourism from the descendants of them and to welcome those from the new areas of immigration as the globe goes round. In fifty years Pilsen could be an area of Iraqi settlement, nothing in vibrant cities stays the same. The national symbol of Mexico on the lightposts is one example that could be expanded to include others who lived and worked here. Other symbols could be incorporated. I always wondered why the accordion wasn't the symbol of Pilsen as to me the squeezebox and Polka describes all of us from the Czech beginnings to the Mexican present day.
For that matter what planning does it show to put up permanent adjustable banner holders and then when installing new "planning committee" banners not use them but instead install redundant ones? My coffee went spraying out of my mouth the day I encountered them being installed at sunrise.
I'm going on too long, one of these days I am going to give you a call, we should talk.
1 comment:
The four point Main Street program is terrific. I just love what happens when it is followed in economically vibrant areas like Chicago. If put in place and all existing businesses were on board it could bring real sustainability and rejuvenation to the business district and it's current business owners. Unfortunately at this point I only see slight movement in that direction. I am afraid that Eighteenth Street and Blue Island still lack the direction and organization needed for an economic recovery and have mitigating circumstances that impact them negatively despite all of the positive and well run businesses amongst the unkempt and vacant and there is loads of vacant and ill maintained amongst them.
The vision proposed and often spoken of in print as a "thriving Mexican district" is too narrow and focuses on one specific cultural moment in Pilsen at the expense of commerce, the historic cultural stew that lived and worked here, and the reality of the marketplace. At the end of day the cash register is what fuels job creation and sustainability for everyone. The two proposed bookends are fantastic though again the naming is focused too narrowly. The "big" opportunity is ofcourse reweaving the very blue Blue Island island of fast food and currency exchanges back into the center by taking a bulldozer to all of it and rebuilding the shopfronts on Loomis and Blue Island with several stories of apartments above. That is where to be full tilt cultural modernist avant-garde Mexican expressionism, not false "historic". Another key to impact and an essential element is the restoration and reopening of the Cultural auditoriums, Thalia, CSPS, and Plzensky while recognizing what they were.
My vision for a successful tourist driven economic district in Pilsen would encompass all the former immigrant populations that resided here as well as the current and even adding those to come as we go forward in the signage to encourage more cultural tourism from the descendants of them and to welcome those from the new areas of immigration as the globe goes round. In fifty years Pilsen could be an area of Iraqi settlement, nothing in vibrant cities stays the same. The national symbol of Mexico on the lightposts is one example that could be expanded to include others who lived and worked here. Other symbols could be incorporated. I always wondered why the accordion wasn't the symbol of Pilsen as to me the squeezebox and Polka describes all of us from the Czech beginnings to the Mexican present day.
For that matter what planning does it show to put up permanent adjustable banner holders and then when installing new "planning committee" banners not use them but instead install redundant ones? My coffee went spraying out of my mouth the day I encountered them being installed at sunrise.
I'm going on too long, one of these days I am going to give you a call, we should talk.
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