This past weekend I spent time at a college reunion gathering in Minneapolis Mn. Just as I was getting ready to go to the one last October, I, and all the tenants in my building at Elm and County, became the victims of gentrification but did not remain silent. There were blogs, meetings, mea culpas, and indications that there might be something done to mitigate renters being the playthings of landlords as they are housed and unhoused as a guarantee that the property speculation pays off not by wise investing but bilking tenants. There is even some state-wide attention.

This year at the reunion with people I went to school with a half century ago and some who came for the first time and have not been seen in those years, I was able to give an optimistic account of the events and follow ups. My sheriff friends from other states, including Florida, were glad we had changed sheriffs as the last one was one that gives sheriffs everywhere a bad name, unless you are one of the bad ones already, and everyone in my building was rehoused eventually and others might not have to face this demeaning treatment in the future.

However, when it came to the place for next year’s gathering, based on my blogs and facebook posts, and as many of these men have a love for history, New Bedford was mentioned, and I had to demure.

I had to explain the present uncertainty with a series of failed plans to save the city that are more about how the city could be saved for the benefit of speculators and investors and not the people already here. I had to add the Star Store debacle that has left downtown in doubt and with it the life of the city as downtown becomes, once again, dead.

There is a local web site that I used to go to for information about upcoming events but has seemed to have devolved into a space for people to point out city failures, like its failure to trim the grass on the edge of a highway while there is major city crumbling going on which, because it is not as visible as tall grass, goes ignored. They complain about the pot holes yet do not question why the streets are being improved and repaved in those areas to which the city wants those with more money than the locals to come and move in. 

The present hew and cry is that the city is making a lot of wrong decisions in its attempt the be reborn and many people in town have an opinion on the failed plans and losing the Umass art school because someone didn’t have pocket change. The university system could have owned the building for a buck.

People are demanding change in leadership from the mayor on down.

Because of the difficulty of getting from New Bedford to Logan Airport because of yet another misstep and nose out of joint and even more fun getting  back, I had arrived home from my trip on Primary Day for city council members at large and within wards, and the mayor. 

After some minor delays and missed connections,I finally got home and just crashed on the bed putting off anything I needed to do until later. After a few hours-long Disco Nap, I woke with plenty of time to get to the polls and vote on the mayoral and city council primary candidates.

If one considers the totality of the day, I had left Minneapolis after a two hour delay, traveled from Logan to South Station only to be shown the door from Midnight to 5:00 am when the station opened again creating the impression that a lot of homeless people hang around the station at night when many of those people are middle class people who just arrived early at the station without knowing it closes for 5 hours, grabbed the first train to Middleboro, took an Uber from there to my home, took my nap, cleaned up a bit, and got to my polling station at 6:25 PM in time to choose my five at-large city council members and not the present mayor as a candidate. That last was my personal protest for his being so willing to screw the locals for the hoped for moneyed people from Boston.

This was all done within twenty-four hours.

My polling station is in the center of the city as the ward covers that and the area just south where there is a dense population of working class people, and I was voter #96.

With all the complaining and the chance to change things and doing so by electing new city council members, #96 at 6:25 PM when the polls would be closed not long after does not show a real concern. My polling place is in the old New Bedford Hotel which is now senior housing with 224 units, some single, some more. Voting is a mere elevator ride, my walk is 6 blocks. And, if anyone offers the “Oh, but they are old people” excuse, I am 73.

If this dribble shows itself to be the way it was city wide which, as it turned out, was the case as only 6% of eligible voters voted, it is time the complaining ends as it is obvious its purpose is just to complain without any effort, (an elevator ride in the old hotel?) to help make those changes.

I hoped my blogs, rally attendance, community involvement et al would pay off.

It seems after yesterday these will just be cathartic for me and butt coverage as I can show I not only complained but worked for change while others will just accept what happens and happily complain about it.

If you did not vote, you cannot complain

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I am just curious. 

I grew up on the South and North Shores of Massachusetts. New Bedford was on the South Coast with no direct connection to either as its history had it a harbor of international relevance whose industries, whaling and textiles, addressed more than the local needs and so was off on a world of its own along with Fall River. It was physically removed from Boston so there was little connection between the two places and those connected to them.

The most that New Bedford meant to the rest of the state seemed to be that we had to read Moby Dick in high school, if you were adventurous you went to Lincoln Park and not Paragon Park for your amusement rides on the rare occasion, and with the North and South Shores and the Cape offering beaches, those along the South coast were largely left to those who lived from Cape Cod to the Rhode Island state line.

But our ignorance was not necessarily the truth as the city had had its hay day, was important to the history of the state, and, if the opportunity arose for it to regain some of its glory, should be supported especially as it’s harbor houses the largest fishing fleet in the country.

Having never had an interest in the city, other than having read Moby Dick, having a high school and college classmate who had come from here, and the occasional Drum and Bugle Corps competition that New Bedford excelled in as neighborhoods there had such community corps and took it very seriously in days gone by, and would come up to my South Shore town for the competitions they commanded.

We knew the names of places on the South Coast, but they were just names of places “down there”. When the interstate from Rhode Island to Cape Cod was built, they became exits only the locals took while the rest of us zipped by giving the towns no more attention than before.

Full confession, when moving from a comfortable arrangement on Cape Cod to an apartment I could afford, I moved here with my only knowledge of the place being all the preconceptions I had collected over the years, and, needing something to do during retirement and having looked up volunteer opportunities at the Whaling Museum, I had taught Moby Dick to juniors in high school, I moved to New Bedford and learned its rich history and realized that during my lifetime there had been a parallel world below what is now Rte 495.

Part of that history is the present attempt to bring some greatness back to the city. However, it seems that every time the city stands on the edge of improvement, fate and, more often, humans have played roles in pulling the rug from under the “City that Lit the World”.

A state highway through the heart of the waterfront and the building of the area’s mall in the next town killed the downtown commercial district. A Casino was planned that would bring employment to a city that lost a lot of opportunities when the factories left. This gave way to the idea of an oceanarium. The city is on the water, has a lot of ships and boats, and has a history with the sea, so it made sense until that idea died. There was something about a failed initial attempt by an off-shore wind farm company  that was replaced with a company that actually showed up.

At the same time, in anticipation of the rebirth, the commuter rail from Boston was to be refurbished and reopened and this would have made it convenient for people to come to the things that did not come to fruition.

The commuter rail would open the city to those who find Boston too expensive and, seeking less expensive housing, might choose to move to the city and bring with them a new economy. In the meantime, to get to Boston, a New Bedford resident would have to get to the commuter rail station a town or two over, or take one of the two morning buses and one of two for the return trip. That was until, with a few months to go before the commuter rail opens its station downtown, the bus company decided to end its buses to and from Boston, leaving those without cars to find an alternative route and means to take it.

This was followed by Umass not taking over the Star Store whose use as the university’s Art School revitalized the dead downtown as the students would not show up and leave, but rented housing, and, needing basics like places to eat and hang out with friends coming from out of town, attracted small businesses like clubs, eateries, coffee houses, and by extension, tourists that benefited the city by bringing some life to it.

The state’s shenanigans ended that and the future of downtown is back in doubt. The University could have owned the building for a buck.

Diagonally across the street on the next block is the Zeiterion Theater a 100 year old theater from the days of Vaudeville that has become a cultural center bringing Broadway to New Bedford and the South Coast along with concerts and performances of all kinds.

The Zeiterion closed for an 18 months long renovation to make it a true multi-purpose cultural center just before the surprise announcement that the art school would be moving, leaving a huge abandoned department store looking over downtown. What had been a vibrant section of downtown has gone dark, and, if some of the city council members have their way, could remain so as some members of the council are questioning the city’s involvement with the theater and are seeking to untie any relationship which could result in no theater at all, or one that is less than what it could be.

So:

casino, 

oceanarium, 

off-shore wind 1, 

a bus company cutting the city off from Boston, 

And

 the University of Massachusetts moving its art school out of the downtown area to a smaller and more confined space in a closed store in a failing mall whose parking lot only gets crowded in September and October when a Spirit Halloween store occupies the long empty big box store that remains closed the rest of the year.

What has New Bedford done that it cannot be allowed a break?

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