Wednesday, March 16, 2005

CJ's Moss checks in on Rick Carmickle and the Downtown New Albany Merchants Association

In today’s Louisville Courier-Journal, columnist Dale Moss visits with photographer Rick Carmickle, who has revived the Downtown New Albany Merchants Association and is promoting the idea of self-reliance among downtown businesses.

Also quoted is Randy Smith of Destinations Booksellers, who mentions the recent symposium.

Check it out now before the C-J moves it to the $$$-only vault:

New Albany merchants unite; Strategies for downtown eyed, by Dale Moss

4 comments:

The New Albanian said...

This is a very good point, and also something that came up several times during the symposium on March 2.

Among the proposals made then was an expansion of the twice-weekly market to include music and events, art shows, and street fairs of various sorts.

As for Harvest Homecoming itself, I still favor organizing a small complementary fest near, but not in the midst of, Harvest Homecoming. Decent food, a place for information, something the counter the mind-numbingly lowbrow emphasis of HH.

edward parish said...

Why is it that no one has mentioned the Davinci fest? Talk about an event that could capitalized on, this is the one. Oh but wait, it has some culture to it, like bike races. Is this event done through the city or is it a private group?

The New Albanian said...

Ed, Da Vinci Downtown is listed on Develop New Albany's web site, so I'm guessing they have some proprietary interest. Indeed, this would be a good place to start, perhaps even incorporate some of our plans, i.e., Weird NA beer sampling, as part of it.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

It's my understanding that DaVinci Downtown is the brainchild of Sam Schad. I'm not sure what, if any, partnerships he may have employed to make the fest a reality.

If anybody knows Sam, perhaps we could find out.