My feet, knees and lower back are throbbing, but that’s a small price to pay for an artistically and financially successful eighth opening weekend of Gravity Head, our annual draft beer celebration at NABC, Rich O’s and Sportstime.
Beer enthusiasts from points throughout the region visit us each year during Gravity Head. A group of thirty from Dayton, Ohio were with us last evening. Hoosier friends from Bloomington, Richmond and Indianapolis stopped by. On Friday night, quite a few Louisvillians were in attendance. Next weekend, a delegation from Tennessee is coming, and the weekend after that, still others from Ohio.
I make no outlandish claims as to the applicability of all this to the world of New Albany outside my doors, except to note that it proves conclusively the irrelevance of the tired mantra of “location, location, location” in the sense of prospects for success and failure in business.
Location doesn’t measure competence, ability or desire. It can enhance what you choose to do, and provide critical mass in conjunction with what others choose to do, but it contributes nothing with regard to desire, skill, confidence and all the intangibles that combine to make something special, while something else remains ordinary.
It is my conviction that if you do something well, people will come -- as an individual, a business or a community.
As we’ve seen during the past months, a minority of fellow New Albanian citizens differ with this assessment, dwelling incessantly on a depressing litany of what this city and the people in it cannot do.
It’s utter nonsense, and it is being disproven every single day.
The Tribune’s publisher, John Tucker, sees it, contributing a thoughtful piece in today’s newspaper ("Keep sprawl to shadyside") on the potential of New Albany and Southern Indiana within the context of the Louisville metropolitan area. Nick P. and I covered similar ground yesterday in this space.
Ted Fulmore goes further in his Saturday posting at Our History in New Albany: Restoration, Preservation, and a Grand Opening.
It was a busy day in New Albany. The restoration of three storefronts began in the 300 block of Pearl Street ... The Cardinal Ritter House restoration is progressing. The roof is complete and new windows are being installed. Louisville Stained Glass held their Grand Opening to a steady and robust crowd.
The Courier-Journal’s Dale Moss also is on the story, devoting his Sunday column to the impending kick-off of Scribner Place construction:
New Y aims to alleviate treadmill traffic jams
"Neat things are happening and most people don't know," (Mike) Ricke said. "We're moving ahead. It's going to be a reality."
This new Y will prove to be the core of the ballyhooed Scribner Place development along Main Street. A city-built aquatic center, to be overseen by the Y, also will make a splash. Like the Y, Scribner Place's prime benefactor is the Caesars Foundation.
Good news, indeed, but a lunatic fringe of chronic complainers and congenital obstructionists persists in disparaging the clear and indisputable signs of municipal progress presented in the preceding paragraphs, declaring that none of it matters so long as “fairness” and “justice” are denied them, although coherency in defining these qualities consistently eludes the motley collection of white, employed, middle-class homeowners prone to such spasms of taxpayer outrage.
Here’s just the ticket for them.
On March 9th, civil rights attorney Gloria Allred will be in New Albany – not Louisville -- for an appearance at the Culbertson West on Main Street.
Destinations Booksellers is putting this event together with the help of several local businesses and foundations, all of whom share a belief in such occasions as barometers of how far we’ve come in terms of personal and citywide consciousness. It's a chance to examine the parameters that will define the human aspect of New Albany's future.
How many readers of the SOLNA blog, Jeff Roudenbush’s “Forum” and The Gary’s Christmas card list are planning to attend the Gloria Allred function, and of these, how many are prepared to learn something from it, something that might shed valuable light on topics like injustice that they claim are so near and dear to their hearts?
Conversely, and foreseeing in advance the lengthy list of those with no intention of attending (anyone seem the Siamese Councilmen lately?), what do these inevitable absentees ultimately bring to the table when it comes to the revitalization of New Albany -- beyond continuing to publicly flaunt their own lack of comprehension as to what that revitalization entails?
NA Confidential will be there.
Will you?
Photo credit: Ted Fulmore (second view)
2 comments:
back on line
maury
Great.
I was starting to get worried about you ...
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