Last night a driver killed a skateboarder at 9th & Spring. His name was Matt Brewer, and he was one helluva guy.

Social media can be confusing. Last night in response to reports of a pedestrian struck by a driver and being badly injured, just two blocks away from my house, someone sent me a photo of Matt Brewer. It wasn't clear to me what this meant, and I actually thought Matt himself was telling me he was safe.

His wife wrote this. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

As many of you may have heard, my husband passed away last night. Matt was struck by a vehicle and suffered massive head trauma. He was rushed to U of L and they did absolutely everything they could. Thank you everyone who has reached out. I appreciate all your kind words.

The hardest thing in the world right now for me is to suppress my anger. I know there'll be time to channel this anger into something useful; it's just awfully difficult to avoid lashing out.

My friend Ryan Hammel wrote this at Facebook, and it is spot on. Matt was everyone's friend, and a valued neighbor of ours on Spring Street.

In this life you meet very few people who have the gift of having zero enemies. If you’re lucky, you’ll meet someone of whom no one can can speak negatively.

Matt lived for other people. When we started River City Craft Wear, Matt bought every shirt (especially the tank top). When Be a Better Dude started, Matt was the first one to join. When I had a tasting at Keg or Bridge, Matt was ten minutes early just to hang out and talk beer before the crowd showed up.

Matt loved and believed in New Albany and the people here. When he was around you, you were in a good mood whether you wanted to be or not.

To know Matt was to know you had a true friend. We owe a favor to him today and every day to try and be the absolute best person we can be...because Matt was the absolute best of us. I consider myself lucky to be a part of Matt’s family, and he will be remembered for all of the good he did for other people.

How you can help make the New Albany Public Art Skatepark a reality.

Back in November, we asked the most important question. To date, City Hall hasn't answered it ... and so it goes, on and on forever.

An "artsy" refit for the waterfront skate park? Sure, but why has City Hall allowed it to become an "eyesore," anyway?

The Carnegie Center is leading this push, and says "There is so much potential with this skatepark, it's like a blank canvas just waiting for some love."

That's certainly true. It will be interesting to see how much of this love bubbles up from the grassroots, as opposed to being decreed down by the usual suspects. I'm hopeful, as always.

Skateboarders -- what can we do to help?

Help make the New Albany Public Art Skatepark a reality

Based on studies that have shown how investments in experiences over material objects lead to healthier, happier lives, the Carnegie Center has started looking for ways to provide art experiences, to create opportunities for people to not just passively look at art, but to get into it, to participate in its creation, and to physically engage with it. Today we are seeking your help to rehabilitate and reinvent our city's riverfront skatepark into a shiny, new skate-able work of public art -- A Public Art Skatepark.

Skateboarding’s history and culture is deeply intertwined with art and creation, which can be easily seen in skateboard graphics, clothing designs, and custom ramp builds. Even the act of skateboarding itself is a living embodiment of art and sport, of creativity and physical activity. The world as seen through the eyes of a skateboarder becomes an exercise of seeing untapped potential in inanimate objects. Providing interactive, inspiring objects for play at this Art Skatepark allows minds to creatively explore real world geometry and expand brain activity, which in turn builds a deeper understanding of the real world around us. Finding ways to stimulate people in our community, and promote physical, mental, and emotional health is our goal, and art is the vehicle we want to use to achieve that goal.

An "artsy" refit for the waterfront skate park? Sure, but why has City Hall allowed it to become an "eyesore," anyway?

You know, adjacent to the neglected amphitheater. 

With no disrespect to the Carnegie's Daniel Pfalzgraf, who has identified a viable opportunity in Nawbany's forever neglected riverfront skate park, and by doing so is thinking so far outside our self-imposed local boxes that he might as well be curating the museum on Saturn, the place to start at the skate park is repairing and improving what already is there, then moving forward with more costly ideas -- and (dare we mention it) connecting these ideas with something approximating a Riverfront Amphitheater master plan.

Conversely, if City Hall remains aloof to waterfront possibilities, preferring its newer shiny objects to the daily grind of maintaining existing facilities, far better to cut it out of the plan as much as possible, and "placemake" independently.

Pfalzgraf is on to something, and in moving forward there is one absolutely huge imperative, one the city customarily ignores: None of these ideas should begin gestation without the direct participation of those currently using the space.

They should be asked, and any plans should pass their approval. If they're asked and decline participation, then let the inevitable campaign finance monetization begin.

Absent the public aspect of placemaking, we'll have yet another imperfect target for excessive expenditure that looks peachy keen on the outside, to the detriment of its intended functionality (see Park, Bicentennial).

FROM EYESORE TO OPPORTUNITY: Carnegie Center talks artsy plans for New Albany skate park; Carnegie curator hopes to create a skate-able work of public art, by Danielle Grady (News and Tribune)

... (Daniel) Pfalzgraf also hopes to ask for proposals from artists, local or regional, detailing their ideas on how to make the park look unique.

He wants passersby to have the same experience looking at the renovated skate park as they would looking at any other work of art, he said.

If nothing else, Pfalzgraf just wants to repair what’s already at the park and maybe give it a paint job.

“We’d love to make it a huge event and completely revamp it, but we’ll basically do whatever’s possible,” he said ...

Rules of engagement for the Big Four.

I agree that skateboards and rollerblades can only detract from a cyclist's primary imperative, after dodging oblivious drivers: Avoiding fellow cyclists who insist piloting their bikes as thought they were skateboards.

Plan to walk, bike, run, but not skate over Louisville's Big Four Bridge, by Sheldon S. Shafer (Courier-Journal)

Runners and walkers are welcome; cyclists, too. You can even bring your dog, as long as you use a leash.

But if you’re a skateboarder or rollerblader, don’t plan on using the Big Four Bridge cross-river skywalk once it opens in December — the rules likely won’t allow it.

Chalk it up to 40+ years of empty (headed), downtown.

The top photo is from 1893. It is New Albany's old Post Office at the corner of Spring and Pearl.

The next photo, undated but from the late 1950's or very early 60's, shows the same building (near the center), with the former courthouse in front. The newer structure now housing La Rosita's can be seen clearly, as well as St. Mark's further east on Spring. Today, the lot where the Courthouse stood is occupied by Main Source Bank.

The last photo, taken by Gary Humphrey (River City Winery), is of recent damage done by feral skateboarders to the neglected stage on the neglected lot at the neglected corner where the Post Office once stood, until it was torn down by a previous generation of New Albany "leadership," for whom show trials remain a preferred option if any of them persist in living.

I don't excuse the destructive behavior of unsupervised adolescents, but I can't help thinking that a physical space like this is the equivalent of a broken window, in the sense that perpetual dilapidation merely encourages further vandalism.

One final thought: Check out the traffic in the middle photo. Cars are moving both ways, aren't they?

Remember when the current administration promised two-way traffic restoration downtown?

You don't see it, do you? In my book, that's a promise not kept.

(The first two photos are from the NA-FC Public Library's Indiana Room, and its marvelous Historical Image Archive)