Take Paradise, Put up a Parking Lot!
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot!"
Joni Mitchell's song, "Big Red Taxi", is a pre-requisite
here!
Is this day 3 for me? I hope someone is keeping track.
When I was young and foolish ( in contrast to being old and foolish, which is my present state of mind) the corner store was the hallmark of a strong community. It was a meeting place, a landmark, a source of good, fresh food, and a slice of watermelon on a hot day. Then, goods were free of plastic wrap, self-service and use by dates. The man behind the counter took you list, packed your goods in a recycled cardboard box and delivered it to your home if it was to heavy to carry.
In 1957 I came across my first supermarket. It was the death of the corner store and, as harsh as it sounds, the decay of solid communities based on a central point of contact they could rely on.
Now, I see the same decline of the supermarket. They are under the threat of the mono-economic culture that has little space for the corner shop even in its enlarged form. Now we can buy our goods without even meeting the man behind the counter or the shelf stacker in the isle. We have become true islands in a sea of humanity, for which the oceans of electronics and the web of the internet barely holds us together in a shallow and unmeaning social structure.
The workman heads off to his site. It's another mega-store down the road. Tomorrow the dozers will move in and another age will pass.
What is next? I'll tell you what is next: another photograph. I have a calendar to complete.
Tom,
This is where either socialism or major philanthropy is needed to re-seed social structure in our communities. We had the same thing happen to a major department store just a few miles from here. It was uneconomical and was closed, dark and shuttered.
Local community leaders and sewed together a coalition of philanthropists and bought the building for conversion to an extension of LACMA, the Los Angeles county Museum of Art. It's going to house a museum by the
Academy of Motion Pictures.
The local post office, deserted for a decade, has been restored expanded and repurposed as the
Annenburg Center for the Performing Arts. Already it packed and has been welcomed by the communities for miles around.
It's the responsibility of civic leaders and folk who should stand up for the life blood of your community to build and foster such places, even where one would think no one would care.
We have one foundation
Levitt Pavilions, that puts up stages for music, drama and concert performances, often in working class and downtrodden areas, pressuring local civic bodies and businesses to meet the running expenses once the stage is up and running.
I know you have a community center that is often empty, but then it's the job of folk with insight and connections to money, to get it going! Here, this would be adopted overnight by competing groups and would thrive. Surely there are many benefactors in Australia who's take a project under their wing if the locals campaigned for it as they do here!
That corner store would be perfect for a local coffee shop and library or daycare center!
Asher
