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The Ithaca Commons
I received a letter in the mail last week that the Ithaca City Council approved my application to join the Commons Advisory Board. The Commons is a two-block pedestrian mall in downtown Ithaca. See a previous post on the history and my interest.
Growing up in Ithaca, the Commons always seemed to be a place of great potential, but missed opportunity. A concept that made sense on paper, but not when you walked from store to store. There are occasional bright spots. It still runs a successful Chili Cookoff every February, and holds outdoor concerts and festivals in the summer. There are a few decent restaurants and shops. But there are an equal number of empty storefronts, tired head shops and restaurants that can’t stay in business.
So my reason for joining the board is to contribute fresh ideas and energy to the revitalization of this community centerpiece. I want to walk down the Commons and see storefronts filled, restaurants open for business and people energized to be out on the town, engaged with their neighbors. There are already several steps being taken to increase the pedestrian traffic to the Commons, including a new movie theater, an Urban Outfitters (come to the Commons, college students), condos, hotels and Cornell University office space. But the Commons needs a fresh new design, a few stable national stores and unique community-owned businesses. Most importantly, it needs the buy-in and support of the local community. If people make a conscious decision to spend their money downtown, at locally-owned restaurants and businesses, instead of always going to big box stores and chain restaurants, this new downtown initiative can succeed.
Update: Pics from the swearing in. Notice the huge crowd in attendance:
Taking the Oath
Serious Business
English economist John Maynard Keynes, seen here circa 1940, believed no one in America was smart enough to run it
During a 14 mile training run for the Nashville marathon today, I listened to another great podcast by the folks at Planet Money. Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg, the duo that brought the brilliant podcasts about how we got into our current economic mess (see previous post), released a new report, making sense of the stimulus plan. Specifically, where does this figure of $750+ Billion come from? What’s it being used for? And why does Obama and his team think it will work? The short answer is John Maynard Keynes. The long answer, takes about 10 minutes, and you can listen to it here (click on the listen now button in new page)
Following in the “footsteps” of now infamous shoe thrower, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, there have been a series of new flying loafer attacks. Zaidi of course, was the journalist that hurled his dress shoe at Bush during a press conference with President Maliki of Iraq. And earlier this week the Prime Minister of China was attacked by a flying sneaker during a speech at Cambridge University in London. Then yesterday, the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Benny Dagan, was hit in the chest by a red Nike during a speech at the University of Stockholm.
And now the shoe attacks have hit small town America. In last night’s common council meeting in Ithaca, Mayor Carolyn Peterson was the target. Protester, and former Weather Underground member Robin Palmer spoke during an open-mic opportunity at the beginning of the meeting. He was speaking out against the city’s Community Sanctuary Resolution. The resolution declares Ithaca a “Community of Sanctuary, thus respecting the rights of its residents to support lawfully and proactively military personnel and veterans who are organizing to stop the wars in and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and all future violations of the United Nations Nuremberg Charters.”
The shoes fell short of Mayor Peterson, and the following conversation ensued:
Palmer (protester) said, “I want my shoes back.”
“You’re not getting your shoes back,” Peterson responded.
Palmer said, “I’m not getting them back? Then I’m not leaving.”
He sat down and insisted he would not leave until he was arrested.
Read the full article from the Ithaca Journal here.
Don’t call the SPCA on me for this clip. Russert got neutered last week and he has to wear one of those humiliating lampshades around his neck for a week. Watching him walk around the apartment is pretty entertaining…
The buzz around Cory Booker has been getting pretty loud. He was a surrogate speaker for Obama during the campaign, traveling around the country and across TV networks on his behalf. He was a Rhodes scholar, attended Standford, Oxford, and Yale Law. He became a councilman in Newark and earned a reputation for living his politics. For almost 10 years, he resided in a Newark housing project, working with tenants to fight for better conditions. He then moved to a drug and gang-plagued housing community in South Newark, fighting a drug war while living at the epicenter. His grassroots efforts included both a 10-day hunger strike to protest open drug dealing in the projects, and living out of a mobile home, parking on street corners known to be places where drug trafficking occurred. His actions earned him the moniker “The Savior of Newark” from Time Magazine and resulted in increased police forces in several neighborhoods.
He clearly has high ambitions and his name has been tossed around as a future Governor, Senator, or even successor to Obama. So, when the Ithaca Youth Bureau held a 60 year anniversary party and pulled Booker as the keynote speaker, Rachel and I decided to hear what he had to say.
His Ithaca speech was a little underwhelming. It came across a bit too rehearsed and preachy for our taste. But, he appears to be a politician with a bright future. If you’re curious about the speech, it was very similar to this graduation speech I found online:
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