Deliberate Hemming Park Neglect and DeAmenitization

[ronchamblin]

Poor Jerry .... is he too often the victim of verbal attacks?

[ronchamblin]

Do you believe it is fair and productive to relentlessly attack someone who is, if all factors are weighed, a big plus, a big draw for the downtown core? ... a core which needs all the draw we can muster?   

[ronchamblin]

Where is substance?  Are you afraid of me?

[ronchamblin]

After all, Jerry's La Cena has survived many years in the city core while many have come and gone.  Many, including you, are quite familiar with failure in the core.  One would think that anyone, such as Jerry, who has survived in the core because of hard work and dedication, would be supported when possible by those who claim to want revitalization for the city core. 

[thelakelander]

Unfortunately, there are those in influential positions who don't like the park's economic and racial balance.

Ennis, you are a gentleman and a diplomat!  How gently and kindly you have exposed a truth without inflaming the issue.  Tip of the hat!

A lot of time we sugar coat the reality but it is what it is and it's pretty pathetic, IMO.

[ronchamblin]

Again, do you believe it is fair and productive to relentlessly attack someone who is, if all factors are weighed, a big plus, a big draw for the downtown core? ... a core which needs all the draw we can muster?

Jerry is doing well because he has one of the best Italian restaurants in the city.  The ambience is great.  The music is great.  The food is superb.  And as an additional plus, Jerry is a real character. 

The core needs La Cena.  Why verbally attack a positive force surviving in the core, one of the few businesses providing a great service for the core.  Jerry endures and provides life for the core while most business startups avoid it, taking the easy route around King Street/Avondale/Riverside.  Give support please ... not criticism and verbal attacks ... especially not from the position of a media forum.

[ronchamblin]

As expected ... very little substance from you Stephen .... the usual hogwash, as is the case when you are caught saying something stupid.

My objective of course, is to encourage you to consider the harm you do to an established business in the core when you relentlessly attack and denigrate without good cause.  So let's acknowledge that everyone has their faults, except me of course, and that Jerry has his. 

Jerry is aware that he has been at times rather harsh on panhandlers and transients around the core and in the park, but my observations inform me that he is becoming more reasonable in his approach to them.  After all, he has endured the worst of the transients and homeless over the years, before we even arrived in the core.

Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge my presence.   

[ronchamblin]

Thanks again Stephen.

[ronchamblin]

Substance?  I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to take from your history lesson.

Again, the issue is, and my concern is, that on this forum we avoid unwarranted negatives targeting those individuals and businesses surviving in the core, those who work hard to maintain a business in the core, those who have not abandoned the core, those who are determined to remain in the core in spite of the partial desolation.  Why verbally attack, repeatedly, businesses that give so much to the downtown core?  Do you wish for La Cena, and perhaps my bookstore/cafe to fail, and exit the core?  Your continued attacks, work to this end.  Why the relentless attacks? Are you jealous of our prosperity, of our ability to survive.... perhaps because you failed to survive in the core?

 

[ronchamblin]

Okay .. just remember ..... no more unwanted attacks against us survivors in the core .... and there will be peace.

[icarus]

I sometimes take the people mover to Hemming Plaza for meetings to avoid the hassle of parking downtown.

What I find most ironic about this situation is that the homeless and underemployed have started sitting on the steps and flower bed walls closer to the people mover station so it seems that removing the seating simply has transformed the problem ... not eliminated it.  Now, if you buy lunch from a food truck .... where are you going to sit??

[TheCeleryStalker]

I sometimes take the people mover to Hemming Plaza for meetings to avoid the hassle of parking downtown.

What I find most ironic about this situation is that the homeless and underemployed have started sitting on the steps and flower bed walls closer to the people mover station so it seems that removing the seating simply has transformed the problem ... not eliminated it.  Now, if you buy lunch from a food truck .... where are you going to sit??

I wonder if someone (perhaps a corporate sponser) would be able to pay the homeless to help take care of the park?  I think it might be a good avenue to help some people get back to work at a place they are familiar with. 

[thelakelander]

I sometimes take the people mover to Hemming Plaza for meetings to avoid the hassle of parking downtown.

What I find most ironic about this situation is that the homeless and underemployed have started sitting on the steps and flower bed walls closer to the people mover station so it seems that removing the seating simply has transformed the problem ... not eliminated it.  Now, if you buy lunch from a food truck .... where are you going to sit??

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that removing seats and chairs really doesn't matter in a space that's got several times as much linear seating area in the form of concrete planters.   All you've done is made the space more pedestrian hostile to the crowd people claim they want to attract.

[JayBird]

I sometimes take the people mover to Hemming Plaza for meetings to avoid the hassle of parking downtown.

What I find most ironic about this situation is that the homeless and underemployed have started sitting on the steps and flower bed walls closer to the people mover station so it seems that removing the seating simply has transformed the problem ... not eliminated it.  Now, if you buy lunch from a food truck .... where are you going to sit??

I wonder if someone (perhaps a corporate sponser) would be able to pay the homeless to help take care of the park?  I think it might be a good avenue to help some people get back to work at a place they are familiar with.

This actually was happening. Catholic Charities used to pay people to pick up the park, and all of the Northbank downtown streets 7 days a week. You used to see them wearing vests and pushing yellow trash cans or on the Skyway the two days a week they went to clean the few south bank business streets. They'd also clean up at ArtWalk and some of the parades and festivals downtown. Terry Lorrince stopped this when she joined onto the contract with SMG.

[JayBird]

^ it was when SMG came into the stadiums and other city places. Why downtown vision would want to spend more baffled us, but figured that SMG forced a package deal.

Edit: plus it was rumored that she was under pressure from the St James bldg because those ex felons and homeless were "representing the city"