in the OD.
When you can't solve problems you can always honor yourself or one of your friends, right? Don't get me wrong. Utica has a story to tell -- a proud story -- of people of many cultures coming to this place with barely the clothes on their back but ultimately finding the American Dream. . . . Of a community willing to embrace people different from themselves and becoming all the richer for it. But what more celebration do we need than the variety of names in the phone book, the restaurants and grocers catering to unique palates, the different hued faces, tongues, and modes of dress on our streets? Utica is a living celebration of itself, and Uticans don't need to be told of where they've come from.Rust to Green Utica announced Wednesday the receipt of a $48,475 grant to design a community green space called One World Garden on Park Avenue behind the Stanley Center for the Arts. . . . .
The grant was awarded by the Baltimore-based TKF Foundation through its Open Spaces, Sacred Places program to celebrate and better understand Utica’s changing blend of people created by its long-settled immigrants and its more recent influx of refugees, according to a news release . . .
Uticans also don't need another public space to take care of , especially now when the city can barely afford to keep police on its streets. In addition, this is prime downtown land we're talking of. It needs to be placed into productive TAX GENERATING use if Utica is to ever grow itself back into a city capable of sustaining itself. A park prevents that from ever happening.
While the Rust2Green folks need to be commended for their efforts, they need to apply their considerable knowledge and collective intellect to analyze why that parcel of prime land has not attracted private development thus far, and then work to identify and solve the problems that they find.
3 comments:
Sounds like a worthwhile effort if it could be redirected to an existing park, and simplified to include an upgrade and remodel of present landscaping and other improvements.
It's hard to believe that with the budget mess dominating the news that anyone would dare to even publicize or push such an effort at the present time.
Once again, "grant money." Are there are matching funds involved that must come out of the city's taxpayers? If so, however sad as it may seem, the project needs to be set aside for better days. The city can't afford to maintain the vast acreage that exists now, without adding to it.
Points very well taken. Gardens do not grow jobs or revenue. If there is one thing Utica does have it is a huge amount of open space, already green and growing. This project is yet another feel good, NPR type superficial nod to "diversity." It is actually an insult to immigrants that did make this community once great by coming here to find freedom and opportunity through hard work. They created gardens in their back yards. No grants were necessary. And, they did not seek recognition or "understanding."
Gardens in their back yard. Sounds good. How many of you who own ncome generating retal housing are allowing your tenants to plant and maintain gardens? My estimate is that 8 or 9 out of 10 landlords in Utica will not permit gardens.
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