West Chester....Rising

Hi all,


I won't even go into apologizing about the lack of frequency of my postings, on the one hand one a month is not really bad per se, but I know how often you refresh your screens in the hope I've posted a new blog musing, and after a while, with nothing new, one might tend to give up hope. I'll endeavour to do better, I promise. Shit so much for not apologizing...

So what's up in town?

Well, I finally found my scooter in the parking garage flipped on to its side, ever so undignified and distressed. Was I mad?, oh yea, I'm pissed, but one can look at it as it having either being violated by the drunks in this town, or, basically, it has earned its stripes as a true urban hipster conveyance, since no scooter worth it's salt could have remained so pristine forever in this rough and tumble little burg of ours. Maybe the scratches to the paint and the headlamp will make it seem cooler, more authentic, give it "street cred" who knows. Anyway it fired right up, so life goes on.

What else is going on?

Well, what's going up (or down) I guess is the more apropos question, what with a couple of cool construction sites in the works and all.

First, the Monolith. Now of course I'm no architect or engineer, but I'm assuming that it wasn't planted by a race of ancient aliens that will change the course of human events here in West Chester, (or...will....it?) What I do assume it is, is the beginning of the elevator shaft, of which around the rest of the building will be built. Seems reasonable, right? This is just west of the New Courthouse complex. I'm not sure if they've got it rented out, (it seems to me we may have a glut of free square footage office space in town as it is, but maybe they know something about the economic recovery that I don't)

Second, is our new garage. Now I had assumed that it would be called the "New Mosteller Garage" but it will be known in fact, per Borough council, as the "Walnut Street Garage". Man oh man is this thing is shaping up to be a behemoth. When the big red crane showed up to help put up its prefabricated pieces, I sure nobody had quite a grasp of the scale of this thing. Now it seems obvious, that it could be a 20 minute drive just to get to the roof of this place, as cars will be high in the sky for sure. The place sure will have some good views of West Chester, no doubt, but Goth teens smoking homemade clove cigarettes and writing bad poetry will be attracted to the roof like moths to a porch light, so I'm afraid we may lose one or two of them going forward to blunt force trauma injuries because this place is going to be pretty tall and I'm sure won't have 24/7 security and you know how those kids seem to be less than sure footed in high places.

Now on to one of the few "FAILS" of our community, and that is the 124 Market Place project on East Market Street. Now as I understand, the buildings currently on the lot where these super hip condos were supposed to go up were suddenly and mysteriously "condemned" in the name of not having to salvage them for historical sake so work could get started right a way on these high end pads. Well in life just like everything else, timing is everything, and it seems that all this went down just as the financial crisis hit, drying up construction financing, especially in the area of home construction, what with nobody seemingly interested (or at least bank approved) to drop more than 400K on a 2 bedroom Condo with views of a Mexican Bodega and a Salvation Army across the street. Look I certainly don't begrudge someone holding off on some serious expenditures of capital in an economic environment like the one we are in, but come on, we have to live and work here every day, this is an eye sore, can't we get this if not covered in some sort of shroud, perhaps leveled and turn the property into some temporary surface parking while we sort this whole economic mess out?

To me, bottom line is, it's a quality of life issue. A broken window....if you will. If we leave things like this undone for months and months, the next thing you know, people are knocking over your scooter in the parking lot and not leaving a note or anything. I mean, when will it end? Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! That's what'll happen, I tells ya!

Generally we are in the right track, but we need to see more managed growth, growth that has the affect of benefiting the residents of this town. If only there was some sort of commission, made up of citizens, that could ask the tough questions of developers before they run roughshod over our fair community, oh wait, there is, it's called the West Chester Borough Planning Commission, and guess what, yours truly has joined it for a 4 year hitch!

I'll see what I can do about getting this place straightened out, and I'll update you from time to time on how it's going. There's a doings a transpiring down in the southern part of town by the University, (Dormitory demolitions, recreation centers and more parking garages being built) so I'll be in the know for that, and whatever I learn, I'll pass on to you.

In the mean time, wish me luck!