When Everything Old is New Again and Everybody Knows Your Name

          Several years ago I was in Dublin, Ireland on business and on the first night there, my hosts invited me to go shopping with them to a place called Stephens Green, I thought it was a great idea since I wanted to get some mementos of my visit to that storied city. However, as we approached Stephens Green, I realized that it was a shopping mall complex much like the Galleria In White Plains, NY or any similar one in the United States. Stephens Green had a Victoria’s Secret, a TJ Maxx, a McDonald’s and many of the other chain stores that any mall in the US has. I could have been in or in any of the hundreds of the major commercial malls in the US. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed. I was expecting something more authentically Irish. At the same time, I could understand that my hosts wanted me to feel at home and I did do my best to make them feel that I appreciated their efforts.

          On another business trip I was in the City of Jubail, Saudi Arabia and was put up at the Holiday Inn and except for the Saudi business men in traditional Arab garb, walking around in the lobby, I could have been staying at the Holiday Inn Topeka, In summary, my experience is contrary to what public historian David Glassberg, says in his essay, Place and Placelessness. In it he claims  that “placelessness,”-- the sense that every place is just like every other place,  is a uniquely American experience. Unfortunately, placelessness is universal.

          Perhaps the most authentic place I stayed in my travels was Romania, where I was the only guest in a castle in the Carpathian Mountains said to be once owned by Vlad the Impaler. I slept with one eye open. At the time in the mid- 80s Romania was off the beaten tourist track  and perhaps the only Holiday Inn people had seen was in the Bing Crosby movie with that title.  My point is that for all their sameness, franchised lodging places like Holiday Inn, provide travelers with a physical and psychic comfort level that removes most of the stress of being in a foreign place. Knowing which valve and the direction to turn the hot and cold water in the shower is a good thing to know. In this instance familiarity does not breed contempt but rather, safety and comfort.

          Another work that promotes a sense of safety, comfort and well-being is the Robert Archibald’s book, A Place To Remember: Using History to Build Community, but it has  an overly romanticized view of the past based on  his personal stories of his hometown, Ishpeming, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It is captivating but I thought Archibald’s book lacked perspective. It was a very nostalgia laden and idealized account of the “good old days”. There’s an old joke that nostalgia is the result of good old days multiplied by a bad memory. I think country singer Dolly Parton had it right when she put together  “The Good Old Days When Times Were Bad,” a 1969 album. In the title song, Parton looks back on her impoverished upbringing, concluding that while she values the lessons it taught her, she would not want to go back.

          Archibald’s book is not a step by step manual to build community but rather a well-founded argument for the value of history in sustaining and building community.  It is an excellent critique of the destruction of historic places, the rapid homogenization of most towns, and the loss of personal connections in America.

          Recently I came across some horrendous accounts of neighborhood life in Brooklyn, NY around the turn of the 20th century in a local newspaper called the Brooklyn Eagle. These stories debunk the myth of the “good old days.” Life was squalid, wretched, unhealthful, and dangerous, particularly for the immigrant underclass, to say nothing of African Americans. And life in other small towns like Ishpeming was not substantially better.          My own adopted hometown of Ossining, NY is a case in point of the rose-colored view of the past. I frequently hear stories from people who refer to themselves as “Old Ossining” to differentiate themselves from newcomers. To hear “Old Ossining” tell it, the Village was a virtual paradise but the photos, diaries and other documents I have seen at the library and at the historical society, tell a different tale. Frankly, I think that things have substantially improved in the last few years and perhaps in the future people will look back at the turn of the 21st century as Ossining’s “golden years.”

          In any event, I do see and agree with Glassberg’s and Archibald’s point that the increasingly, every place in America, is looking like every place in America; bland, boring and dull. The contradiction or problem I find in A Place to Remember is that on the one hand Archibald decries the rundown condition of Ishpeming’s Main Street but on the other, he extols its sense of place. I was left wondering if he would still want to live there. He was, after all, one of the thousands of young men and women who left Ishpeming because it was unable to redefine and align itself with the changing times and thus became obsolete, abandoned and futureless.

          Archibald and Glassberg lament the loss of small town America place and argue for its return, but as Thomas Wolfe pointed out in his book, You Can Never Come Home Again, and recapture the past. In my opinion, their discussion of a life lived long ago and in a place that for all intents and purposes vanished, is interesting and even useful, with lessons to be learned. But at the same time, they are thoroughly backward looking and gloss over the fact the fact that the past was in many cases not as wonderful as memory seems to make it.

          In many ways, my community is similar to Ishpeming. It once had a vibrant downtown and everyone walked to go shopping. It even has a store and owner that has much in common with his account of Adriacchi’s Store. Its elderly owner keeps very irregular business hours, has outdated merchandise and unchanging displays and other than to serve as a memory of the past, it does not offer present day’s professional working woman, particularly, the merchandise, service and convenience they  need to balance work and home responsibilities.

          The problem is that, as present day people, we, along with the above mentioned authors, can lament a lost past but we have to do the best we can in a new world where jobs, travel patterns, ease of travel, choice, price and advertising, conspire to undermine the desire to buy locally and support a vibrant local economy.

          From my point of view, both Archibald and Glassberg dwell too much on the lost Main Street. As historians, they would better serve older communities by providing historical context and perspective of the past in juxtaposition to present conditions and, provide some direction on how the best of the past and present can be melded. This might help current community leaders to acknowledge and incorporate Main Street’s history in ways that are compatible with modern life and to help them restructure or reframe how a revitalized Main Street must work in today’s world. In this regard it has to respect its architectural heritage and operate as if it were a unified modern mall.

          Like history, articulating a sense of place only really happens after the moment has passed. Sense of place is a fuzzy, purely subjective and abstract concept, embodied in a combination of folklore, personal memory and history. We can only know or feel sense of place when we reminisce. Over time, shared experiences and history connect place and people and sense of place flows into the subconscious.

          As I re-read Roger Kahn’s  The Boys of Summer I experienced again   the Brooklyn of my youth and its special sense of place and wonderful memories streamed into my consciousness. Accordingly I can understand and empathize with folks whose families have been in Ossining for generations  and who yearn for the old days but I prefer a place where everything old is made new again, where everybody knows your name and is like nowhere I have ever been before.