Having wondered about where we as a city could be headed (see previous post,) and the fact that it seems to me that we’ve come through survival and restoration years, I was thinking how all of that relates to the current fight about Newburyport’s waterfront. And the almost visceral reaction that people had towards Byron Matthews as the nominee for the Newburyport Redevelopment Authority (NRA) board.

If Mr. Matthews could be seen as part of the “restoration generation,” part of the survival and rebirth part of Newburyport’s recent history, what I am wondering is that maybe people want to move on to whatever is next, whatever that may be.

I think that this may also be part of people’s puzzlement about Mayor John Moak’s fiscally conservative approach to governing. Newburyport appears to be out of a survival mode. Although I think fiscal prudence is always a good idea, Yankee that I am, I feel the sense people have is that maybe, finally we can relax a little bit.

I feel like the fight over the waterfront has to be symbolic in some way. It is the last remnant of a survival mode–dusty, ugly, Appalachian like, dirt parking lots. It is almost a symbol of what will happen to the city next. Do we stay in a survival mode or do we move on and celebrate a little bit?

I think paving the entire waterfront feels like the old survival mode. All park seems a little “giddy” for this Yankee town. But the idea of half parking and half park seems just about right. We are out of the survival mode, but we are not going to forget what has come before us. Trying to leave behind the old fear thing (that in the survival/restoration years was well founded,) and move on to the cautious optimism thing.

I think too that those parking lots are still sitting there after more that thirty years also says something about the how hard it is to let go thing. It will be interesting to see if in fact we as a city hang onto them for another 30 years or if we can finally let go.

Mary Eaton, Newburyport