There is no way for me to know if Mass Mutual ever seriously considered moving its headquarters out of Springfield. I’ve always viewed the second campus in Enfield, Connecticut (just a few miles away) as a sword of Damocles, reminding city and state officials on both sides of the border that relocation could be achieved
It’s easy to be negative about the media. For me anyway. That’s mostly because I’m a contrarian living a contrary lifestyle and writing a blog thereon. So when I read a news item that inverts all my negative expectations it raises my hopes tremendously. Here it is. Not only is east-west rail up for a
The Great Recession temporarily slowed the internal migration which has seen the population moving steadily south, west, and into suburbia. There were arguments about the overall shape, size, and significance of the shift but now that the dust has settled somewhat every source that I have seen indicates that once again native born Americans are
True story. As a kid I would always hear that, in Massachusetts pedestrians had the right of way. I never really knew if it was true, or why it was such a common topic for discussion among pre teens in the 1970’s. Was it some kind of remnant from the ancient past, like our use
My wife loves garlic. More than she loves me? It’s an open question. Nearly everything she cooks starts with a healthy amount of onions and head of garlic. Why not a clove of garlic? Might as well just sprinkle on a little garlic powder! As the garden (“the farm” as friends call it) began to
It’s late January and the usual “Homicides Are Up; run for your lives” or “Homicides Are Down: don’t be worried though, Springfield is still dangerous” article hasn’t yet appeared. The 5 year rolling average for murder is 15 and last year came in at 14 with the city being homicide free now for 3 months.
I remember, or think I remember, a “design-a-thon” on WWLP with William L. Putnam (“WLP”) and Kitty Broman; people phoning in their ideas for Riverfront Revitalization. After that all of the usual economic development publications related to downtown always contained a Riverfront addendum. At first this all meant re-engaging people with the water in some
Check out Johnny Sanphillippo’s most recent post at Granola Shotgun. His description of Mont Saint-Michel on the Prairie is mind blowing, thought provoking, and scary. I have to admit that I am jealous beyond belief of a place like Colorado which has such self confidence that it can build an entire city from nothing in
Being appalled at someone using the word “shithole” to describe a place is easier than acknowledging the influence American policy has had in making it a shithole I suppose. And while it is impossible to double blind history in order to see if El Salvador, Haiti, or the Middle East might be remarkably different than
Toledo, Spain is a marvelous city. Most famous now for being the home of the artist Domenikos Theotocopoulos. Perhaps only Gaudi and Barcelona present a stronger connection of city to artist. Toledo was a struggling provincial municipality when I first visited in the 1980’s, but when my wife and I returned just three summers ago