Monday, September 9, 2013

Quit Pointing Fingers About The Fire

The view from the top of SSM, taken by Sheryl.

OF COURSE THERE are loony conspiracy theorists out there after the Newcomb Hotel burned Friday night. They can't help it if they are crazy. Leave 'em be.

The massive structure is one block from us at Second String Music. I was worried to death when hearing about it. Thankfully the wind was blowing straight from the south and not toward us .... you could see the JC Penney fire some 20 years ago happening again, and igniting other buildings blocks away.

But to the people who get mad and blame Quincy in general about the building being vacant all these years, well, quit pointing the finger. Three fingers are pointing back at you.

The city should have never sold the building to the guy from Chicago. I'm not even using his name, it makes me ill just thinking about it. But hindsight is pure gold, right? And how come for all these years nobody in Quincy stepped up to take over the property and revive it? Why do you think that is?

Money talks, the BS walks.

We were just days away from a group in Iowa taking over. Supposedly they had one success story after the other. I had my doubts. Now we will never know.

All I know is that I'm sick and tired of out of town landlords who couldn't care less about our city, our history, the way things are for us. Go over to Eighth and Washington, if you want an example, but don't trip over the massive weeds growing in the sidewalk of our old location.

Knock the Newcomb Hotel down, and let's get on with creating new history at Fourth and Maine and in Downtown Quincy.




4 comments:

  1. Preferably not a parking lot either.

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  2. I've got to agree with the above poster......hopefully something worthy goes in it's place. Not a parking lot, church, bank, or bar. Gonna miss that beautiful building.

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  3. You say quit pointing fingers but then you point fingers at out of town ownership and also the city for selling to outside ownership. You are right on both. Others should be allowed to voice their displeasure on the exact same thing. And throw in the no insurance story and boom.
    Let's move forward, but learn from our past mistakes.

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  4. It is a prime location (its the western city entrance after all) and the land is Valuable (yes, with a capital V). So it's NOT going to be a parking lot or a park (why would it with Washington Park across the street?) or a bank (don't know of a single Quincy bank looking to build) or a bar (who could afford it there?).

    I don't expect it to remain vacant for long, and whomever builds there, expect serious examination of the proposal (by city AND residents) and lots of time before the Plan Commission with regard to aesthetic issues.

    The Iowa folks are still interested in doing something in Quincy, thougfh I think they prefer renovating to new construction so they probably won't be in the running for the Newcomb site.

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