I can think of some words other than “bold” or “audacious” to describe Johnstown’s latest foray into the world of spending other peoples’ money attempting to reanimate the cadaver that is the downtown area.
But, wait a second. Maybe audacious does fit after all, if you use the second meaning, which is showing an impudent lack of respect. Those who would keep trying to put spats on this pig can’t seem to learn from the Johnstown history they do not acknowledge or respect.
The recurring theme of these periodic revitalization plans seems to be a corruption of the “Field of Dreams” mantra of build it and they will come. In Johnstown’s case, it is spend enough and they will come. Except, they never do.
This latest example of displaying fancy drawings to sell the sizzle of multiple options, flies in the face not only of Johnstown’s past experiences with downtown revitalization, it also runs smack up against megatrends in demographics that are turning once vibrant downtown areas, such as that of San Francisco, into virtual ghost towns.
Don’t take my word for it regarding San Francisco. Newsweek chronicled San Francisco’s demise little more than a month ago, recounting a tale of former workers who got to work from home during the COVID “emergency” and never came back, plus a downtown rife with crime, homelessness and drug use that has turned off would-be visitors.
Add in businesses fleeing the scene due to the crime, and population doing likewise, and all of a sudden the once extremely cosmopolitan and inviting San Francisco has taken on all the appeal of a leper colony.
Another similarity: Democratic leadership has done little to improve San Francisco, or Johnstown for that matter.
Always, it seems, our Johnstown leadership, the Myopia 25 types of any moment, feed money to out-of-town consultants – or hire such people to mismanage things – with the expectation they can somehow alter reality here with a few sweeps of pastel on cardboard.
This reminds me of the time decades back when an out-of-town consultant called me at the sports department of The Tribune-Democrat looking for my ideas to revitalize Point Stadium. This was before the stadium upgrades.
I told him then that we had a baseball stadium without a baseball team, and a facility that was in a total state of disrepair at that. But, I also chronicled for him how past minor league baseball operations here had failed, even in much more flush times economically, so I didn’t think landing a team would help.
The consultant apparently heard nothing beyond a stadium without a team, and so it goes. We’ve had several attempts at hosting teams before and since and the current one seems to be following the tradition of failing both on the field and on the financial ledger.
I also got plenty of up-close-and-personal experience with out-of-towner managers and their misguided attempts to alter Johnstown with a continuing succession of chain management at the Tribune-Democrat before I left in 1994.
They all had a better idea and were going to educate us heathens with their worldly ways. They failed, and continue to fail in 2023 if circulation or product is any measure of success.
Two humorous asides from the day it first was announced that The Tribune-Democrat had been sold to an out-of-town chain. I was trying to talk to the sports editor about the Steelers story I was writing and an old guy who looked like Yoda in a three-piece suit, kept interrupting me. I was about to tell him off when the sports editor, knowing me, interrupted to tell me the old guy was one of the new owners.
Later that same day, in one of those cliché meetings held in the newsroom, when new ownership keeps insisting things were going to change little, the time came for questions.
This “owner” conducting this session was a young, pudgy faced type (the old guy was the money man).
“Why buy this newspaper, Dean?’ I asked him.
“Probably for the same reason you’re here,” he replied.
“I was born in Johnstown, lived here all my life,” I told him.
“Next question,” he said.
People who lived in or around Johnstown in the 1960s can remember what a vibrant downtown was like, anchored by mammoth department stores such as Penn Traffic and Glosser Brothers, even Sears, as well as furniture stores and a wealth of small businesses.
Thursday night, the stores stayed open late. In general, it was easier to cross an LA freeway on foot than it was to belly up to the counter at the old Coney Island (across the street where the parking garage now sits) at shift-changing time for the steel mills.
As much as I’d love to go back to a time when the blast furnaces illuminated the night sky like a sunrise coming up over Daisytown hill, and the city’s crime rate was something to brag about, not try to rationalize, it’s not happening.
Even the trend to move retail out of town and into shopping malls is a loser, witness the demise of Richland Mall and the slimmed down profile of The Galleria.
You could make Central Park into a mini-Disney World (and FYI, the word this summer is that even that famed attraction has flagging attendance) and you’d still need to get past the reality that a lot of people from Johnstown’s suburbs or beyond don’t want to venture downtown, fearing they might not return home.
That fear is overblown, I agree. But it is the perception and perception shapes reality. I’ve heard this fear from many people, even when I used to work nights downtown and they thought I was taking my life into my own hands on a constant basis.
It doesn’t help that today’s newspaper front page, boosting the latest downtown revitalization effort, chronicled yet another city murder and arrest.
The murder story should have been displayed there, a rare nod to reporting news over boosterism and social justice warrior propaganda that usually prevails. Just unfortunate reality.
So, string those lights over Main Street. Spiff up Central Park, Put out the word that Johnstown is open for business, and tourism.
Just don’t be surprised when all this changes nothing, other than propping up the bottom line of yet another out-of-town consultant.
Sam Ross Jr's site 