- December 1, 2005 -
Lunch Hour Pit Stop
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I dashed over to Belmar on my lunch hour to run a Christmas-related errand... the banners hanging on the parking garage caught my eye as I ran into the store. Very colorful.
Belmar is a planned downtown (complete with apartments, luxury loft condos for sale, and trendy high end stores and restaurants) for Lakewood, which managed to never develop a downtown of its own naturally. Belmar's self-conscious hipness and squeaky cleanliness remind me of nothing so much as Downtown Disney. The security guards even roam around on Segways. It's all too organized, too contrived and pretty. Part of the charm of certain cities is the spontaneity with which culture just springs up of its own accord. Who could have predicted that the blues would take root in Chicago? That the hippies would make Haight-Ashbury into a glamorous address? Or that New Orleans would blossom into a spectacular arrangement of cajun french influence that climaxes annually with Mardi Gras? I'm afraid for New Orleans in the wake of Katrina precisely for this reason... you can't fake culture. You can't plan it and plant it with a few overconceptualized retail and residential developments. I'm afraid NoLa is going to become a Disney themepark version of its old self as it rebuilds, since much of its authenticity seems to have been washed away... you can't fake it, baby, you just can't fake it.
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© 2005 - R. J. Lehmann