The following was written to be a part of the time capsule, along with a copy of the Tallahassee Democrat, as part of the Gaines Street construction groundbreaking ceremony. The capsule is to be opened in 2029.
If you are reading this and the year is 2029, you have probably just opened a time capsule embedded into the ground as part of the Gaines Street road construction project in July 2009.
Twenty years is not a long time, but long enough I suspect for you to pass judgment about how prescient we were with this project. It used to be that you made roads bigger, wider, with more lanes to spur growth. In this case, random growth per se is not necessarily the goal; instead, we are looking for the right kind of growth, the right types of development.
We figured more people would be on foot and in smaller vehicles, whatever the fuel source of their vehicles. We figured more people would be riding bikes. This project was the wave of the future. Or so we thought.
In the next two decades I suspect change will happen more rapidly than in any previous time in our history. I hope, for your sake, one thing doesn’t change. I hope that reading a printed newspaper is a normal experience, that reading this one in the time capsule is not a new thing for you. If I’m right, now would be a good time to renew your subscription. Otherwise, keep in mind that the Tallahassee Democrat was an important part of this community for more than 100 years, and its loss had a big impact on the quality of community life.
Of course, if I’m still around, look me up and we can talk, share old memories about the good old days. If you are too young to remember the good old days, I’ll fill you in.
I’ll probably still be working somewhere, like most other 72-year-olds in 2029. People used to retire from work and go hunting and fishing once upon a time, before the economy crashed, oh, a year or so before the construction project began on Gaines Street.
It was a quite a controversy, completing this project, with the economy gone belly up, but it wasn’t just about the money. Some called the project “exciting,” others something else. Either way, it showed our community’s commitment to the Gaines Street area and that we fussed with each other a lot.
It was a pretty big deal, to spend $15 million when we did to make Gaines Street “friendlier” to bicyclists and pedestrians. It might be hard for you to believe – or remember – that Gaines Street once was four lanes, before this construction project brought it down to two lanes, one in each direction.
Our hope was that the right kinds of businesses would develop with the right kind of road, with the arts and environment being the economic drivers for that right kind of growth. We thought this street would be the perfect place for that kind of thing to occur and, clearly, we’ve started in that direction, as some of my Facebook friends say.
Liz Coy Jamesonthat “Tallahassee is a literary Mecca with abundant new talent burgeoning forth from Florida State University's creative writing program and with a plethora of established writers who live in Tally and environs, including but not limited to Robert Olen Butler, Mark Winegardner, Connie May Fowler, Janet Burroway, K.G. Schneider, Rick Campbell, Mary Jane Ryals.”
Gaines is in the right spot, with Florida A&M University and FSU surrounding it on two sides and downtown and government and office buildings taking care of a lot of the rest. It was evolving on its own – well, nudged slightly – into a center for the arts, an eclectic collection of students, intellectuals and artists of various stripes.
Another Facebook friend, Susan Gage, described the All Saints area, just east of Railroad Avenue, as a “funky, fun, easy-going hangout right now. It has a life of its own. That is going to change.”
One book writer, Terry Galloway, drew 150 people to a recent book reading. An ink-on-paper book.
Susan might not have seemed enthusiastic about that change being all good, but time will tell.
Some in town are hoping that a Performing Arts Center will soon be built in the Gaines Street area. Others are fussing about it being a waste of money. My guess is you’re about to break ground on just such a center, oh, in the next year or two, or Tallahassee has changed more than I thought.
You see, we don’t seem to get anything done in a hurry. Things take time. We’ve got to fuss at and with each other for a good 10, 15, 20 years before we get to work. The Gaines Street project had its own “gestation period,” as the Democrat’s Editorial Page Editor Mary Ann Lindley refers to the fussing time, lasting some 15 or so years.
Citizen groups pushed it, as did Roxanne Manning, head of the Tallahassee Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and project manager of the Gaines Street corridor revitalization effort and some members of the City Commission.
If you are pleased with the results, credit citizens, credit Manning and members of the city administration. If not, blame the commissioners. That’s what everyone did back in our day.
I’ll be honest, when I first moved here in 2005, I wasn’t all that impressed with Gaines Street. It was a road I used to drive through to get to other places, not a destination or place that I stopped, except in traffic jams on the way to FSU football games.
It was a road, that’s all, not a neighborhood, not to me. It was less of a corridor and more of a conduit. I saw boarded-up buildings, and some buildings that weren’t boarded up that looked to me like they should have been.
That but changed, as you know, after a fair amount of fussing, as I’ve said.
But finally after all those years, the day came for the groundbreaking. Everyone got all dressed up for the big event and … it rained, absolutely poured. The groundbreaking was further delayed.
I just thought you should know.
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