Newburyport and its sisters

Photo source: Maria Campanita

This beach is not located in Newburyport.

Golden Beach is within the city limits of Zelenogorsk, Newburyport's Russian sister along the Gulf of Finland.

Newburyport has a second sister in Bura, within the Taita-Taveta district of Kenya. The MassKenya.org site is down.

This makes me ask two questions:

1. I know Zelenogorsk residents have visited Newburyport; a book of their visit is chronicled in City Hall. I also know Newburyport residents have visited Bura; newspaper clippings of their visit are in the library's lobby. But have residents from both Zelenogorsk and Bura visited Newburyport at the same time?

2. As Newburyport is a sister to both, would both be sisters to each other?

Route 1A bridge work continues

I shot this photo last weekend looking north at the Route 1A bridge construction project over the Parker River. (I had just eaten at the American Barbecue in Rowley; my review is here.)

As of this week, the project is 45% complete. Status updates may be viewed here.

Best in Country?

After reading Gillian Swart's love of lattes at Greta's Great Grains on her blog here and here, I realized I didn't have this link to the bakery on my online restaurant list over on the right. I'll add that shortly.

Last updated two years ago, Greta's website claims, After 14 years in business, three generations of Austrian and German bakers now make this family-owned bakery one of the best in the country.

Best in the country? I never knew this. Maybe I should visit the downtown bakery more often.

It's all about tourism and Starbucks

I just arrived at an epiphany: No discussion about Newburyport (re)development or chain store bans is complete without talking about Plum Island Coffee Roasters.

Say what?

First, you have to admit that PI Coffee Roasters is a successful business and is part of the "buy local" movement.

Second, you have to understand that PI Coffee Roasters would not be here if it wasn't for Starbucks. More on that later.

I previously wrote about the 18 or so establishments around downtown Newburyport that either market themselves as coffeehouses or sell cups of Joe. Considering Starbucks arrived here nearly 10 years ago, and most of their competitors are still around, something's going right.

The answer is tourism. Newburyport is not just a place to live, work, and play, but it's a destination for historical preservation, ecotourism, land and marine conservation, art studios and author readings, and, yes, shopping. Who's shopping? No one knows for sure but clearly a mix of residents and tourists, coming here by bus or train or car. Once the bike trail is complete, they'll arrive by bike.

Local blogger Tom Salemi recently wrote this about Starbucks' arrival causing "a bit of a furor."

I wasn't around here 10 years ago, but while I can understand initial disagreement, why is there still fury? In the wake of a Daily News article about the alleged arrival of an Upper Crust pizzeria chain, some comments consider this is an invasion of the once quaint Newburyport into Anytown USA.

That's not a fair description because if it wasn't for tourists, we'd have no vibrant downtown. The businesses make it vibrant, and the tourists come to shop when they're killing time between whale watches, Plum Island refuge hikes, and High Street mansion drive-bys.

It's already been proven that the majority of Port residents don't do their holiday shopping downtown or at the Tannery, but go outlet shopping in Kittery or head to Wal-Mart or Target. No?

Which brings me back to the 3-year-old Plum Island Coffee Roasters, in particular to this printed profile of the business two years ago.

"If there wasn’t a Starbucks here, we wouldn’t have done it," says [owner Joyce] Coady. "Wherever there’s a Starbucks location, there is a select clientele for specialty coffee."

I'll paraphrase that again. If Starbucks wasn't here, PI Coffee Roasters wouldn't be here either. Nor would many other independent retailers over the past 10 years it is fair to surmise.

Do you disagree?

On chain stores

Local blogger Tom Salemi wrote about chain stores 25 times over the past seven months. (And I only refer to those times he labeled his post "chain store.") Click here to read them in reverse chronological order.

Salemi cites the rise of chain stores in Portsmouth as a success story and one that Newburyport should emulate. On the flip side, he doesn't want Newburyport to follow the way of a Newington, Kittery, or Danvers.

I couldn't agree more.

But there's an angle Salemi is missing in his 25 posts, and that's something written in this January 2008 article in the liberal Reason Magazine about the clash between independent retailers and big box retailers.

Take independent retailer Newbury Comics, for instance, which 20 years ago stocked about 12,000 CDs and 13,000 cassettes at its flagship Newbury Street location in Boston's Back Bay when behemoth big box retailer Tower Records opened down the block with 50,000 CDs and 60,000 cassettes.

The market believed that Newbury Comics would fold under pressure from Tower, Virgin, HMV, Strawberries, Coconuts, Recordtown, Sam Goody, etc.

Fast forward to today, and only Newbury Comics remains.

While big-box retailers have enormous competitive advantages—sui generis leverage with distributors and manufacturers, unparalleled capital resources, immense political influence—they also face a distinct disadvantage in adjusting themselves to local preferences.

Or, look at Starbucks which opened in Newburyport about 10 years ago amid pressure that the downtown area couldn't handle another coffeehouse, let alone a chain!

But within a 5-minute walk from Starbucks today, you can buy coffee at Greta's Great Grains, Pralines Bake Shop, Abraham's Bagels, Souffle's, Caffe di Sienna, Plum Island Coffee Roasters, and Dunkin Donuts (inside Richdale's, which has its own as well) and I'm not including coffee that can be had at traditional restaurants like Fowle's, Angie's, Stella's, the Rockfish, and the Grog.

Sounds to me that Starbucks is not posing any more competition than what already exists.

I'm all for buying local, but what happens when a product is not available?

Look at office supplies, for instance.

Zip code 01950 has no store devoted to office supplies. The nearest location to buy a dry erase whiteboard, envelope moistener sticks, and a legal-sized notepad in a single purchase is Staples across the state line in Seabrook. Even Salemi's downtown Portsmouth has an independent office supply store.

Continuing this line of thought to its logical conclusion, I'd like to see an office supply store downtown. I don't care if it's a chain or not, but I can guess which would come first if presented the opportunity. I know... how about one is incorporated into the mixed residential and retail development slated for the so-called Waterside West?

Do you like the name Newburyport?

Or should it be changed to Yeatville?

I ask this question in the wake of the deadly cyclonic disaster in Myanmar. Err, Burma. Err, Myanmar.

The United States and the United Kingdom call the Indian subcontinental nation Burma, despite the United Nations' name of Myanmar. BBC News delved into the colloquialism last fall.

So.

What about Newburyport? Anyone want to call it something else, and it can be known by two names?

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On a serious note, I hope everyone in Burma/Myanmar gets the help they deserve.

SEED, Biking, and LSD

Anna Whistler, 17, a member of the environmental club at Bridgewater-Raritan High School in New Jersey, rode her bike to school last month and couldn't find a bike rack on the campus.

She asked officials where to park it.

"I thought for sure there was something," said Whistler, in a May 1 article in The Star Ledger. "They told me to park behind the Dumpster. That's where I ended up parking."

The environmental club students, after raising $2,000 over four years, wanted to give back to their school community and make the world a greener place by purchasing and installing a bike rack at the school.

Principal James Riccobono disagreed.

"In as much as the district provides courtesy busing to students who live within walking distance of the high school, because of the danger on Garretson Road, it does (not) make sense, in my opinion, to promote the riding of bicycles to school," the principal wrote in a letter distributed to the club on Earth Day.

Here in Newburyport, Seacoast Energy & Environmental Design activist Ron Martino is unhappy with Riccobono's perspective, viewing the principal as a barrier to be overcome.

Martino included a link to Streetsblog in an email he sent today to SEED's mailing list.

Granted, subsequent online searching reveals the New Jersey school is surrounded by busy streets that are links to sidewalk-free residential subdevelopments. Because of the lack of sidewalks and crosswalks, let alone smart growth policies, children and the environment are suffering. Welcome to urban sprawl and a need to allow vehicular drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians to share the roads.

Newburyport already has bike lanes and bike racks, so I don't see a restriction of biking policy at NHS happening any time soon.

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On a related note, Swiss scientist, LSD researcher, and centenarian Albert Hofmann died last week, and in tribute of his 102 years, here is a video of the Bicycle Song, vectored from Morristown Pedal Pushers: