June 1, 2008

The original "Depot Square" in Bristol, 1915


*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's way before the Bristol Plaza and the development of Farmington Ave.

The center of Bristol ("downtown") was at that time the center of retail, banking and commerce in Bristol. Those times are long gone.

Today, the downtown seems regulated to being a government sector with some banking and small sectors of retail mostly catering to the the needs of people living in the immediate vicinity.

I can't understand why our city "fathers" are having such a hard time digesting that.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the problem is too many city FATHERS and not enough city MOTHERS!

Anonymous said...

To heck with Depot Square. I miss Ocean State Job Lot.

Anonymous said...

June 1, 2008 10:16 PM:

Well to be fair, the "Den Mother" was one of the biggest and first proponents of purchasing the mall property.

Maybe we need the grandfathers and/or grandmothers back?

john cullen said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve, I think you jumped the gun with your reporting. Even the article in today's press was misleading. It lends to the rumor that a trailer park company is interested in the property. A rumor you inadvertantly started.

You should have done more investigating before reporting.

June 1, 2008 7:35 PM
Blogger Steve Collins said...

We're all eager to find out more about the developer. And rest assured that when we know more, it will be reported.

June 1, 2008 8:09 PM


To June 1, 2008 7:35 PM

Personally, I construed your entry to be tongue in cheek. In this particular case, Steve has done a rather remarkable job furnishing as much info as he has, considering how tedious it has been to scrape anything tangible together about the origin of this fairy tale bid. And he has done it up against a time frame of late Friday/Saturday. And despite the fact that Mr. Legrand was mia to take questions or explain his proud “vision” for our downtown (likely starting the weekend early hanging out wherever his Cessna was pointed – and I suspect it wasn’t Bristol) and Mr. Parker pulled a Sgt. Shultze, we appear to know quite a bit more about the “players” behind this bid than the initial discovery of a possible link to a trailer community company. Their lack of candor and transparency clearly contributed greatly to any potential “misinformation”, if there in fact is any. I wouldn’t count a link to the trailer community out just yet.

Absent any info from either the “developer” or the BDDC, us folks with the inside out pockets hanging on a thread that something positive will be done with that property are sitting right where we usually are, in the dark, and anticipating another head shaking scenario unfolding. The guy with the tuba ran out of air on Friday folks and the band stopped playing. One ludicrous “proposal” submitted by seemingly unqualified recluses is all we got. And I really don’t want to hear anything about the economy – this is a time for “buyers” and “developers” to purchase land and plan so they will be ready when we’re not checking the pockets of our winter coats for some spare cash.

Steve made calls and dug rather deep (with the help of a few others who were doing some digging on their own it appears) on the internet. Gathering info on Mr. Legrand and Heritage was not a simple Google and read. Steve furnished succinct info and presented it to all of us. He never misrepresented anything. He was unable to solve the entire mystery because the principals behind this ruse (my description) as well as our “designated representatives” seemingly cared not to furnish some very important information, at least on a timely basis – are these people in the least bit qualified?. They blew us off. We saw lots of fluffy nonsense, at least some if it outright false, and no substance. If you think Steve’s presentation of the trailer community link was misleading, compare it to the info you were presented by the lone “proposal” our leaders received, and their interest in conveying to the Bristol community, if they even have them, the facts needed to consider a further look before sending the proposal straight to the shredder.

Certain parties here are conducting themselves in a manner that indicates they do not think very highly of the general population of Bristol. Steve Collins isn’t one of them.

john cullen

ps - Hopefully we'll start gravitating expectations to a place somewhere between the geek (above - nice entry and your description appears to encompass the "basics" of any developmentworth considering)and the haughty sky pie we keep hearing about. Bristol already is a "destination", and most of us are here. Concentrate on the natives and everything else will take care of itself. And keep your eyes on that old picture...

Anonymous said...

John Cullen:

Didn't you the Whalers unwisely trade Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelson for you?

If not, I have no idea who you are and have never heard of you. And I'd never waste my time reading your long-winded posts.

Anonymous said...

To the last anonymous poster:
Totally shocked to see your post. I thought nobody made it to the end of a John Cullen comment! I usually don't, but he was busy defending my hero Steve, so I had to read it for a change.
Still kinda boring, though.

Anonymous said...

John Cullen's post is an accurate description of the problems with this proposal.

Anonymous said...

Thank you John. With the continuing development of Farmington Ave, I don't see much coming to fruition in downtown with the exception of what I stated. I hate to be gloomy, but I'm afraid that's the truth. And that truth was also expressed by Jon Rosenthal in a joint meeting (regarding downtown) of the BDA, Zoning and Planning Commission which I was part of prior to Couture's election.

Anonymous said...

10:15

Maybe you hit the nail on the head.
We don't have anyone promoting or coordinating downtown efforts, AND we also have our supposed Economic Development Director going against three administrations and saying downtown won't work.
Coutue and Stortz blew it when they did not get rid of Rosenthal, Ward still has the opportunity.

Rosenthal is a liability to Bristol's efforts to grow.

Anonymous said...

Whose side is Rosenthal on anyway?

Who is paying his salary?

Whay are we still paying his salary?

Anonymous said...

Let be be clear what Rosenthal said. He said "You can't do it downtown if it's being done on Route 6" (or something very close to that).

So with that quote and the recommendations from the Ten Year Plan of Development, in my opinion it adds up to exactly what I stated in my first post here.

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Where is Artie hiding these days. What happend to all his promises to the people who expected more out of him. Maybe I can find him at the American Legion

Anonymous said...

Maybe Stortz wasn't so bad afetr all.