Change is good ... but sometimes not

This afternoon, I extended my lunch break a little bit by walking around downtown Huntington. My route included the 900 block of 3rd Avenue, across from Pullman Square. I watched an eastbound car parallel park, and I realized that I had become used to two-way traffic on 3rd Avenue downtown.

Back when Pullman Square was in the just-announced-but-not-under-construction stage, a person who frequented a Huntington-based Internet bulletin board (not The Herald-Dispatch’s) continually criticized Pullman Square because two-way traffic on 3rd Avenue would cause people to avoid the area. I’m so glad he was wrong. To my mind, two-way traffic on 3rd Avenue was one of the biggest deterrents to business in that area, not counting the 9-acre parking lot known as Superblock.

Who wanted to cross four or five lanes of high-speed, one-way traffic to get from the Superblock parking lot to downtown? At least now that block of 3rd Avenue is showing signs of life.

I like 3rd Avenue as a two-way street that a middle-aged guy like me can cross.

I freely admit I was not born and raised in Huntington, although my father’s agricultural and mercantile business dealings brought me down here a lot when I was a child. I’m not wedded to the idea of preserving Huntington as it was. Huntington has a lot of historic buildings that should be preserved. I had to stop along 3rd Avenue today to get a closer look at the house next to the church at the corner of 27th Street. That house looks really grand from the outside. I have no idea, of course, what it looks like on the inside. It’s a pity it’s coming down for a parking lot. But ownership is nine-tenths of the law, and apparently no one has stepped forward and offered to relocate the house.

Along with historic buildings, Huntington has a lot of old buildings of no historical significance. “Historical” is a subjective term. I drove around Highlawn this morning and took note of many identical two-story wood-frame houses a few blocks from ACF. In some ways, that neighborhood could be deemed historical by an industrial historian, but few other people would consider it so. If the house next to the church is to be saved, some of these houses where the people who built rail cars and raised families should be considered historical, too, I guess.

Here in Huntington we need to know what historical buildings to preserve and which merely old ones to jettison.

And which streets to change. I’m glad one-way traffic on 3rd Avenue wasn’t preserved, and I wish the house next to the church could be. But it’s not my money and not my decision.

And that's as close to a point as you'll come in this particular collection of musings.