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Thursday, February 29, 1996 Page:
Make downtown W-B come alive with flowers
A hint of warmth graced a stroll around the downtown in recent days. The
sun over Public Square offered heat as well as light, marking a delightful
change from the cold orb that had been hovering over our city for monthsThe
softness of the air, the fragrance in the breeze, the sight of the occasional
pedestrian in shirtsleeves — all served as reminders that spring is on the
way.
What better time to daydream of Wilkes-Barre, the Flower City of the
Northeast?
With each passing week, The Times Leader’s “Miracle on Main Street” series
continues — and the number of solid, creative ideas for rejuvenating
Wilkes-Barre grows. Here’s the latest. It’s from Barbara Khan of Mountaintop,
one of the members of this month’s Readers’ Editorial Board at the newspaper.
“Why not make flowers a centerpiece of the city?” Ms. Khan asked during a
recent editorial-board meeting.
Well, why not? Downtown Wilkes-Barre needs short-term as well as long-term
solutions. And a flower-planting campaign would offer some of the most
significant short-term benefits we know.
Think of it:
Flowers are cheap. Compared to an arena, a college bookstore or an
inflatable dam, that is. Gracing downtown Wilkes-Barre’s streets and avenues
with flowers would require building new planters and buying some seeds, but
that’s about it. Because …
Volunteers could handle the load. Few other improvement projects lend
themselves so well to volunteer labor. Virtually every city in America boasts
a core group of gardeners who’d be happy to donate their time. Gardening is
like that: It’s such a pleasant activity, hard-working people do it to relax.
They consider it recreation, just as others take to fishing or hunting or
walking through the woods.
And imagine the response if Wilkes-Barre asked for volunteers to fish for
the good of the city.
Furthermore …
Flowers build community. Consider the possibilities.
Suppose a few dedicated people organized a vigorous volunteer group, and
pledged to make downtown Wilkes-Barre come alive with flowers each year.
Group members spend a day looking at the delightful arrays that already
blossom around Public Square in the spring.
That’s the look we want, the members resolve. Except we want it to extend
up and down all four Main and Market streets flanking the square.
So the city builds planters and buys the seeds. And the group takes over
from there.
Each volunteer then would have a personal stake in Wilkes-Barre’s downtown.
The graffiti defacing the boarded-up South Main Street shops would stop being
“the other guy’s” problem, and start being the volunteers’ problem. “Hey,”
each member would think. “That’s my block these vandals are messing with. And
by gosh I want it to stop.”
The gardeners wouldn’t be the only ones feeling that way.
Right now, the message blaring as if from a loudspeaker along South Main
and West Market streets is, “No one cares.” The broken windows and
plywood-over-the-doors signify neglect. For that reason, the sights make the
streets seem menacing to pedestrians: Get mugged in these doorways, buster,
and you’re on your own.
No wonder the sidewalks get emptier by the year.
But flowers bring the welcome mat back. Someone does care, the flowers
announce. Someone cares enough to come here several times a week, and tend
these blossoms that have no purpose in life other than to be beautiful.
And if that someone cares, then so can I, a pedestrian reasons.
(In other cities, urban parks such as Public Square are brooding and
threatening places, even at high noon on a business day. Wilkes-Barre’s is
not. Flowers are part of the reason why.)
Flowers alone would not save downtown Wilkes-Barre, any more than an
inflatable dam, a rejuvenated waterfront or a Wyoming Valley Tour of Churches
would.
But flowers would help. Their loveliness would mark a city on the upswing
rather than the down; and right now, that’s the most any resident could hope
for.