"Don't know much about real estate.
Got the brains of a paper plate.
Got no use for a party dress
Cos all I like to do is second-guess."
-"Wonderful World" by Sam (Too Many) Cook(es Spoil the Harbor)
Not exactly a happy story in one of today's local papers about yet another casualty of the downturn in real estate right here in the Rose of New England. Turns out a mondo condo project on the waterfront, promoted with the promise of helping turn the area into a beautiful swan has shown itself to bit more of an ugly duckling than anyone would have imagined.
Article in the newspaper has two of the self-styled movers and shakers of redeveloping the Norwich Harbor tsk-tsking about the project and pointing out that they NEVER thought it was a good idea for where it was when it was proposed.
One of the pair has quite a few holdings in the harbor area, to include a miniature golf course with a volcanic eruption every fifteen minutes, that has been closed for quite some time because of a fire that caused a LOT of damage. Et tu, Tiger Woods?
The other harbor booster owns a junkyard right on the water's edge, on the opposite shore from the condo project. Both pointed out in great detail in today's paper how they testified before various development agencies, repeatedly, how this project would be a bust. Nostradamus must be very proud. I, on the other hand, am a little puzzled because I attended two of the meetings at which these misgivings were voiced, and I have no recollection of hearing their concerns at the time.
As a matter of fact, I can't even recall seeing either of them (I am a compulsive note taker and they appear nowhere in my Chronicle of Riddick). Must have been the lighting in the rooms.
There are six phases to every project, private or public:
1: Enthusiasm
2: Disillusionment
3: Fear
4: Search for the Guilty
5: Punishment of the Innocent and
6: Rewards and Honors for the Non-Participants
I am always impressed at how quickly we get to Phase Four.
If they ever make hindsight an Olympic Event, we'd see most of Norwich stampeding to the medals podium.
-bill kenny
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