 Ever since my family moved here from Groton in 2000, there have been many things I do not miss. There are many things that Lansing has that Groton does not have. Lansing has been a great place to live. However, there is one thing that I have always missed about Groton. The one thing that would bring me back to Groton would be the downtown.
My house was on Spring Street, as was Ken Tillapaugh's. Spring Street led straight to Downtown. It was an easy walk to the bowling alley, barbershop, library, and other places. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are of walking up and down that street. Walking to the Caboose for ice cream in the summers, walking to and from football practice, and arguing with Kevin the barber about who was the better baseball team (Yankees or Red Sox). These same things cannot be found in Lansing. Ithaca, Groton, Newfield, Trumansburg, even Dryden have some sort of downtown area. Lansing has its own little area; but Pit Stop, the Sub Shop, and Rogue's Harbor is hardly a downtown.
The main thing that makes a downtown is a sidewalk. Routes 34 and 34B have very wide shoulders, wider than most roads, but it's no sidewalk. Having a sidewalk would attract people to walk to certain places. For us teenagers, even having a place to simply hangout would be nice. It's not as if we can't find a place to be with our friends, but our options are limited. There is the mall, but the mall doesn't change much.
It's not as if Lansing is not a connected community, we are, but there aren't many places to bump into other people for a nice chat beyond stores outside of the town. There is one place where people can really gather together at once, the school. Lansing is very sports oriented, there's no denying that. This makes some sporting events very social places, especially the football games. This can alienate some people, like me who hasn't been to one football game until this year.
So, socially a downtown area could bring a lot of people together. It could become a place where people who do not normally see each other to be at least in the same general area.
A downtown area would not just be good for the youth in Lansing, but it could have some great benefits for the town as a whole. Some of the businesses around Lansing can attract a lot of out-of-town attention. Rogue's Harbor is probably the best example for this. Many Ithaca College film students use Rogue's as a setting for their movies and Cornell students flood the restaurant with their families every graduation. Local businesses like the Sub Shop do quite well with just local customers, but they could do even better if out-of-towners just wandered around downtown Lansing and got hungry.
One of the obvious issues is that there aren't enough businesses. There are two empty lots near Phoenix Auto that could be turned into areas for businesses. The large tracts of uncultivated land across from the town ball fields could be converted also. Even the empty building behind Rogue's Harbor that used to be a grocery store could cater to customers once again.
Something this expeditious does not simply happen overnight. The town would need to find business owners willing to come into Lansing and they would need to construct a sidewalk. With major issues on the town budget already, like the sewer system, this probably would take some time. The effects in the long run may just be enough to outweigh the costs. This is just a thought. Maybe not having a downtown is part of what makes Lansing so unique.
Reprinted from The Bobcat, The Lansing Student Newspaper, with permission
The Bobcat is distributed at Gimme! Lansing, LCLC, Lansing Recreation Office,
Lansing Post Office, Lansing High School Office, and The Pit Stop
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