Wal-mart, New York
A new chapter in Ithaca’s history has been written. People are going to be talking about this for years. It’s huge. Big enough to replace the weather as the chief topic of conversation at Collegetown Bagels.
The I’s have been dotted. The ink is drying on the contracts. The little things that have slipped below the radar the last couple of weeks suddenly add up. All the secret visits to Arkansas, all the guys in cheap suits with Southern accents sneaking into City hall at all hours of the day and night, room service delivering bottles of Wild Turkey to the penthouse suite at the Holiday Inn, Lear jets with the large familiar yellow logo parked on the tarmac at Tompkins County Airport.
You can read it on the front page of the Ithaca Urinal tomorrow or you can read about it tonight right here at Ithaca Sucks.
The Wal-mart Corporation of Bentonville, Arkansas has bought out Ithaca, New York lock, gorge and bottle. In a matter of days every rusted Volvo in Ithaca will be sporting new bumper stickers. Wal-mart is gorges. Cops will soon be wearing the new uniforms – the ones with the cute little visor caps and the name tags that identify them as Customer Service Representatives. The smiling sun will wave over City Hall. Carolyn Peterson will be standing behind the counter, wearing prince nez glasses, sensible shoes and a bright new blue tunic, selling municipal bonds.
This is not a triumph of the human spirit. This is a sell out to corporate interests. This is a victory for greed, pure and simple. It’s a natural.
You’ve come a long way, Ithaca, from sleepy peddler village to dying upstate community to urban hyper-mart but you’ve remained loyal to your core values. Yankee enterprise, the power of the almighty $, the business of America is business. Hey, it’s expensive to run a city. Filling potholes, plowing the Commons so panhandlers can get around – nobody else shops downtown anymore – sponsoring those rinky dink festivals with the falafel booths. How many cuckoo clocks do you have to collect sales tax on to pay off the latest toxic spill?
No, they needed something big. A new hotel wasn’t going to do it. A movie duplex didn’t cut the mustard. More parking? For what? There wasn’t anything left downtown to draw that many people to fill all those parking spaces Al Cohen had sold the city. A pothole festival was too ridiculous to consider. The previous administration had co-opted the biggest retail space downtown for the public library creating the most literate group of people on welfare and unemployment in the United States. It was time to consider a bold move.
So now, when there’s a water main break on Seneca, just get on the phone and call for a week mop cleanup. Forget Ithaca Hours, we’ve got dollar off coupons now with Ezra Cornell's picture on the front. He's holding an axe. To chop prices.
The new bumper stickers alone will pay for a year’s worth of snow removal on the Commons. People will need to know how to get to Wal-mart, New York from Buffalo. Sell them a map. They’ll want to buy a tee shirt, a plastic water bottle, a snow shovel. Blue light specials on the Sam Walton Commons.
It sort of makes perfect sense doesn’t it?
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 8:58 PM
