MacArthur Station Sample Letter
Words Jesse Scaccia
Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 2:26 pm
December 2009
Dear Councilperson,
My name is __________________________________. I am a ___________________ resident who strongly supports light rail and successful transit oriented development for our region.
I am writing because I feel the city could and should be thinking more creatively with their design of the MacArthur Center Station, which has the potential of being a cultural crossroad in the way that Grand Central is for New York and Union Station is for Washington DC.
MacArthur Center Station is an opportunity to invigorate Norfolk’s urban core and should serve as an upbeat force to our urban streetscape. It is an opportunity for riders of The Tide to sit up, take notice, and know they’ve arrived in Norfolk – as it will ultimately establish the expectation and leave lasting impressions of our downtown. The current design is lackluster, out of scale with its surroundings, and does not convey the forward-thinking, progressive ethos of alternative transport.
Norfolk deserves to be listed amongst the best up-and-coming mid-sized cities like Portland, Austin, and Charleston. A seminal, beautiful, dynamic central transit station should be one of the first things people discuss when they talk about Norfolk.
I implore you to reevaluate the long-term vision for MacArthur Center Station. Norfolk has waited 20 years for The Tide, but just having it is not enough. We owe it to the success of light rail, downtown residents, and the City itself to make sure we get it right.
Sincerely,
________________________________
ABOUT THE WRITER
Jesse is the editor in chief of AltDaily, and he's going to take this bio seriously, but not so seriously that he's going to continue in the third person. I've been involved with a bunch of local projects and civic groups in various roles, including: Hampton Roads, The Canvas; Art | Everywhere, Street Performance in Norfolk; Survive Norfolk; Hampton Roads Pride/Out in the Park; Bike Norfolk; re:Vision Norfolk, and such.
I originally came to Norfolk as a Perry Morgan fellow in ODU's creative writing program. Before that I bummed around quite a bit, writing stacks of books that never got published, hitchhiking, couchsurfing, riding the Greyhound up down and back across this country. Some of my favorite jobs and volunteer gigs have included working on organic farms in Ireland; being first mate on an old sail boat in Holland; working at a long-term home for young men in South Africa; being a journalist and high school teacher in New York and California; washing dishes in Yosemite National Park; teaching English in DC and swimming in Florida; and interning at ESPN in Bristol, which was much less cool that you'd want it to be. My career highlights have been having three of my op-eds run in the New York Times, and being the executive producer of a six-part docu-drama on BET. Because school is cool I have three master's degrees (ODU for MFA, NYU for magazine journalism, University of Connecticut for secondary English education). I live in Norfolk because I believe in its potential. Email your ideas or nicely couched criticism to jesse@altdaily.com.
Other posts by Jesse Scaccia.
Other posts by Jesse Scaccia.
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