I just love that yesterday’s dire article in The New York Times about our floundering home state includes the crazy URI fight song, which really can’t be appreciated without the little staccato handclap just before the above phrase (I perform this song with some frequency). But there isn’t too much else to rejoice in here. I will add that they illustrated the piece with a picture of a boarded up “office building” on South Main Street with which I have had a passing familiarity — and yes, it was an office building in that it had been carved up, rented out and some people had desks. I would just hate to think that people in, say, Houston are laughing at our office building. So Houston, if you are reading this, I want you to know we have many tall and shiny buildings that are also empty and boarded up.
At least the piece ends on an upbeat note with a recent transplant, Marjory Garrison, singing our praises.
Ms. Garrison moved to Providence last summer from Brooklyn and became so captivated that she started her own recruitment campaign, plastering neighborhoods in Atlanta, Boston, Brooklyn and Seattle with posters that shout “Move to Providence!”
“It has so much going for it, and so much of that is still under the surface in a lot of ways,” she said. “I think people here believe that once you crack that open, anything is possible.”
Well then, let’s get cracking.
I say the more the merrier. It’s about voting power at this point. The more 20-something unemployed graphic designers are here to vote, the less the votes of the 50-something retired state secretaries living in Johnston are going to matter.
Does anyone else think this “Move to Providence” campaign is a little weird? If Providence is such a treasure, then keep your mouth shut. How many more hipsters and unemployed graphic designers do we need? White Electric is already crowded enough…
I got really excited when you gave a shout out to the Rhody fight song!
This is the website for the “Move to Providence” campaign.
http://thebiggestlittle.org/
They have a cute little tag you can stick on your website too.
I agree. Providence is too cool of a city to take the ass kicking its been receiving in the last year. I feel we will be ok, but we need to support the people the people tryin to push things forward. We need to get the buzz back and its great to see sites like The Daily Dose and thebiggestlittle providing a valuable local perspective. Keep on keepin on.