Going Down

To me the word “Downtown” means the center of the city. I grew up near Chicago and when we would go downtown it was where all the nice restaurants, theaters, bars, clubs, and entertainment venues were located. In my hometown of Rockford Illinois downtown had a much more negative stigma associated with it. Many of the newer and upper class establishments would start up on the east side of town. Because of this the downtown area was poorly kept up and quite honestly an area filled with crime and poverty. Fort Myers from what I understand was the same way although from our trip I can see that a restorative effort has been made in the area and it was surprisingly clean. Some of the things we encountered had influences from Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone (the three men who lived in this area and were depicted in the statues along the water). An effort was also made to incorporate an ecological element into the area as seen in the plant names carved in the artwork as well as the variety of species found in the area. It is interesting to see how the river had been straightened and the land had been built up in some areas artificially. We also viewed the marina, the Olympic art museum, an old theater, and many of the restaurants, hotels, and shops. You can see that Fort Myers is making a big push to show people that the downtown area is a great place to be and I think the ultimate goal is to model it after Naples. The Naples downtown area is beautiful and Fifth Avenue is a prominent spot to go out even during the week. It would be nice if Fort Myers could someday be like that again to attract tourists and locals alike.