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Hartford attempts a salsa-spiced rebirth


doz180

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without getting in the middle of the heated discussion... i have some points about these comments.

first, and i'm going to be very frank and blunt, the suburbanites need to get out more if they are "overwhelmed" by being in a mostly immigrant neighborhood, whether most of the people speak spanish or english. you have to remember that the reason that immigrant neighborhood exists in the first place is because the immigrants feel overwhelmed by the whites and having that neighborhood allows them to keep some of their traditions close without stepping on anyone's toes. i had the benefit of growing up in a suburb with a mother who grew up in inner city new haven. granted, she ended up being one of those people who feared parts of it (mainly because she was robbed and had people break into her home and stuff, so it wasn't without reason), but she was also very culturally minded and doesn't fear those who speak other languages. to give an example, she's a teacher in a private catholic k-8 school in a very suburban town. they got new students from venezuela. the other teachers thought they shouldn't be allowed because the younger ones couldn't speak enough english. they were afraid to teach these students because they spoke another language. my mother took them in and the students became well adjusted. if you can't handle the fact that people are different, maybe you shouldn't be venturing out in the first place. if you go into a city, regardless of what neighborhood you're in, you're going to find that there are people who look, talk, act, and dress differently than you. they might not speak english or if they do, it might not be very good. but it's their home you entered. while you might think they should feel just fine going into your white suburban town, they feel just as awkward and overwhelmed as you do, but in the city where there are all sorts of different cultures, they do just fine.

second, while it sounds like a nice idea to have bilingual ambassadors to these neighborhoods, it's just not economically feasible. who's gonna provide them? the city? the individual shops? all the shops pay into it? it's not that easy. and it's just not necessary. for the most part, anyone running a store might not have had english as a first language, or even a second, but they know enough to get by and answer any questions you might have. saying that you need, or would like, a translator when you go into these neighborhoods makes it sound like you are uncomfortable with people speaking a different language around you. i am not trying to bash you or anything, i'm just trying to show you what it sounds like from someone who doesn't actually know you. it's really easy to be misleading on a web forum like this.

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Nothing you are saying contradicts what I am saying. Sure, lots of people should be different than they are--suburbanites included--but accepting their potential discomfort, we have two options: (1) do something to attract them to an ethnic neighborhood in the city or (2) do nothing. Well, I'm of the mind that wealthy, white suburbanites spending their money inside Hartford is a good thing so I'm suggesting ways to make that happen. If that's too business-minded and practical for some, sobeit, keep things the way they are and ignore that potential source of income. In the end, however, I'm confident that some of these additions--the ambassadors, for instance, and marketing to the non-Latino community--would boost business and help the neighborhood.

Without a change in attitude, Hartford will continue to rely on state subsidies and the small cadre of people with means who are as open-minded and multi-cultural as the folks on this board. News flash: most people aren't. Now, that may be sad and they may be stupid, but a lot of them also have money to spend, so why not get them to spend it here instead of Westfarms. As it stands, however, white professionals who live in the city are uniquely thick-skinned. I was speaking to a colleague of mine who lives near Frog Hollow. She loves her home and her neighbors, but her car is broken into nearly every month and she doesn't go outside at night; her husband was robbed at knife-point the one time he ventured out to walk to the nearest shop for milk. With stories like that, can we really expect most suburbanites to come into those neighborhoods to shop? Absolutely not. So disparage them all you want, but they will continue to spend their money elsewhere.

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i can see marketing the shops and city neighborhoods to outsiders. most people who own or work in a store, while english is not their first language, do speak it enough to help people out. they're usually quite friendly as well. i don't see the economic viability of these ambassadors.

and you're also assuming that suburbanites who currently only shop at big box chains and malls will actually go into the city to shop. while some might, the majority will think that going to hartford means a trip to a nice chain restaurant, like ruth's chris or something. or they don't leave the area around the civic center or bars or theatres. they go to that one area they intend to and that's it. they never wander around discovering new parts of the city. they consider themselves cultured because they go to a show at the bushnell or hartford stage.

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I think you're being unfair. Suburbanites don't wander around the various neighborhoods because they're rational people, who, based on both perception and reality, are concerned that they will face either property damage or personal harm if they do so. In addition, the transactional costs of venturing out of downtown are high in the sense that they will have to drive because there is no obviously convenient or accessible means of transportation to the neighborhoods. (And don't tell me they should take the bus because that, again, involves their concern about its safety.) They will have to drive and park, and they won't know where to park, and they're not going to walk, at least at night, because (1) to go north you cross a highway and (2) to go south you cross a park. (And yes, they're probably lazy also, but lazy people spend money too.) Whether these things are true or not is irrelevant when people believe their true.

(And frankly, living here, I think their concerns are valid. Like it or not, Hartford is a pretty tough town and a minority of thugs are able to wreak havoc with just a few bad acts. Don't forget, also, that many suburbanites remember the media coverage from the middle-1990s about the gang funeral down Park Street. I used to walk to the Half Door from my place in the West End until a couple of violent muggings and an attempted armed robbery motivated me to drive, which I hate because I like to get a little drunk.)

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"Your anger and contempt are palpable"

That is a little dramatic isn't it Whaler0718? If you reread my post you will see I didn't address you specifically until the second paragraph. The first paragraph was aimed at the ideas some people expressed earlier about going into certain areas of Hartford. I feel contempt towards no one, I just feel frustrated that things seem to never change.

Anyways Whaler you obviously don't fit into that group because you have spent time on Park Street. However, I addressed you about your comment on foreign languages, "It can either be very charming or very unnerving.." Unnerving means "to inspire fear" that is fairly extreme don't you think? If somebody feels fear when they hear people speaking a foreign language they should stay out of all urban areas of CT, and it isn't just Spanish they are going to hear, its Polish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Albanian, etc...

I would like to steer the thread back into the direction it was originally going, that is how can these immigrant communities in Hartford be promoted? How can more business grow, and can it be a destination for people outside of those ethnic groups?

I think Whaler had a good idea about having ambassadors. It wouldn't work on a daily basis, but I think on special occasions there could be some type of tour. I'm thinking a restaurant tour that would attract people from the suburbs and the convention center. I think people want to try new food, but if they aren't sure what to try they aren't going to do it on their own. Peruvian cuisine is considered one the best in the world and Hartford has five Peruvian restaurants the last time I checked. Never mind I just checked online and they did a tasting in November.

www.apapro.org/index.php

But What I'm thinking is get a van and take people on a chow tour, take them to a Peruvian place and then a Puerto Rican place, etc... Let them see the food is good, the people are nice, no one is going to look at them funny if they don't know what to order, and then in the future they will go back there and hopefully bring a friend and the word will spread that way.

Something else that would be good is a restaurant/nightclub that is really fun. Something that people will go to after work that is Latin but everybody feels comfortable. If anybody knows Miami Beach, there is a place called Mangos that fits that description. Everybody likes that place. When I was working in Miami many of my coworkers liked to go there for happy hour, it also drew a ton of tourists, business people, conventioneers, etc... They would have a band and they had a bunch of young, attractive waitress/waiters that would dance on the bar top and try to get the crowd to dance. That was all they did, but people love that place.

The idea is that one day this will be part of Hartford's identity. People will say,"You are lucky you have to work in Hartford next week, they have that really great Latin food(or West Indian food), after you eat you have to go to this Brazilian bar....." Think about it just from the view of people being sent to Hartford to attend a convention for their job. You know that when they get out of the convention for the day they want to go party, Hartford could give them something different than other cities with convention centers, something they are going to remember.

Any other thoughts??

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one of the neatest things i did when i was in high school was took a walking/eating tour of the lower east side of manhattan. it was run by a columbia grad student who was familiar with the history of the area. every now and then we stopped and he either had food that he gave us (that had something to do with the history) or he got food from some of the local restaurants. it was really cool. something like this would be great in almost any city that has such a mix of cultures.

however, while that tour was free (paid for by my high school), i'm picturing something that the restaurants in a neighborhood or all over the city get together for a big taste of hartford (not talking about the actual taste of hartford) week where you can pay for a ticket that gets you a certain dish or something at a variety of different restaurants. each ticket has a certain number of stubs. you give a stub to each restaurant you visit and that's how they get a share of the money that people spend on them. it comes with a map and a directory of the participating restaurants. each stub can be for an appetizer or a dessert or an entree.

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