It’s been a long time, decades really, since Grand Boulevard in Brookfield has been what most people would call “vibrant.” But the business owners in the Grand/Prairie commercial district are not content with simply waiting for the village or the Chamber of Commerce or fate to deal them a better hand.
Like the village’s tavern owners, the Grand Boulevard business owners have banded together to form a coalition to boost the district and drive shoppers to the village’s traditional downtown.
Will it succeed? There is plenty of history-Mainstreet, BERC-to tell them that they’re pushing a huge boulder up a steep hill. But by trying to address the specific issues surrounding the Grand/Prairie area instead of trying to solve all of the village’s commercial conundrums, the group may have hit on a solution.
The Brookfield Bar Owners Association formed in the wake of a threat-a potential village-wide smoking ban. While that threat became moot with the passage of the statewide law, it was an issue that brought business owners together. That collaboration bore fruit this summer, when the group hosted its first pub crawl. It was a smashing success-one they’re hoping to replicate in the future.
Sure, it’s not an official business organization with bylaws and officers and monthly meetings, but the Grand Boulevard Business District is a grass roots group dedicated to pumping life into an area that desperately needs it. Here’s wishing them well.
Happy birthday to us
The Landmark is celebrating a landmark of its own. Aug. 21 marked the 10th anniversary of the paper’s purchase and expansion under the ownership of Wednesday Journal, Inc.
How time flies.
While the Landmark was a local fixture in Riverside, the paper was pretty much unknown outside the boundaries of that village in 1997. We purchased the paper from Judy Baar Topinka (still a columnist for us) who had purchased the publication from its founder Jim Finnegan.
When Wednesday Journal bought the paper, we immediately made the decision to expand the coverage of the paper to include Brookfield and North Riverside, which we felt were not only natural links, but areas that were underserved.
Ironically, our first page one story was-“Storms swamp villages.” A version of that headline was our top story last week, too. Some things, it seems, never change.
It took some time to get acquainted with the folks in all three towns, and we’re sure that some of them wondered what we were all about. After a decade of covering the highs and lows of the villages, we are proud to hear residents tell us that the Landmark is their community newspaper. That’s what we’re all about.