The times they are a changin’
Right around the time that Nobody’s Fool completed filming, a subtle change began to take place in Beacon. It was nothing major; the real estate agents didn’t have a sudden epiphany and start selling the living daylights out of the town. In fact, at that point in time our house was worth more than $30k less than it was at the point that we first purchased it, so you can imagine that even the few agents willing to sell property in the town were setting their sights on a bit more fertile territory. What did happen took place on two fronts: there was a change in the City’s administration and two peopleâ€â€a husband and wifeâ€â€from New York City took notice of the architecture and the location and determined that there was a jewel hidden beneath the City’s crusty outer shell.
The City administration began looking at ways to revitalize the city, so they put initiatives in place to doll up Main Street a bit and they also tried to get neighborhoods within the community to start taking responsibility for fixing up the way each neighborhood looked. The former plan worked pretty well; the east end of Main street was fitted with new lighting fixtures and sidewalks. And while the buildings still looked pretty sorry, there was evidence that something in the city was changing. The “neighborhood” plan faltered a bit, was unable to gain traction and finally failed. But it was still clear that the City was making a move in a positive direction.
The couple from New York City began buying up some of the crusty buildings on the City’s east end and slowly began renovating them, not in a half-hearted manner that left the buildings looking as if someone had simple given them a paint job, but in a truly loving fashion, restoring the old storefronts to their former glory, creating apartments that were large, airy, well lit, and beautiful. In other words, they not only fixed the buildings up, they also made them objects of desire. Buildings that forced you to love them, even while everything else in the city said that you shouldn’t.
Once these little gems were complete, the City began to attract businesses. Most of them were antique stores, and boutique businesses, very few were restaurants, but all were pleased with the low rents available in the town and the fact that the City administration was attempting to draw business and the State’s attention to the community. Some people around town complained that the businesses were “useless” because they weren’t creating jobs for the locals, but it was obvious that life was once again beginning to course through the veins of the City.
It was these changes that laid the groundwork for the City’s upswing and that suddenly made it possible (and wise) to consider rebuilding our house from the ground up…