It so happens that today was the New Albany Historic Home Tour, which appears to have debuted in 2006. My opinion about this event and others like it has shifted over the years; let it suffice to say that for me, the home tour now serves as a reminder of the many opportunities in New Albany that have been fumbled during the 2000s.
We could have been a contender, and gotten more things right, but whenever the redevelopment path has split, invariably we’ve rejected the way marked “transformational.” We just can’t seem to scrape that floodplain mud right off our shoes.
But I’ll readily concede that much good came from the home tour of September 10, 2007, when our house was included. The inclusion itself always struck me as odd. Our house was built in 1910, suggesting an age that merits the word “historic” even if there is little of distinction in terms of bells and whistles.
On that Staurday in 2007, promptly at 10:05 a.m., the first historic home tourists were queued outside on the front steps. They comprised a baker’s dozen descendants of the Schwartzels,...Read more
