10 Comments Add your own

• 1. Skull E  |  May 22nd, 2008 at 12:55 pm

  You are wrong about Ken’s Hideaway. Nice place to relax after a hard day’s work.

• 2. Wally Ball  |  May 23rd, 2008 at 11:01 am

  I also disagree about Ken’s. and about Symbol. Bring it back downtown!

• 3. Angel  |  May 26th, 2008 at 6:24 pm

  I think it should be…”What should make a Rockford-area comeback.”
  So much of what made Rockford good is gone. I have lived here for my entire life and have seen so many good things disappear. The Belford Drive-in. NAT. Movies at the Coronado. Frank Gays. Jungle Jim’s. Really good local music. Do I need to go on? I am starting to see a quiet resurgance of what made Rockford great, but it is slow going. People who live here need to stop supporting all the corporate crap and start looking at all the great LOCAL establishments. There is so much great local music and food to be enjoyed, but so many people are flocking to the Texas Roadhouse instead. I just don’t understand it.

• 4. Scott Phillips  |  June 4th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

  Right on, Angel! I lived in Rockford for 42 of my 51 years until I couldn’t take it anymore and left, for good. Or should I say I couldn’t wait for positive change any longer. You might just have to go too to find others that appreciate the culture you so desperately crave. Rockford is what it is. A middle of the road, non-forward thinking mid-western town. Rockfordians are quick to complain about how Rockford should be but, apathy runs rampant. It’s far too easy to drive to any one of the many boring chain places and say you’ve experienced some semblance of culture because they’ve got one of those in “Chicagoland”.
  I lived in downtown Rockford for a number of years before I split. I also owned a small business for five years so I feel I made my contribution to the local scene. Culturally, I really tired of hanging out at the only four places in downtown worth frequenting and when not at those places I participated in numerous poorly attended small events and went to places like Store Front Cinema where I sat and watched movie after great movie with no more than three or four other people. Or I’d go to the art museum and there ‘d be maybe one or two other people there. Go to a foreign film series at RVC and sit with a couple others. God, that was depressing!
  Hats off to those people that have tried new and independant things in Rockford. The reality, however, is that there just aren’t enough of the right kind of people in Rockford to make any real difference, at least culturally.
  Movies at the Coronado and other downtown theaters, Jungle Jim’s, NAT (what happended there?!), Charlotte’s Web in its heyday, The Stardust and whatever it was that it morphed into, the original Irish Rose and all its spin-offs within that same building, independant record stores (like Straight Johnson’s, Co-op Records, Apple Tree), Villa Capri at 5 Points, Nino’s Steakhouse, Hollywood Drive-in, DJ Stewarts with that restaruant on the top floor, Rockford Plaza and Goldbaltts, the original Rockford College campus, all night city bus service, the numerous public swimming pools, and a hundred other things that made Rockford a great place. It’s all gone and it ain’t comin’ back. Perhaps I’m just nostalgic for my youth. Thank God Maria’s is still around! Or has it closed too?
  Rockford used to be a much cooler place. When the downtown died, as many downtowns all across America died, it signalled the end of much of the homegrown culture that made our towns great. I’m all for what should come back to Rockford. But sadly, no one really cares about downtown Rockford. If it’s not out on some strip it’s not important. I don’t buy this crap about it being hard to get to downtown. C’mon, how lame. Rockford is what it is. With all the strip centers on the east side it’s a little slice of “every where-ville” and “no where-ville” at the same time. Funny how things change. The lights of I-90 have lured the city eastward leaving the city’s core in shambles. Driving up North Main or down 11th Street or Broadway or 7th Street or Kishwaukee feels like some post industrial wastland. Shame on you Rockford. No wonder you can’t convince your young to stay. I lived in Rockford for nearly a half century and watched my city go from great to okay to run down and poorly managed. Between property taxes, poor schools, apathy, the anti-change people, the anti-downtown people and the lack of any real culture who would want to stay? Rockford’s not going to get any better any time soon. Every time I come back I see more decay than the last time.
  Angel my friend, either work for change, and be prepared to work for a long time or cast your eyes to the horizon. Rockford is not the center of the universe and there are great places to live. Communities that know they’ve got a great thing going. Places where there isn’t just talk about change but, where real change happens.
  I couldn’t wait any longer for my city to wake up. We’re only gonna live so long and t’s later than you think”.

• 5. Georgette Braun  |  June 5th, 2008 at 7:34 am

  Scott: Whereabouts you living now? How does it compare to Rockford culturally and cost-wise?

• 6. Scott Phillips  |  June 5th, 2008 at 9:28 am

  I now live in Nashville, a great city that Rockford should never compare itself to. It’s obviously much larger so you can’t really compare the two. It has a ton going on and more than just country music. Things happen here. You read about something new in the paper and the next thing you know it’s being built. How refreshing! I wasn’t used to that! The cost of living is a bit higher here but, property taxes are much lower. Nashville is not a perfect town but, one that is always in a state of becoming. Good things happen here all the time.
  Rockford could look to Chattanooga for inspiration. It’s similar in size. Somewhat industrial, though that’s declining not unlike Rockford.There was a time not all that long ago when downtown Chattanooga was a scary place to be even in the day time. But all that’s changed. Something really positive has happened in Chattanooga. The downtown has a great aquarium, a minor league baseball park, numerous restaruants, shops and hotels, a river, downtown parks, a thriving arts community and festivals several times a year. Lots of things that are on-going and open all the time, not just places where an event takes place once a month. And people live in downtown Chattanooga! Again, Chattanooga is similar in size to Rockford so it kinda makes you wonder why it can’t happen in our hometown? What forces are at work or not at work that prevents these types of positive changes?

• 7. Georgette Braun  |  June 5th, 2008 at 9:50 am

  Scott: A whole bunch of people like five years ago from the Rockford Area Council of 100 traveled to Chattanooga to learn what they could take away from Chattanooga to apply in Rockford.

  Ryan Petty, formerly of the Council, was a driver of that effort. He’s been gone from Rockford a few years now. Returned to Tacoma, Wash., area, as I recall

• 8. Scott Phillips  |  June 5th, 2008 at 11:49 am

  Apparently they either didn’t learn anything or the anti-change people got involved and said it couldn’t be done. Now it’s five years on and we’re all five years older and it would seem nothing really has changed.

• 9. Dick E  |  June 5th, 2008 at 8:34 pm

  Why is it your paper insist on treating Ginger Lynn as some kind of celebrity? where I come from [ Rockford] there is a name for a woman who takes money for letting men use her body, I suppose we wouldn’t be upset if our 10 year daughter said I want to be like Ginger. Let’s tell it like is, the woman is a prostitute, a high priced one but still nothing but a hooker

• 10. Georgette Braun  |  June 9th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

  Dick E. You point(s) are well taken.

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