my co-workers today alerted me to a rolling stone article about terrorism. sounds innocuous, right?
except it’s about wannabe mall bomber derrick shareef. and to people who make the rock river valley home, it’s a big ol’ slam on rockford.
reminds me of 2002, when singer aretha franklin dissed the coronado. she canceled a nearly sellout show because of personal reasons but added that the theater was a “dump” in a secondary city, according to her booking agent.
this caused an uproar: a dj pulled her songs off the air, for example. she insisted, through a letter from her attorney to mayor doug scott that she said no such thing. (i’ll post the rrs response to the insult in another post, see below.)
back to the rolling stone article: what does it say about rockford?
– “a Midwestern city of 150,000, with a minuscule Muslim population and the lone claim to fame of being the hometown of Cheap Trick.”
– “Finding a meaningful target to blow up in Rockford isn’t easy. A hardscrabble town in the middle of America, the place is not much more than an intersection of interstates and railway lines.”
– “CherryVale Mall, a sad-sack collection of clothing stores and sneaker shops on the outskirts of Rockford.”
– “But in backwaters like Rockford, the JTTFs don’t have much to do. ”
makes me wonder if writer guy lawson ever came to rockford (hmmm, can’t click on his byline to write to him!).
if you want to tell rolling stone what you think of this characterization, write wennermedia@gmail.com (i found the email on this page) … or i supposed you could write:
RollingStone.com
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104-0298
(Our Local & State staff is looking for feedback, too.)
Right. On. The. Nose.
Much of the time, I feel as though Rockford does its best to be a third rate city. We came here from the outskirts of Chicago and can’t wait to get back out there. I’ll take that insanity for this pitiful excuse of a city anyday.
Wow. Just seeing this post today.
David Preece’s letter made me laugh.
“Hey! We have plenty of nice stuff to blow up!”
HEY TONY, JUST START HEADING EAST ! ITS people from the BURBS AND PROJECTS AROUND CHICAGO THAT ARE WRECKING THIS TOWN ! DONT LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE WAY BACK !!!!!
Wow, still getting comments on this post days afterward. Thanks for the great conversation — even to those of you who continue to knock Rockford and Register Star staff.
By the way, the photo gallery we published on Rockford’s gems is getting healthy traffic. More than 9,000 page views so far. Take some time to check it out. It’s here.
Gary,
Just to let you know, it’s the people from the BURBS that raised your property value when they decided to come live here and we can’t blame the people from the projects when we have just as bad if not worse projects already here and the Mayor invited the residents of Caprini Green here in conjunction with the Chicago Mayor.
Why don’t we have the Metro? Why did Rockford say NO to everything proposed in the last 10 yrs? Where did our 1% tax raise go? Has anybody seen the roads lately? I own 2 homes and pay tax on both and still pay tuition for private school/ Why? Because Rockford public failed to educate my children. This town is way behind and the most backward narrow minded city I have ever seen. I work in real estate and have people transfer from other states and want to buy a house, BUT NOT in Rockford. How do you explain the fact that people from other states, that don’t even come from this area, know Rockford isn’t a good plans to be?
SARAH, DO you really think that the people from the CHICAGO PROJECTS DID NOT BRING ALL THE CRIME WHITH THEM ? WE HAVE NEVER HAD AS MUCH CRIME HERE BEFORE ! WHERE YOU FROM THE LAND OF NOD ? AND SCHOOLING YOUR KIDS IS YOUR PROBLEM NOT MINE ! YOU HAVE TWO HOUSES SO YOU SHOULD BE ABEL TO AFFORD TO PUT THEM IN ANY SCHOOL YOU WANT. JUST TRY TO LIVE LIKE THE REST OF US PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR JOBS, HOMES AND EVERYTHING ELSE , SO LADY YOU SELL HOUSES, YOU AND YOUR MONEY DONT IMPRESS ME ONE BIT! WHATS THE MATTER, COULD`NT YOU SELL HOMES IN THE BURBS ? AND NOW YOU WANT TO COME HERE AND BITCH ABOUT OUR TOWN.
Gary,
You are a very judgemental person. You don’t know anything about me, you assume. I never said I sell houses, I said I work in real estate, I do own two homes, and I do pay tution for my children’s school, Why is that offending to you? That doesn’t imply I make tons if money. If I did I wouldn’t live in Rockford.
I never said that “NO” crime comes from Chicago, I said the Mayors brought the projects here, Rockford has a higher crime to population ratio than Chicago. You don’t read very well either. I said, the people from the burbs raised the property value by moving here and paying higher prices than the locals. I have never lived in the burbs, no will I. I don’t understand why you even care about my opinion anyway, I thought this was just a discussion?
I moved to Rockford in 2002 because my spouse got a job here. Although it has a decent park system, there are no jobs and nothing to do. I have lived in cities both larger and smaller than Rockford and this is clearly the worst. Rockfordonians have to abandon the idea that they can drop out of high school(or barely) graduate and make 50k a year working in a machine shop. It seems that the rest of America understands that these kinds of jobs are in the past, like blacksmithing, candlemaking and shepherding. Why can’t Rockford get it. There are three other great things about Rockford, though:
1) close to Chicago
2) close to Madison
3) close to Milwaukee
Unfortunately the city sucks. My wife and I moved here 4 years ago. Now they are putting asphalt plant in our area. We’ll abandon the house and run away from Rockford as soon as I find job near Chicago. I would not recommend the city to my friends.
Hey, look on the bright side. We made it into Rolling Stone!
Everything they said is pretty much exactly true. I grew up in Rockford, but at times have lived elsewhere for jobs and such. Ultimately, I returned back here for ONE reason – Rockford houses are much more affordable than trying to live any closer to Chicago.
Beyond that, though, Rockford is a pretty sad place to be. Available eating and shopping are okay, thought the malls are a joke. But there is no decent entertainment – music in town is pretty bad, one pathetic company has a monopoly on movie theaters in this town, and things like concerts and theater are SO overpriced for Rockford. It’s like they think we’re Chicago or something. FAR from it, both in quality and what area residents are willing to pay.
Roads are disasters, and anything west of the River, or even like 11th St, (including downtown) is just a ghetto – why would ANYONE want to spend any time there?
Don’t go blaming Rolling Stone just cause the town sucks. They’re just telling it like it is.
The article seemed very accurate to me. Escaping from Rockford was the best decision I’ve ever made. As for those above that had mentioned Charles Box was the person that ruined Rockford, this is untrue. It goes back long before Mr. Box. Rockford didn’t want the Chrysler Plant. Rockford didn’t want CherryVale Mall. Rockford drove out Fred Ford, who during his time of authority, turned the airport into a place people wanted to fly out of. The UPS hub is here because of him also. Rockford decided to elect officials to the school board rather than continue appointing them. The list goes on….
The way you people drive (tailgating, blowing red lights, going 20-40mph over the speed limit) I’m to busy trying to stay alive going through Rockford and not able to pay much attention to your dump called Rockford. I put the drivers in Rockford up there with the drivers in Charlotte NC as the most worse and inconsiderate drivers I ever seen.
Rockford is a cesspool This Article is spot on, Thank God I dont live in that dump