Permanent F.U.S.E.
I was at the FUSE and witnessed great music and great vibes everywhere. Congrats to Creative Fresno for their success on a shoestring.
Every so often I would look up at the tall buildings on the Fulton Mall and see no lights on at all.
If these buildings were inhabited how much bigger would FUSE have been? If these buildings were full of people wouldn't it become normal on Friday and Saturday nights?
As much as I love what Reza Assemi is building in the Cultural Arts District the place I really want to live is the Fulton Mall. As much as I like the new Kern Street look I was disappointed in the lack of housing in the plan. Without a night time population there is no night life.
If government should fund anything it should be rehabilitating our existing stock of quality multistory buildings into residences particularly for the creative community. Think of it as a government approved version of Greenwich Village complete with low rents and condo prices. Add free wireless internet and you have a creative urban neighborhood for the 21st century complete with shops, clubs and businesses.
I’m dreaming of a real city.
FUSE January 17?!!??
This is Kendall from Milano Restaurant.
At the Downtown Association's last Board meeting, I suggested that perhaps FUSE was the sort of thing that they could get behind, and perhaps have one quarterly (January 17, anyone?). There seemed to be a consensus that this was a good idea, but they kind of just moved on to the next subject, which I believe was whether to support a statewide proposition.
I suggested that perhaps the Downtown Association, being that they have paid staff, and not just volunteers like the great and wonderful Creative Fresno, might be a perfect organization to support such a festival.
If you want to see another FUSE, contact the following and let them know.
Downtown Association - 559-490-9966
http://www.downtownfresno.org/contact.html
Creative Fresno
http://creativefresno.com/join-discussion
Maybe you can help, maybe not, but let's see if we can get this together again soon.
Our restaurant, Milano, is always available for meetings, and severe food and drink specials for those who want to contribute to this very effective, cheap, fun, and autonomous means of helping fix what's broke Downtown.
K.
nothing wrong with dreaming
Now that FUSE is done with I find myself wondering about a couple of things.
Will it be back to business as usual for the mall, with it's very limited weekend night life?
Who will be the next group of folks to put something fun on the mall? Scooter Rally Folks? DTA? City?
Who ultimately is responsible for providing fun things to do? Business owners? DTA? General Public? All of the above?
I think, and this is just Abe's opinion, FUSE helped prove that people will come to Downtown Fresno regardless of all the crap we say needs to be fixed before people will come, e.g. broken fountains, homeless folks, dirty pavement. While I don't deny these things need to be fixed, I just wonder how big a hindrance they really are?
Anyway, I'm glad you came out to FUSE, let's make next years bigger and better!
Abe Lopez
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