Impressed with improvements in downtown area

By Letter to the Editor on January 18, 2019.

Went for a slow walk recently around all those downtown streets and avenues that had the advantage of that wonderful effort at, shall we say, rehabilitation. I had already seen earlier efforts on Second Street, but on this recent walk it was revealed to me just how serious all downtown enthusiasts were about their plans for downtown.

‘Wow!’ is the only word I could think of when I first laid eyes on all that great stuff that had already been started and/or completed — the fabulous efforts at restoring the old facades, the old original signs, the efforts the old builders went to in some of the more fanciful bricklayer/stonemason creations. Also how the more or less recent storefronts/facades had been updated and improved.

Then my eyes got a load of the so attractive sidewalks in their entirety; the pleasing curves, the curbs, the vegetation, the brick/tile surfaces.

But nothing convinced me more that we here in the Hat have some awfully talented and skilled artists/illustrators than when I spotted all the relatively new colourful painted designs/illustrations, etc. You know, that stuff that used to be referred as graffiti. I don’t think I’ve seen anything better in some other towns/cities. Some were actually signed.

If we in this burg have the will, imagination and far-sightedness to continue to make downtown ever more attractive, I predict that this oasis in the prairies will eventually become an ever more true destination.

Ted Kohlmetz

Medicine Hat

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