![\"colin08\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/colin08.jpg\" "\\"colin08\\"")
Out of the ashes, new ideas bloom.<\/p>\nFebruary \/ March 2010<\/p>\n
Out of the ashes, new ideas bloom.<\/p>\n
Here in Portland, we\u2019re famous for rising like a phoenix after being burned by the British in 1775 and reduced to embers by errant fireworks in 1866.<\/p>\n
And I believe we\u2019re going to be better still after recovering from the world\u2019s recent \u2018economic difficulties,\u2019 because everywhere around me, I\u2019m sensing people beginning to dream again.<\/p>\n
So when a group of local boosters, Navy veterans, and ice-fishing buddies dares to dream of something big, really big\u2013like bringing the aircraft carrier JFK<\/em> to our waterfront to make Portland the destination attraction we deserve to be (in terms of total tonnage, we\u2019re the sixth biggest seaport on the east coast of the U.S.)\u2013you\u2019ve got to love them.<\/p>\n Why? Because dreams have bycatch, to use a fishing term. Even if we don\u2019t end up with the JFK<\/em> here, the groundswell of effort required to understand why she is a fabulous idea for this city might instead result in\u2026the convention center we\u2019ve been chasing after for years, or one of the Bath Iron Works destroyers that helped us win World War II sailing up to the docks here as a permanent exhibit to the delight of generations of visitors. Who knows what might happen? Positive energy like this is caviar.<\/p>\n Portland is home to a long line of dreamers for whom the glass isn\u2019t just half full, it\u2019s overflowing. In the 1820s, John Neal wrote that we could make this city \u201can Athens in the wilderness.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s noted architect John Howard Stevens, who envisioned a giant, World\u2019s Fair-like tower with twinkling lights shooting up from (yes, again) a convention center he dreamed of creating on a man-made island we\u2019d build in the middle of Back Cove so people could see us from afar (like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis).<\/p>\n I love the other dreams, too, from fantasies of rock concerts on Fort Gorges (wouldn\u2019t everyone get a bang out of hearing Portland Symphony play the 1812 Overture<\/em> out there?) to bringing a Soviet submarine that starred in the Harrison Ford movie K19: Widowmaker<\/em> to the Portland waterfront so we might have a museum, tours, more movie shoots\u2013oops, we let that one get away (I hear she\u2019s in Providence now). Did you know we had a chance for the USS Constitution<\/em> to be berthed here instead of Boston? Imagine the postcards. Ours for the taking, Old Ironsides<\/em> gave us the slip (instead of vice versa) in 1931. She even sailed up here for a dress rehearsal (Maine Historical Society has a wonderful photo of her at Maine State Pier).<\/p>\n Whenever I drive over Casco Bay Bridge, I admit to dreaming about it being a suspension bridge like the new one in Boston, because we need bread and circus.<\/p>\n One big dream is transforming Monument Square in front of our eyes. A gigantic motion picture screen is being placed\u2013for real\u2013on the new facade at Portland Public Library to wow downtown crowds. What will play on it? I\u2019d love to see a rotating virtual gallery of masterpieces across the centuries that we all own as taxpayers as part of the Maine State Art Collection, far too big to display in the capitol building. What\u2019s your idea?<\/p>\n When it comes to dreams, we don\u2019t ever have to order from the bottom of the menu.<\/p>\n February \/ March 2010 Out of the ashes, new ideas bloom. Here in Portland, we\u2019re famous for rising like a phoenix after being burned by the British in 1775 and reduced to embers by errant fireworks in 1866. And I believe we\u2019re going to be better still after recovering from the world\u2019s recent \u2018economic difficulties,\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-1649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-february-march-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1649"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14515,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions\/14515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Colin](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Colin-Signature-300x142.jpg\")
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