To the editor:
At a recent Planning Board meeting, I joked that Rockport could end up as a "theme park."
Now, I read that Motif No. 1 is going to be illuminated so that, as Peter Beacham says, residents and "visitors to our town will enjoy the experience of visiting Motif No. 1 some evening soon." (Times, Monday, Feb. 8.)
The first attempt was too bright, and Jack Campbell called it "Disneyland lighting." Disneyland is, of course, a theme park.
Then, another newspaper quoted Mr. Beacham, chairman of the Economic Development Committee, as saying "What we're trying to do is go back and recapture the quality that we used to have here, and to bring it back. We've got this new facility (Rockport Music's Shalin Liu Performance Center), and that's going to be a linchpin. It's going to bring thousands of people to town, and we need to be prepared to make their experience a good one."
This new lighting of our iconic, if already inauthentic, fish shack is, therefore, a very small part of a larger grand plan to, as that story indicated, "shape Rockport's downtown into an upscale destination location, building on the town's history as an artist colony, and taking advantage of" the new music building.
Tourism may grow, and more visitors may indeed stroll around downtown, spending money.
But I am feeling uneasy, and wonder if others are, too.
PAMELA BRINDAMOUR
Summit Avenue, Rockport
