By Community Affairs

Finding Charm & Charisma on Central Avenue

Nov 29, 2011 | 9:14 AM

At our Christmas Party, oddly, a co-worker and I were discussing Prince Albert’s downtown.

Now right away you may be thinking that we were talking about the street people – but no. We were reminiscing about the Prince Albert Central Avenue as it was about 20 years ago.

Looking back, it was glorious and I am writing a column about it now because we can all use the best of our past to make our present better.

I moved to Prince Albert January 3rd, 1990 for a job in journalism. I have to confess, my first impressions were not good. I had to park for my first day of work behind the downtown Credit Union and there I discovered … The Snakepit. For a young women coming from a very clean, very nice little area of the province (Tisdale) – this was a shock and I was not sure I wanted to stay.

But the following months, I discovered many wonderful things by traipsing up and down Central and grew to love the area.

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Back then there was Mills Brothers. This was a beautiful store, which had the old fashioned canopy, which was rolled out in the morning. Inside were newspapers from all over North America and magazines of every type. There were cigars and there were confections. Wonderful. It was a ritual to go to Mills Brothers every work day at around 10 and visit with Hector and Gary and pick up a Globe and Mail or just a soda and some cheezies.

There was the CB Store with its beautifully polished floors, and a fine oak staircase. There was Kresge’s Department Store and another store on the corner of Central and 11th but I forget the name. Maybe someone can remind me in the COMMENTS. Those stores still had the wonderful wood floors and you could literally find anything you wanted. Kresge’s had a cafeteria in the back with swivel stools. I loved those two stores.

My other favorite hangout was Freckle’s Deli … a real deli with a variety of wonderful sandwiches served with potato chips. This was where I had my first Reuben sandwich and I have been a convert ever since.

Of course, we cannot forget the Prince Albert Arts Centre – which was the focus of my life – where I entered into a circle of friends that still enrich my life; where I took University Painting and Drawing, where I worked teaching children to paint and draw. At the Arts Centre at that time, we had the Poet Laureate – John V. Hicks who would, every weekday at 3, climb up the stairs and ring the bell – dong, dong, dong, and then retire to the coffee room where he would serve tea to anyone who wanted to come along and visit while he smoked a pipe and ate gingerbread cookies.

Oh, not to be forgotten was Karen’s Florists across the street from the Arts Centre, which not only had beautiful floral arrangements but had a display case filled with lovely, amazing chocolates. My favorites were the Champagne Truffles.

We had friends who lived or had studios above the stores. Those apartments were amazing – amazing! Going up the stairs from the back door of the CB store you would be greeted by local … people suffering from addictions – or with artists – or with seniors who had always been there. Those apartments were so beautiful. Twelve-foot ceilings, hard wood floors, sky lights.

So, you see, for a twenty something young professional with an artistic personality, Central Avenue was everything I could have hoped for.

Of course there were colourful people on the street that made life interesting. But no matter where you go there will be people who don’t meet your social standard. Even if you just stayed home – statistically – one of your family members would eventual become a person you would want to avoid.

I always found it was the best policy to just smile and say good day and they would smile, and say good day too and then ask for money and I’d laugh and say, “No. I’m broke. Could YOU give ME a dollar?” and they would chuckle and move on.

The Discover Downtown team is working so hard and so diligently now to ensure that downtown Prince Albert is a place you want to be. They are developing ways to bring back the types of businesses I just described. There are several events a year that are special and make people want to go downtown.

There are great stores downtown and with the trend to support local business – this is the place to go. There are wonderful places to eat, to buy a suit, to buy books or trading cards, to buy art. There are places to read and learn music.

Panhandlers, prostitutes and drunks are part of any downtown, probably, in the world. It is part of life and does not mean we cannot just go ahead and work towards better conditions.

But the job cannot be done by just a few people.

Many criticize our downtown and love to put down the less fortunate who are often there. But instead of complaining and acting as an arm-chair mayor – more of us need to role up our sleeves and see what we can do to help.

December 10th is a Christmas Block Party downtown. See what you can do to help and if nothing else – just attend.

For more information on Discover Downtown go to their website at
http://www.princealbertdowntown.ca/ or check out their blog in Community Group News at http://www.panow.com/community/blogs/prince-albert-downtown-improvement

Have a great week.