Downtown

I wanted to finish up talking about Oconomowoc today by taking a quick visit downtown. The Galesburg of my youth had a vibrant downtown and no mall. The mall, in my mind, was not what caused the demise of much of the downtown. It had more to do with attitude. We will just keep the same old storefront and the same interior and the same attitude about customer service and you will continue to show up and spend your money. The mall has now learned the same lesson. It is a lesson that WalMart will learn eventually. Low price isn't everything. I don't want to spend 30 minutes waiting in line while 75% of your checklanes are unmanned. I don't want to ask a question of one of your so called "associates" who seem to have no clue about any product you sell. Enough about all that. When I look at downtown Oconomowoc I see what downtown Galesburg could have been. It just required some effort. Someone to care. Someone to have a vision.

This is the view looking west in downtown Oconomowoc. The raised pedestrian crossings are in the middle of the block. Drivers are required to yeild to pedestrians who are crossing. It is a system that works well and drivers were unfailingly polite about stopping. The thing a noted first downtown was that it was clean. No trash along the street. No broken glass next to the buildings or in the alleys.

The view downtown looking East. Note the varied architecture in the buildings. What again stuck me was even the few buildings that were empty were clean and well maintained. They were ready at a monments notice for a new tenant.

This is an alley in the downtown that leads to the lake. This picture was taken facing away from the lake looking back toward downtown. It is for pedestrian traffic only. Again note how clean it is. Not an alley you would be afraid to walk down any time of day or night.

A good downtown needs a few speciality stores. Again note how clean and well maintained both appear. The owner of The Doggy Bag has gone to the extent of putting out a bowl of water for any thirsty pup who might be walking by with its person in tow. I did shop at the Doggy Bag and found the owner, like so many others in Wisconsin, friendly and willing to recommend other businesses in the area to visit.

Like Galesburg the city of Oconomowoc has train tracks. Granted not the number of tracks or trains that plague Galesburg. The trains passing through do not sound those annoying horns as the crossings all have gates and medians so you cannot bypass the gates. It is at first strange to see a train coming and have no sound but the thrumming of that huge engine. Galesburg is headed toward quiet crossings but in my opinion many years behind when it should have been done.

So to me the key to the success of Oconomowoc's downtown is three simple things. One, the attention to appearance. They seem to invite you downtown with the well maintained clean buildings. Two, the friendliness and courtesy of the shop owners and their employees. Finally the existence of some interesting specialty stores. If you go about a mile from the downtown there are several nice shopping areas with new buildings and nice parking areas. They are no busier than the shops downtown and quite frankly lack their charm. The attitude of friendliness and service is pervasive throughout the area. I leave you with this example. We went to Brennan's Market as our last stop before returning to Galesburg. I wanted a couple of 25 pound cases of fresh peaches. I went over to load them in the cart and the young man working in the area asked how soon I would be using them. He stated they had peaches that would be ready in a day or two and other cases that would be a week before they were at their peak. I advised him I wanted the ones that were ready in a day or two. He asked if we had other shopping to do because he wanted to go through both cases to make sure every peach was good. We did some other shopping and came back about 15 minutes later. He had gone through and examined every peach in both cases and had replaced a few that were not up to their standards. I know had I made the same purchase in Galesburg I would have had some kid point at a stack of boxes and told to help myself to a box or two. In Oconomowoc the peaches were inspected and loaded in the cart for me. So there you have it- service, friendliness, courtesy. Galesburg could use some of all three.