1/16/09: Goodbye Forest City, it's duet from now on

Well, I think you’ve almost certainly heard the news by now — if not in the paper you’re reading, then probably on TV. But in case you’re like me and only read my column and the comics, and only watch TV shows in commercial-free DVD form, here it is: The Herald and The Bristol Press have been bought.

In all the talk of buying and selling and the action-movielike last-minute appearance of publisher and newsman Mike Schroeder to save the day, though, in all the excitement and celebration, no one’s taken time to acknowledge that this is also a parting of ways. The Middletown Press, once called "the Marsha Brady" of our triplet papers, will be going it alone.

In case you’re wondering who’s ever called it that, it was me, just now.

You’ve probably noticed that I have a bit of a crush on Middletown. In a past column, I cited the city as a good example of downtown revitalization — an example New Britain and Bristol are justified in trying to emulate.

Alas, Middletown, it’s not to be: This is our last column together. I’ll be writing for The Bristol Press and The Herald, alone, from now on.

We’ve had some good times. I brought my friends to Javapalooza as a nice Starbucks alternative when they came to visit last year; the lamb Rogan Josh at Tandoor is excellent; and I love the way the Victorian houses on Broad Street have been made into businesses. I can even forgive you for towing my out-of-town friend’s car during the parking ban last week.

But it’s time for me to "love the one I’m with" now: New Britain’s Staropolska’s pierogies and the giant satellite dishes of Bristol’s ESPN.

Now’s a pretty good time to love New Britain and Bristol, actually. Despite our ailing economy (and snowy, cold winters), urban central Connecticut holds onto the "almost sacred relationship to work" that made author Stewart O’Nan set his novel "Last Night at the Lobster" in New Britain. And despite the advantages of Middletown’s Main Street collection of diversions, ferreting out hole-in-the-wall places (like the Hole-in-the-Wall Theater) for entertaining ourselves often becomes another form of entertainment — especially when many of us are already strapped for cash to spend once we get to wherever we’re going.

It’s getting easier to love other places from New Britain and Bristol as well. With the still-years-away busway between New Britain and Hartford at least in serious planning phases, and the construction of the Route 72 expansion into Bristol begun, we’re heading toward the integration of our communities that I expressed hope for this summer.

If U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy has his way, we’ll have increased commuter rail service between Hartford and Springfield, and while the rail spur between Berlin and Waterbury has always been more a dream than an impending reality, once everything else is in place, that connection would link the Amtrak Vermonter and the Metro-North train into New York City. We’d be right in the middle of the action.

As much as we’re about to be at a literal crossroad, newspapers in general, and our papers especially, are at a virtual one. We’re not stopping the presses, but plans for the Herald and Bristol Press will focus just as much on getting our local news online as getting it into print.

And that’s where you can still find me, Middletown.

We’ll always have the Web.