Last spring, I was in Rome, Italy. As I toured the Coliseum, a structure that was built in 72 AD, I thought of Middletown. I thought of the current proposal for a town square. I thought of the fight that many fellow Middletown citizens have been waging to preserve the 137 acres of open space which would be forever destroyed once they were covered with pavement, concrete and construction.
Perhaps the parallels are difficult to draw between an ancient Roman structure and the proposed town square, but they are crystal clear to me. Every day, every week, every month and every year since the fall of the Roman Empire in 523 AD, the citizens of Rome have decided that the Coliseum was worth preserving. Every generation realized that once the Coliseum was destroyed, it was gone forever. Every generation decided that preservation was a worthwhile goal.
I hope Middletown makes the same decision, the decision to preserve 137 acres rather than build more stores.
Kara O’Brien
Middletown