A NEW BEGINNING. Dawn Fernald of the York Beach Renaissance Committee prepares to cut the ribbon celebrating the opening of the new Atlantic House, a project that has been years in the making and is being hailed as a cornerstone to the York Beach Renaissance effort. Holding the ribbon are project developer Don Rivers and manager Peter Dunfey as local residents, officials and project team members look on.
Photo by Tori Rasche
Our town, in both its private and public manifestations, has been very good in recent years about talking and planning, followed by delaying, more talking, more planning, and then, more often than not, forming another committee to talk and plan some more. All of which makes the official ribbon cutting ceremony that took place at the Atlantic House on Nov. 2 (see page 5 of this issue) all that more remarkable, and, in our view, all that more deserving of our applause.
It was not so very long ago that many of us expected this deteriorating landmark building to simply fall down, another seemingly inevitable and disheartening blow to the York Beach revival that everyone agreed was so obviously needed. But for all our shortcomings, stubbornness and persistence are traits which we, in our cranky corner of the world, thankfully have in abundance. And it seems to us that it is this stubbornness, and this persistence, in the form of all the parties that came together to save this wonderful building, that we ought to be grateful for today.
The Atlantic House, then. Long may it prosper.
