Jay P. Smith, may you never go missing again.
This column is about several things:
-- A downtown walkway named for Jay 43 years ago.
-- A plaque.
-- The links between visible local history, a sense of place and community in cities and villages that still have a unique character and natural beauty to them, and wise, community-oriented decision-making.
Jay P. Smith was the son of early area pioneers. He originated the idea of the National Cherry Festival. He also was one of the Record-Eagle's longest-serving editors. In fact, he worked for one of the newspaper's grandparents, the Evening Record, in the early 1900s while still in high school. He left town to attend the University of Michigan and returned to Traverse City after World War I with his wife. He started at the Record-Eagle in the early 1920s and served as city editor, managing editor, editor and writer of the popular "Observer" column on local life and government. He was named Traverse City's Outstanding Citizen in 1947. He retired in 1961 and died the following year.
In 1965, the Traverse City Commission established "The Jay P. Smith Walkway" in the vacant lot between what is now Kilwin's Chocolate Shoppe and Pangea Pizza on Front Street for his role in the Cherry Festival, his civic leadership and newspaper writing. A plaque identified the walkway and explained why it was named for Smith.
In 2005, the city decided to rehab the walkway with new landscaping, a "Grandfathers Fountain" with donations from former Mayor Linda Smyka and Socks Construction, as well as new benches and tables bought with money from the families of the late Robert J. Brick Sr., Jackson Bensley, John W. Rennie and Mary Lou Cain. The city also received a donation from the Girrbach family, which includes Pangea Pizza owner Chris Girrbach.
The renovation is beautiful. The donations are generous and touching.
But something was missing when I went to the walkway last week to take a picture of the plaque and the boulder to which it was bolted. Neither was there, and nothing identified the tiny park as the Jay P. Smith Walkway.
It turns out city workers had hauled the several-ton rock across the Boardman River to the Traverse City Farmers Market when the project began. The plaque was removed to protect it from vandalism or theft and was languishing on a city shelf. City officials also say the intent always has been to return the plaque to the walkway, once they could figure a fitting way to embed it in cement or the sidewalk.
I hope it's back soon. Action and inaction say a lot more than words.
Two years are sufficient, don't you think?
Loraine Anderson can be reached at landerson@record-eagle.com or 231-933-1468.
