Union Square Main Streets is a community development organization in Somerville, Massachusetts that aims to enhance the Union Square area's commercial viability through collaborative efforts in design, promotion, economic restructuring, transportation, and organization.
Initiated by Mayor Joseph Curtatone in 2005, Union Square Main Streets is a non-profit, public-private partnership between the City of Somerville, the National Main Street Center, Union Square business leaders, residents and community leaders. The city’s first community-based economic revitalization program provides merchants and community residents with the tools for the neighborhood to advance its own redevelopment.
It is the local implementation of the Main Street model developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation for downtown district revitalization. Begun in 1977 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation initially to protect historic commercial architecture, the Main Street model is a comprehensive revitalization strategy to stimulate economic development in traditional commercial districts like Union Square. Currently the National Main Street Center administers the program in 40 states and over 1600 communities in the US, most notably with a citywide network of Main Street districts in Boston. The Main Street model is a framework for restoring a community’s economic vitality then maintaining these positive changes.
Among the organization's efforts are the Union Square Farmers Market (every Saturday morning from June through October), ArtsUnion (a collaborative program with the Somerville Arts Council that sponsors festivals, craft markets, street furniture and more), and business recruitment and assistance.
Famous quotes containing the words union, square, main and/or streets:
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“I walked by the Union Square Bar, I was gonna go in. And I saw myself, my reflection in the window. And I thought, “I wonder who that bum is.” And then I saw it was me. Now look at me, I’m a bum. Look at me. Look at you. You’re a bum.”
—J.P. (James Pinckney)
“Parents need to recognize that the negative behavior accompanying certain stages is just a small part of the total child. It should not become the main focus or be pushed into the limelight.”
—Saf Lerman (20th century)
“Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)