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Article: MAIN STREET NOT ALWAYS BEST ROUTE | REVITALIZED CITY: LOCKPORT REACHED A CROSSROAD IN PROGRAM
- Article from:
- Herald-News (Joliet, IL)
- Article date:
- July 31, 2000
CopyrightCopyright (c) 2000 Herald-News. (Hide copyright information)
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LOCKPORT -- A historic canal city with a quaint downtown that had seen better days was at one time a perfect match for the Main Street program.
Lockport jumped on the Main Street downtown revitalization bandwagon, just as a handful of other towns had in the early 1990s. Some of them thrived under the program; some wound up thriving on their own.
Nine years after Lockport joined the Main Street program, downtown has a new face on many old buildings.
There are new street lights and other ornamental landscaping and only two vacant storefronts now compared to 20 in 1991.
So many outsiders who didn't notice the dilapidated finances and crumbling relationships, with the city and internally, ...