Sadly, there will be no “Happy Ending” in Highland Park this time

Posted by [email protected] | Sep 27, 2015 | Events of the Day, Human Interest | 0 |

• July 24, 2015

A few weeks ago, I wrote on vandals who ruined the stage set of Shakespeare’s Henry IV. And how — as the set was rebuilt in less than five hours — the entire Rochester theater going community came together as on . A happy ending. As Shakespeare would say, All’s Well That Ends Well.

See Quickly overcoming adversity at the Highland Bowl

from Quickly overcoming adversity at the Highland Bowl

From On Spanish-American War monuments in Rochester.

From A bust of Frederick Douglass at the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School

For those of us who daily walk and bicycle in that part of Highland Park, there are three landmarks – the Frederick Douglass Monument, the bronze bust of Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, and the Spanish-American War Trophy Cannon down the road next to the Conservatory – that are in a way landmarks of our lives. In Fall they are touched by fallen leaves; in Winter strewn with snow; in Spring pelted by rain; and in summer, as today, bathed in sunlight.

Yesterday we learned that thieves had stolen the irreplaceable Goethe statue, by now or very shortly to be melted down or sold as scrap. A more permanent dagger than a stage set has been struck in our hearts. Goethe’s last words were “Mehr Licht,” in English, more light. Today some light is gone in that part of Highland Park.

see democratandchronicle.2015/07/23/goethe-highland-park/ and
democratandchronicle. goethe-theft-highland-burglaries/

UPDATE: There was some more light in Highland Park later in the summer:

see The Father’s Heart shines in Highland Park and elsewhere

SEE ALSO

The Father’s Heart shines in Highland Park and elsewhere

Engaging families in the Highland Bowl

About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.