Editorial
A seal is a promise, not a souvenir
The bronze on this page shows a locomotive, a depot, and a crossing. None of those maintain themselves.
A town can love its railroad the way a family loves a photograph: proudly, and from the parlor, where it does not have to smell like hot metal.
The seal at the top of the News is honest about what New Haven is. A Berkshire. A depot. A crossing on the way to somewhere else, which is also the way home. Heritage, on the ribbon, is the dangerous word. It can mean a plaque you polish, or it can mean the shop on Edgerton Road, where volunteers keep Nickel Plate 765 in the condition a locomotive actually requires.
Heritage is a maintenance budget, not a ribbon.
We are for the second meaning. The Wabash depot was moved and restored because people decided a National Register listing was a job, not a eulogy. The 1913 hall on Broadway is outstanding because it is still a building and not a rendering.
A seal is a promise, not a souvenir. If the whistle is going to stay in the city’s ear, the city has to keep the timetable, the shop, and the grade crossing in the budget. Heritage is a maintenance budget, not a ribbon.
The News’s view is the view of the editorial board. Letters should be short enough to set in one column.