Editor's Note: This is the third installment in an ongoing feature series focusing on the people and places of Main Street in Belleville. The issue of the Main Street improvement project has been a hot-button topic around town, as petitions were submitted last week to stop the sale of bonds for Main Street construction.
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Since the beginning of the year, The View has kept a close watch on the city's most visible thoroughfare.
Last month, a petition drive led by the Bicycle's Peddler's Pat Bruetsch successfully suspended the sale of
$6.5 million in general obligation bonds to pay for several Belleville Downtown development Authority projects surrounding Main Street.
"One thing everyone agrees on is Main Street has to be fixed," Frosty Boy's Mike Foley said.
If Main Street, which serves as a cultural center, potential destination point and commercial district and city's main identity, continues to erode, above ground and below, what does its future hold?
Are residents, shoppers and business owners ready to give up the ghost and move their loyalties to Van Buren, Ypsilanti or Canton Township?
Many storeowners have been in business here for decades and have stuck through the bad times and prospered in the good times.
Only the fear of a proposed, longtime street closing that could terminate their businesses is the only thing that could drive owners, workers and shoppers from Belleville's main artery.
Perhaps the tumultuous interaction of the DDA and Concerned Business Owners over the Main Street project was an unlikely catalyst for business incubation, with owners and the DDA eventually working as allies.
The most crucial point overlooked in the publicity over the petition drive is the passion the business owners have for Main Street.
They are here because this is where they want to be and Belleville is what they believe in.
"If the DDA listened to the concerns of the downtown business owners and adjusted their time table for (the construction schedule) I see a better downtown," Jane Vesch of Main Street Flowers said.
Vesch has run Main Street Flowers for 22 years and expanded her business into the neighboring address about 10 years ago.
"I've seen the economy go up and down and adjusted to it but you would lose some business with this proposed construction schedule."
Don McCoy, of Belleville Lock and Key at 354 Main Street believes in the city and his business' location.
Before it became Belleville Lock and Key, Swann's Locksmith was in business at that location longer than anyone, including McCoy could remember.
The Swann and Winekoff families ran the business through the Recession of the 1970s and the good years of the 1990s.
"We have a commitment to this community. We got involved our first year with the Halloween event and we enjoy being on Main Street," McCoy said.
"We have no intention of leaving."
Enrica Hensley of the Golden Needle has been a business owner on Main Street for an amazing 27 years.
"Business couldn't be better here. I opened on March 27, 1981." the ever busy Hensley said happily.
"I have more work than I have time."
Mary Beth DeLeon is an agent at Ryan Taylor's Belleville State Farm Insurance office on Main Street.
Her office window, next to the old Gondolier Music store, looks right onto Main Street.
"I do like working on Main Street. I see the dog walkers, the kids," she said.
"It's exciting, you see the trucks, police cars and ambulances."
DeLeon loves the excitement of being in the middle of the tri-community's action and has seen the changes since she moved out here.
"I moved out in the 1980s. I think there was Meijer, Big Boy, Taco Bell and the gas stations on Belleville Road then," she said.
While a very, very popular misconception is that Main Street has seen its day and should be incorporated into Van Buren Township, not one person interviewed agreed with that idea.
"Belleville and Main Street should be the show point of the area," she said.
"This town should be like Chelsea," she said of the revived Washtenaw County town famous for its walk-a ble downtown and unique shopping.
"But why do they let things get so bad before they do anything?"
Andrews Pharmacy is another long standing business that has weathered every economic downturn for over 45 years.
Longtime residents remember the old wooden floored building before it wass expanded and remodeled in the 1990s.
"I shop on Main Street because it's small town but it's exciting in a way," Jesse Freels said.
"I grew up in Taylor which is just a suburb but when I came out here, everything was happening on Main."
Freels said the parades, the Strawberry Festival and the social aspect of running into mayors, lawyers, the town reporters and police officers while waiting at the pharmacy put everything into perspective.
"We're all a part of the same community," he said.
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