Brownsville's Downtown Dies A Second Death As The Decades Roll By(2013)

"The dream is over

What can I say?

The dream is over

Yesterday"

John Lennon, "God"

Yes, Brownsville had a heyday. It was not in the 1860's when Stillman, King and Kleberg were ripping, roaring, stealing and contrabanding. It was in the 1950's, 60's when Jimmy Pace, Glen Herman, Union Carbide, cotton, citrus and the drunken shrimpers carved out profits from hard work and an enormous differential in the peso-dollar exchange rate.

After that, the 19th century buildings in downtown were propped up temporarily to sell the huge quantities of discarded clothing in the United States shipped in by boxcar load or trucked in, tied by steel wire into 100 lb pacas to be shipped worldwide. Of course, the 80 year old man wearing a "New Kids on the Block" cap on a street corner in Mexico City or the man in Bolivia operating a jackhammer while wearing a Southlake Girls Volleyball t-shirt were totally unaware their garments came through Brownsville.

Mothers and grandmothers in Brownsville learned in the 60's to sift through mountains of clothing sold at ten cents per piece to dress their families. The skill was sizing by the eye, wardrobing children, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles. Rich people up north, Goodwill and Salvation Army with more donations than they could put on the shelves and returns, no-sales and defects became the world's clothing suppliers and Brownsville was the hub.


FedMart on Central Blvd. was the premium Brownsville

retailer/grocer in 1966. There was an H.E.B. on Boca Chica and one downtown, plus a King Mart, El Centro, Minimax, Jimmy Pace, Glen Herman Supermarket, Lopez Supermarkets and dozens of neighborhood groceries where you could sneak out of the heat for a ten cent soda.

The concept of revitalizing, restoring, re-energizing downtown floated through the 70's, 80's, 90's much like the warnings about tobacco, lard, unprotected sex and pyramid schemes. Near the turn of this past century a scam named United Brownsville used downtown revitalization as its poster child while bilking Brownsville taxpayers out of $900,000 for a pretend study. With the enticement of a so-called entertainment district and a promised parking garage to provide safe parking for the customers of the downtown clubs, a dozen or so downtown venues were remodeled in readiness of the resuscitation of zona centro.

Mayor Tony Martinez, elected on the bubble of downtown promise, eschewed the revamping of the city's historical district to pursue personal profit and cronyism with inside real estate deals, a possible ambassadorship, sucking up to anyone outside the city's orbit with money or political favors, flying out of the city at every opportunity, frequently at taxpayer expense.

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
Paul Anka, "My Way"

With no help from the self-occupied Martinez, longstanding hindrances like Evaristo Gamez in Permits and Peter Goodman at Historical, the near-perfect Hollywood casting of a do-nothing, overweight bureaucrat in Downtown Revitalization guru, Planning Director Ramiro Gonzalez,