JP could get a bagel place

They don't own a dough mixer as they buy their dough.

If my bagels don't have an opportunity to freely roll down Centre Street than I'm not interested. Color me cynical about the hype of the authentic. While I make my own organic pasta, make from wheat ground by nuns whose income derives from manually pounded wheat, noodles which then are allowed to dry in the pure mountain air of the White Mountains pasta, I still see it as just home made pasta. But enough of the sarcasm.

The remark about Nero's and Whole Food leads me to think about why the JP post office is most likely closing: because the landlord believes they can ask for a 1/4 millions dollars more a year in rent (for a total of 1 million).

While I believe that the Harvest South St store had always been under a gun by Harvest mgmt once the Washington St. store opened ((simply waiting for South St. lease to end) I would imagine that rent may be part of the issue, that is Harvest is not willing to pay what can be charged.

What ties these four factors? Money of course. There is plenty of disposable income in JP (not everyone certainly but enough to make a big difference) and plenty of customers who want to shop at "upscale" businesses. I put upscale in quotes because I hate the term. But it is effective in its meaning.

To me WholeFoods and a coffee shop like Nero are upscale. My hope is that the JP commercial areas manage to accommodate the inevitable upscale and expensive businesses that open when there is lots of disposable income without creating an economic climate that forces out the inexpensive locally owned businesses.

Otherwise JP's commercial district becomes just another outdoor mall of trademarks and copyrights that are disconnected from the identity of the neighborhood and its history.

Central Square, Cambridge was an exciting commercial district 20 years ago in large part because it was it's own place (I remember the odd religious fellows who wore tabards and protected their preacher who proclaimed the 100s of Commandment Moses supposedly received). You knew you were in Central Square and not homogenous square USA. Harvard Square had the same feeling of excitement born out of its unique character and identity. Both areas retain a sliver of that unique identity. There still are some businesses that are unique (may Cafe Pamplona and Harvard Bookstore remain open forever!) and yet both areas have in large part become homogenous outdoors malls with little sense of being a specific place at a specific time.

Part of what makes JP's beautiful is that it is JP, not just another bland town with franchises of the same businesses found nearly everywhere else. It's diversity of architecture and terrain, it's natural beauty of parks but also it's sense of being a unique, not duplicated in 100s of cities across the country, commercial district is part of that beauty.

I welcome great bagels. But I hope that Fiores, Boomerangs, the local hardware stores, Cobwebs, etc. all remain. It would be a loss if they had to leave.

If the JP commercial area was to retain a mix of