Downtown Fort

The word “downtown” evokes words in my mind such as: party, bars, shopping, clusterf*ck of people, dirty, pollution, and others… I really couldn’t say for sure how their stature in communities have changed over time, because not only has the idea of downtown always been the same to me but I have not spent much time there.  I am not sure how they’ve changed, if at all, and if they are anything like I know them as.  Fort Myers is experiencing something of a renaissance in their downtown area because it evokes, presents, and tries to hold a lot of the history of Fort Myers within its downtown area.  The most prominent architectural feature that really stood out to me was of the mural a ways past Starbucks that had pictures of the (who I believe to be) the Calusa Indians, images of the civil war, incoming ships onto a beach front, and possibly other things that I cannot envision and recall at the moment.  It was, however, magnificent and represented quite a few different historical events and peoples.  They are designed to rekindle the “pedestrian spirit” by being displayed in modern-looking murals through images that are probably not as graphic or true to history as they display.  They are displayed in a more positive manner and through mediums that will attract people’s attention.  Other “nods” to history I observed, which I thought was kind of odd, were the multiple palm trees displayed in a courtyard where each tree had a plaque that gave the scientific and non-scientific name of the palm tree.  It was odd to me, though, because I see palm trees all the time.  If I were a tourist I probably would have appreciated that a lot more.  The economy of Ft. Myers has evolved from past to present as any other city would, with construction.  In relation to sustainability, a small bit of nature and some history are probably the only things that downtown Fort Myers and the rest of the city has attempted to sustain.