Antiques, Good or Bad?

What businesses are proxies for a healthy Main Street?

Due to a technical issue only the first paragraph of today’s post went out to the email list. This is the complete post.

I’ve written about two towns in New Jersey a lot: Flemington and Somerville, the county seats of Hunterdon County and Somerset County. I grew up just outside Flemington, and we often went to Somerville too.

I always liked Somerville, but there’s no question it’s seen a lot of new life in the last 5-10 years. New housing, new restaurants, new stores, right in the little main drag. Back when I was a kid, I remember seeing a Zenith television repair sign hanging outside one of the buildings. There was a very old-school Italian deli. It felt like every other store was a dusty antique shop, many in old Main Street buildings with basements and partial second floors, probably not worked on or renovated in decades.