Editor's Notebook: Downtown is Different – In a Good Way

It's been slightly over one full week that Madison Patch has been live and in homes around the borough.

Madison was far from a mystery to me when I started as the editor of this news site. Working in the field covering Morris County for six years gave me a good sense of what the borough is all about.

However, the one thing you don't realize when you're not in it every day is the tremendous sense of civic pride that residents have. And nowhere does that radiate from more than downtown.

You'll find it on a "lazy" Sunday morning. Some towns with train stations are more bedroom settings. The people head off to work, come home, and sleep. On the weekends they stay at home, resting up for the next cycle to begin.

This is obviously not the case for many Madison residents. Saturdays, Sundays, and every day for the most part is a bustling one on Main Street. Sure, the warm weather we've had (and that seems is about to end) at the end of November and beginning of December has helped keep people walking the sidewalks, but people don't do anything they don't enjoy.

They also enjoy Waverly Place. As Carmine Toto said to me when I was gathering information for previews of the events taking place the day after Thanksgiving, "Not many towns have a center like Waverly Place."

He's right. Check out municipalities that are even lucky enough to have downtown areas – which aren't all that many. Any that has a center, Morristown and its Green for example, is usually a much larger municipality. To have an intimate atmosphere AND a center like that, it's truly special.

I actually described it to my girlfriend while walking down Main Street one night as a miniature version of the Christmas tree area at Rockefeller Center. I guess that's not all that odd, considering one of Madison's greatest benefactors, Mrs. Geraldine Dodge, was a Rockefeller herself.

So as Madison Patch continues to cover the borough, I look forward to discovering more nuances that I was unaware of over the years. And while looking you can be sure I'll be one of the many strolling the streets of this unique downtown.