Columbus, Ohio is not scared of self-reinvention at ALL. You got an abandoned prison from the 19th century, moldering down near the river? Tear that sucker down and build an arena! And restaurants! And theaters and condos and stuff! Because, truthfully, old prisons are very interesting and eerie and all, but – notwithstanding Philadelphia’s masterful Eastern State Penitentiary, which is kind of an anomaly – what do you do with an old prison besides let it crumble? There’s not much you can do, really, except tear it down and build a new district, which is exactly what Columbus did, and then people started to think about the riverfront, too, specifically something along the lines of “We should put some parks here,” and now the Scioto Mile has parks and a jogging path and a big fountain, and this weekend it’s got the Columbus Arts Festival again, for the first time in awhile, and that fountain is 15,000 square feet, so go look at art and dance in the fountain and go watch the Clippers afterward and try not to think of how hot and airless things will soon be, because they aren’t yet. (FULL ARTICLE: Amy Saunders, The Columbus Dispatch)