A Bygone Brooklyn Found in Dubuque

Nighttime view of our home with its mural,
of Smokestack next door, and the
Dubuque County Courthouse behind

Forever ago is the last time I wrote here. It's not that I don't write these days. It's that I don't get to write it down. Perhaps I'm ready to start again, to share some of the last four years of Scott's and my life which has been consumed with developing our property in Downtown Dubuque and creating our venue Smokestack. 

I don't expect most people to understand us, our vision, what we are doing in Dubuque, etc. Perhaps I once had such expectation, but even we don't understand it at times. One comforting interpretation for me is that Scott and I are in the midst of a large-scale performance art piece.

Other interpretations can be made through an unpublished interview Scott and I gave Dominic Velando in July, 2016, a year into Smokestack's public existence, about Smokestack and touching on the what, why, and how of the two of us in Dubuque. Dominic was then writing for Grain, the semi-annual magazine of the Dubuque Area Arts Collective, which ceased publication in 2016. Below is the first of Dominic's seven written questions and our written answer.

Dominic Velando:
You have made it clear that you want to bring your New York experience to Dubuque through The Smokestack. Explain your New York experience.

Susan & Scott 

Bluegrass Alumatics on stage at Smokestack
Gladys Ressler - mandolin, Scott Cornwell - banjo
Josh Engler - bass, Chad Witthoeft - guitar,
Danny Smith - fiddle. Yes, that is my Scott who
is finally able to be his true musician self again. 

Our NYC is a place where you mingle with all kinds of people 24 hours a day every day. Different classes, races, perhaps even extraterrestrials. Where you can go out for fun and real food after 11 pm. Where you can be on the edge or not and be accepted for who you are at that moment in your life without being judged for who you were 15 years ago or even yesterday.  And who really cares if you’re not from NYC because we are all together now and that’s what matters. 

We grew up in NYC, in Brooklyn, in the 1970s when urban flight and “revitalization” had decimated cities nationwide and from which this country is still recovering through efforts to rebuild downtowns. People we loved, often artists, lived in industrial lofts and made them livable, while we played and worked in abandoned buildings and municipal dumps that are now high-priced restaurants, beautiful public parks, and loft condominiums in neighborhoods like DUMBO, TriBeCA, and SoHo. Places like Smokestack are nearly routine in large cities now - flexible venues that offer food, beverage, arts, culture, nightlife and entertainment in one space, different every day. In NYC, you use every inch of space you can because there is no more and that includes rooftops with skyline and cityscape views. 

Main Rooftop, first night open legally, September 2017 

Our NYC, in particular our Brooklyn, was before the tsunami of white-washing gentrification that is pricing everyone interesting out of NYC and other large cities right now. In a way, we are refugees from that gentrification. Our NYC was authentic and had grit. We saw the possibility of living all that and more when we first stepped on this block in Dubuque and first entered this one-of-a-kind historic building that would become Smokestack.

Coming up, Question 2 of 7: 

"What we are trying to accomplish" in Dubuque