Hard to say so long

I am sitting in what will soon be another relic of the economic downturn of '09: the Starbucks in Stillwater. It's frequently been called one of the most attractive Starbucks anywhere: large windows overlooking a historic main street, ornamental cornices and friezes around ceilings inlaid with latticed glass, five distinct gathering places (six in summer, when the brick-paved patio is filled with tables). In architectural terms, this isn't Coffee House Modern. It's more New Urbanist. To wit: this Starbucks is the first venture that has thrived in this downtown venue (aka the Grand Garage, an old filling station) for years.

Now I suppose it seems superficial to mourn the evinesence of a chain coffee house (this Starbucks location is to close Feb. 27), when friends -- including some of my own -- are being laid off. But everytime I walk in here I remember reading "The Great Good Place," a 1991 book by Ray Oldenburg. He sung the praises of third places, or "great good places," as the public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact. In contrast to first places (home) and second places (work), third places allow people to put aside their concerns and simply enjoy the company and conversation around them. [Description courtesy of the Project for Public Spaces]

When I read Oldenburg's book 18 years ago, I lamented the U.S. had a dearth of third places, which had been so revered in Europe. Regardless of their corporate success in capitalizing on caffeine as the drug of choice for the millenial generation, Starbucks tapped into this sociological need. Certainly the coffee house is as much, or more, about civility and connection as it is about coffee.

Admittedly, I boycotted Starbucks' arrival in historic Stillwater. I was an aficionado of the locally owned Daily Grind (and fond of the late Dreamcoat Cafe, as well). Eventually, I succumbed. Perhaps it was the Tazo chai tea lattes. But it might be, too, that this became an office/living room/front porch away from home, inhabited by fellow travelers across an egalitarian spectrum (i.e. moms of preschoolers in the morning, city council members and downtown merchants at noon, students and preachers and writers in the afternoon, the young after school, and, yes, tourists on weekends.)

Rumor has it the lack of a drive-through at this location has doomed it to become a victim of Starbucks' latest recession. How fitting: a place that retains its civility precisely because it invites people to walk in and linger in shared, public space is excised from the corporate landscape because it can't cater to the moribund isolation of the suburbanized, American commuter.

Despite my personal whining about losing this small space of downtown Stillwater, which I admit reeks of the poutiness of privilege in the midst of real economic struggle, I do believe a societal loss is in the winds, be it at a coffee shop or any other place where the nourishment of the human soul is measured by profit margin.

That loss occurs at exactly the time we need it to be preserved, as the urban sociologist Oldenburg presciently observed:

“In the absence of informal public life, living becomes more expensive. Where the means and facilities for relaxation and leisure are not publicly shared, they become the objects of private ownership and consumption.”

And:

“What suburbia cries for are the means for people to gather easily, inexpensively, regularly, and pleasurably -- a ‘place on the corner,’ real life alternatives to television, easy escapes from the cabin fever of marriage and family life that do not necessitate getting into an automobile.”