I was disappointed, though not entirely surprised, when Starbucks chose to locate its uptown cafe in Brunswick Square. I was hoping it would be on King St., as part of the revitalization of the uptown’s outdoor commercial corridor from King’s Square to Market Square.

This choice reflected Starbucks approach to broadening its appeal. The first Saint John location was a small kiosk in McAllister Place; then they opened the standalone cafe with a drive-thru and an outlet in the Indigo bookstore on the East Side. I had first experienced Starbucks on downtown street corners in Toronto. When Starbucks finally arrived in uptown Saint John it was in a mall near the entrance to the pedway, not in an historic building on King St.

You know what, though? Starbucks knew its market, and they also knew Mark, as it turns out.

More than 10 years ago, I wrote a column for here, “On the outside looking in: outside culture is key to vibrant uptown core.” I admitted using the inside connection, but nonetheless argued that it was holding back the development of a vibrant, outdoor street culture in the uptown core.

I’m more of a pragmatist now, and realize the inside connection is here to stay; we have to make the uptown work with it, not merely regret its existence.

I must also acknowledge it’s become an even more important part of my daily routine,

Because I now have kids, I spend more time travelling the inside connection from the City Market to Market Square. We have lunch in the market, go swimming in the Aquatic Centre, and regularly visit the library and museum.

I also spend more time on my own there, because it’s where I’m most likely to meet people I don’t see very often now that I’m freelancing and home with the kids.

Just last week, for example, the kids were at the babysitter and I was home alone working on a story. I really needed to get out and see people I knew. I walked to the market for lunch and sat down by myself at Kim’s Korean Food in the City Market.

I wasn’t alone for long. Someone from my book club stopped to chat about our latest book, Vertical, by Rex Pickett. He stayed for about 10 minutes, and then another friend walked by. She sat down and we chatted for half an hour about our kids and a show she was planning to see at Sanctuary Theatre that night. Then we made plans to do something together with the kids, and talked about attending an upcoming arts event.

After lunch, I walked down to Starbucks in Brunswick Square to have a coffee and do some work. As I was sipping a coffee and sending some e-mails, a childhood friend passed by on his way back to work from lunch. We talked about his golf trip south with my cousin earlier this winter, and our shared need to keep our cholesterol levels low.

I wasn’t getting much work done, but my next visitor made me feel better on that score. A fellow writer, he had a tip on a column opportunity he thought might suit me. I spend time in the inside connection because it’s my best chance to see people I know.

This doesn’t mean people aren’t drawn to the King St. area outside the mall. The street-level commercial district is more vital than it was 10 years, despite the continued popularity of the inside connection. Our best restaurants, cafes and bars are located there in historic street-front locations. It’s just that, in the race to becoming the uptown’s true main street, the inside connection has the inside track.

As Canada’s Original City with a list of “firsts” we’re all proud of, we need to get back to being original, building original, and stop trying to build culture and buildings that replicate our past.

There is a combination of implied expectation, enforced heritage bylaws, and cultural hegemony that leads us to build red brick, late 1800s replicas in Saint John and it’s getting a little embarrassing.

What does a great, original building look like in 2013?

In the Trinity Royal business district there is an absolute treasure of well-built, original buildings that create entire streetscapes worth restoring, preserving, and celebrating. There are magnificent, high quality, buildings throughout our city that deserve the same. But to lock down an entire city into a heritage wonderland that celebrates a storied past at the expense of an exciting and youthful future depresses the heck out of me.

Is this a place that people want to live and work in or a place that people used to want to live and work in? We need to enable and encourage new building development that respects the dimensions and purpose of the neighbourhoods they reside in while aspiring to greatness and originality for the time we live in.

This will capture the creativity that we have in abundance here that is being held down by the cultural demands of a few and the bylaws they have influenced. It will also signal to people who might want to move into our city that there are more options for their investment than just restoring a heritage building and living the dream of someone else from two centuries ago.

Being Canada’s Original City needs to be something that we ARE, not something that we WERE. What is being planned and constructed in Saint John that our followers will be proud of in 100 years? Please tell me. I want to know.

Note re photo: Have you ever seen arched windows in Saint John before? The photo above is of the newly constructed second cruise terminal, slightly more original than the first one next door. I had a very hard time finding a pic of a recently constructed building in Saint John and I believe it is because very little is being built here that’s worth anyone pulling out their camera and posting it online. 98% of the pics of Saint John’s buildings online are of buildings built in the late 1800s when architecture, quality, and design mattered here. Saint John was original back then.