Mission creep?

The Chinese Tea House at Marble House, in Newport, modeled on 12th Century Chinese Song Dynasty temples.

— Photo by Ekem 

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

That the Preservation Society of Newport County runs restaurants at its Breakers Welcome Center and the Chinese Tea House at Marble House and has made some other changes to sex up tourism at the city’s famous mansions continues to rankle some Newporters, who noted that it’s the  Preservation Society,  not the development society.

I was down in  Newport on a lovely day the other week, and it was hopping with people on tours and some just wandering around looking dazed. Compared to, say, New York City, I saw few people wearing masks.

It’s too bad that Route 114, a main drag through Portsmouth and Middletown heading to Newport, is one of  the uglier commercial strips in America and yet so close to beautiful natural and manmade sites. One wonders what sort of  dubious zoners’ and politicians’ wheeling-dealing went into allowing such a long and depressing stretch.

Planting many more trees along the way would help camouflage some of its horrors. And maybe as the World Wide Web continues to kill brick-and- mortar stores, some of the land can be allowed to revert to open space and housing. The road is a real downer for those expecting beauty to and from The City by the Sea.