Photography at a Higher Level

Interview with Brad Cavanaugh

What do you love about Valpo?

I guess what I like about Valpo is the diversity, the different areas. You've got the shopping mall areas on the south east side and you have the university on the south side of town. Old downtown you have lots of shopping and nice restaurants, the north side of town more shopping "and a lot of redevelopment going on on the north side."

We have found a lot of Chicago people who either live in Chicago or have to commute from the western suburbs into the city it takes them an hour and a half - two hours to get into the city where Valpo may be 50 miles from Chicago but it only takes an hour to get there. Traffics a lot less plus we have the convenience of the south shore train in Chesterton now also a local bus commuter right out of Valpo that goes into the city.

The thing I like best about Valpo is its proximity to Chicago. If you want to go out for a weekend or evening with your wife and the kids it's just an hour drive right into the city and you're there and you have a plethora of things to do from museums to any of the parks, shopping (I keep saying shopping, my wife's going to love me for that).

"Have you lived in Valpo your whole life?"

I've lived in Valpo my whole life, started at St. Paul School for grade school, went to B.F. for one year before they moved that up to where you go to high school now and then went to VHS and then to Loras College for two years, and Purdue for three years.

"What are some of your fond memories of Valpo growing up?"

Probable skiing out at the Pines, I would spend days and days after school, driving out there, getting my homework done first, and spending hours just on the slopes skiing. And I think where I lived was on the north side of town and had a lot of woods and stuff, back in the day it was so safe for your mom to say "go off and we'll see you tonight", you know you could go off for the weekend and you could play for hours on end down in the ravine and what not with all your friends and come back later in the evening, have dinner and go to school the next day so those are probably my fondest memories I think.

"As you were growing up what kept you in Valpo?"

I think all of it, the safety of it. There's hardly any crime around here, major crime I should say, the schools - great schools, and the people. You go to other towns that you visit, you go out of town to Seattle or New York, nobody says hi to you, you walk downtown Valpo and you pass somebody, it's a look in the eye, and it's a "how you doing today, hello" so that's what I like about Valpo, it's a small town and we feel safe here.

"What do you think of all the redevelopment that's going on downtown?"

It's great. With my business right downtown, on Lincolnway anything they do to bring people downtown is superb. Everything with having these different areas in Valpo the North side where the new YMCA is going, its kind of its own area, and then you have the south east side of town where all the major shopping is,Target and Wal-Mart and that, and then you have the downtown area, the old downtown, so now the revival of that, where years ago people used to shop down here with some of the smaller stores and they kind of got away from that because they started spreading out going to the north side or south east side, and now with new restaurants and new higher end shops coming in downtown its really bringing a lot more people and there's a lot of festivals going on down town. A lot more people are coming downtown because of the redevelopment. And there's still a lot going on, there's a new park going in right across the street which will have evening movies for kids and families and stuff like that, small concerts during the week, park benches, seating for families and kids to just hang out and play or whatever.

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