Entertainment? A lot going on, but nightlife is scattered, with no true entertainment district. Jillian's at Casino Aztar will help, said Huesling and Rawski, who have been to Jillian's in other cities.
Here's more from our newcomer trio:
TOM LOESCH JR.
"When I left Evansville at 18 (mid-1970s) I thought it was a dinky little town with no excitement. I went to Chicago," Loesch said, standing outside the 1894 Queen Anne cottage he and his partner, Bill Hedel, are renovating
on Southeast Sixth Street. "I thought I'd never live here again, but I've grown up and the city's grown up. It's more diverse."
After Hurricane Katrina, they left their New Orleans home of eight years with no desire to engage in the struggle of rebuilding a city that Loesch says caters to visitors and industry at the expense of its residents.
The Southeast Sixth Street neighborhood has seen better days, but they yearned to be in an old Downtown area conducive to foot traffic. "We were renting on the East Side, but our soul was dying there," Loesch said, smiling. "Evansville has a Second City mentality," said Loesch, an academic writer and manager for Hedel's art studio. "The standard question we get from people is, 'Why did you come to Evansville? There's nothing here.' "Billy will get angry and say, 'You must be dead. There's a lot of wonderful things here.'"
"The new Old National Bank is one of the loveliest modern contemporary buildings I've seen in a long time, full of grace," Loesch continued. "The riverfront is beautiful. There are diverse restaurants ... lots of trees ... the Philharmonic ... a great museum ... antebellum homes on First Street that rival anything you find in the South ... and who would expect to find a Chinese pagoda (visitors center) in a Midwestern city?"
Recently, the pair found a sports bar on North Main Street that sells the kind of Chicago Italian beef sandwich they crave.
But what of urban blight, those boarded-up homes along Washington Avenue?
"It's not ugly to me. I tend to see the places that are being fixed up and the boarded-up houses as possibilities," said Loesch. "There are pockets (less attractive areas), but you have those sort of things in a modern city. "I think Downtown just needs more residents, more foot traffic."
He doesn't favor a new Downtown arena. "People wouldn't stay to enjoy the amenities Downtown. They'd just trash it up."
GREG RAWSKI
Before he took a job teaching business at the University of Evansville last August, the Toledo, Ohio, native researched Evansville and paid a visit. He liked what he saw, including an economy, fueled by Toyota's manufacturing plant, that's healthier than Toledo's.
"This is not a Rust Belt city," said Rawski.
Evansville is convenient, he added. "I go out a lot and I can get anywhere in Evansville in 10 or 15 minutes, and I feel safe here. We have some real problem areas in Toledo (population 300,000)."
His first day here he made nine new friends when some guys sitting next to him at a restaurant invited him to join their baseball league.
U.S. 41 entering Evansville from the north "probably needs some improvement," he said, "but we have similar roads in Toledo. It's just part of the city."
Unlike Loesch, Rawski is neutral on whether a new Roberts Stadium should be built Downtown. But he points out that Toledo, which like Evansville has its share of empty Downtown storefronts, has a new Downtown baseball stadium that's been a big success.
"Attendance went through the roof" for Toledo's minor league baseball team, he noted, and some new entertainment venues opened nearby.
Rawski says Evansville "has more live bands than we do back home," and one of his favorite nightspots is on the riverfront. "Have you ever been to Club Baja at Marina Point?" he asked. "It's packed on weekends. My friends from Toledo came down and we had a great time."
He said having Jillian's at Casino Aztar's entertainment district now under construction "will add more life Downtown."
JILL HUESLING
"Evansville is the second-best place we've lived," said Jill Huesling, whose husband, Tim, took a marketing job last year with South Central Communications.
The family (a sixth-grader, third-grader and 5-year-old) previously lived in Davenport, Iowa, Grand Haven, Mich., Springfield, Ill., Champaign, Ill., Sheboygan, Wis., and Sandusky, Ohio.
Evansville can't compete with the charm of Grand Haven, a small tourist town on Lake Michigan, but at least in Evansville you don't get snow flurries in May, she said, laughing.
Huesling liked what she saw when the family entered Evansville on the Lloyd Expressway from Interstate 164. "It was kind of like a suburb you'd see in any major city, with all your hotels and familiar restaurants. In Evansville you have retail growth on both sides of town, which is different."
However, when she drives Downtown from their Newburgh home she often takes I-164 to Veterans Memorial Parkway. "I don't get lost that way," she said. "Downtown streets are confusing."
For Huesling, first impressions can be less tangible. Real estate broker Carol McClintock, who helped them relocate, eased the moving pangs for their oldest daughter by having cookies in the hotel room and a list of things to do. McClintock also got Huesling involved in a newcomers group she's organized from among her clientele.
Huesling had never entered Downtown along Walnut Street west of U.S. 41 until the other day. The corridor's biggest eyesore for years has been a closed gas station on the northeast corner of Walnut and Kentucky Avenue. Recently plans were worked out with the state to finish an underground environmental cleanup at the site.
"Unique," Huesling said, at a loss for words when she saw remnant carpet being sold on the street corner. The property's new owner, carpet dealer Roger Huff, said he has painted the building and is considering opening a Laundromat.