In our rapidly changing society, just about nothing remains the same forever.
Not much remains the same for five years anymore.
How about an East Boston business being around for more than seven decades and announcing it is celebrating its 75th Anniversary?
We are writing of Suffolk Downs, which is celebrating its 75th birthday.
This is an achievement of the first order in the modern world.
After all, businesses come and go like the wind these days.
Even Wall Street’s largest financial institutions have been known to just disappear – as they did when the recession got going more than a year and half ago.
Suffolk Downs isn’t disappearing.
Horse racing may have known a better time, a grander moment under the sun – but at least it remains alive at Suffolk Downs and gives the place a reason to exist.
Suffolk Downs is a large employer – and a decent employer at that.
It is a big taxpayer to the city of Boston.
It is a beloved place to those who love it, a hallowed place to many of those who have worked there for much of their lives.
And over time, it has hosted some of the finest racing horses of the last century, including the legendary thoroughbred Seabiscuit.
Now the owners of Suffolk Downs are attempting to have horse racing augmented by the construction of a casino on the 150-acre property.
We have supported Suffolk Downs and its owners in this effort because we believe in Suffolk Downs ability to do the right thing if the opportunity occurs.
After all, the right thing has been done at Suffolk Downs for 75 years.
When and if expanded gambling comes to Massachusetts, there is the collective belief among government officials, business experts and gambling industry analysts that a casino at Suffolk Downs will produce jobs, new revenue streams, new business, new taxes and infrastructure mitigation efforts that no one in the public or private sector has attempted in more than 50 years.
What began in 1935 as the Depression was getting into full gear is now 75, still alive and fighting the good fight to remake itself to meet the imperatives of the future.
We wish Suffolk Downs and their owners a happy anniversary.
We wish them well in their efforts to secure a license for the right to build a casino.