This week's Tele-Talk question is: What do you suggest the Heritage-New Hampshire site be used for when the attraction closes? [01/01/1904]

Call 356-2550 all day Saturday and Sunday and leave your comments on our machine. You may fax your response to 356-8360 or send E-mail to DailySun@mountwashingtonvalley.com. Results will be published Tuesday.

After Heritage-New Hampshire closes, I would suggest they use it as a crafts village. This could be used to showcase and demonstrate various crafts and trades that have a heritage in New England and New Hampshire. Emphasis could be on earlier historical crafts like blacksmithing, spinning and weaving, coopering, paper making, bookbinding, candle making, et cetera, as well as more common crafts such as pottery, leather working, glassblowing, jewelry, et cetera. If these were actively occupied and demonstrated, the village should generate considerable interest and draw many people interested in our craft heritage from all over New England to the area.An obvious good use for the Heritage-NH site would be to slowly transform it into the future home of the proposed new MWV Children's Museum. Some of the most interesting and unique features of Heritage could be preserved as a permanent core for new interactive and rotating exhibits that might be brought to the valley on a temporary basis. Also, given the building's size, it would be wonderful to convert some of the space into a much needed year-round, multi-theater, variable-seat complex for the performing arts, which groups like the wonderful M&D Productions, Resort Players, Arts in Motion, the Bach Festival, the Chorale Society, Arts Jubilee, and Mountain Top Music could share and call home at last. Judy, Bartlett.In response to your Heritage-NH closing, why not turn it in to apartments for some of the folks who will undoubtedly have to leave their present homes because they will not be able to pay their ridiculously high Conway school property taxes? Signed, soon to be displaced in Conway.I think it will make a great place for a children's museum and I think they should consider leaving in the woodland forest. All kids love to run through a forest and, who knows, 70 years from now, the way this world is going, it could be the only one left. This is Sherry from Glen.Wake up the people in the town of Bartlett. What an opportunity for the town to have, after all these years, a decent municipal building. And think of the possibilities it poses. And speak of location, it's right smack-dab in the middle of the town and in the most progressive, expanding part of the town. This is something that should not be passed up. Let's move on it.I think a great use would be for the new Bartlett-Jackson high school.How about updating Heritage to show the modern history of Mount Washington Valley. You know, you could show people cutting down trees, you could show locals, natives, losing their homes because they can't afford the housing costs in the valley, you could build a bunch of stores and chain restaurants and show global warming killing the ski industry. You know, what's really happening in the valley.I would like to see a nice family buffet restaurant, one that is reasonable for the citizens of the valley to enjoy, much as the Old Country Buffet at the Maine Mall, or Morrison's Buffet in Florida. Too many restaurants up here are too expensive for taxpayers to eat and to enjoy. The Heritage is big enough for other small shops. Also, maybe here's a thought: a country dance hall with live bands once a month, but let's have something for the taxpayers of the valley to enjoy.My name is Jeff, and I'm a native of Conway. I think you ought to leave it exactly the way it is on the outside and turn it into a theme park hotel just like Disney World does. That would be kind of cool.I think it would be great if the Town of Bartlett could buy the Heritage-NH building for a new town hall. I think of the potential space for a public library, municipal offices, parks and rec, police department, rooms for planning board, rooms for selectmen and town employees. I don't know what it could be called, though. The designation, "Town hall, town of Bartlett," would probably rub someone in downtown Glen the wrong way and they'd have to insist on having the name Glen somewhere on the building just like they did with the fire station. Too bad the town couldn't go back to calling its commercial and geographic center what it was known as for over 100 years. Before the name Glen came about, it was always known as Center Bartlett. I think if we did that, then maybe we could bury some of the rivalries and get on the same page and work for the good of the town, instead of engaging in these little turf battles that seem to be going on a lot. I do think it would be a great idea for the town of Bartlett to buy that building. This is a resident of Bartlett.I think that instead of building a whole huge multimillion-dollar school, we should just put it in that building.I personally would like to see Heritage stay as a family amusement center, perhaps some sort of an indoor old-time park with a lemonade stand and a couple of croquet courts and a shuffleboard court, and teach our kids some of the old-fashioned games that people used to play. It would also give families coming to visit someplace to go in the rain.I strongly suggest and support the use of the building for some type of affordable housing for the workers who work so very, very hard in this valley and can barely afford to survive with the high rents, so hopefully this will be a constructive use for our entire community.I think the owner should turn Heritage into an all-year-round place for little kids, sort of like a Chuck E. Cheese but in Story Land style. You can have birthday parties, serve pizza, and then we can have a place to go during the wintertime. I think that they would do a really good job at doing something like that that could be open all year round.I have two suggestions: They can either, A., tear it down and turn it into a strip mall so it can look just as beautiful down there as it does here in North Conway. Or they can, B., turn it into a high school for Glen, Bartlett and Jackson students and then that way they can finish the school up here in Conway and still have enough money left over to give some back to the taxpayers, because it won't be that much room for that many kids. This is John in North Conway.This is Ray F. Bailey Jr. from Bartlett. I live up in the village. My recommendation is I would like to see Heritage be used for the Bartlett Historical Society. They don't have a building and they are just starting to get their program underway. I realize it would be a great undertaking, but it's going to be available so that would be an unbelievable start. It would be a great thing.I understand that the children's museum is opening sometime in the near future. Its location is at the weather observatory, the old one. This is a very, very tiny site. What would be wonderful is to start the museum there and let them expand as time goes by, and it would be a great partnership with Story Land next door.I'm from Glen and my first suggestion would be please don't close it. It's a great attraction even if it's not as popular as it used to be. Maybe there could be some ways to make it less expensive to run or more popular to people, even if you toned it down smaller. My other suggestion is, if it's really going to close, have a nice restaurant and inn in there. It's a very attractive building, and it would be nice to have something that would draw tourists.This is Jean from Intervale. My suggestion would be a performing arts center, a place to share, visual and performing artists gathering together. It could be a place for touring companies to come and add some more culture to this beautiful area, and a place to share. A performing arts center.This is Frank from Glen. My position would be that it could be a convention type center if the insulation was put in and it was winterized.I'm involved with the Gorham Historical Society. I'm very saddened to see Heritage-NH closing. I think the state ought to get involved, and if worse came to worst, be donated to the state for a dollar as a tax write-off and have the state get involved. It would make one heck of a state attraction. I'd like to see that saved one way or the other because it's a great walk through history, that's for sure.My husband and I would like to see that stay Heritage-NH but maybe be open longer. It's a shame since we lost Old Man of the Mountain, to lose something historical like this as well. I know this week, we're up all week skiing and then there's not much snow for cross-country, so we definitely would have gone this week, had it been opened during the wintertime, so I don't know if that's a possibility, but whatever it takes, we would definitely like to see it opened and we live in southern New Hampshire.I think they should somehow connect that to the University of New Hampshire and bring the University of New Hampshire up into this area on a little bit bigger scale.I suggest that the Heritage-NH site be used for whatever the Morrell Corporation wishes to use it for. The success of their operations far exceeds the majority of Mount Washington Valley businesses to date. Dan Noel, Intervale.I have lived in Mount Washington Valley for 22 years. I am currently attending school in southern New Hampshire and was extremely shocked when I read in the Union Leader about the closing of Heritage. Heritage is a wonderful attraction which interactively and theatrically imitates historical stories. I can remember going to Heritage for school trips after learning about specific historical events. I can also remember going on rainy days with my family. Heritage brings history to life for many children and even some adults. History can be such a dry and boring subject to read and learn about, but to actually be placed in the interactive environment gives children a sense of what really occurred years ago. Text books can only supply so much knowledge of what happened hundreds of years ago. The facts of history that truly stick out in my mind are the ones that I acted out or that I physically saw at places like Heritage. I think that a strong statement is being made by closing such a historical and educational focused building. Our focus has been taken off of attractions that actually impact learning, which implies how much we truly value education. Where is our education going? We cannot find funding for a place that helps to educate today's youth, which in reality shows where our future is going and how much we value education. I may not have known it at the time, but now that I look back on it, Heritage made an extreme impact on my education. I am appreciative that there is such a wonderful attraction so close to home where I was able to go to imitate historical events and bring history to life. As a resident of Mount Washington Valley, I am proud to tell others about Heritage because it is a well-run attraction with unique and creative storytelling. Heritage is one of a kind and I truly believe that shutting it down is a huge mistake. As Americans, we are always so proud of our country and what we represent, but we are shutting down a place that tells our history in a creative, one-of-a-kind manner. I think that the valley and the state should find a way to fund Heritage to keep it open for the sake of the education and those who are employees of this attraction. Caroline from Bartlett.