225 Managing Editor Ben Leger has said it time and time again when attending some fancy event in downtown Baton Rouge or eating at a trendy new restaurant—and he knows you’ve said it, too.
“When the futuristic Shaw Center opened 10 years ago and locals made their way to the rooftop terrace of Tsunami,” writes Leger in a column from 225’s 10th anniversary issue, they said it: “It feels like I’m not even in Baton Rouge!”
“At 225, we’ve been guilty of it as well—promoting some of our events as ‘New York City-style’ or ‘L.A.-style’ soirees in hopes people would feel like they were partying somewhere else,” Leger writes. “Not Baton Rouge.”
Leger, an Acadiana native, came to Baton Rouge to attend LSU in the early 2000s. Like many students, he left Baton Rouge soon after graduating.
“I used to lament that the reason I left Baton Rouge after college was because nothing ever happened here. Downtown was boring. There were cooler places to be,” he writes. “But I soon learned through stints in other places that a city is what you make it. You either find the cool things that are happening or you just aren’t looking hard enough.”
When Leger returned in 2012 to join the 225 team, he found Baton Rouge was a much different place than it was during his college days.
“In that time, Katrina happened. The movie industry moved in. Downtown got a facelift. The restaurant scene started growing,” he writes. “I was surprised to find a markedly different city, and one I was anxious to rediscover.”
But Leger says he was also surprised at how the city viewed itself in light of all those changes.
“It was still on track to becoming a truly great city; it was still on the verge of something. But it wasn’t quite there yet—or so I was told in stories I read, in the comment sections on news articles, in speeches from local leaders and conversations I had with residents,” he writes.
And while Baton Rouge will probably always unfairly compare itself to New Orleans and aspire to be more like Austin, Texas, Leger says it’s time for our city to take more pride in the progress it has made over the past decade and hold itself in higher esteem.
“Of course, a city is forever growing and changing and facing new obstacles. We won’t ever truly be where we want to be,” he writes. “But we can at least stop wishing we were like other places and celebrate our own identity. We can embrace the things that make Baton Rouge unique.”
Read the full column. And be sure to check out more stories from the cover package celebrating 225’s 10th anniversary, including a rundown of pivotal moments in Baton Rouge from the past decade, as well as a look at 10 places that changed the landscape of the city and several projects in the works now that are poised to further change the landscape.
Also for the 10th anniversary issue, former 225 Editor Jeff Roedel reflects on his nearly 10 years working on the magazine and shares some of his favorite articles, cover packages, photos shoots and controversies. And the magazine’s first editor, Tom Guarisco, also looks back on the launch of the magazine a decade ago with just three staffers and a large pool of talented freelancers.
Send your comments to editor@225batonrouge.com.
