cool can be anywhere.

If you drive U.S. Route 20 from the Finger Lakes to Albany, you may well not notice the hamlet of Nelson. You wouldn’t see the Nelson Odeon, a converted Grange hall on a side street. Yet on a swinging Saturday night, it demonstrates that dreaming and doing can make a space as cool as any club in New York or Paris or anywhere.

Yet a few short years ago this space — so full of life hosting French Canadian Celticana band Le Vent Du Nord over the weekend — was yet another old building slated for demolition. But Jeffrey Schoenfeld, his family and some friends who believed renovated the building and laid the foundation for a folk-based music venue. They faced all the petty, parochial and political opposition any unusual idea encounters, but kept moving forward. The venue opened earlier this year and, as a packed and appreciative house of around 100 people from all over showed, has clearly found an audience.

I’ve attended a lot of intimate shows yet never seen the kind of reaction that followed the band’s first song. In this old hall with pristine acoustics, Le Vent Du Nord charmed the audience with its harmonies, humor, humility and instruments including a hurdy-gurdy, violin, guitar, mandolin, bass, keys, accordion and Jew’s harp. At any given time, much of the crowd clapped along, stomped or hooted. A full-house standing ovation, applause and non-stop cheers bridged the set end and the encore. For a band singing all in French. Did this all really take place in an old Grange hall on a town you won’t find on every map?

It did. And you know what, it could happen anywhere. Anywhere people have a dream. Anywhere folks are willing to put their energy and vision to that dream. Anywhere people won’t let doubters or so-called conventional wisdom hold them back. On this night, a packed and loud crowd having a great time, a hot band cooking at full steam, you realize that if people put their mind to it, cool can be anywhere.

thursday travelogue: rochester’s rising south wedge.

The reborn South Wedge neighborhood of Rochester, N.Y., shows that sometimes when you want to wake up a community, you just need a little coffee.

Boulder Coffee's tasteful decor.

And while the Boulder Coffee Co. didn’t single-handedly revitalize the neighborhood from its once-seedy reputation, it’s a cornerstone location from which regular live entertainment, a farmer’s market and festivals radiate. I visited in the middle of the Boulder Festival, featuring bands, an eclectic selection of vendors, flavorful food and drink, and a sample of the diverse neighborhood’s residents and customers. A caterer called Freshwise — with a slogan of If It Ain’t New York State, It Ain’t On My Plate — served great food that also reminds us to buy local. Young ladies with hula hoops, maturing urban hipsters with families and the occasional hairy gent who dances to everything gathered with a friendly vibe flowing.

The Boulder Festival on a Saturday afternoon.

OK, I’ll admit a bias to hoping this particular neighborhood succeeds. A former intern of mine when I worked in the festival business and his wife, both Oswego grads, played a major role turning the neighborhood into the hip place it is today. They started with Boulder Coffee and now own some 30 buildings in the area, many of them reclamation projects. Throughout South Wedge — which has, one should note, its own Ning — you’ll find funky eateries and bars, bakeries, second-hand stores, salons, a seller of parts for historic homes, parks and a planning committee that advises local doings. All things urbanists would say makes for a great community, so many of which happened organically.

(Hula) Hooping it up at the Boulder Festival.

But you look at vibrant revived communities and they often circle back to a few dreamers, often artistic types. SoHo started with artists squatting in abandoned buildings and evolved into a place whose cool attracted everyone. Atlanta’s Little Five Points, Fremont in Seattle, Buffalo’s Allentown district and countless other neighborhoods owe their pedigree to folks who wanted to do their own thing, create something different and cultivate a living style envied from miles away.

The many historic homes in the neighborhood have a business catering to their particular needs.

When I look at cookie-cutter subdivisions that can’t draw tenants and compare them to vibrant neighborhoods who celebrate the spirit of individuality, it’s no surprise the latter attract more attention. And South Wedge is one such place, a surging hot spot that oozes urban cool.