southslider wrote:Anyone thinking that the Gateway Foundation will do this new sculpture park right on City-owned land needs to check out the sculpture park the Gateway Foundation completed not too long ago Downtown on Metro-owned land (14th & Clark) or even the more recently installed sculpture on MODOT-owned land (Lafayette & Truman). I sincerely hope "rabbits on crack" or "rusted rings" won't be future fixtures in Gateway Mall.
I sincerely hope works like that are included. Thank you for pointing out these wonderful art works!
I don't care for either of those works. I do like the "fat guy on a horse" at Hanley and Wydown and the walking girl in front of the Laclede Gas Building - that one was a pleasant surprise.
The rabbit, while quite bizzare, I do find interesting. Wouldn't be my first choice, but I am OK with it. The ribs are fine for where they are located. I wouldn't want them for the mall, but the sculpture works where it is at.
"Brian Carpenter, 35, another downtown office worker enjoying his lunch in the mall last week said the area should copy Clayton's Parties in the Park festival series, which offers a new event each month in Shaw Park between May and September."
argh! again with the "copying..."
So you're saying they shouldn't copy something that brings lots of people and activity to the area? Strange, that.
I'm saying St. Louis should be a leader and not a follower. St. Louis should be inventive and try new ideas. These ideas can be things no other city has ever done before. Seriously, this thing is ok, a new event each month, but the word "copy" stands out to me as the theme of contemplation in our region.
Let us know how that goes. It sounds as though they're open to a number of ideas - cafes, more sculpted walkways, art, but I'd imagine that residential won't get much traction. IF/WHEN downtown increases its residential (even if only the current projects are completed there will be a a great increase) the Mall will be a needed open space. It is dead as it currently sits, but this needn't be the case five years from now.
Grover wrote:Let us know how that goes. It sounds as though they're open to a number of ideas - cafes, more sculpted walkways, art, but I'd imagine that residential won't get much traction. IF/WHEN downtown increases its residential (even if only the current projects are completed there will be a a great increase) the Mall will be a needed open space. It is dead as it currently sits, but this needn't be the case five years from now.
Correct. The problem is not with the mall, but with the buildings surrounding it.
I am not saying it will happen. Destroying the green space would be a slap in the face of those morons who created it. This is why politically we are still following this idiotic idea of how to fix Downtown. We don't need Walden Pond or some art. We need skyscrapers. These are art and so much more unique than the Mall, or any artistic veneer added to it.
^ I hope the City gets a lot more than that for their money.
A "Civic Room"? Sounds like a fancy name for what the City already uses those blocks for. Call me crazy, but downtown already has a great "outdoor reading area" near the central library, it is called Lucas Park. Oh wait, thats right, the City allowed it to be overrun by the homeless.
The "neighborhood room"? So downtown needs five blocks of dog runs, play grounds, and sitting space. Hmm... seems like those would be better placed, I don't know, closer to the residential (what ever happened to the plan for the Garment Plaza or whatever the name for the plaza space north of the Fashion Square building was to be?)
While the Kiener garages are ugly (along with the Ballpark Hilton), the best features of the area east of the Gateway One is that the surrounding structures do not distract from either the Old Court House or the Arch. Multi-media displays will do the exact opposite. The idea once thrown around on this forum to put media displays a block over, at 7th and Pine, is a much better idea.
And one of the best outdoor areas along the entire Mall, the Milles Fountain, is best mucked up with a Ferris wheel and/ or and ice rink?
All in all, this lack of vision is to be expected. Doug has it right, the current leadership is still too unwilling to admit the mistakes of the past to really come up with bold and dynamic plans for the area. Maybe when the City does this all again in 20 years the political leadership will have changed enough to finally admit what a series of horrible mistakes the mall has been.
BTW, I could not get away from work this week, otherwise I would be there tonight. Lord knows, I have waisted enough time thinking about this subject.
As someone who lived in Washington DC for years, I know what a functional mall can do for a city. That National Mall was incredibly valuable for citizens on a functional level, as well as to the city and the country at large. It always amazed me to see large groups of people playing kickball in the shadow of the Washington Monument and Capitol Dome. Hopefully a critical mass of people living downtown can use this space in the same way. I think the biggest stumbling block to the conception of the properties as a unified "mall" is the fact that the sightline and contiguity are shattered by the Kiener Garage and the Courts building. We don't have a mall so much as a series of parcels interrupted by massive buildings. I really feel like their is little to no sense of being in a "mall" when you are down there. It is more like being in a wide green median between busy roads. Therefore, I propose that the first monument built on the mall should be a monument to the MEMORY of the imploded Kiener garage.
If the city exerts the same level of authority over street people as they do in other parks and areas, this plan will probably end up a disaster.
And, BTW, I'm noticing a huge increase this summer in street people in Soulard. I had 7 (counted them) rummage through the dumpster this morning before I left for work.
JMedwick wrote:While the Kiener garages are ugly (along with the Ballpark Hilton), the best features of the area east of the Gateway One is that the surrounding structures do not distract from either the Old Court House or the Arch. Multi-media displays will do the exact opposite. The idea once thrown around on this forum to put media displays a block over, at 7th and Pine, is a much better idea.
Valid point. I did kind of like the "honeycomb" idea that would help make the facades of the garages look a little less "blah." I don't think that adding some artwork to the garages would detract from the courthouse or the arch like multi-media displays would.
JMedwick wrote:And one of the best outdoor areas along the entire Mall, the Milles Fountain, is best mucked up with a Ferris wheel and/ or and ice rink?
I hear you. I love the idea of an ice rink, but elsewhere on the mall or downtown.
The City didn't let the homeless take over. No one else wanted to use the parks because the only people who were DT happened to leave after 5. We need residential DT or the only other users will be the homeless. The homeless do not take over anything, they use what no one else does.
The Mall is, yes, "interrupted" by buildings. I would actually say the buildings and pedestrian continuity are interrupted by the Mall! The green space needs to be removed and built in with mixed use residential.
We shouldn't joke around and say that parks and an urban oasis, regardless of what is added to it, will attract pedestrians when they have no place to live that is nearby! The Mall is a failure and the way to correct it is to remove the grass and place wonderful residential skyscrapers that obnoxiously blot out the sun and block views of the arch. Yes, that is what we need. Very tall buildings.
People are not going to drive down here simply to walk around on the Mall. These people already have their own green space in the County! They will move down here for residential. This residential should be place in the voids which are the green space. We have more than enough evident in that no one really uses any! If there was a shortage then they would be bustling! They are not!
Expat got me thinking the other day about the best way to make use of sculpture gift. In light of that, I made the following changes to my previously posted Gateway Mall plan.
First one is of all downtown parkland:
Second one is of just the mall between Broadway and 11th.
That one requires an explanation.
