Park ‘improvements’
I am so pleased that Denver is considering a makeover of Civic Center. Park occupants could use a new cesspool.
Randall Livingston, Littleton
Haven't you heard?, the new cesspool is the suburb of Littleton. Rich little white boys dredged up from the cesspool of moral superiority acting out their video game vengeance.
Deal with your problems at home before you start throwing stones.
Posted by Whiteflight on August 15, 2007 03:50 PMSo far, nothing useful has been said on this issue. The silly, tacked-on Liebeskind proposal for Civic Center will hopefully be dismissed as the joke it is.
Denver city planners need to go somewhere past Aurora for solutions to the stagnation of Civic Center, somewhere like Europe, or Mexico, where the concept of a "town square" has been developed to a fine art.
Some of the simple solutions those places have come up with involve maintaining a presence of legitimate activity, such as:
1) An attendant in public bathrooms. Wow. What a radical idea. Having a live person in these places keeps them from becoming hiding places for pervs and drug dealers. And remember that a real public area needs real toilet facilties. Visitors should not be forced to go find business bathrooms. One of the keys to a successful town square is to support people who want to just walk and sightsee, people who aren't [incredible as it may seem] desperate to buy something over $20. As simplistic as this sounds, it is the number one and two priority [ha ha].
2) Continuous presence of penny-ante vendors: flowers, food, coffee, magazines, music, toys, balloons, flea market oddities, etc. In old-world squares, these often occupy permanent, low-budget structures. These can be 'low end' businesses [horrors!], but they would still be better than the crack dealers that swarm the area now.
3) More walking or bike cops - it's amazing how few there are in Civic Center. Establish a police outpost - just a small structure that would maintain a constant uniformed presence.
4) End the failed, so-called "Drug War," removing the incentive for underground drug dealers.
5) Encourage street artists and buskers without forcing them to get a lot of paperwork and approval from out-of-touch gatekeepers. Allowing some freedom with this might let in some dubious activities [still better than crack dealers], but the snobs who purport to know what proper "street art" is have already proven their uselessness on the 16th St mall. Civic Center is not Cherry Creek, nor should it pretend to be.
6) Keep the legitimate activity going into the evening, meaning 10 or 11 O'Clock.
The Wednesday market is a good start, but needs to be a permanent, daily thing. The big festivals are great, too, but we need a happy medium between shutting off the whole area for a 3 day extravaganza and abandoning it to winos.
By making the place more appealing to people that live in the area and visitors, and less appealing to dope dealers, the atmosphere of Civic Center could be improved.
Tacking on some fad gewgaws and confused elitist "Art" will only make things worse. I hope some city planners read this and think about it.
Posted by Dirk on August 15, 2007 06:42 PMDirk,
With the memorial to the old Colfax Avenue junkpile in place on 13th Avenue, alongside the guano pile left by the legendary Roc, - currently known as the "Art Museum" - and the little kid's pencil box spilled out and then stuck together in pieces and parts turned up vertically - known as the "Library" - Liebeskind and his confreres are already enjoying caviar, pate, and champagne, along with their Cayman Island bank accounts and a hearty belly laught at the rubes out "hyar in injun fightin' Country".
What "city planners" are you talking about? With what they've given us already, you want plans that would make Civic Center into a place that could be regarded as a "fine art"?
What planet are you writing from? Or galaxy even?
You want Cowtown, Capitol of Cowlorado, to actually do something to finish the dream of old Ben Stapleton, by making Civic Center into a place where there is some evidence of real culture? You silly dreamer you!
But, thanks for the dream! It was wonderful reading, and an even more wonderful place to contemplate for some possible future realization. It's just too bad that one has to wake up to reality in Cowtown, Capitol of Cowlorado.
Ah! But, there is a saving grace, after all. Mayor Hick has a nice, boyish smile!
Posted by Old Grouch on August 16, 2007 08:48 AM