HELP SAVE OPEN SPACE ON NICOLLET ISLAND
Friends of the Riverfront has filed three lawsuits challenging the plan to build a football stadium on Nicollet Island and the process by which local government has approved it. The first case ended when the Minnesota Supreme Court declined FOR's petition to appeal a ruling by the state Court of Appeals, but two more cases are still pending at the Court of Appeals. Friends of the Riverfront was joined in the first two cases by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota. The three citizen groups are asking that the City of Minneapolis and DeLaSalle be made to comply with state law and explore alternatives before destroying natural or historic resources. Donate to the legal fund online or send a check to Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, 219 Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth St., St. Paul, MN 55102-1406 (put "Nicollet Island" on the memo line).
Preservation magazine features stadium threat to Nicollet Island
The National Trust for Historic Preservation publication highlights development threats to the St. Anthony Falls Historic District. Click here to read more.
Page Content
Subscribe to list
Sign up for the Friends of the Riverfront mailing list
Search
User login
Park Board isn't staying true to Wirth's vision
Park Board isn't staying true to Wirth's vision
It's considering privatizing, selling off and even giving away precious Minneapolis public park property.
By Charles A. Birnbaum
Star Tribune October 29, 2005
From Atlanta to Seattle, our nation's legacy of urban parks are under siege from a variety of threats -- expansions by neighboring institutions, new parking lots and new "destination features." Minneapolis is no exception.
In the age of video games and attention deficit disorder, "open space" has become a dirty word. Parks are seen as a void that must be filled, "programmed" to amuse all comers.
Who decided that strolling under a canopy of trees is not a sufficient experience in its own right? Have we stopped valuing the humanizing scale and tactile marvels of nature? Do we still appreciate our history and public gardens?
This national trend to clutter park grounds with activity-oriented "focal points" is lamentable and perplexing because park users themselves are not demanding change. According to surveys conducted over the past two decades, the majority of Americans visit parks specifically for passive, reflective experiences.
Within an emotional and politically charged atmosphere, small but vocal groups are taking control of the public debate to advance their own narrow agendas -- resulting in ill-conceived park redesigns. Democratic spaces are being privatized with partial closing of parks for special events, construction of additions, long-term leases to special interests and private concessions -- changing the character of the landscape irrevocably.
These formulaic alterations to our parks have their own needs for long-term maintenance with more parking and more pavement. Strip away the historic. Make way for special interests (this is often the real objective). Today "green" too seldom means a generous sweep of trees and lawn with the songs of birds, and too often means dollars and the ching-ching-ching of cash registers.
Minneapolis is a city blessed with one of the nation's premier systems of parks and boulevards, yet based on current proposals that I saw on my trip to the Twin Cities last week, it appears that elected park commissioners and their appointed superintendents are today considering privatizing, selling off and even giving away precious public park property.
Theodore Wirth, the longest-serving superintendent of these parks (1906-35), accomplished equal park access for all people, saying, "Parks are for the masses and not the classes." As the only Minneapolis park superintendent who was also a landscape architect, he built on the visionary master plan of H.W.S. Cleveland, expanding park acreage threefold and transforming Minneapolis into a garden city with 60 miles of parkways and tree-lined residential streets serving as pathways to well-located parks within six blocks of every home.
Today's residents are the beneficiaries of Cleveland's and Wirth's vision.
Those who enjoy this astonishing legacy must consider current initiatives like the construction of a yacht club development on Lake Calhoun Park property or the closing of the Stone Arch Bridge for private parties. How do these uses "fit" with the original design intent? Should present-day managers be allowed to privatize Nicollet Island's park pavilion, as the current Park Board majority have, or seek to give away parkland for a suburban-style stadium in a fragile urban historic district? What will be the future of the Wirth family historic home and office in Lyndale Farmstead Park, itself a temptation for private development interests? The Minneapolis Parks Legacy Society's proposal to open the home for public use and gift an interpretive learning center to the Park Board has been ignored for nearly five years.
The "spin" regarding such groups who value preservation -- they are marginalized and accused of "standing in the way of progress." Imagine standing together and deeming the past relevant.
The time has come for city residents to come together and demand more of their elected park commissioners. Just do it!
Charles A. Birnbaum is founder and president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation in Washington, D.C.