Got an e-mail from John Kemp of Matthews, who usually disagrees with much of what I write. For instance, he liked the Urbies in Saturday’s Observer, but only if all the icons were reversed! Anyway, he poses this proposal for uptown Charlotte. What do you think? My thoughts are below:
Somebody around here just “doesn’t get it,” and it may be me. We need to quit “spreading ourselves around” and concentrate our efforts on a huge center-city park. Central Park is an unbelievable attraction for NYC, Boston Common is for Boston, as is Golden Gate Park in San Francisco where we lived.
We could put all of our “stuff” in the park: Discovery Place, the African American Museum [Afro-American Cultural Center], the main library, the Mint Museum, the Aquatic Center, bike paths, walking & jogging trails, $10 million dollar soccer complexes (and not in Matthews), baseball & softball fields, a zoo & aquarium, an amphitheatre, a large (shallow) lake with a big spraying fountain for wading & splashing and paddling around, horse stables, pertinent monuments and sculptures, etc.
Locals could then visit three or four “attractions” daily, and visitors could see most of them in one weekend. You would only park one time and be shuttled around by free buses. Attendance at these “attractions” would dramatically increase. Security would be much simpler.
Of course this would probably take a minimum of 500 acres which may be impossible to get very close to Trade/Tryon. (I am uncertain as to what you mean when you refer to the part of downtown “best suited” for a baseball stadium), but I think the concept should be explored. A “snaking” tract is just as good, if not better. You do not have to have a square or rectangle.
“Too expensive and not worth it?” Believe me, fiscally I make Reagan look liberal. A center city park is not an “expense,” it is a magnet.
My thoughts: I agree with Kemp that putting a lot of interesting attractions in one park would make a much more alluring park. For instance, the Tuilleries park in Paris contains a small amusement park with rides, as well as pay-by-the-minute trampolines and pony rides for kids, in addition to its well-known formal walking paths and outdoor cafes.
The Luxembourg gardens have not only trees and flowering shrubs and grass, but a fruit-tree orchard, puppet shows and the famous pond where kids can rent toy sailboats they push with sticks.
Having a lot of attractions close by helps all the attractions – just ask the stores that locate in shopping malls.
BUT uptown needs more than one park. That’s to give people who live and work there access to non-pavement areas relatively near where they live and work. They don’t have to be fancy, but if you’re choosing to live in a condo or apartment uptown, you’re giving up your lawn and garden – usually willingly. That doesn’t mean you should have to give up kiddie playgrounds, flower gardens and places to picnic, fly kites, throw Frisbees, play catch, sit in the sun, read a book in a quiet outdoors spot, and so on.
Also, uptown needs lots of zones that hold something of interest. Every neighborhood needs a variety of things going on: Residences, stores, workplaces, and so on. Too much clustering of similar uses turns into single-use zoning, which doesn’t work in urban neighborhoods. So I wouldn’t put everything into that great park.
The other problem that Kemp recognizes is finding space in what we think of as “uptown.” Remember, Central Park was anything but central when it was planned. It was at the fringe of the city.