PARKS Pretty-But New Thinking Is Needed

OUR DOWNTOWN PARKS serve many purposes. They capture a piece of history or pay tribute to civic leaders. They give bus riders a space to wait, smokers a place to puff and office workers an outdoor lunch room. They come in all varieties, including paved pedestrian malls, fountain and sculpture plazas, grass and tree greenspaces, and even a cemetery. Some are public, some are privately owned; most are a combination of die two. Parks in downtown Dallas range from the vest-pocket-sized .03 acres of open space at Elm and Pearl to die sprawling five and a half acres of City Hall Plaza.

In the Central Business District there are 46.71 acres of public parks and greenspaces, according to the Central Dallas Association, not including corporate plazas that are open to the public. As in many large cities, downtown parks are mostly a patchwork of odd parcels swallowed by office towers and lost among the parking lots.

What’s needed? The Dallas Plan has a 1996 action agenda item to link a number of downtown parks in conjunction with die Central Dallas Association, Dallas Parks & Recreation and Public Works departments, and other groups. Karen Walz, executive director of The Dallas Plan, says that making the linkage between open spaces, parks and people places “is key to what we want to see as a 24-hour center city.”

An example of that vision-not quite fulfilled-is the Arts District-West End link. Looking ahead southwest on Ross Avenue ftom Leonard, the glass-dome front and fountain of the Texas Commerce Bank Tower is impressive, especially at night, but can seem remote to passers-by. Historic properties like The Belo Mansion and First United Methodist Church provide welcome green space, and between them is the impressive Trammell Crow Center with its sculpture garden and fountains. Next, the Dallas Museum of Art presents an enigmatic face to the sstreet, but the buildings in the neighboring block are buffered by shady green spaces. Except for die fabulous Fountain Place, beloved for its pulsating water features and enveloping cypress grove, the following few blocks are austere until the next complex of parks around the Old Red Courthouse.

The picture is pretty in places, but far from perfect. Due to budget constraints, the park department only pumps water into downtown parks from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (A few parks with corporate sponsors have extended water hours.) That leaves places like Founders Square Park, with its network of water walls, feeling silent and tomb-like. Other spots, like Aston Park, have fountains that don’t function; the massive water cascades of Heritage Way Park beneath die skybridges at Bryan and Pearl haven’t thundered in years.

With budgets being crunched, most of the downtown park projects in recent years have had corporate sponsors who ante up for the land and promise to fund maintenance. A private foundation operates Thanks-Giving Square, the jewel of the downtown parks, packed with architectural and water features. Lubben Plaza is underwritten by A.H. Belo Corp., and others have high-profile champions like the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture’s Dr. Gail Thomas (Pegasus Plaza) and Trammell Crow and Don Carter (Pioneer Plaza). The next park to be built downtown will be the Celebration of Life Park, one of a series nationwide funded by Richard Bloch, the founder of H&R Block, a cancer survivor.

As downtown attracts residents, however, the entire aesthetic of park creation may be called into question. The attraction of the urban lifestyle is the buzz and activity that comes from density. Safety lies in numbers; so does fun and excitement. A street jammed with small stores, coffee shops, bars, restaurants and the like creates its own urban sensibility. Pocket parks interrupt the idea of action that an urban street represents, and may even provide gathering spots for winos, muggers and drug dealers. The mantra of the city planner may be “green space” and the architectural plans for downtown parks may show happy mothers pushing baby strollers and office workers brown-bagging their lunches, but the reality of a City Hall Plaza or a Stone Place Mall is far different. Its users are often prone, and their brown bags don’t contain sandwiches. The trees maybe nice, but the passerby’s attention is focused on what’s lying under them.

It’s been a long time since Dallas experienced an urban lifestyle. So it’s no surprise that our ideas are a little skewed. As a suburban city, we may be learning that the suburban ideal-grass, trees, benches, kids playing baseball-doesn’t work when imposed on an urban landscape. Instead of more parks, we may need more small-scale buildings to fill in empty spaces and bring now-deserted parts of town to life. Instead of public places, we may need more private ones. Rather than a bench in a small park as a place to sit, most people would probably prefer an outdoor coffee bar or restaurant.

Such private places add to the richness of the urban scene rather than dettacting from it. Dallas might do well to spend rime and money on the parks we already have, and leave it to entrepreneurs to provide the texture and enjoyment that makes the urban lifestyle work.

1. Bell Plaza (between Jackson, Commerce, Field and Browder streets) is the core of a midtown oasis. Created when the old Baker Hotel was imploded and one block of Akard removed, the neon-graced plaza provides a colorful counterpoint to the long concrete canyons between Field and Ervay. A lively water fountain backs up to a popular bus stop, drawing people ar all hours, Browder Street Mall, Pegasus Plaza and Stone Place Mall are nearby. Ultimately the goal is to have this net of greenspaces linked to the ring of developing areas such as State-Thomas and Deep Ellum that surround downtown. According to Karen Walz of The Dallas Plan, lovers of the outdoors may one day be able to bike or hike from Founders Plaza and the Old Red Courthouse to North Dallas and beyond via the planned Katy Trail on the old railroad lines.

2. Thanks-Giving Square {at Pacific, Bryan and Ervay streets) is probably the most beloved public place in downtown; it is often cited as representing the heart of the entire city. Architect Philip Johnson fit into a tiny parcel a smorgasbord of spiritual metaphors, including water walls that flow as constantly as time through our lives and reflecting pools that mirror our infinite dreams. A bridge arcs over an abyss to a chapel spiraling into the sky. The image of a dove bursts out from die light. Beneath the square, a truck terminal and underground walkways bustle with activity. On the topside, all is peace.

3. Pegasus Plaza (Main and Akard streets) is the only park in Dallas devoted to the themes of arts and humanities. Sculptures representing the nine muses act as directional markers for their respective citadels, so “Terpsichore” of dance and choir music faces the Majestic Theatre, and so on. “Melpomene,” the pensive muse of tragedy, sits by the fountain; in the winter she’s often shrouded in steam from the warm water of die fountain. To keep the water flowing 24 hours a day, proponents would like to tap the spring beneath the nearby Magnolia Building.

4. Lubben Plaza (Young and Market streets) is divided by low gray granite walls into intimate but open sections of green lawn punctuated by parcels of black gravel. Here, too, is what must be the world’s weirdest meditation garden. A large stone sculpture of a motor-operated cone rotates slowly, taking 24 hours to make a complete turn, symbolizing the inexorable passage of time. Mystical accents in the park include three sculptures entitled “Harrow,” “Journey to Sirius” and “Stele Gateway,” an Aztec-looking arch of Fredricksburg granite.