Yes, it was heavy on rhetoric and bombast. But, the point of the post was to compare/contrast Main Street Garden with the similarly scaled Bryant Park.
The primary usefulness of Bryant Park is that it has evolved. One, we can learn lessons of why it failed and why it has become much more useful to its citizenry. It is useful now, because its underlying form has a rational hierarchy of outdoor spaces (or “rooms” if you will) allowing for a variety of evolving programmed activities, ie human lead activities to occur.
Bryant Park is not defined by its objects, but by its spaces. When a park is organized by spaces, we understand it. They are called “outdoor rooms” because biologically and psychologically it makes sense to us, reminding us to how we organize our own homes.
When the “stuff” or the ephemera is what defines the park is what makes it feel cluttered (and frankly, impermanent, which is probably the most critical issue to on a subconscious level) and not entirely comfortable space to be within. It just so happens that there aren’t better options in Downtown Dallas until we 1) make more 2) incrementally evolve Main Street Garden. Perhaps the competition of other parks will drive that. I would recommend step one would be addressing the streets circumnavigating Main Street Garden.
That is the fundamental difference between the two.
