{"id":2210,"date":"2012-11-01T22:20:09","date_gmt":"2012-11-02T04:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=2210"},"modified":"2013-09-25T09:23:38","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T15:23:38","slug":"revisiting-and-reconditioning-civic-center-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=2210","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting–and Reconditioning–Civic Center Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

The news came in late last week: Denver\u2019s Civic Center Park<\/a> has been added to the list of\u00a0National Historic Landmarks <\/a>(NHL). It joins 22 other NHL sites in Colorado, of which the Ludlow Tent Colony<\/a> is the closest to my heart because I was among the group of scholars and\u00a0 citizens that helped get it listed.\u00a0 The news appeared just after students in my Culture and The City<\/a> class had turned in their analysis of the park\u2019s monuments and its urban context.\u00a0 I summarized the analysis done by last year\u2019s class in a previous post<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 The one commenter on that post offered the following observation about the students\u2019 work:<\/p>\n

Sadly I find the students\u2019 responses to the monuments, specifically their apparent need to view them solely in terms of class, race, gender, etc., to be predictable and formulaic, perhaps a result of the prevailing \u201csocial reconditioning\u2019 in academia today. It smacks of indoctrination rather than education when so many recite the creed of victimology.\u00a0 \u00a0Notwithstanding, I was encouraged that some students responded on a more visceral, even intuitive level, as when they were asked about the mismatched architecture surrounding the park. They appeared to recognize the disharmonious additions by Libeskind et all and call it like it is. Perhaps Camillo Sitte is getting through. If so, I look forward to the work of this emerging crop of students who might place an architecture of beauty above one of shock value. (Danny Libeskind \u2026 are you listening?)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I didn\u2019t respond to this comment when it was originally posted because I thought it would be better to have students in the course consider it without any additional \u201csocial reconditioning\u201d from me. None took me up on the offer. Either they were afraid to do so lest they get crosswise with their brainwashin\u2019 professor, or they didn\u2019t think the comment was worth bothering with because it suggests that they are, at the same time, both dupes and free-thinkers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Civic Center Park (Greek Amphitheater) and “Mismatched” Surrounding Buildings<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve been around the college-teaching-as-indoctrination-rather-than-education block before. In 2006 I was identified by David Horowitz<\/a> as one of America\u2019s 101 Most Dangerous Professors<\/a>.\u00a0 My response to this outing is here<\/a>.\u00a0 Because he hasn\u2019t done any college teaching Mr. Horowitz, like many other right wing culture warriors, doesn\u2019t seem to understand that it\u2019s way more interesting (and fun) to let students make up their own minds about the substance and meaning of a subject matter than to force them into agreeing with you.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the case with what I ask students to do in Civic Center Park. As I did with last year\u2019s class, I sent them to the Park armed with general concepts for describing and classifying monuments, as well as ideas from both sides of the \u201cMonument Wars<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 They make their own evaluation of the public history<\/a> that\u2019s recorded in the park based on data that they collect and organize. For two years in a row they\u2019ve decided that the monuments in Civic Center Park\u2014as we might expect of any park that\u2019s rooted in the City Beautiful<\/a> tradition\u2014to reflect, with rare exception<\/a>, a White, Western cultural bias focused on themes of colonial expansion and heroism in warfare. And maybe that\u2019s because the monuments actually do<\/em> tell such a story for anyone who cares to undertake a systematic, comparative analysis. Wishing it were otherwise won\u2019t change that basic fact. \u00a0But this doesn\u2019t have to alter the other<\/em> fact that visiting the park can be an enlightening and enjoyable\u2014if sometimes unnerving\u2014cultural experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Commemorating Latinos at War: Statue of Private Joe Martinez, Civic Center Park<\/p><\/div>\n

Some of my more enterprising students from this term consulted the Park\u2019s Master Plan<\/a> while completing their analysis. Now that the park is on the NHL list it will be interesting to see how the plan gets implemented from here. My students have some suggestions for how the experience of visiting Civic Center Park could be improved by some material<\/em> reconditioning:<\/p>\n

* Commemorate a few more Colorado<\/em> heroes, preferably from the ranks of women or civil rights activists. But even some dead white males would do. \u00a0Zebulon Pike<\/a> was one suggestion; I offered up\u00a0Silas Soule<\/a>, whose current civic memorial at the site of his assassination in downtown Denver doesn\u2019t exactly enjoy pride of place in its setting at 15th<\/sup> and Arapaho.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Plaque Honoring Silas Soule, on Column in Lower Right Hand Corner (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

* Create \u00a0a \u201cFree Expression Zone\u201d somewhere in the Park (students noticed graffiti on several monuments like the bit that said \u201cDeath to Columbus\u201d on the monument to the New World\u2019s discoverer).<\/p>\n

* Add more abstract art, including temporary installations that reflect contemporary concerns.<\/p>\n

* Rethink the “new sculptural water feature” that the Master Plan (page 39) envisions for the center of the park as a way to celebrate “the value of water to the region.” Alternatively, a better way to call attention to the value of water to the region<\/a> might be to install some interesting xeriscaping at the park’s center.<\/p>\n

* Provide play areas for kids, given the need for urban cores to become more family-friendly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* Find some way of extending the\u00a016th<\/sup> Street Mall<\/a> to the park, or add a pedestrian bridge across Colfax Avenue and\/or Broadway.<\/p>\n

* Provide some functioning public restrooms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Food Trucks in Civic Center Park (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

I asked the students to comment on whether City Beautiful advocates <\/strong>would approve of the way the park is being used. The answers were mixed. \u00a0On the one hand, several students noted that the park attracts a diverse crowd of brown-bag lunchers, and that social inclusivity is helped by introducing a community garden<\/a> and food trucks.\u00a0 Some suggested that the Park needs to host more activities other than the regular big events (e.g.,\u00a0The People’s Fair<\/a>, Taste of Colorado<\/a>), like weekly farmers markets.\u00a0 Increasing the number of small events is, in fact, something stipulated by the Master Plan. \u00a0On the other hand, just about everyone experienced encounters– sometimes uncomfortable–with transients and drug dealers.\u00a0 One of my students, Joel Cruz, describes his encounter with one such person in a way that not only summarizes the challenge facing Civic Center Park master planners, but Denver\u2019s civic leadership more generally:<\/p>\n

As I was walking through the <\/em>[Greek] amphitheater taking pictures and writing notes, a gentleman came up to me and started by saying, \u201cHey man wanna buy some chronic<\/a>?\u201d I just responded with no but he continued, \u201cWhat are you doing out here?\u201d I told him I was writing a paper for school about Civic Center Park. He looked at me and said, \u201cDang man my bad– you\u2019re in school and I\u2019m trying to sell you chronic.\u201d I told him it was OK and to have a nice day, but as he walked away he said, \u201cYou too man. Just remember they don\u2019t treat the people out here as good as those buildings<\/a>.\u201d And he pointed to the amphitheater and walked away.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news came in late last week: Denver\u2019s Civic Center Park has been added to the list of\u00a0National Historic Landmarks (NHL). It joins 22 other NHL sites in Colorado, of which the Ludlow Tent Colony is the closest to my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-denver-urbanism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-zE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2210"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}