It is hard to put into words the feeling in the civic gut that we should build our new central library on the north block. It's as intangible as river vapor and yet as tangible as the main roads that coverge there.
Making an architectural statement, gaining better views, providing visual prominence, even re-establishing Gateway Park ... none of these quite captures the north block's appeal for our new library. It's the pull of the city's shape that suggests our central library should go there. The grid says a great public building belongs there, at the site of the city's old heart. A gravitational force of civic memory remains there that isn't present a block over at the library's current site. Earlier, Gateway Park was Bridge Square � home to our market place, our city hall, our newspaper, our train stations. The block under consideration held a grand hotel, the Nicollet House, the IDS of its era where you would go to get a view of the booming new city. The Federal Reserve Bank made all these arguments and more as to why it wanted to build on Bridge Square/Gateway Park. Citing the tradition of great public structures there, the Fed saw the site as a vortex of the region's power and tried to pick up the old patterns of the square at that corner. Minneapolis made room for the Fed there. But our own main library is even more deserving of a place at our traditional communal table, at our city's old main square. Of course we must create a library that functions magnificently today and tomorrow and for a long time to come. But first we must put up a grand home for it where our civic guts and the very streets of the city say it belongs. Chris Steller Nicollet Island-East Bank _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
