egotrippin
Senior Member
A sculpture or monument of sorts would be perfect for this spot, and the triangle will continue to look better as all the plantings mature with time.
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University Avenue Triangle
- Thread starter FutureMayor
- Start date
grey
Senior Member
Hahaha, this is why graffiti is awesome.
urbandreamer
recession proof
Everytime I see this thread I keep misreading it as "University Avenue Temple." Time to get new glasses?
jaborandi
Active Member
Well, there is a jigger and I assume it's an art piece.
syn
Senior Member
Which is something Miller is trying to change. He certainly isn't perfect, but his City Beautiful campaign has led to some noticeable improvements in the public realm. To enhance the design and beauty of public areas in the city on a wide scale will require the kind of capital that just isn't available now. In the meanwhile, steps are being taken in the right direction.
I get the feeling if this was someone other than Miller you wouldn't have such a problem with it.
Regarding the final product, it seems a little underwhelming now, but it should improve quite a bit with time. One of the big problems is that no matter how beautiful they make the triangle, lousy sidewalks and light posts surrounding it will still detract from the overall product. It's all in the details.
fiendishlibrarian
Active Member
Until you can provide a coherent defence of criminal vandalism, that which you find "awesome", I'll take it you have nothing more to contribute other than empty, juvenile retorts, which more or less characterizes most of your posts anyway.
Tewder
Senior Member
Syn, I do not have a personal axe to grind with Miller. I'm just judging on what I see, and I would criticize in the same way if it were somebody else. That said, how is it unfair to implicate Miller in the failure of City beautiful when he has been the one in power and the one at the helm of this toothless agenda? Where does the buck stop?
Well I'm not a designer or planner but it seems to me that this triangle forms a very prominent visual node in a very prominent area of the city, much in the same way as traffic circles do in Europe. Looking at examples there and in North America (Columbus Circle in Manhattan for instance) I would think that an investment in something far more commanding with far more symbolism or aesthetic appeal, at least, would be called for. Again, it's all relative and in a quieter more off-the-track corner the landscaping provided would be more than appropriate and satisfying. Cutting ribbons indicates something grand and important. Low-level ground cover and some pergolas (is that what they are?) do not.
grey
Senior Member
I am fully capable of delivering a retort as exuberantly verbose as you, good sir, however I shall decline henceforth and forthwith as I favour graffiti of the artistic mural variety and not delinquent tagging, and as such we are more or less "on the same page" as it were, indubitably. I would no more wish vandalism upon this lush municipal parkette than you, so at this juncture I will bid you adieu.
I agree with your desire to see something more prominent here, but in the absence of a local movement to create some specific memorial of some kind, I am glad to have the Fairmont hotel stepping up to the plate to improve the triangle.
42
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
I'm prepared to create a small Plasticine maquette for a Monument To The Unknown Graffiti "Artist" Being Throttled By Fiendishlibrarian if someone can raise funds for a much larger version to be cast in bronze that we can set up there in the dead of night sometime.
egotrippin
Senior Member
Grey will probably just graffiti tag it anyway.
H
Hydrogen
Guest
I'd be willing to make a contribution.
ladyscraper
man alive
He'd better not or else fiendishlibrarian will come after him, thesaurus in hand!
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
I remember the SNL skit where Rudy Giuliani (as himself) tells New Yorkers that his new graffiti plan is to personally write the word "sucks" after every tag. So if you write your name on a park bench, he would come up and write "sucks" right after it. Hilarious.
Of course, this was the Rudy Giuliani of the 90's I could sympathize with. The kind who had enough self-mocking homour to dress up like Marilyn Monroe as a joke, and not the maniacal post-Bush "drill baby drill!" Giuliani.
Of course, this was the Rudy Giuliani of the 90's I could sympathize with. The kind who had enough self-mocking homour to dress up like Marilyn Monroe as a joke, and not the maniacal post-Bush "drill baby drill!" Giuliani.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
The weedy, uninspired choice of plantings ( mostly Black-Eyed Susans, Purple Coneflowers and dwarf Junipers by the look of it ... ) fill in the available space conventionally rather than enlivening it, and emphasize the barren, Concrete Island nature of the site ... in the worst way.
If the landscape architect had embraced the possibilities of gruesome public space head on we might have seen something bolder and better - a Cadillac Ranch sort of solution maybe. That cute little faux handcar parked off to one side might have been better employed - up on rollercoaster tracks maybe - and the whole thing reinvented as a head-turner to delight, surprise, and engage pedestrians.
If the landscape architect had embraced the possibilities of gruesome public space head on we might have seen something bolder and better - a Cadillac Ranch sort of solution maybe. That cute little faux handcar parked off to one side might have been better employed - up on rollercoaster tracks maybe - and the whole thing reinvented as a head-turner to delight, surprise, and engage pedestrians.