Quote:
Originally Posted by sMichael
I agree with phillyaggie and MarketStEl. Yes, an icon would be more expensive to create, but an icon is precisely what is lacking among the many Center City Schuylkill crossings. The Spring Garden, Chestnut, and Walnut bridges--among others--where works of art before they were demolished for Sure Kill on-ramps.
The city center is gravitating towards the Schuylkill. With skyscrapers on either side of it, then, bridges of remarkable beauty should be considered a necessity--even if they do cost more to build and maintain.
Calatrava's Trinity River bridges, another example of us being OWN3D by Dallas:
   |
Yep! I've posted those pics here in the past, since I'm "from" Dallas, I suppose. Can you imagine even one such span between Center City and University City? Specially with stuff like Cira South coming along in a couple years...
Unfortunately for Dallas, the average Joe doesn't care much about this stuff. Mayor Laura Miller, the last mayor before the current guy, caught a lot of flak for championing these bridges. She got a lot of their money from local super-rich families, and those families will get the naming rights on two of the 3 bridges, I believe. In the end though, the city will realize that getting these bridges commissioned and built will be a HUGE positive for the city as it tries to make the river, flowing just south of downtown, the new center of town. And the river over which those Calatrava bridges are soon to be built hasn't ever been used by the city as its center piece...it is trying to change that by encouraging mixed-use development and by building a new river park.
But before that, they allowed building a county prison and court-house complex on the river bank! A prison! lol
So no, Dallas doesn't have Philly beat...not yet. But Dallas is moving in the right direction...and its speeding along FAST. While Philly, I'm afraid, is still snoozing along.
__________________
Remedy for Electile Dysfunction: http://www.votenader.org/index.html
9/14, quote on elections, because shosh had to put up that thoughtful writeup on mediocrity and elitism:
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." — H. L. Mencken